The Scratch Pads (plural) system that had served us so well since it was expanded from the Scratch Pad (singular) system that had served us so well since it was derived from the previous Scratch Pad (also singular) that had served us so well except when it didn't is no more. In its place we have drafts. These are rather like scratch pads, but different. The main differences are:

  1. You can publish a draft to a writeup without having to copy and paste it. Before publication you get a chance to decide whether to create a new page or choose an existing e2node to publish it to, to change the title, to search for similar existing titles and so on.
  2. A draft is a real node, and may one day turn up on the 'Findings' page when someone searches the site. But only for logged-in users, and only if you have decided to allow that.

The intention is that the ease of use of drafts will encourage you to create your writeups as drafts and publish them after perfecting them. To encourage new users (below Level 2) to get into good habits, it is no longer possible for them to post directly to a writeup.

You can convert your existing scratch pads to drafts by using the Useful Button provided at Scratch Pads. Or simply by visiting the Drafts page. What was private will stay private. And new drafts are created private by default.