xatax, I just recognized your name from an incorrect answer you provided on StackOverflow that nevertheless was accepted (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4435906/print-when-textar...). You made assumptions and then adopted your self-confessed strategy of “quickly add[ing] an answer which …gives the asker enough to finish the answer on their own,” but failed to understand the problem inherent in the question. You seem to be “rep whoring” and part of the problem on Stack Overflow. How dare you just write a wall of text to dismiss as “terrible” someone’s critique of SO.
You actually have a fair point, though you've phrased it in a needlessly combative fashion.
You are correct that the answer you linked really wasn't one of my best. I suppose that answer is a good example of failing to see the forest for the trees (rather, I didn't see "the trees for the forest" in this case).
When I read that question, I interpreted it incorrectly as being an issue where the textarea was formatted specifically for the screen, but that needed to be resized for printing. I then generalized the problem to "print styles" in general and gave an answer to that.
I went through a period in Nov./Dec. where I spent a lot of time answering questions on SO. I gained somewhere around 2000 rep in that time from my answers. Other than the question you linked, I was only downvoted on one question, but I deleted that answer when I discovered that I was wrong (specifically, I misinterpreted an svn feature I've never used, and my answer appeared to work on my single-user repository).
My point is that I actually take/took pride in crafting an answer which explains exactly what's going on, and how to fix it. Really, I don't care about gaining reputation on StackOverflow, and I'm offended by the accusation that I'm a "rep whore" when all I've ever tried to do is help folks, and I try to go "above and beyond" with my answers to make sure the asker is clear on what's going on. If I dropped the ball on this question, I'm sorry (since you seem to take this question personally), but I think it's more an outlier than the norm.
I downvoted you for being sarcastic, and because I was discouraged by the tone you used in this SO comment:
Gordon, you downvoted my answer and left a misleading comment because you
assumed that a user wouldn't edit the textarea? For shame. Your solution is
not "pure CSS" but rather uses PHP to duplicate a textarea and then
hopes that the user doesn't its content before printing.
Please chill out, dude. There is absolutely no reason for a discussion involving Javascript and print stylesheets to require usage of the term "For shame."
To phrase it differently: Try to avoid being the guy from this Xkcd. http://xkcd.com/386/
Sorry about that. I've checked now. I even up voted your answer because it deserves at least one up vote. But I would say that perhaps your overall SO experience would be better if your comments on SO were less abrasive. Your answer might have been "right" based on your assumptions (i.e. the user has JavaScript enable in the browser) but it might not have been right if some other assumptions were made.
