FT automatic logout time is too short and can result in lost posts
 

If you log in to your Flyertalk account and start writing a new post (or a new thread), and you take your time to do it thoughtfully (or get distracted in the process), then by the time you finish writing your post, your login has timed out.
While the forum says gives an option to log back in, you cannot really post what you've written (and I had lost my post at some point that way).
The best way is to open a separate window, start a new post, and then copy-and-paste what you've written.
(I don't think it matters, but I've observed this in Firefox on Windows).

The only workaround that prevents this is to check "remember me" (for a persistent login), but this is not practical if you are using someone else's or a public computer to write a post.

A reasonable behavior for when you don't check "remember me" would be like that found on many bank/financial websites: if you are active, don't time out the session. If the session is close to the timeout period while the browser window is idle, open a notification and let the user to extend the session.

I have also run into this in the past and having learned the hard way :(, what I do now is to periodically preview my post as that keeps the post intact (unless of course you wait too long to decide to preview the post :()

I've asked if they can put this idea on the back burner. We shall see.

Try Lazarus: Form Recovery extension.

That's a useful hint. Thanks for that, I don't remember if I had known about it. But if you are distracted from the computer (or the particular browser windows), it still does not help. :(

Thank you!

As an aside: Sometimes, when one of my former bosses wanted something done by somebody from a supporting infrastructure units, he was going to "light a fire under that person's a.. back"... I wonder if that's how your "back burner" works. ;)

Thank you. It could be a very useful extension in some cases.
But when you are writing from a computer that is not your own (and that's one of the cases when you don't want to have a persistent login), you do not (or cannot) install extensions. And that's when problems described happen.
BTW, I suspect, it might not be available for some browsers (e.g. IE).

I've run into this a few times. Now I periodically copy what I'm typing, especially before I click on submit. That way I don't lose the information.

Cheers.