topic Word limit for posts - your feedback please in Welcome and orientation

Word limit for posts - your feedback please

Chris_B — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:26:47 GMT

Hi everyone,

As you'll know, when making posts on the forum you are limited to 2,500 characters, which roughly works out to 500 words - one full typed page of A4 paper.

The reason we have this limit is to encourage conversation between members, and to give you the best chance of having your posts read and absorbed by people.

However, we've had some feedback recently from members that our current limit should be shortened, as even at 2,500 characters this can make posts difficult to read, thus reducing the amount of replies someone might get.

What do you think?

Word limit for posts - your feedback please

Magyarok — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 06:28:05 GMT

Hello Chris,

For me 2,500 characters is not too long and does not effect the ease of reading a post. However what does effect ease of reading is structure of the post i.e. use of paragraphs.

I find it very difficult to read posts (medium to long) that are written as a single block without use of paragraphs and i will be more inclined not to read these posts. It's not because i don't want to you it's just a case of not being able to follow what is written.

Posts broken down into 4 - 5 line paragraphs are easier to for me to read and follow regardless of the length of the post.

Just my personal thoughts.

Cheers

Dave

Word limit for posts - your feedback please

geoff — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 15:25:25 GMT

dear Christopher, I believe that Dave has made a valid point, but not quite sure how BB can get people to do this, unless it's done by the Moderators but this means more work for them all. Geoff.

Word limit for posts - your feedback please

Neil_1 — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:15:43 GMT

Hi Christopher

Thanx for creating this thread and my thoughts on this are very biased – due to my penchant for being unable to control my fingers when sitting in front of a keyboard. As a result of this, my vote if indeed we’re after votes is for the current arrangement to stay as is.

I believe it could turn people away from the forums if they were to have a reduced limit to their ability to post, either their own thread or simply in responding to another person. I know I’ve hit the ‘send’ button on numerous occasions, and I’m told that I have to reduce my post to fit inside the counter; which dismays me a bit, because I feel my words are beautiful as they are and to delete certain things, perhaps takes away from the beautification of my message; not to mention the actual meaning and advice behind it all.

The same may apply to perhaps new posters where they get to the word limit faster than they wanted too, as they are simply typing out their story and then come to the point of no more characters, so they have to change it, so it finishes off sooner than they would have wanted.

My last point on this relates to those members who do respond back to others – and I’m using again here, the first time posters. That it’s much easier to provide a worthwhile and detailed response to someone who has posted quite a deal of information about themselves in their initial post (due to them having the ability to provide enough detail under the current guidelines). I know for some people though, that the only give a very précised initial post (not due to restrictions) and that’s due to them I guess not perhaps overly wanting to divulge too much. So for these people, we have to try to coax them a bit more to try and find out more information about them, so we’ll be better informed in order to provide them with more appropriate advice. If the post count was reduced even further, these instances of asking more questions back to the initial poster could/would become more commonplace, which I don’t think is beneficial or helpful.

And as I believe I am coming up to my character limit, I should send this off.

Kind regards

Neil

ps: Dave nailed it also; one major long paragraph IS difficult to read. I know a poster from a long while ago used to do that; and from what I could gather, they were doing it on their phone. I always thought that it must have been due to the phone not having that facility,

Word limit for posts - your feedback please

Neil_1 — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 21:16:39 GMT

but I guess I'm just naïve and not able to understand that perhaps mobile phones these days ARE capable of inserting a paragraph.

Word limit for posts - your feedback please

Pixie15 — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 06:38:38 GMT

Hi CB,

I do not really have any issues with the current word count. Not being the most verbose person I have never seen a message warning about the word count.

When I first joined the site I do not think I was too concerned with the format either. It was just a matter of write a post and hit the reply button before I had too much time to talk myself out of it.

Having too strict word count and format rules may just restrict our ability to participate and express ourselves in a way that is manageable.

Grateful.