Character limit is terrible for actually discussing

Elphrihaim·Nov 3, 2014·17 votes·2,086 views

See Cassiopeia thread: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/zuL472BJ-cassiopeia-plans

Many, many, many times, somebody posts something... only to ram into the character limit.

|: 4096 characters =/= enough characters to actually discuss something.

So can you please increase it?

edit: And if the character limit for replies is increased, can it be made much larger (if you want to maintain a 2^N, why not do 2^15 at minimum [this is 32768])? It's... really hard to work with. I like that it's 2^12, sure, as somebody that worked with computers and just enjoys binary, but it's very disappointingly small.

Personally, I'd say increasing the character limit to literally infinite is fine... But I understand that that is not a good idea.

And of course, increasing the character limit for replies should be packaged with an increased length for opening posts-- and herein I have to say that even the old forum's 50,000 characters was slightly restrictive, maybe we could get 2^20 (1,048,576)-- since we can no longer do multiple posts that maintain the illusion of 'this part of the post but hit the limit', it's a lot harder (imo) to justify a small character limit-- even though nobody will really hit that limit, that sounds like good design to me. When the limit is so small that it is easy to hit, I feel that that is a problem.

Here's an analogy with something we can all relate to:

#Food.

My father taught me that 'putting food on the table' really should be done by putting so much food on the table that after everybody eats their fill, there is still some left. That is what I want the character limit to be like-- so large that it's practically impossible to hit.

The current character limits, though not like Twitter's basically-starving in this analogy (140 for the record), make for a rather scarce feeding time.

22 Comments

basketofsealsNov 4, 20146 votes

Is there anything we gained from these new forums?

LeeDarkNov 4, 20149 votes

Eye strain?

Fury and EmperorNov 4, 20141 votes

Eye strain?

Eye strain when reading texts on a screen is typically caused by a bad combination of text and background colour and/or an inappropriate font.

Hyrum GraffNov 4, 20141 votes

Notifications.

PadagiNov 3, 20143 votes

Going to be honest here: character limit is too high. Please don't write novels. Write succinctly and to the point.

Nobody wants to read 4k+ characters of why you think the stacking passive on Cass is "unfun".

Fury and EmperorNov 3, 201410 votes

To be fair, in forums such as Champion Concepts, the character limit is a real problem.

PadagiNov 3, 20142 votes

I'll agree that Champion Concepts and perhaps Lore might require longer characters for the initial posting, but for feedback and follow up posts? They really need to be 4k+ characters?

LeeDarkNov 4, 20147 votes

So, because you don't want to read posts in Feedback that are 4k characters, people in Champion Concepts should have their character limit reduced? Because, you know, it's the same character limit across the entire Boards.

Hyrum GraffNov 4, 20141 votes

Would his argument have any merit if the character limit were different in different places? Or, OPs vs comments, and things like that?

PickleBabahNov 4, 20145 votes

If you're really passionate about something, you would be willing to read a whole novel about it. Not trying to bash anyone, but as readers and writers, there really shouldn't be a character limit so low. Some people actually want to express their opinions and why their opinion is so. Not a Cassiopeia player, but if someone wants to argue over a (arguably impulsive) change for a champion that some people have mained loyally for 3 seasons straight, there shouldn't really be anything to hold them back (as long as they do it in a respectful way of course)

Whether people erect mass walls of text is truly up to the posters, and how they choose to organize things. Even if the character limitation was increased, there would still be walls of text.

If you really are looking for just tl;dr's and don't really actually care about the writer's way of expressing concerns and their content, then you should put a bit more effort into it. Anyway, someone else's indifference in a specific topic shouldn't inhibit anyone who's really passionate about something.

Hyrum GraffNov 4, 20142 votes

As a frequent poster, who routinely writes novels on this platform, I'm super sympathetic to people who don't like the character limit.

As someone who doesn't want to read something that long unless it's exceptionally well formatted, I'm sympathetic to a character limit, too.

TeemoHunter1337Nov 4, 20142 votes

i wish theyd lower the character limit.

i hate the wall of texts i see sometimes

Caustic CrusaderNov 4, 20142 votes

I have to say, I love it when I try to keep a person's quote in my response to their post, and have to say maybe two sentences because the character limit won't let me respond in a way that makes sense while still letting others understand the context!

