Minimum post lengths

[Quill The Pony. 175]

I am happy with the new 100 character rule, as it will cut down the pointless posts such as"I agree" or "Cool". When I found this thread I responded like this:

[Killian Jones 2,655]

I am still not getting why so many people are getting their panties in a bunch. 100 characters amounts to about 18 words + spaces for every post.

 

Considering the average word is 5.1 characters: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=average+word+length+in+English.

 

Making sure you write two to three relatively short sentences will solve this quickly. It's not as difficult as many tend to make it out to be.

 

maybe at least for me i dont talk much never have and when i do talk it is most of the time short also am bad at english so i cant think of alot of stuff to right in english but thats for me

 

If you don't practice your English you will never get better, and you can only practice by doing and perhaps reading. We shouldn't be here to enable anyone's laziness. Just trying is enough, and using words is fine. And remember, most modern browsers these days have built in spell check. So getting English right is just a matter of knowing the words and putting them in the right order, spelling should be less of an issue now.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Tich

[Starshine 16,333]

my bigist problem is in the welcome plaza because why cant i say hello and welcome now i have to bull crap my welcome soo much thats my bigist problem.

 

Here, let me give you my template

 

[img]http://mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/img-581485-1-zh1c7.jpg[/img]

[url="http://mlpforums.com/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules"]Global Rules[/url]

[url="http://mlpforums.com/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=stats&do=leaders"]The Moderating Team[/url]

You might want to see this [url="http://mlpforums.com/topic/13005-ultimate-mlp-forums-posting-guide"]MLP Forums Posting Guide.[/url]

If you have any question on how that silly badge under your avatar works, [url="http://mlpforums.com/topic/10652-badges-how-many-posts-you-need-for-which-ones/"]click here![/url]

Put that in a notepad file, and copy paste it to every introduction thread, and prepare yourself for dozens of brohoof

 

About the case where you afraid can't get past the limitation because your english, try to attach some images whenever you post. Done

[FireFox 82]

I'm very shy (this is an understatement) and sometimes I could see this being a problem for me. There are a lot of times I want to say something but can't say it with more than just a few words. This post took me about 20 minutes of work to put together.

[Marshmallow 1,137]

Honestly, all I can see this new rule doing is a massive increase in white text and stuff like "this post needs 100 character sso here you go i am so annoyed with thi srule" at the end of the posts.

 

Sometimes I only need a sentence or so to make a point. I don't want to have to add another sentence repeating my point to artificially lengthen my post every time. It just seems like an annoyance to me.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Marshmallow

[PonyEcho 1,610]

I am still not getting why so many people are getting their panties in a bunch. 100 characters amounts to about 18 words + spaces for every post.

 

 

yes but what about the people who can get there point across in less, do we have to add more just to please everyone else, perhaps just targeting the ones who make these pointless and non contributing posts rather then punishing everyone i'd i wouldnt be as mad about it.

 

there also the issue the untill i decided to spam i could post anything no matter how long it was, which is somthing people dissmissed when i mentioned it earlier, and now i have a warning just for exploting a flaw.

 

(and now i have to wit for this to be approved)

[Flicker Sweet 3,391]

Seems legit to me. I was gonna get mad, but now that I know the reason behind it I'm actually glad that it's in place!

[Neikos 968]

One word reply

 

Actually not really, but you don't see that. I for one, welcome this feature.

[Swoop 2,278]

Sometimes I only need a sentence or so to make a point. I don't want to have to add another sentence repeating my point to artificially lengthen my post every time. It just seems like an annoyance to me.

 

Perhaps this will put things into perspective:

This here is an example of exactly one hundred characters (not including any BB code or white text).

That's it! A single sentence - Less than that of a tweet, and even less if you happen to include images, font formatting, smileys, hyperlinking, or quotes. I think you'll find that summing up your thoughts in a single sentence is still very much possible, without the need for any unnecessary twaddle.

[Starshine 16,333]

Honestly, all I can see this new rule doing is a massive increase in white text and stuff like "this post needs 100 character sso here you go i am so annoyed with thi srule" at the end of the posts.

 

That will be our job to report every post that do this. Warnings and banhammer will heed our call (at least I hope so lol)

 

---

 

I just tested it. The quoted post is also counts towards the 100 characters. This way someone can easily quote earlier post and only add one word by himself

 

Can it be configured so everything between quote tags will not be counted?

