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When I vote on a post and immediately refresh or quit the page, my votes are lost. It seems the issue is due to some Ajax calls that can not be completed.

My ping durations may be a factor to Stack Overflow servers which is about 270 ms, as well.

So should there not be a warning for the issue? Like while writing a post, before attempting to quit or refresh the page:

Enter image description here

If I am guessing right, the issue can be solved by putting my_alert_js_function() on .ajaxStart( handler() ).

Please could we do this? Each time I do my action fast, I feel go back and check again as Oded said in his comment.

The issue seems highly related to the quality of the ISP provider and if the Internet connection is shared. At work I can easily make the issue happen.

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    My first reaction to your first paragraph was - "Don't do that". If you vote, make sure the vote took before refreshing/closing.
    – Oded
    Commented Jan 16, 2012 at 18:44
  • What do you mean by your votes are "lost"? Just that they aren't applied when you navigate away before the vote has been applied?
    – Andrew Barber
    Commented Jan 16, 2012 at 18:45
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    @Oded If users are supposed to be aware of when votes "take", the interface shouldn't preemptively mark the vote buttons. Way back in the day Reddit dealt with this by saving votes in cookies so that if they failed they would still be applied the next time the user loaded a page. I thought this was a good trade-off between interface responsiveness and accuracy. That might not be a perfect fit here but I'd be very happy if something similar could be worked out.
    – Jeremy
    Commented Jan 16, 2012 at 19:08

2 Answers 2

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Being on a Network that has occasional second-long hiccups, I think this is a good idea. If voting-related Ajax calls are not completed, something like this should be shown. Nobody wants to lose votes due to latency.

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    But why not a visual effect when it did happen? If you are on a slow network, you can choose to pay attention to it without the use of a popup.
    – Nanne
    Commented Feb 12, 2012 at 12:35
  • @Nanne I am on a network that is usually very fast, but occasionally takes 5-6 seconds for a request to complete. I'd be happy to have a dialog in those cases.
    – Pekka
    Commented Feb 12, 2012 at 12:38
  • I understand, but with a "passive" visual solution you do have the option to choose to check for the "it worked" mark, so it would have the same feature as the proposal. On the other hand, I would have the option to ignore the feature, which I wouldn't have if it was "forced" (seems a bit too heavy a word) with a popup. That way several interests can be met at the same time, instead of choosing one preference above the other.
    – Nanne
    Commented Feb 12, 2012 at 12:46
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Adding a popup like that would be really annoying I think.

Consider users that see something they think merits an upvote, but are not very interested in hanging around. A valid option would be not to indicate when a vote ISN'T completed (by a blocking popup), but to indicate when a vote IS completed (a visual thingy around the votescore would do I guess).

In this way you can hang around and check if your vote was cast, but you are not 'blocked' from browsing away if you want to. This way a user can choose whether to wait for it or not, without being confronted with it through a popup.

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  • Hmm, might be we are miscommunicating here? Be aware that it says * NOT to indicate when it ISN'T completed*. That is what happens at the moment, right?
    – Nanne
    Commented Feb 12, 2012 at 12:22
  • I'm not sure what you mean. Anyway: I think the best option would be a mark to indicate you have achieved success (like I typed). If you feel the need, you can pay attention to it and only leave if it is marked, if you don't you can ignore it.
    – Nanne
    Commented Feb 12, 2012 at 13:15

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