[BUG] Lame character limit that does not even work

MXXIV·Feb 24, 2014·3 votes·463 views

Hi, judging from votes on this post*****, I believe I'm not the only one who suffers from 30 character limit in the poll question. However, what is really funny is that board developper was retarded enough to add that limit only to bother users without implementing on the server side.

What does that mean?
If you open a developper tool in your browser (Firebug for example), you may change the character limit for the field.

Now change or remove the option:

Now why am I posting this?
Riot is consistently failing in making good community forums. While I do not agree with those, who liked the previous board more (I was just so fucking disoriented there) I think Riot team is not actually trying to convince those that this beta is better.
This bug is not a proof of that, it's just a random error. The real problems are things like horrible page speed and slow rendering speed too.

While many useful functions appeared (admit it, we missed updates back there) there are still many issues that a script kiddie like me can figure out.

So guys, please abuse this bug. I hope they'll increase the character limit instead of implementing it server sided - because that's what I don't want to happen.

Why such an angry tone?
I don't always post like this and I'm trying to restrain to hate on other programmers. But what enrages me to the top are those annoing, user-bothering limits that have no reason.
Really, when I found out I can't finish a short sentence in poll... Just why omg? This combined with the things on forums not working and slow loading made me use this tone instead of fair bug report. Sorry.

* So the permalink function does not work, so I can't link that post.

8 Comments

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20143 votes

Hey MXXIV,

Thanks for the feedback. We had to set a limit at something, so we looked at usage patterns and decided that, based on how most people had been using polls, a 30 character limit was sufficient. Our thinking is that the poll itself is really for casting a vote, and the body of the post can serve as the longer discussion on the matter.

The other consideration was aesthetic: we want to make sure that we don't overload the area with text and make it a visually confusing space.

As you may know, we're still in beta, which means we're still actively looking and working on things. We had to start somewhere, and we're learning from the feedback we get. We actually do already have the limits on the server, they're just disabled at the moment (since we're still working on all this).

If I may ask, what were you expecting the poll limit to be?

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

Well, from such a fast reply I guess you're really working hard on it. I understand you don't want users to abuse poll somehow, but well, a sentence does not fit in 30 characters. Couldn't it be the length that approximately fits the width of the poll div, so that the text won't wrap?
I admit that more than one line is strange and shoudn't happen.

Here is my guess what can easily fit in poll.

######PS**: Basing limits on average values might not be the best idea. Espetially while most poll answers might be "Yes" or "No". **

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20141 votes

A good suggestion, but remember that we also have the visual bars to indicate the vote distribution, and both of these have to fit within the same space. The more characters we put, the shorter the bars get.

We did some experimenting before we deployed this, so none of this was arbitrary. I'm sorry if it seems so. Like I said, we looked at the existing usage data to help guide our decision-making.

But in the end, it came back to purpose: the purpose of the poll options is to vote, not to explain.

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

I would end up adding the poll options to the end of my post every time. For the polls, the design is not THAT important, because most people DIDN'T hit the limit you've set (your own words). Now when somebody HITS the limit, that's a problem, because people don't know what the vote is. I have spent time figuring out the sentence properly every time. Failed.

Bob LLamaFeb 24, 20141 votes

For the polls, the design is not THAT important, because most people DIDN'T hit the limit you've set

Not exactly what I'm saying. These were the factors in our decision-making:

Data suggests the bulk of poll options are <30 char.
We have to find room for the visual bars. More characters means shorter bars, and shorter bars aren't really useful.
The purpose of poll options is to show which item you're voting on, not to be descriptive.

I hope this clears things up!

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

I just can disagree again. With the point 3), you're making a conflict - you need to describe what does that particular item mean. And you're simply gonna see people trying to use shorcuts and pointless abbreviations in their polls. I'll find you my posts...

Generally, what are you doing now is only arguing that your solution is good. There is no more feedback and you ignore my point about the probability of people hitting the maximum being low.

Also, you consider image bar being more important than the vote text - like if people couldn't read numbers any more.

As I have fixed the permalink feature already, see this please :)

And what about this? What would you do being me?

Does text need to look stupid so that colored bars look nice?

There are of course other design solutions too, but that's the last thing you have time for I guess...

PryotraFeb 25, 20141 votes

Why not drop the bar underneath the option? Either along the z axis or the y axis, regardless just not limiting one for the sake of the other should free you up quite a bit.

Also, seeing as this place could really use a recolor, I would personally prefer a z axis, with the text choice over the bar/lack thereof.

MXXIVFeb 24, 20141 votes

Some idea why permalink might not work:

            <a class='toggle-reply-form' href='javascript:;' data-bind='click: updateUrl, visible: !showConfirmDelete()'>
          Permalink
        </a>

I'm not sure how the templating stuff works, but maybe we might be happy that clicking permalink does not delete our post...