[Bronium 512]

I am so into this idea. That graph actually shocked me. I was thinking "this graph isn't going to shock me. It's going be below 5 percent. Maybe ten percent at the most". And then it was almost 20 percent! That's 1 in 5 posts. Wow. But this is a fantastic idea.

 

Just so you know how stupid I am, I thought that the rule was "100 words or more". I was like but then I read the quote and now I'm all like .

Well, I haven't much to contribute. So yeah. Just me saying this is awesome.

Also

Here, let me give you my template

 

Yeah, the thing is <100 characters isn't is required to welcome someone to the forums. Now I'm not saying you shouldn't post over 100 characters in Welcome Plaza, but you can use the plaza effectively without using 100 characters for each post.

 

Even so, you should write over a hundred characters. Give the new guys some love (coming from a new guy)!

Edited July 21, 2012 by Bronium

[HomuraBL 851]

I'm actually ok with this. Though, I do hope we get that character counter soon because then I probably would be less paranoid.

Any info on how the character counter is coming along?

Edited July 21, 2012 by Bandana RaccoonBLee

[Sky 746]

Well I find this extremely annoying because I tried to join a roleplay saying

 

"Can I be doctor whooves please?"

 

What else am I suppose to add to that to make it 200 characters???

[KakeiTheWolf 652]

There is one thing I would like to point out that somewhat problematic to remedy. Below I will put a ten character message between quotation marks. This shows a significant flaw in the system.

 

""

 

Despite absolutely no space existing between the two quotation mark sets, there is actually ten characters as recognized both by the character counter of the forum and by any online character counter. The specific character I copied and pasted ten times corresponds to the Unicode value of U+206E, which is "National Digit Shapes". The character is not displayable, is not visible, and takes up no physical space, but is counted as a character. This character can be accessed via charmap, in the Arial or Arial Black fonts, right above the currency signs. About twenty other such characters exist. Using this, any amount of text can very easily reach 100 characters. Is there, possibly, a way to exclude these specific Unicode characters from the count, rendering this method useless?

[Juggler 345]

Thank you! It feels good to be on a forum that wants the users to make meaningful posts and just not meaningless c***.

 

I have also been worried if my posts have been long enough before, but with this rule I can count characters if I'm unsure.

*starts counting characters*

[Derpy Dash 233]

If this is going to be a permanent rule, con you at least put a character counter somewhere? I find it very annoying to have to go back and add more pointless words to a post I though was fine.

[Guest]

At least this will make some posts legitimacy worth glancing at. I grew tired of reading three-worded posts that, honestly, had nothing to add to the topic. I support this step in a new direction, however minor it may be. I look forward to seeing the same quality posts as I did when I first joined. This might also cause people to contemplate a post more often than they already do -- perhaps the "Please let us delete our posts" reports will go down as well.

 

Good move, mods.

[Ol' Sarge 885]

If this is going to be a permanent rule, con you at least put a character counter somewhere? I find it very annoying to have to go back and add more pointless words to a post I though was fine.

 

I have to agree ^^ Having a character counter would be pretty useful. I'm fairly good at making reasoned and insightful posts, but there are sometimes in response to someone else's post, it doesn't always warrant a lengthy reply and it would be nice to know where I stand before I hit "post" only to find out that I need to throw something else in.

 

BTW, I am NOT against the minimum character rule mind you.

[Derpy Dash 233]

I'm also not against it, but it just gets annoying if you have like 90 characters and the post really doesn't need any more words. That's not really spam...

[3005 332]

Wait a minute, how does requiring a character count automatically ensure quality? Look at this:

 

"gais look im typin on mlpforums.com and its soooo much fun!!!!!!!!!!!! u should all tri it! im gona invite ALL my friends here!"

 

That reaches the limit, no? Yet it's not a quality post, it's full of errors and irrelevance. A post should not be removed if it gets a point across without meeting the limit. If it does ensue discussion but is under the requirement, it should be allowed to stay. We should NOT have to add meaningless words to posts because they do not reach a certain point.

 

On another note, how is deleting irrelevant posts any different from making sure there are 100 characters in a post? o.o

Edited July 21, 2012 by Dylan

[thegoodhen 698]

MLP Forums has grown at a tremendous rate these last several months, to the point that our total post count for last month hit 98,639. While it's always nice to see such a ridiculous number appear in our statistics, we've noticed a concerning side effect that has cropped up as a result of our increasing popularity.

