From time to time, we see users posting placeholder questions using one of the templates. They have no useful information to add, so they just leave the template as is, which is very logical behaviour. However, that leaves other users to scan a wall of text to see if there's any meaningful information to act upon.
The moderator team feels it's better if those placeholder questions are just one or two sentences stating the author's intent. Therefore, we'd like to propose a modification to the templates, and we'd like your input about this. This is the template we're considering, and we're especially interested in what you can add where it's currently saying [ more things here].
<!-- MOD NOTE: Do not edit unless you are the OP -->
The [App | Script | Library] is currently under development and / or only meant for private use.
<!-- Please provide a summary of what your app will do. It's OK if it changes during development, but we would like you to give us some idea of your plans. Placeholder posts without a summary will be closed -->
When the author of this App, Script, or Library is ready, they will update this post.
<!--
If you're the author of this post, please read this carefully.
The template below can be published when:
- your app is ready for the general public;
- you removed any unneeded paragraphs from the below template;
- you updated the text in the below template to describe your unique app, script, or library;
- [ more things here]
You make the below template visible by completely removing the _full_ lines (near the start and at the end) that have the text
REMOVE LINE
in them, including the start and end comment marker
Our goal here is to not have the stock template visible when there is nothing changed and / or no valuable info present.
-->
<!-- thumbnail: https://example.com/some-image.png -->
<!-- version: 1.0 -->
<!-- tag: a-tag-on-the-post -->
<!-- excerpt: Up to 200 characters of excerpt -->
<!-- REMOVE LINE
... the content of the existing template
REMOVE LINE -->
When posted, it would look like this:
The [App | Script | Library] is currently under development and / or only meant for private use.
When the author of this App, Script, or Library is ready, they will update this post.
Please note that the template can only be used when posting a new question; that's why it should definitely be in the initial revision; it makes little sense to ask users to make a new question once their app is ready for prime time (or ask them to copy over the template from the Ask Question page into their existing question).
When we've reached community consensus about this, we'll tag this status-review to ask staff to consider adjusting the templates.
