Reply to discussion disappearing

[somanypcs]

Today I entered a fairly lengthy reply to a selling discussion, edited it twice, and it vanished.  I took the time to enter it again, this time without edits, and it vanished AGAIN.  Is anyone else losing their additions to discussions?  Yet another eBay glitch!

[somanypcs]

I tried to post the disappearing reply here, but it keeps disappearing.  Must be something in the way I wrote it or ???

[somanypcs]

First part of disappearing reply:

On Sept. 9, 2021 I asked the following question on the "Category changes to help buyers find your items" and got no answer:
===================================================================
In looking at the Preview Category Changes, under postcards 2 subcategories are missing entirely:
Collectibles -> Postcards -> Cultures & Ethnicities -> Black Americana
Collectibles -> Postcards -> Cultures & Ethnicities -> Native Americana
What is their status?
====================================================================
Today here is where I found Native Americana:

[somanypcs]

2nd part of disappearing reply:

Collectibles->Postcards & Supplies->Postcards->Topographical Postcards = 1584 results
Collectibles->Postcards & Supplies->Postcards->Non-Topographical Postcards = 901 results
Collectibles->Cultures & Ethnicities->Native American: US->1935-Now->Postcards = 15,581 results
Collectibles->Cultures & Ethnicities->Native American: US->1800-1934 = 0 results

[somanypcs]

3rd and final part of disappearing reply:

Black Americans had 381 Topographical results, 325 Non-Topographical results, and 2,237 results in Collectibles->Cultures & Ethnicities->Black Americana->Postcards.

In summary, the majority of Native Americana and Black Americana postcards have been moved out of the major postcard category into the "new" Collectibles->Cultures & Ethnicities category. About a fourth of the Native Americana postcards found in Cultures & Ethnicities are mis-categorized by date as they were printed before 1935.  Note: there is no Postcards selection for the 1800-1934 time period, so ALL were placed in the 1935-Now time period.

[somanypcs]

After posting my reply in 3 parts, I tried again to post the full reply.  It still disappears.  Go figure...

[justinsmith2014]

I had a similar issue today.

I carefully posted a fairly long answer in a thread, and it was there when I'd done it because it was named the 61st answer. But when I when I clicked refresh it'd gone...

 I could not understand it because the system is supposed to auto save anyway and I was sure I had not deleted it. I was INCREDIBLY frustrated, particularly as I was quite stressed and short of time anyway !

Anyway, after much experimentation it seemed the software only appeared to allow a certain number of characters in the answer or it would delete it ? I could post it  all, but only over two posts. As an aside it just happened to coincide with the start of  a new page which made it even harder to follow what I'd written, but hey ho...

I feel it is a BIG flaw in the software that it does not tell you that your post is too long and will be deleted !

I would strongly suggest all answers, especially longer ones, are copied somewhere else (e.g. a draft E Mail) before attempting to post because at least you still have the text to decide what to do with !

[eburtonlab]

I carefully posted a fairly long answer in a thread, and it was there when I'd done it because it was named the 61st answer. But when I when I clicked refresh it'd gone...

Were you using the "Preview" feature to see the post? Doing so will display your post as it would appear, and will even assign it a post number, but if you refresh the page at that point before using the "Reply" or "Post" button to actually post, your reply will be lost. I have done that myself, and I agree it is quite frustrating.

The community boards used to have a draft feature that kept a copy of the latest draft of a reply, and would display draft text at the bottom of your profile page, and would even prompt you to load the draft if you went back and tried to reply to the same message again, but somewhere along the line there was an "upgrade" to the board, and the draft feature stopped working.

[justinsmith2014]

I didn't think I clicked preview, but yours is a useful post anyway, particularly where you point out they have got rid of a feature which would avoid that frustration !