[thesite] An idea regarding article submissions

[Simon Coggins]

Hmmm, this *is* a tricky one. 

> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > What happens if an attribute conflicts with
> > what is in use in the current CSS?
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> 
> that's a non-issue.  we would only allow css when it's necessary for an
> article example -- simon's article being a perfect example.  we wouldn't
> allow styling of elements outside of the actual example.

It's still an issue in that a little more work is required by admin to
check that articles don't override the default CSS. Not too much work, but
still...
 
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > I don't think we're ready for this ..
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> 
> in contrast, i don't think we can continue without this now that we have a
> solution to a problem that's been pretty significant in the past.

Can you give some examples of when this has come up before? 


> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > I'm not seeing a case where an offsite link isn't
> > better.
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> 
> having the example in the article is *always* preferable to being offsite
> for the purposes of guaranteeing the example is always available and doesn't
> disappear due to linkrot.

This is why I suggested it in the first place. I think it's much better to
have the article and example in one place, to prevent linkrot and so the
visitor doesn't have their attention disrupted by having to go offsite.

Unfortunately in my article this solution still wouldn't have really
prevented this because I would have still needed to have put the .css file
somewhere else. I couldn't have used inline styles because the @import
syntax was important for hiding the styles from NN4.

Short of creating some sort of examples directory (where authors could
upload examples/css files before submitting their articles) I can't see a
quick fix for this. I guess we have to ask is it worth going that far for
the occasional special case.


Simon