Anyone else annoyed by the minimum of 20 characters?

[ghostfacekiller39 23,857]

Lemme just throw my two cents in here

 

I, for one, love the fact it's only 20 characters. It's a HELL of a lot better than 100, like back in the day when I first joined, but it prevents pointless things like random .gifs and "I agree with you." from being posted everywhere Kind of makes us have to give a reason, you know?

It's also non-existant in the lounge and games, bud

It could be 100 again, though Think about how much you hate the character limit now, and multiply it by 5. 

[Something Floaty 1,333]

Lemme just throw my two cents in here

 

I, for one, love the fact it's only 20 characters. It's a HELL of a lot better than 100, like back in the day when I first joined, but it prevents pointless things like random .gifs and "I agree with you." from being posted everywhere Kind of makes us have to give a reason, you know?

 

It's also non-existant in the lounge and games, bud

 

It could be 100 again, though Think about how much you hate the character limit now, and multiply it by 5. 

 

I don't think 100 characters would be a big deal for me. As I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to make long posts more often than short ones. In fact, this post is now 141 characters long.

[ghostfacekiller39 23,857]

I don't think 100 characters would be a big deal for me. As I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to make long posts more often than short ones. In fact, this post is now 141 characters long.

Yeahh It really wasn't a big problem for me, either. It got annoying, though, when you reached 97 or 98 and had to throw something useless in there.

 

I don't make very many 20 char. posts outside of the Rarity fan club

 

Hell, I hit 6,500-something once when I was defending Rares back in the day

 

20 characters is a fair amount for everyone, though.

 

I'm at 281 in the post, btw

 

Edited April 19, 2014 by ghostfacekiller39

[baltoist 303]

yeah and when I want to use something like (filler) to fill in the extra characters I find that may friend got a warning for doing that and I don't need that

Edited April 19, 2014 by baltoist

[Castle Bleck 19,172]

Yeahh It really wasn't a big problem for me, either. It got annoying, though, when you reached 97 or 98 and had to throw something useless in there.

 

I don't make very many 20 char. posts outside of the Rarity fan club

 

Hell, I hit 6,500-something once when I was defending Rares back in the day

 

20 characters is a fair amount for everyone, though.

 

I'm at 281 in the post, btw

 

 

And if it was TOO useless, they gave you warning points...

[ghostfacekiller39 23,857]

yeah and when I want to use something like (filler) to fill in the extra characters I find that may friend got a warning for doing that and I don't need that

Warning Points eventually go away, though (Well, unless you get perm'd...)

 

I have 450 of the little buggers right now, but they'll go away eventually  

 

(I hope )

[Something Floaty 1,333]

Warning Points eventually go away, though (Well, unless you get perm'd...)

 

I have 450 of the little buggers right now, but they'll go away eventually  

 

(I hope )

 

How does that work, anyways? Is there a number of points you reach that gets you banned or something? I don't have any, but I've seen some profiles with a lot. Or I should say, profiles that claim to have a lot since you can't see them.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Something Floaty

[ghostfacekiller39 23,857]

How does that work, anyways? Is there a number of points you reach that gets you banned or something? I don't have any, but I've seen some profiles with a lot. Or I should say, profiles that claim to have a lot since you can't see them.

http://mlpforums.com/page/faq/_/moderation/how-do-warning-points-work-r34

 

This page explains everything, broseph

[Something Floaty 1,333]

http://mlpforums.com/page/faq/_/moderation/how-do-warning-points-work-r34

 

This page explains everything, broseph

 

You're my friend and everything, but if you call me "broseph" again, I'm going to have to block you and start spreading malicious rumors about you. 

[ghostfacekiller39 23,857]

You're my friend and everything, but if you call me "broseph" again, I'm going to have to block you and start spreading malicious rumors about you. 

Okie dokie lokie, broseph

 

 

 

[baltoist 303]

I don't like to get in trouble im a nice guy

[ChoroChii 284]

Nope. I like the minimum, as it restricts people from spamming the forums with really short replies.

Why would you even want to respond with something shorter than 20 characters anyway?

 

 

 

I don't like to get in trouble im a nice guy

 

..*Shutters*

[SCS 7,444]

I have rarely been personally bothered by the character minimum, but I am well aware that many others were, so therefore I supported it being lowered to 20. There were a few times I had trouble writing enough content back when the minimum was 100 characters for most forum sections, but I almost never have that problem now. 
 
