New Minimum Character Count For Replies.

I don't know that I really like this, sometimes our answers can be brief, and now our posts must be long winded when they don't need to be.

For example that's where I would have ended my post normally, but I have to put this sentence in.

Opinions can be brief, but more than "I agree" or "I disagree" or "QFT"

In my opinion it is about appearances. There are people who will see a thread with long or wordy replies as having more substance than one with shorter posts displayed through its length.

There is something to be said about getting clearly to point with a reply, regardless of length.

The question should be why is that posting style so important to the future of the forum.

Well, I'll agree that the implementation of the minimum seems to be a bit buggy.

When I clicked the "Quote" button on your post, then removed the majority of the quote, I was left with a 2,183 character requirement. I had to form my post, copy it, return to the thread, and click the normal "Post Reply" button.

I really don't think this is the intent however, and I'm sure it will be tweaked shortly to overcome this. Just a bit buggy that's it. I'm sure someone will get to it.

reply to post by questioningall

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Are you being purposely obtuse? This is really pretty simple, and there is quite a bit of consistency. The amount of characters you need is determined by HOW you reply to a thread.

If you do a clean reply (no quoting or anything) you need 200 characters, less if you quote, etc...

It's pretty simple really.

When I first joined ATS life was hard! I only had 4,000 charachters to make a post.

It was frustrating but one day life got better...I went to post one of my typical short replies that usually all start out with...when I was a little boy...and noticed I had 6,000 charachters and promptly changed my opending line to...when I was a baby!

Still 6,000 charachters was awfully inhibiting but I endeavored to make do until one day I was posting a typical reply and noticed I had 8,000 charachters and promptly changed it to...When I was in my mother's womb...

Yet there is a part of me that really would like to start it off with...in my past life!

Could I have 10,000 charachters please 8,000 is just to little...

You see it all started out when I was in my mother's womb...

[edit on 12/4/09 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

To get more to the heart of the matter, having pointed out why this system is useless, it's a question of how you decide that 200 characters are needed to express a quality reply?

200 words, would make more sense, although obviously too many.

You can do a lot of nothing taking up 200 characters, as I demonstrated, but you can do it with words too. Do you really want people using longer words just to fill up the 200 quota, or just waffling pointlessly on a point that can easily be made in less than 200 characters?

If you want to impose limits, then word limits > character limits, however =/= any benchmark of a quality contribution...

reply to post by NoArmsJames

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Well maybe someone can answer me this question. Why did this come up.

I've cleared my temp file was something going in in the meantime?

I've just posted a 10 line, 200 character + post that showed up as a 2 character post. This limitation is easily broken.
1) The number of characters in quotes should not be counted.
2) Edits should use the same rules.
3) There shouldn't be any loopholes.
4) Rules should be enforced on the server side, not only on the client side, it's too easy to circumvent.


[edit on 2009-4-12 by nablator]

reply to post by Unit541

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That just happened to me too, while trying to reply to a post in other thread, as you can see bellow.



I don't know how I can answer that post, I will probably have to answer without quoting.

PS: Just before posting I discovered what the problem is, when we delete part of the quoted text the number of characters rises, so if we quote a very large post and we delete the parts we do not need, all that text will be added to the total of characters needed to activate the button.

This is bad testing, this should be suspended until it works, newer members with less characters available may be left without the possibility of answering, if they quote a post with more characters than the ones they can write.

Edit: I see Unit541 had already said it. Bug confirmed.

Edit 2: knowing what the problem is, I made a preview and the button gets disabled again, but by writing something and deleting it (or delete something and writing it again), the buttons gets things right.
[edit on 12/4/2009 by ArMaP]

[edit on 12/4/2009 by ArMaP]

Flaw #2 (guess how):

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

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If you like to write you can request writer status from worldwatcher. We are blessed with a 10,000 characters to use. To fill new requirements.





[edit on 12-4-2009 by Ant4AU]

Yeah I may as well toss in the towel too. I left every forum they ever pulled this stunt. I call it a stunt, because that is what it feels like.

It's like the one about one line posts where now you see someone put a second line saying "second line" just to avoid the rule about single line posts. I imagine this too will be likek that only we would see many many posts using more posts to convey what most do not have the time or the inclination to select parts of an article where now it can be said to be attempts at quote mining or cherry picking and you name it, they will use it to invalidate it.

I used to post to youtube even liked making video's but now I won't even go to that place unless I absolutley have to for some reason over riding my dislike for the minimum charachter posts.

Well,, I guess Ill see how I like it but so far,,

I don't like it at all

reply to post by jfj123

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That certainly seems excessive if true, I would love confirmation/elaboration of this also.

Surely a better way would be create a new T&C rule whereby posters have to contribute something to the topic or at the very least pose a question. For example, this would not be acceptable:



This would be (using one of my recent posts from another thread) :



I see lots of the former daily and they do not contribute to discussions in the slightest, whereas I think the latter does promote discussion and debate. Posts breaking this new T&C rule would be reported and removed in the normal manner to be replaced with a new "Zero Contribution" stamp in the style of other warnings/post removals.

Would that work, mod team?

[edit on 12-4-2009 by Goathief]

That makes it just as ineffective as saying you'll be warned if you don't use at least 2 lines to post, which leads to all the 'This is a second line' ends of posts you see a lot of. This system requires the exact same amount of modding as checking that at least 2 lines are posted by each poster, because it's such an easy system to invalidate, in at least 2 ways, and has been pointed out, if you're quoting only part of someones post, makes things worse...

It seems the script controlling the count has a value set based on the quote brought in using the quote button. Removing words from the quote then increases the number that must be entered ( to make up for those removed).

My take from a quick look....

yep... it's flawed, but hey... they'll sort it

They just decided to prefer pointless redundancy over a brief down-to-point reply. What does this tell you?

There is no forum on the web with a ridiculous requirement like that.
Whatever . . .

reply to post by EnlightenUp

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I got warned twice for writing that so please be careful.............................................................................................otherwise its warning time!


Apart from that the system isnt fully thoughthrough atm, they really should have tested it first before implementing it.

To echo Blogstalkers question. In the writer forums ,not the colab writing forum, All that some of the writers want is a reply that says if the reader enjoyed what they read. And like everyone else here we don't want to sif trough garbage for the sake of a 200 character limit.

reply to post by blupblup

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Yes, they will sort it, but this type of thing would be disastrous if we were paying customers, this is just the result of lack of testing, and all the while people are getting strange behaviours that they do not understand.

I wonder how many posts will be lost today because of this hasty change.