Minimum post lengths

[Evilshy 5,090]

True. I can recall a time where I have said something that added to discussion in less than 100 characters, but still. What about the majority of people who make small posts that contribute nothing? I'd rather just put a little more time into each post, rather than have half of every thread filled with small replies.

Unfortunately, though, people can just say random things at the bottom of their posts to avoid the post limit. http://mlpforums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.png

 

Well, ideally, the mods will realize who is using formatting tricks or random things at the end of a post to get away with posting something concise AND relevant and not moderate them.

[Midnightive 458]

This scared me at first, as i love to role play. But sometimes i need to push the role play along with no idea how other then a few words. But then i saw the posts length and now i'm not scared anymore!

 

Edit: What about the OOC topic? Is that 100 characters? or 200 characters?

Edited July 21, 2012 by Midnightive

[Shankveld 4,949]

True. I can recall a time where I have said something that added to discussion in less than 100 characters, but still. What about the majority of people who make small posts that contribute nothing? I'd rather just put a little more time into each post, rather than have half of every thread filled with small replies.

Unfortunately, though, people can just say random things at the bottom of their posts to avoid the post limit. http://mlpforums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.png

 

Simple; ban them.

If they are contributing so little then why have them around at all? ~

[Otter 1,942]

Rats, now I can't do

 

This

 

Or this

 

Anymore. Oh well, it's for the best...

Edit: Crap, only 65 characters. One problem I could foresee with this is people doing posts like "Sweet! as;ldfjas;dlfjas;dlfjas; jas;olfjas;lfjqa;ljas;lj" in order to reach the 100 character limit.

Edited July 21, 2012 by HylianMadness

[Killian Jones 2,655]

I see this as a necessary evil in order to get people back on track to trying to post higher quality posts. There is no point in reading a topic which is full of one word replies, or simple sentences like "I agree" and "I like it". All of these have so far undermined the very idea of a discussion forum, by not discussing anything.

 

If there really is that much disinterest in trying to make valuable discussion happen, we might as well turn this website into a glorified social networking website where discussions are uncommon and yelling out simple and thoughtless replies is common. A place where nobody even needs to read other people

s replies because of the lack of value to them.

 

I realize that not always is a character limit conducive to quality posts, there just have been so many posts which add nothing to discuss. I've seen topics time and time again where I doubt anyone ever reads anything someone else says. I find it difficult that people no longer care to tell us why they like something or why they dislike something. Is it really that hard, or do you really need to get to another topic that fast?

[Swoop 2,278]

Well, ideally, the mods will realize who is using formatting tricks or random things at the end of a post to get away with posting something concise AND relevant and not moderate them.

 

To quote straight from the mod Skype chat:

 

On 21/07/12, at 12:02 PM, Swoop wrote: > The whole purpose of the filter is to remove pointless bullshit. If it's not pointless bullshit - even if it is a little short - best we don't give it the flick.

Have no fear - common sense shall be utilised when it comes to moderating posts under the content limit.

[Somebody 570]

I'm okay with it as long as there's not something hardwired into the system to prevent 100 character replies. Having a meaningful post that is only 99 characters rejected by the site software because the author didn't add an extra period to it seems rather pointless to me. http://mlpforums.com/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.png

 

Have no fear - common sense shall be utilised when it comes to moderating posts under the content limit.

 

How will that work when there's an automatic filter already in place? Just wondering.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Questio

[Evilshy 5,090]

How will that work when there's an automatic filter already in place? Just wondering.

 

Cuz you can add a bunch of random open and closed tags at the end, like [ i ] [ /i ] (without spaces, obviously) to up the count.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Evilshy

[moneyshredderofdeath 414]

This'll take a bit for me to get used but it won't be too hard - especially since one hundred characters is less mighty than it sounds. (I mean, the previous sentence alone would satisfy the minimum) The decision in my view is ultimately a good notion because the posts that add nothing of worth to discussion, such as pure "I agree"s that are nothing that couldn't be expressed by a brohoof, get filtered out. Why do you agree? Why do you think that work of art is good? Those are types of posts that both have thought put into them and are likely enough to get to one hundred characters quickly.

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

This scared me at first, as i love to role play. But sometimes i need to push the role play along with no idea how other then a few words. But then i saw the posts length and now i'm not scared anymore!

 

Edit: What about the OOC topic? Is that 100 characters? or 200 characters?

 

In Roleplay Planning & OOC Discussion, it is 100 characters. Though Zoop wasn't really very clear with that in his first post. Silly Zoop. Edited July 21, 2012 by Arylett Dawnsborough

[Lady Rarity Pony 4,892]

Well, there are a few scenarios in which a post under one hundred characters can be meaningful, but these scenarios are few and far between. This should improve something.

Remember guys to make one word posts and cover the other 99 words in white text for the lulz.

