[Silhouette]

I've been wondering about this for a long time, but just as a data point if anyone cares, it has reached the point recently that HN is basically unusable for me a lot of the time, and I really am starting to give up on trying and spend more time elsewhere instead.

Perhaps one visitor is no great loss -- I'm hardly the personality around here that someone like patio11 is -- but I hope my contribution is constructive, and my comment scores have always suggested so.

However, subjectively, it seems like the quality of posting and voting has taken a sharp nosedive since the "Unknown or expired link" problems have become a several-times-per-session occurrence over the past few weeks. I can't help wondering whether long-standing regular contributors are being put off as a result. If positive contributors can't even log in to refute an objectively incorrect post with a verifiable link or downvote Redditesque diversions, a downward slide seems inevitable, and then the loss of high quality posting and voting becomes a self-sustaining decline.

[Tichy]

When writing comments, always make a copy of your text before hitting submit (CTRL+A, CTRL+C). A good strategy for any text form on the web.

[ericabiz]

Automated way of doing this...Lazarus form recovery is a free plugin that has saved my butt numerous times:

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lazarus-form-...

Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/loljledaigphbcpfhf...

[6ren]

"go back one page" (alt-left arrow) recovers your text on HN

[thwarted]

This is browser dependent (although many modern browsers do keep form content in the history).

[Silhouette]

Indeed, that became a habit for me a while ago after certain social discussion sites and on-line tools I use frequently went all Web 2.0 and broke the back button when a form submission failed, typically because the form fields were only added dynamically using JS so when you go back they simple aren't there any more according to your browser. Mercifully, HN has yet to introduce that particular "improvement".

That's not really the point, though, is it? The important thing is whether posters who want to offer a useful comment and/or mitigate a poor comment can do so. Once HN gets into unknown/expired mode at the moment, it seems common that even basic things like "More" links and logging in can fail as soon as you load/refresh a page, at which point the site is effectively unusable: you can't contribute even if you have something worthwhile to add saved away in your clipboard from the previous failed attempt.

[xnxn]

Funny, I suspect it's just the opposite. Long-standing regular contributors are unlikely to be put off by the error messages, especially if they're technically knowledgeable and understand why the error is occurring.

On the other hand, new users who might not be accustomed to The Way We Do Things Around Here would be more likely to get upset at the superficial inconveniences and leave.

It's probably even the case that improving the site or adding features to it would work against its best interests by making it more accessible. HN's implementation is such that the more traffic it sees, the more frequently those errors will occur -- and as an unexpected side-effect, the popularity and instability of the site will work against each other until equilibrium is reached.

A small barrier to entry like Reddit's spartan design or MeFi's $5 fee can go a long way toward delaying the onset of the entertainment-seeking masses.

[mhartl]

I'm a long-time user (created: 1668 days ago), and I hate this error. I understand why it's occurring, but it seems bizarre that such an obvious flaw has gone unfixed for so long. It feels amateurish. (That said, pg has bigger fish to fry, and he's probably right to ignore this. C'est dommage.)

[dilap]

I'll just throw in a "me too" with the other responders and say this error annoys the dickens out of me -- and I'm a long-time user and a medium-long-time initiate in the knowledge of the error's source (I tracked it down in the source in a fit of pique about 6 months ago after getting the error for the Nth time).

Besides the actual annoyance of the error, what's extra rankling is it is an example of privileging a neat trick over user-experience, which is one of my Least Favorite Things Ever that programmers tend to do.

(As an aside, I am extremely skeptical that increasing rates of this error occurring will help keep the original user community of the site -- it seems equally likely that longtime users will just get fed up and wander off.)

[roc]

While there are plenty of cautionary tales of fora that failed their original purpose due popularity, growth and loss of focus, there are equally many cautionary tales of fora that failed due insular communities, group-think and stagnation.

It's a fine line to walk and it may not be wise to rely on programming bugs to point the way.