The forum, aside from Cloudsdale Colosseum, is designed for more substantial discussion. We don't expect people to churn out doctoral dissertations, we just expect that posts have enough content to be more substantial than a chat would. We have blogs, status updates, and Cloudsdale Colosseum for more relaxed communication that does not have any character minimum applied to it. 
 
I feel that this creates a fair balance between having sections designated for more substantial discussions, and areas designated for more relaxed interaction.
 
In my opinion, ultimately,  a character minimum of 20 is not unreasonable. If what you want to say cannot be expressed in twenty characters or more, it is likely that it does not have enough substance to be a post. Please keep in mind that Cloudsdale Colosseum has no character minimum, so this does not apply to that.

[Creamy Arty 6,251]

You should have been here when the character minimum was 100 in most places. 

 

A character minimum was implemented as a spam deterrent in the forums' younger days to prevent one-word and no-word (such as pictures only) replies that contributed nothing to the threads in which they were posted. This worked quite well, and I'm glad that we've retained a reduced character minimum rather than eliminating it altogether. With the new minimum being 20 characters in most places, it still prevents people from doing that while allowing people more freedom to relax, without feeling like their every reply needs to be overly complicated.

 

I've seen people struggle to reach 20 characters in a few places, but every time I've seen that so far it's been due to laziness. Saying more than "hi" in the Welcoming Plaza was more effort than they were willing to expend, or not bothering to elaborate on their reasons for disagreeing with somebody in a thread and instead just dropping a "nope (fillerfillerfillerfiller)." I'm glad to say that instances of this have dropped substantially since the character minimum was lowered from 100. It's obviously helping out a lot of people without causing much in the way of collateral damage. What we have now really isn't hard and isn't getting in anybody's way.

 

This is also a forum. Forums are meant for protracted, thoughtful discussion, not instantaneous chat that flows like a face-to-face conversation. We do have areas made for that so people have a place to unwind. However, making the entire forum conducive to it would be counterproductive and annoying.

[baltoist 303]

on my phone it actually is still a hundred which is why I don't post while on trips

[Creamy Arty 6,251]

on my phone it actually is still a hundred which is why I don't post while on trips

 

It only says 100. It's still 20 though. After the minimum was reduced, it continued to say 100 almost everywhere. Even on the desktop version it'll tell you there's a minimum of 20 in Cloudsdale, when there actually is no minimum. Just another one of those irritating things about IPB that we have to put up with.

[Khaoios 1,970]

Pppfftpfpfptptt, 'anyone else', he says. Nah, bro. Pretty sure we've never recieved a single complaint about the character minimum.

 

All seriousness though, I believe everyone else has explained it throughly. 20 characters is not asking for much, and the staff has laxed up a lot in various sections specifically, as well as in general, when it comes to the character minimum

 

I agree fully with Chaotic.   I for one, feel its fine to have 20 characters minimum, b/c imo, it prevents people from just spamming.  Like if someone were to just say, "hi", "true", "yes", "wrong", etc.....thats just going overboard.  Have 20 minimum characters should be efficient, forcing people to write one or two sentences.  Hell, i do the same thing when i admin.  Yet, 50 minimum sounds too much, but should only remain in "debatable" threads, that way, instead of saying the subject is true or false, its good to have a back-up or reason why he/she made that choice.    Overall, im satisfed with what is current.

[Shift 4,271]

Back in my day, we could post posts of just images in Show Discussion if we felt like it! but then everything changed when the feld0 nation attacked and the character minimum announcement happened. it was like a nuke hit the forums. oh my god, i loved that thread...

 

But eh, it's there for a reason.
 

To add something of usefulness into this post, the longest post i've ever made is this one i'm writing up that's nearing 20k characters. I'm... mildly concerned about my sanity.

Edited April 19, 2014 by Shift

[Swirl 90]

You could just use the space bar or full stops to fill the remaining characters? I don't have trouble with it because I'm a blabbermouth but at least it helps reduce spam.

[Twilight Sparkle ✨ 8,520]

You could just use the space bar or full stops to fill the remaining characters? I don't have trouble with it because I'm a blabbermouth but at least it helps reduce spam.

The character minimum is not a game. It's not a challenge you're supposed to "break". If you acknowledge and embrace the spirit in which it was implemented (encouraging substantive posts), it will give you absolutely no trouble.

[NavelColt 22,876]

So, are we done here? Okay, cool.