Allow empty entries

[syderia]

Title:
Allow empty entries

Area:
entries

Summary:
What it says in the title.

Description:
Currently, DreamWidth stops you from posting an empty entry. It sorts of makes sense, since this is a blogging site, but there are a few circumstances in which one might wish to post an empty entry.

Case in point, I make a list of all books and movies that I read/watch during the year. I haven't watch any movies yet, but I wanted to create the entry so I could put the updated link for 2011 in the sidebar.

I think it might be better to get an error message notifying the poster that the entry is empty and asking if they want to proceed with it any way.

Poll #5579 Allow empty entries

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 89

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
13 (14.6%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (1.1%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
54 (60.7%)

(I have no opinion)
19 (21.3%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.1%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

So (route for implementation) if a non-breaking-space HTML entity would not hurt an entry-left-intentionally-blank, then probably the easiest way to make it happen would be to have a "entry is blank. Do you really want to post with a blank entry?" and if the answer is no, go back; if the answer is yes, insert an   to the entry without the user having to do so manually, and ... hm. "and go ahead and post" sounds like it would be irritating for people who hit the wrong button; "and let the user hit post again themselves" sounds non-intuitive for the RTE and a little annoying for HTML.

Assuming implementation...

[marahmarie]

Would the blank post show up automatically on one's Reading/Network pages if they were public or in our Circles? If so, wouldn't that be somewhat annoying/weird to at least some people (trying to envision exactly how I would react to blank posts on those pages, and not coming up with much that I can even articulate)?

OK, my question is answered further down (here) - yes, the blanks would show up.

Re: Assuming implementation...

[matgb]

Actually, no, they're unlikely to.

Most people posting posts as the OP describes will be dating them out of order. Out of order posts don't show up on the reading page, deliberately (that was why they introduced 'backdating' on LJ way back whenever it was).

Doesn't change my opinion that this is a waste of time to implement.

[cesy]

This sounds sensible to me, with "and go ahead and post".