ElphrihaimNov 4, 20141 votes

Going to be honest here: character limit is too high. Please don't write novels. Write succinctly and to the point.

Even when being brief it's easy to hit it. I've done it plenty of times-- you just need a long enough subject (e.g. somebody else's post) to be replying to.

And if you say that 'the reply shouldn't be long', I absolutely MUST include the thing I'm quoting:

Discussion view is terrible for my eyes, it pains them, it ruins my train of thought. I have to have things in Chronological view, or else I cannot actually think.

Nobody wants to read 4k+ characters of why you think the stacking passive on Cass is "unfun".

That thread was an example

I could give others, but it was the one that I had on-hand at the moment that I was making this post.

I'll agree that Champion Concepts and perhaps Lore might require longer characters for the initial posting, but for feedback and follow up posts? They really need to be 4k+ characters?

Well, yes, they do. Because the Cassiopeia thread is full of people that actually gave legitimate feedback that still had to divide their post. I chose it for a reason.

i wish theyd lower the character limit.

i hate the wall of texts i see sometimes

I wish they'd enforce a minimum character limit and mastery of the english language-- I hate these short snippets sometimes.

Do you see the stupid oozing out of that statement yet?

Is there anything we gained from these new forums?

Besides notifications, not really.

Eye strain?

Oh, yeah, the colors...

Would his argument have any merit if the character limit were different in different places? Or, OPs vs comments, and things like that?

No. Because both places are far, far too short, no matter what you want to say-- IF it is an ACTUAL DISCUSSION.

Whether people erect mass walls of text is truly up to the posters, and how they choose to organize things. Even if the character limitation was increased, there would still be walls of text.

The current too-small character limit really makes people that CARE hurt. The people that don't care won't care either way-- they can just scroll past what they don't care enough about. If they want a 'tl;dr' it is their own fault-- it shouldn't be on the poster to make themselves brief when they want to explain and discuss things.

If you really are looking for just tl;dr's and don't really actually care about the writer's way of expressing concerns and their content, then you should put a bit more effort into it. Anyway, someone else's indifference in a specific topic shouldn't inhibit anyone who's really passionate about something.

This. The people hurt by an increased character limit are the people that would skip past the post anyway and will get upset that it's multiple posts.

WeguNov 4, 20141 votes

its not that easy

ElphrihaimNov 4, 20141 votes

its not that easy

What isn't easy?

wow. so everyone that disagrees with OP gets negative votes

Because the character limit is stupidly small... And the people that have negative votes on their posts say "it's too big already".

Increasing character limit causes people who write short posts to be upset... why?

Reducing character limit causes people who write long posts to be upset because they either a) literally can't say everything they want to or b) make 5-6 posts to get around the stupidly oppressive character limit.

And now the opening has a little more body.

TeemoHunter1337Nov 4, 20141 votes

wow. so everyone that disagrees with OP gets negative votes

KhakyNov 4, 20141 votes

Discussion =/= rant, try using point form. More often than not a wall of text means useless information thats a waste of time to read and have no value to a healthy discussion.

DaenNov 5, 20141 votes

To be honest, there is some merit to the argument that a post limit can be too long. Do you recall the YouTube changes a while back where people were posting transcripts of entire 400 page novels into single comments? It made the comments section basically impossible to read since you had to scroll past the dumb things to see anything that wasn't spam. I understand this platform has moderators, but there is an upper limit to how long posts should be able to be.

Regardless, I agree. Four thousand characters is a little over 3 pages of double-spaced writing; this is fine for the vast majority of applications, but there are definitely times where I run into that limit just having a conversation. I would say that anything over a hundred typed pages in a single comment is unnecessary for all practical application, regardless of whether it's an OP or a reply. I would say that anything over ten typed pages is unnecessary for all practical application in a reply, except for specific subforums like Lore.

Thus, here are my proposed changes:

Character limit for OP raised to 123,500 from ~24,000
Character limit for replies raised to 12,350 from ~4,000
Character limit can be increased on a board-by-board basis (cough cough Lore)
Quoted material is calculated separately from non-quoted material (12.35k quoted, 12.35k original)

In my opinion, there is no reason someone should need the equivalent of ten pages in Word to get their point across. If someone is that long-winded, maybe they should look into truncating their post or putting their ideas into a new thread. Again, this doesn't apply for specific boards that involve huge walls of text (Lore), assuming we can have this calculated on a per-board basis.

