Re: Put the formatting information above the posting text box?

[ww]

OGB is probably right about the gimmé artists I sadly agree¹ but nonetheless favor making the formatting directions a bit more prominent. In fact, I'd format those instructions in boldface and red!

And, some wishful thinking here, perhaps we could enforce, thru code (in the mandatory preview stanza), or at least thru community conduct, a rule against approving an SoPW that has no formatting whatsoever -- something as draconian as "No markup; no stumbit option!"

Updated by inserting the italicized agreement¹ but may have left the intent still unclear :-( ?

[soonix]

in boldface and red!

that would make it essentially invisible (not because of color blindness, but because of people being used to ignore shouting).

Would it be possible to have either the preview or the edit control?

Current situation:
• preview area (Update: which contains some gibberish the poster doesn't even associate with his writing)
• edit area
• preview and submit buttons (or "update" when already posted
Proposed: Alternation between "edit" mode
• edit area
• "preview" button
and "preview" mode
• preview area
• "edit" and "submit" buttons

[ww]

Upvoted, especially for including the (previously non-current) issue of having no preview when updating.

But, Parson soonix, your caution against shouting reminds me of the Arkansas farmer who was being taken to task by the preacher for whalloping a balky mule with a scrap piece of lumber. "You shouldn't be using a clue-by-four on that poor animal. You could just talk nicely to it and tell it what you want done, instead."

"Well, shure'nuff, Parson;" said the muleskinner, "but sometimes ya' gotta' git their attenshun first so they'll pay heed to whatch'er saying!"

The color choice was rhetorical; intended as an intensive¹ to my agreement with the OP's notion (++ again) that we'd have a much neater and perhaps more civil Monastery, if we were a tad more emphatic about wanting to see para and code tags, even from those sorry cases to whom OGB referrred. But since they tend to be raw noobies, they won't have had must prior exposure to any shouting here)

¹ Selected as an alternate to profanity, obscenity or blasphemy as an intensive.

[soonix]

I called it shouting merely for lack of a more appropriate word. Nowadays, texts are more often skimmed than read, and when I do that, I concentrate on what I perceive as the "text body", thus suppressing "decorative" elements such as dropcaps or other big-font parts.