Admittedly, I'm not Justin (who could be?), but since I wrote most of the software, it's probably appropriate for me to reply.

I have an easy way to cure the problem: Have faith that the software does not have a problem, and that it will faithfully record your post. If your connection goes down, when it's back, first check the front TOC for your message. Only if you don't see it should you post again. It's the presumption of a problem that's causing duplicate posts, not the software.

The response time depends on the complexity of the thread you're posting within. The more messages on the thread, the longer it takes the software to update the TOC in all of them. If the author of the parent message has entered an email address, there will be an additional delay while the system sends an email reply notification. I've never seen the system take more than 10 or 15 seconds to respond, though.

Rest assured that I've looked into ways to track the message form. I expect people to have more than one form open, and so each open form is tied to a parent ID--the message to which you're responding; or if there's no ParentID, then you're making a root post. There's exactly one message form for each response or root post.

I looked into end-to-end tracking through a globally-unique ID (GUID) and determined that it's problemmatic because it requires session-tracking on the server, which means cookies. I seem to recall that you've expressed a phobia for cookies, which many people share. So far I've been able to put together the system in a "stateless" way that deliberately avoids the use of cookies. Matching a GUID in a form field with a GUID stored on the server will require session-tracking and cookies. Are you willing to make an exception for HabitableZone.com and turn on cookies?

I want to make the system as bullet-proof as possible, but some things are beyond my control, like dropped connections and timed-out modems. The ideal would be a system so powerful and omniscient that it can accommodate any eventuality, but we're not there yet. In the meantime, systems like this do require some adaptation on the part of users. It's really no different than turning off JavaScript, Java, stylesheets, and cookies with Nagivator 4.7 to adapt to its quirks (though I hope this system gives you far less trouble than the Nag and requires far fewer concessions on your part). It's not ideal, but it's the reality.

--Robert