 

 

I'll let these two charts do the talking for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, we've had a gradual - but steady - increase in posts that have lacked any appreciable amount of content. Given that the entire purpose of a discussion forum is to facilitate discussion, and the fact that the goal for MLP Forums has always been to provide the best possible venue for pony related discussion, we have decided that the time has come to take steps to mitigate the effects of this growing nuisance.

 

 

All posts in the Life Advice and Roleplay boards from here on out must be at least two hundred characters in length. Meanwhile, all posts elsewhere (except Cloudsdale, which remains without a limit) will carry with them a one hundred character minimum.

 

 

Not sure how long those are? Don't worry - I've got some handy-dandy examples!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing too terrible, right? Are you a bad enough pony to rise to the occasion and meet the challenge posed by the character limitations? Wooo-wheee.

 

 

All silliness aside, I fully expect there to be some grumpiness regarding this decision, but to be perfectly honest... we've had a number of people lament that the quality of the average post on the forum has gone downhill in recent months - something that is supported by the charts provided up top. Not only that, but we're getting a bit tired of constantly removing posts that are off-topic, contribute nothing to the topic at hand, or are otherwise pointless.

 

It is our belief that a reasonable character limit encourages people to actually put some thought into their posts:

• Instead of saying "I agree!" in response to another post, you must now provide a bit of extra content; such as why you agree with something.
• Instead of saying "I like this!", you must now provide a bit of extra content, such as what you like.
• Posts consisting solely of image macros, Youtube embeds, emoticons, or single words will no longer exist.

For those wondering why Life Advice features a two hundred character minimum rather than the comparatively standard minimum of one hundred... it is quite simply difficult to provide meaningful or otherwise thoughtful advice to someone with a microscopic post. It is our hope that the new minimum will encourage people to put more thought into their posts, and to hopefully prevent people from making quick and 'snappy' comebacks to things that they personally dislike, resulting in fewer Life Advice threads turning into oceans of angry red hidden posts. The same goes for Roleplay, really - we've actually received a number of complaints regarding the quality and length of the posts contained within it.

 

 

 

It is our hope that this change will result in an improved forum experience for all users.

 

Won't work. See?

Edit: In case it isn't obvious: It's very common for people to use quote function in their replies. Yet words in quote count too.

Edited July 23, 2012 by thegoodhen

[StarStep 42]

I do like the idea of the post count length in the boards that you gave 200 word limits to but I must say I don't think every board needs that 100 character limit to it. It can really stifle conversation having to give a longer sentence just to be able to post.

 

No longer will legitimate points such as,

The hair looks off you should try moving that strand to the side.

While I do enjoy that style of music, the bass can get in the way of the finer melodies,

be acceptable to post on their own.

 

It also gets rid of some of the opportunities of the short funnier replies or supportive type posts that are needed in a forum. I can see why you want a minimum post count but I think a 100 post limit in every board is taking it a bit too far. Now in the graph that was posted you were tired of the 0-5 word posts. Well with the avg 5.1 characters in words that means you were tired of the <26 character posts. Even doubling that to above 50 is still shy of the 100 character limit. Lots of discussions have been carried on with posts hovering around the 60 character count range as it is still a reasonable length to have a good point made in as shown in my examples above. I guess what I am getting at is that 100 is a little overkill for some boards and a reasonable sentence length such as 60-70 would work better and not cause all the fluff to be put in posts that add nothing but just to increase character limit. It kind of forces people to add spam to their post even when they have a fine enough point already made with a shorter amount of characters.

[Doctor XFizzle 8,669]

I can't wait for like April Fools Day or some random day the staff feels like having a little fun and they give every forum a 4,000 character minimum for posts.

 

Oh, October 20th is National Day on Writing for the US.

http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting/

Edited July 21, 2012 by Doctor XFizzle

[Shift 4,272]

I believe this change will help improve the forum. I have seen many posts like this type myself. It is excellent you are doing something about it. Glad to know this will be stopped.

 

Quotes should not be counted as letters/text though.

Edited July 21, 2012 by Resolution

[Starshine 16,333]

I can't wait for like April Fools Day or some random day the staff feels like having a little fun and they give every forum a 4,000 character minimum for posts.

 

Then the forum would be all like

 

Wait a minute, how does requiring a character count automatically ensure quality? Look at this:

 

"gais look im typin on mlpforums.com and its soooo much fun!!!!!!!!!!!! u should all tri it! im gona invite ALL my friends here!"

 

At least it would be much harder to spam, and any long-ass spam is very noticeable, easier for the mods to pick them up and delete it.