ElphrihaimNov 5, 20141 votes

Discussion =/= rant, try using point form. More often than not a wall of text means useless information thats a waste of time to read and have no value to a healthy discussion.

... |:

Yeah, rants aren't discussions.

But rants are important. They let people vent and then other people that want to vent can mutter to themselves 'oh somebody already covered what I wanted to say +1 for this fine chap'-- instead of making a new post that is ranting.

Rants are also something that can lead into discussion-- 'why do you think that', for example.

Balancing between opinion and fact is quintessential for good discussion as far as I know.

Most of the walls of text I see, since I'm a conceptor, are reviews of somebody's concept.

These tend to be, if the reviewer is both good and willing, very beefy.

So beefy that they probably wouldn't fit as an opening post here.

To be honest, there is some merit to the argument that a post limit can be too long. Do you recall the YouTube changes a while back where people were posting transcripts of entire 400 page novels into single comments? It made the comments section basically impossible to read since you had to scroll past the dumb things to see anything that wasn't spam. I understand this platform has moderators, but there is an upper limit to how long posts should be able to be.

No, I've never seen such a thing. Because such a thing wouldn't get posted on any of the forums that I read (I don't read YT comments, ever).

Regardless, I agree. Four thousand characters is a little over 3 pages of double-spaced writing; this is fine for the vast majority of applications, but there are definitely times where I run into that limit just having a conversation. I would say that anything over a hundred typed pages in a single comment is unnecessary for all practical application, regardless of whether it's an OP or a reply. I would say that anything over ten typed pages is unnecessary for all practical application in a reply, except for specific subforums like Lore.

4000 characters is not three typed pages in double spaced, 'normal' font. 4150 characters is TWO pages. This means that 3 typed double-spaced pages is around 6225 characters.

Source: I opened OpenOffice and typed '1234567890' until I had done 4000 characters, then filled in the page with some more repetitions. Size 12 Times New Roman.

Thus, here are my proposed changes:

Character limit for OP raised to 123,500 from ~24,000

Character limit for replies raised to 12,350 from ~4,000

Character limit can be increased on a board-by-board basis (cough cough Lore)

Quoted material is calculated separately from non-quoted material (12.35k quoted, 12.35k original)

If you do the last one, you might as well say '24.7k posts' because you can turn anything into a quote. Doing so actually restricts formatting a post, since you're forced to, in order to get more space, put content in quotes.

And I still believe that that is too small. I've had to make 6 posts in order to write everything I need (~24k characters) on more than one occasion.

In my opinion, there is no reason someone should need the equivalent of ten pages in Word to get their point across. If someone is that long-winded, maybe they should look into truncating their post or putting their ideas into a new thread. Again, this doesn't apply for specific boards that involve huge walls of text (Lore), assuming we can have this calculated on a per-board basis.

In my opinion, if somebody is responding to a lot of thread, discussing many things, they should not have to make multiple posts to reply to all of them-- they should be able to JUST respond to everybody in a single post. Like I've been doing for this thread-- I'm only not hitting the character limit because I'm not responding to a large quantity of people, but rather a small self-selected group

DaenNov 5, 20141 votes

No, I've never seen such a thing. Because such a thing wouldn't get posted on any of the forums that I read (I don't read YT comments, ever).

This is a bit idealistic. There will always be people trying to abuse the system just barely on the edge of the line, and maxing out the character limit is effectively spam when it's that absurdly long. It might not technically be breaking any rules, but if someone's comment requires scrolling through five hundred effective pages it's probably not worth reading.

4000 characters is not three typed pages in double spaced, 'normal' font. 4150 characters is TWO pages. This means that 3 typed double-spaced pages is around 6225 characters.

You're really calling me out over half a page? I just got 2.5 when I did it myself, filling the entire page with "aaaa". It completely depends on the font and what's typed, so I'm not sure why you're being so pedantic on this.

If you do the last one, you might as well say '24.7k posts' because you can turn anything into a quote. Doing so actually restricts formatting a post, since you're forced to, in order to get more space, put content in quotes.

