Brion Vibber wrote:
On 1/20/09 1:40 PM, Platonides wrote:
They could benefit from drafts, but in that case better to do it on the browser itself. IMHO we still need some kind of saving into firefox storage, for cases like a read-only db. Instead of 'You can't save, the site is read-only'->'Save-draft'->'No, you can't, the db is read-only', 'You can't save, the site is read-only'->'Save-draft'->'The site is read-only, the draft has been saved into your browser'.
Client-side storage would be fantastic (and avoid unnecessary server round-trips). We discussed this in original planning but didn't get round to implementing it yet.
A completely different approach could be to allow anyone to view other's drafts. As a new feature, it could be accepted as it is, without treating it as a completely privacy section. Normal wikipedians won't mind of people seeing the article as they're writing in. However, the auto-save-draft may conflict with it.
I wouldn't be comfortable with that, especially for discussion pages. I also wouldn't be comfortable with my e-mail client showing everybody my drafts of my e-mails...
I'm sure I'm not the only one who sometimes writes things they delete for a very good reason before pushing save. ;)
This is also open as https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17087
A possible option would be to have a checkbox (probably on Special:Drafts itself, to avoid cluttering the edit page and to avoid accidental clicks) to mark drafts as public. This would be especially useful when combined with bug 17067, the ability to create drafts of protected pages, a user could make a draft, mark it as public, then link to it for an admin to add to the page.