I added a small quality-of-life upgrade to the post form: when you start typing a sub, it now suggests existing subs. Nothing is locked down. You can still post to any sub name you can come up with. But the hints make it easier to land in places that already have activity. This also helps fill out those subs.

Where the list comes from:

It uses the same data as the top subs listing, which is based on recent posting and volume. That means popular subs float to the top, and new subs can climb just by getting used. If you want a sub to "be a thing," post to it and it’ll start showing up for more people. That increases the chance they'll contribute to it.

Possible improvements:

I've already made some small fixes to the original version. The browser’s own autocomplete was covering the list, so I turn the browser’s autocomplete off while my list is showing and turn it back on when my list is empty. It's actually kind of slick.

But there are more improvements I'm considering and wouldn't mind your feedback:

• Bigger list size. Right now the source list behind the suggestions is ~50 subs. I could expand it (e.g., 200) so more long-tail subs show up. The trade-off: a giant /topsubs page. Maybe that’s fine. Maybe nobody looks at that anyway.

• Overlay vs push-down. The suggestion box currently pushes the rest of the form down. I don't think it's bad. But overlaying it is an option. So I'm open to feedback.

• Matching suggested case. Subs are case-insensitive but case-preserving. I’m trying to steer toward PascalCase (e.g., LinuxMemes) to avoid “linux memes” vs “linux_memes” vs “linux-memes” confusion. One idea is: if your typed text exactly matches an existing sub (ignoring case), we could copy the capitalization from the suggestion.

One reason why the case matching may be a good idea is that now that the box functions like a search bar people are even less likely to use capitalization.

It would be nice if suggestions helped nudge toward using Pascal case instead of away from it. We do somewhat depend on user data to do that because figuring out what letters should be capitalized besides the first letter is not really something software can do. But if I add capitalization mirroring it may promote the standard. And I may need to do it quickly because we'd depend on user consensus to figure that out, and if it nudges the other way currently we may end up with a bunch of data pushing it the other way.

Feedback:

Your input is appreciated and especially any feedback on how it is currently working and if anything needs an update. Also let me know if this was a good addition.