A Major software screwup

[studiot]

I just posted a topic in Earth Science.

But the software here replaced the title with one from many weeks ago.

It left the body of the text unchanged.

[Phi for All]

Was it one of your previous titles? If so, it could be the software thinking it was helping by suggesting titles you've used before, and you didn't catch the change?

[studiot]

Well yes it was a thread I started some while back.

 

But so what.

 

I clearly typed the thread title into the title box.

It will not start the thread without a title.

 

Then I concentrated on the meat of the OP in the proper box.

 

Why should I need to look back to see if the computer was going behind my back to change things?

It was more by good luck than good judgement that I noticed the substitution and edited it back to what it should be.

Edited November 21, 2017 by studiot

[Phi for All]

When this happened to me elsewhere, I had accidentally approved the suggestion somehow, unknowingly. It was my error but the software's fault.

[studiot]

23 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

When this happened to me elsewhere, I had accidentally approved the suggestion somehow, unknowingly. It was my error but the software's fault.

Thanks but that is totally illogical.

 

Why should the sofware offer me (or anyone else) the title of an existing thread?

 

I typed my perfectly good title into an empty box.

Some fool chose to make the software change this and substitute something else.

 

Here at this foprum I suppose it is just funny.

But programmers that write software like that can ( and have done) kill people.

 

Suppose a 'smart' petrol pump substituted diesel for petrol because that was what the last customer had?

Or even worse the other way round.

 

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by studiot

[Strange]

33 minutes ago, studiot said:

Why should the sofware offer me (or anyone else) the title of an existing thread?

It might not be the forum software; does your browser do autofill of form fields?

[studiot]

13 hours ago, Strange said:

It might not be the forum software; does your browser do autofill of form fields?

Thank you Strange, +1. I will investigate that possibility.

[swansont]

I've noticed that the forum will keep things you've typed in some editor buffer until you clear it, in existing threads.  

I just tested this in the sandbox. New thread, left the page, opened a another new thread. The content was still there but no title. When I started typing in the title box, the original title appeared, but that seems like autofill as Strange has suggested.

[Phi for All]

18 hours ago, Strange said:

It might not be the forum software; does your browser do autofill of form fields?

That's the word I should have used. Without it, my description was "totally illogical". 

[swansont]

Sure, blame Otto. Otto Fill.

[Sensei]

6 hours ago, swansont said:

I've noticed that the forum will keep things you've typed in some editor buffer until you clear it, in existing threads.  

I just tested this in the sandbox. New thread, left the page, opened a another new thread. The content was still there but no title. When I started typing in the title box, the original title appeared, but that seems like autofill as Strange has suggested.

 

It's protection to not lose message, if web browser crashed, or there was power failure etc. etc.

I just wrote this post, quit web browser, restarted, visited thread again, and can continue writing this text.

[studiot]

17 minutes ago, Sensei said:

 

It's protection to not lose message, if web browser crashed, or there was power failure etc. etc.

I just wrote this post, quit web browser, restarted, visited thread again, and can continue writing this text.

But I actually posted the previous thread a few weeks ago and had replies etc.

Surely after posting the thread the system should automatically clear the box ready for the next thread creation?

 

Note I stated that I typed a title into an empty title box.
That is I assumed the system had done just what I said.

 

But yes I too have found the site message autosave useful when posting in existing threads.

 

This particular event has never happened to me before or since.

[studiot]

Many thanks to Butch for appearing in this timewarp photo.

It clearly shows that the new software upgrade has made no inroads in fixing time paradoxes/anomalies in the forum presentation.