[Abstract 832]

I suppose I can't really say much that hasn't already been said, but to echo everyone else, this seems like a pretty sound idea. I can imagine a few instances where it may be an annoyance, but maybe it's better to sacrifice those scenarios for the benefit of longer posts. (Hopefully, this also means more thought out and well worded posts as well, not just filler to make the minimum limit.)

[Zoop 8,384]

If I were to offer one little tidbit of suggestion/opposition, it would be to make the art forums lower. I think 50 would be reasonable for those forums from both the user's perspective that they won't have to draw out and ramble on about their feelings towards the art work and from the staff's perspective that it's more than just 3-4 words of feedback toward the art.

Honestly, I'm not so sure about this. 100 characters really isn't very much. If anything, I think the minimum might encourage people to say a bit more than "Wow, you drew this? It looks nice!" when they comment on people's art. I don't think it's too much to ask for people to say why they liked something, or to give a brief blurb about some portion of the art they they enjoyed. I don't really think such a small minimum will force people to 'ramble'

And is it possible to get some character counter in the reply windows? Just for simplicity

Yep! Our own resident Scootacool is going to be looking into creating something of this nature for us in the coming days.

[Samurshy 708]

I don't really like the idea too much, as someone said before, there are some responses that would just look weird if you actually tried to stretch it out the the 100 - 200 minimum. Whatever, I guess it is for the better of the forum right?

[Marshmallow 1,137]

Wow, this rule was just applied and I'm already annoyed with it. I think that the minimum amount of characters should be lowered. 100 is a lot.

[Leo dash 79]

i hate this soooooooooo much it is makeing me want to go back to 4chan and screw you too your post is to short message

Edited July 21, 2012 by leo dash

[Whiteshade 1,426]

Should I go and edit all my previous posts so that they exceed 100 characters? Also I'll include a second sentence since I'm not quite sure the first one made 100.

[Simcity11100 772]

To be honest I have to disagree on this one because the fact that I was going to post in a thread with 67 characters and it was a good post I was going to make, this rule won't fix post that are to short because there are still ways around this like crunching the keys with a bunch of letters, numbers, etc. that would make the post useless or worse and to make sure you understand what I am talking about I will give you a short taste of what I'm talking about.

 

"I'm certain that you can see how bad the shading, but I think it's good isjfuda.983jhy9a384j.d83ijkkl."

 

But that's only to show how people can get around this and there are still a few ways around the posting limit, but I feel that this might be one of the first ways around it and you will still have to deal with them, so this rule just won't cut it.

[Pinkie D Pie 1,036]

Dang it. I did not think this would effect me all that much, but it has taken away my normal greeting for new users. Now I have to come up with more stuff to tell them. Still it might be useful to get rid of some of the one though five word posts.

[Ron Jeremy 2,032]

Yay~ I've been wanting something like this for a while.

 

I know I'm kinda saying what others have said already, but I still want to say it: While this isn't a complete fix to the poorly-thought-posts problem, it helps alleviate it, by helping keep the "lol XD thats so FUNNY" posts from being made in the first place, that gives those who have to moderate the forums that much less work to do.

 

I mean, I guess I can see how some people might be annoyed at these new minimum character lengths, but really, does "I agree" or an image macro really contribute to a topic anyway? From my experience with internet forums, I can say that posting a so-called "wall of text" to have it quoted with a "response" of an image macro or something is a slap in the face.

 

I mean, it's not that hard to make a post over 100 characters wrong. Instead of saying "I like your picture of Batman" you could say "I like your picture of Batman. There are no major flaws I can see off the bat, though, to nitpick, Batman's nose is slightly crooked. Other than that, looking good. Keep up the good work!". The latter is more helpful to the artist, while the former is annoying, and helps keep the artist from having to perform rhinoplasty on Batman in the future.

[Radiance64 7,053]

Well, I suppose I'll do my best to work with that, it's really not that bad in my opinion(was gonna just type imo but it was under the minimum that way ).

[Discordian 6,015]

I dunno if 100 is a particularly good character minimum. I just made a post that made it's point but wasn't too short but because of the character limit I had to add a bit of filler. 50-70 would work better imo but whatever, I can deal with it. Just didn't know about this until just now and it annoyed me that I got an error on a message that I thought was long enough to serve it's purpose. lol

[Veiled Enigma 389]

The only slight annoyance I have with this is in the "What are you listening to?" thread, other than that I couldn't really give a care one way, or the other.

[hᴀrᴍoɴy 107]

Well.. this is nothing to complain about. I mean it will reduce the amount of spam on the forums and will force people to be more thoughtful in their posts. Good developmental change. /)

[Finesthour 7,287]

Look at all the people complaining about this.

Know the ironic thing?

The only people complaining are the people who write one sentence replies.