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Last week, someone posted a bug report that the "Body is missing" error message wasn't disappearing even after typing in a post body until the text area was no longer in focus. That bug report was dismissed as by design, but in my opinion, this design isn't great and I think it should be changed.

This behavior applies to all forms of post validation errors and warnings, not to just the body being missing. In short, it is extremely confusing to have an error message continue to show up even after the problem is fixed. It creates confusion that someone is still somehow running into an error even after fixing the problem, especially given that the error message is shown immediately upon the text field losing focus rather than on attempting to submit.

Shortly after that report was filed, I ran into a related issue where I clicked out of a text field immediately after uploading an image in an answer draft - I got the warning about using the default image description (which is shown immediately for answer drafts). After I went in and removed the default text, I was extremely confused as to why I was still receiving the warning message.

A different staff member from the one who dismissed the bug report as by design answered the report with the following counter-points:

  • Most forms on the Internet don't stop showing validation messages until after the field has lost focus. However, this is not the experience I've had: either they initially show and then un-show them on form submission, or they validate on every single keystroke (as on Reddit).
  • Validation blinking on and off on every keystroke is distracting. This feature request only asks that the system only un-show validation messages on every keystroke - the current behavior of showing them on the field losing focus should be retained. That should make this counter-point no longer an issue.
  • It's better for validation messages to only show and un-show on attempting to submit. However, it is valuable to have them before submission, especially in cases such as the code formatting filter deployed on some network sites.

Can the design please be changed to have post validation (warning and error) messages un-show (not show) immediately once the issue is fixed?

(I don't know if there were other reasons involved in the prior report's dismissal as by design, as the responding user insists they have no authority to dismiss it themselves, but given that the dismissing staff member didn't post any comment or answer, I'm assuming they went off their answer and had nothing to add.)

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    I only stated my opinion, I did not dismiss the bug or declare it as by design. The fact that I am staff has nothing to do with anything any other staff members did to interact with the post. Commented Aug 18 at 22:04
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    @AaronBertrand It often does happen that a community member posts a disagreeing answer, then a staff member with authority puts in a status tag and doesn't comment or answer, where they agree with the dissenting answer and have nothing to add. The point of my last parenthetical note was to make it clearer that I believe that that's what happened in that case, and the link to your comment where you said you don't have authority is there to prevent people from believing that your answer was the opinion of the whole company. Commented Aug 18 at 22:07
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    Yeah, it makes me really want to stop interacting as a user because the staff label is what people see. :-( Commented Aug 18 at 22:14
  • @AaronBertrand Yeah, I did change "staff member" to "user" in that note. Commented Aug 18 at 22:16
  • @AaronBertrand I know you dismissed it as grammar war, but I really did mean that I tried to write my comment in a way if I didn't mean you should retag. I understand some stances are personal and some stances are company. Commented Aug 18 at 22:22
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    Related: Don't show the validation messages "Body is missing", "Title is missing." and "Please enter at least one tag" until one tries to submit the question + Is there any value in telling users that a field is empty before they try to validate a form? Commented Aug 18 at 22:26

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