And I still believe that that is too small. I've had to make 6 posts in order to write everything I need (~24k characters) on more than one occasion.

I can't fathom a time where I would need that much space for a single comment in any reasonable thread. I'll touch on this in your next quote.

if somebody is responding to a lot of thread, discussing many things, they should not have to make multiple posts to reply to all of them-- they should be able to JUST respond to everybody in a single post. Like I've been doing for this thread-- I'm only not hitting the character limit because I'm not responding to a large quantity of people, but rather a small self-selected group.

It might be convenient to reply to everyone at once in chronological, but it ends up looking really messy to anyone using discussion view (which, by the way, is the default). The platform is designed in such a way that targeted response is not only possible, it's also the most efficient way to converse.

Writing a massive twenty page response to everyone that has commented in the thread as a single reply is incredibly inefficient for the following reasons:

The reply is completely unfocused, whereas surrounding content is focused on a specific conversation
The reply will not fall into the organizational tree as it's far too broad
Users don't receive a notification that you have responded to them
A massive wall of text is statistically less likely to be read in its entirety
A giant post effectively hides what is below it unless a user ignores the post completely

Basically, this type of activity completely ignores most of the mechanics that allow discussion view to function. I'm aware that you (and many others) don't like discussion view, but many people use it and this method of posting can be pretty disruptive.

To be honest, now that I see where your head is I would actually be fine with a more strict character limit. 4K is straight up not enough; I run into that just making a reply without quoting anything, and I agree with you there. I really don't see why we need to encourage players to disregard the organizational system of the boards and write huge blocks of seemingly unrelated text that esoterically refer to other comments, however.

ElphrihaimNov 5, 20141 votes

This is a bit idealistic. There will always be people trying to abuse the system just barely on the edge of the line, and maxing out the character limit is effectively spam when it's that absurdly long. It might not technically be breaking any rules, but if someone's comment requires scrolling through five hundred effective pages it's probably not worth reading.

I've still never seen it. ><'

It might be convenient to reply to everyone at once in chronological, but it ends up looking really messy to anyone using discussion view (which, by the way, is the default). The platform is designed in such a way that targeted response is not only possible, it's also the most efficient way to converse.

I don't want to make 10 posts when replying to 10 people. I want to make 1, so that I can keep my train of thought together.

Discussion view is not particularly effective at having a long-standing discussion due to the nesting limit, so I don't see how it's efficient at all.

[I did not respond to the others because they are true to some degrees and I don't participate in a lot of threads so cannot be certain if they are problems / not issues.]

Users don't receive a notification that you have responded to them

Most people that check a thread check all the comments to a thread in my experience.

A massive wall of text is statistically less likely to be read in its entirety

The users that would skip over a wall of text are the same users that would skip over multiple posts.

A giant post effectively hides what is below it unless a user ignores the post completely

It shouldn't, as users can just scroll past it.

Basically, this type of activity completely ignores most of the mechanics that allow discussion view to function. I'm aware that you (and many others) don't like discussion view, but many people use it and this method of posting can be pretty disruptive.

I think that it's non-functional for having a good discussion. If nesting was allowed to go infinitely deep (which it can't), then it'd work.

To be honest, now that I see where your head is I would actually be fine with a more strict character limit. 4K is straight up not enough; I run into that just making a reply without quoting anything, and I agree with you there. I really don't see why we need to encourage players to disregard the organizational system of the boards and write huge blocks of seemingly unrelated text that esoterically refer to other comments, however.

Well, for General Discussion (forced chronological), Skins and Champion Concepts (where things get really really long), Gameplay and Balance (where things can get very long because of how much there can be to cover in a single reply due to the wanted details)... it's not impossible to get to the old 50k limit. I know I did it more than once.

For those places, I definitely think that the current 4k limit is ridiculously tiny and absolutely must be quite a fair bit larger.

I believe I already stated that I literally can't follow a conversation through reddit* and have to use vBulletin** in order to do so. But this becomes absolutely impossible when trying to reply to somebody that's using reddit because there is no 'show message that this message is a reply to' button. Which really, really, really needs to exist >____________>

* Discussion View

** Chronological View