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The Minimum Character Limit is dead*


Lavo

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Uh, was my reply removed, and why the hell was it? I put thought into something and it was just withdrawn, either on purpose or from a glitch, because I recall clearly hitting the submit button and viewing my post.

Trying this again.

|--------------------|

 

For all who keep saying the minimum character limit ensured "quality" content, several members who posted here proved that statement wrong. Longer does not equal better (insert genital size analogy here), experienced debators and writers like myself are well placed to know that.

To further illustrate this, with the old YouTube comment system, while the maximum character limit was a hinderance to long arguments with sources and all that jazz... it also improved debate quality by inciting concision and clarity in discussions. And if you wanted to source your shit, nothing (besides the dumb system known as captcha) stopped you from making second/third/etc replies to mention names and websites.

 

Post quality does not consistently increase with post length, it follows a bell curve (as I described in my reply before it was removed for unknown reasons). And the maximum for that curve isn't at the same point, depending on the subject and your argument.

Character limits suck because they say: "on this website/forum, maximum post quality is assumed to be around this amount of characters, so you should not submit anything shorter/longer because it is bad quality". Standardizing some things makes them easier, but imposing standards upon everything does the complete opposite.

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Eh, I always thought the thing was damn pointless. I mean, at first, I was desperate for any sort of thing to increase the quality here. But I realized the character limit was pointless and just caused people to complain constantly and really put the pressure on. All it did was increase hostility, and had little to no effect on quality. It didn't decrease or increase it. People just bypassed it constantly by posting "fillerfillerfillerforthecharacterlimitblahblah" anyway. And any spam could just be deleted on the grounds of... well, being spam. Regardless of the character limit. 'Cause I remember one of the reasons for it being so that it could make it easier to spot spam/low quality posts for the staff.

 

The only way to ensure quality is to create the proper environment for it to flourish, the proper culture that continually attracts the intelligent and educates the ignorant. Not some arbitrary letter counter that screws up a lot.

 

Good riddance, I suppose. But I will miss laughing at those people who put "fillerfillerfiller" in their posts. XD

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The character limit is dead! Long live the character limit!

 

Oh wait, it's still alive on the mobile site. Any plans to change that?

It's an illusion. The character limits on mobile are not actually there even though it says they are. Give it a try.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Also something to note is that the Character Minimum Violation still exists and will be handed out when needed if you somehow manage to not hit it or hit the limit in a forum where it is more of a problem.

Uhh... Doesn't it make more sense to outright make it impossible to make posts consisting of less than x amount of characters than to punish whoever doesn't meet that limit when posting? Why make a rule for something you can automate out? Am I missing something?

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Uhh... Doesn't it make more sense to outright make it impossible to make posts consisting of less than x amount of characters than to punish whoever doesn't meet that limit when posting? Why make a rule for something you can automate out? Am I missing something?

 

It does do that. What he's talking about is clearly using extra characters just for the purpose of extending your post to meet the 20 char minimum. 

 

For example, the system blocks you from posting just a 10 character post.  But if this-

 

"I agree

 

blahblah20charactersblah"

 

was your entire post, then you'd get an infraction.

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Life advice should really have a limit. We don't need people trolling users who are asking for help.

hah, i just posted a new thread there. if the limit had been 20 characters i'd be screwed. well, more screwed.

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@@hawkflame, thanks for clearing that up ^^

 

 

As for the limit on the Life Advice section, I always thought the 200 character minimum made for a nice filter against vapid or otherwise unhelpful posts. The thing is, when addressing someone's problem in a meaningful way, I often found myself passing the 200 character minimum before I blinked.

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@@hawkflame, thanks for clearing that up ^^

 

 

As for the limit on the Life Advice section, I always thought the 200 character minimum made for a nice filter against vapid or otherwise unhelpful posts. The thing is, when addressing someone's problem in a meaningful way, I often found myself passing the 200 character minimum before I blinked.

 

I can kind of see it both ways.

 

On the one hand, requiring longer posts will generally make sure that the contributor is expressing a more substantial idea.  On the other hand, this also means that they can't simply say "Hang in there; we're pulling for you!"; they're compelled to keep talking, (rambling beyond what they originally wanted to say), which doesn't necessarily do anything to help the OP.  Faced with this option, a lot of otherwise well-meaning people might just choose not to post in that thread at all...which doesn't help the OP either.

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I think that they ought to bring this back honestly... It did a lot of good in certain aspects and made you really think about what it was you were going to post. Now I think in certain threads it may not need a 100 minimum character limit. But for the majority of places on the forums I think it would benefit to having a 100 character limit again. 

But truthfully that is just my own opinion.

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Wait. Advanced RP has a character limit of 800+? Wow. I found it challenging enough for the 200+ limit. I can hardly imagine 800+. I guess it is advanced for a reason.

 

I'm pretty happy about the character limit is dead thing.

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After going through a whole month with this drastically lowered character limit, I have to say, it feels really nice. I don't feel as pressured to type more than I need to anymore. Though naturally, I tend to express myself quite thoroughly in making my posts on here, so I would usually exceed a hundred characters anyways. But this time, I don't have to feel as pressured anymore. I don't have to feel like I have to aim to put enough superfluous words to fit that exact amount of characters anymore. Now, I feel a lot more free in expressing my thoughts on here, regardless of how long or how brief they are! :D

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