Brion Vibber wrote:
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.
I thought the rationale was to allow people to migrate browsers. Still, choosing the kind of draft-saving from several storages seems a better preference as just 'do you want drafts', if finally gets to the preference system.
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. ;)
-- brion
Hehehe, that's why I predicted problems with auto-saving. Pressing Save draft, you may well understand that others may see it. If it was saved when previewing or by auto-save, not so much.
I only thought about articles, but you're right you may want to draft an angry response to a discussion. And having the other participants sniffing on your arguments is not a good idea.