Minimum post length

Martin_Borsje · 2022-10-20T07:47:59.282Z

That’s the whole point of this topic; or should I write: “Thank you, I agree##”?

dieterdreist · 2022-10-20T08:38:14.908Z

As there haven‘t been indications so far that this feature has positive effects, my suggestion would be to turn it off immediately. Or maybe make it a setting for every category and have local communities decide for themselves, if this is possible?

Mammi71 · 2022-10-20T09:14:22.892Z

According to a survey in the German forum, 80 % of the participants are in favour of a reduction of the minimum number of characters and still a good half are in favour of a de facto abolition.

[UMFRAGE] Minimum length in postings Deutschland (Germany)

Weil sich jetzt offensichtlich schon mehrere an der Minimum Zeichenzahl gestört haben: scheinbar lässt sich auch diese Option einstellen. Ich hatte da an anderer Stelle bereits geschrieben: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/minimum-post-length/2443/7?u=mammi71 Frage: was halte Ihr denn für sinnvoll? (PS: streicht das “unbedingt” aus der ersten Frage gedanklich, ist etwas zu reißerisch, die Umfrage selbst kann ich nicht mehr ändern) poll

I see the minimum character length the same way as @dieterdreist:

a proof that this improves communication has not been provided so far
in the old forum without minimum character length I could not observe any disadvantages
it prevents short polite thank-yous, which is rather detrimental to good communication.
emojis are only a conditionally suitable substitute for it
it encourages the typing of meaningless characters to meet the minimum character length requirement
the latter leads to reports to the moderators (flag the post) of such postings for circumventing the forum rules.

dieterdreist:

my suggestion would be to turn it off immediately. Or maybe make it a setting for every category and have local communities decide for themselves, if this is possible?

PS: Übersetzung mit Deepl

nukeador · 2022-10-20T10:31:08.502Z

One feature, Six mappers and still More ways to map it:

the latter leads to reports to the moderators (flag the post) of such postings for circumventing the forum rules.

There is nothing in the forum rules about this, it’s a default setting to avoid noisy replies just to say “Yes”, “No”, “Thanks” “lol”… and everyone subscribed to the category or topic getting notified about this, which is quite annoying in my personal opinion.

If we imagine a topic with 10-15 replies that includes just that, what’s the value for the rest of the people reading?

If the goal of a “thank you” message is just to show gratitude, why not use the reactions button to show it to the poster and everyone else, but avoid a ton of irrelevant notifications/emails to dozens or hundreds of people?

At the end, what we need to think here is if we want (and encourage) this to be a discussion forum or a chat-style type of conversation where we might get notifications about non meaningful replies.

seichter · 2022-10-20T11:07:41.573Z

nukeador:

If the goal of a “thank you” message is just to show gratitude, why not use the reactions button to show it to the poster and everyone else, but avoid a ton of irrelevant notifications/emails to dozens or hundreds of people?

The whole discussion startet when people tried to give a “+1” as usual in the old forum.
A response by from the reaction button would suffice - if it would work. I always got a when I tried it which imho is something different (see “thumbs up”-discussion).

To my opinion the quality of an answer can’t be estimated by its length and can’t be augmented by a minimum length.

In former times one of the mayor requests to a good user interface was “don’t mode me”. But that may have changed by the conditions of a gamified brave new world .

nukeador · 2022-10-20T11:09:19.585Z

BTW, I think I managed to fix the bug.

seichter · 2022-10-20T11:10:53.959Z

Thanks. I just tried it - it works.

dieterdreist · 2022-10-20T11:29:45.908Z

now minlength
.,~_,~,~,

nukeador · 2022-10-20T11:53:58.779Z

seichter:

To my opinion the quality of an answer can’t be estimated by its length and can’t be augmented by a minimum length.

I personally disagree, one or two words are not a quality answer, they are just a quick reaction that don’t add much to the conversation, that’s why reactions are a good way to show quick reactions and replies are a good way to expand the discussion.

Just imagine this same reply as a “No, I disagree”

Mammi71 · 2022-10-20T12:18:27.112Z

No, I don’t agree with you!

Mammi71 · 2022-10-20T12:26:09.971Z

And, what has been gained with the minimum number of characters now? Right! Nothing!
How many characters do you need at least to force a high-quality answer?

If it has no positive effect on a more qualified discussion, then you can do without it.

And there is no emoticon for “thank you”, “thumbs up” is not the same.

Maybe I’m already part of the old generation who still learned that you say please and thank you. And “Thank you!” is a complete sentence in many languages. It corresponds to my idea of politeness - just as people speak to each other face to face. are nice, I use them too, but they are ultimately a gimmick.

rmikke · 2022-10-20T13:46:18.730Z

I think the only type of post where short answers make more sense than reactions is a yes/no question or similar.

Here we have polls, so maybe te minimum required length for answer is not a bad idea.

waldyrious · 2022-10-20T13:51:36.012Z

One feature, Six mappers and still More ways to map it:

And there is no emoticon for “thank you”, “thumbs up” is not the same.

I think this is a pretty important point.

For context, I agree that extremely short posts are not helpful in a discussion forum (as opposed to a chat), and allowing them would bring benefit to the author to the detriment of many people who may get notified or have to sift through lots of individual posts that don’t add much to the discussion.

That said, I also have found myself wanting a way to express additional feelings (such as gratitude). Sometimes a or a may work, but IMO it would be quite helpful to expand the available reactions to include e.g.:

for thanks
for excitement
for encouragement
for congratulating
for adding oneself to a list (“me too”)
for expressing interest/curiosity
for pondering
for celebration

…etc. All of these are pretty common in chat apps and the meaning is generally well understood. Of course in the case of the OSM community we’d have to decide which ones to include (although it could be argued that, for a project like OSM that follows the spirit of “folksonomy”, with free-form tags that coalesce into shared conventions, we might want to even allow any emoji and let common practices emerge naturally).

The main point is that by expanding the list, the “additional reactions” that many have wished to convey with a short phrase rather than the currently available emoji, would likely be possible, and not lead to a sense that the forum is restricting one’s ability to express oneself.

Mammi71 · 2022-10-20T14:23:10.037Z

waldyrious:

for thanks

Keep in mind that such emoticons can be interpreted very differently internationally. For you it is “thank you”, for me it is “pray”. Hindus may see it as “namsté”, a greeting, a bow.

So we would first have to agree internationally what a certain emoticon is supposed to mean. It may well be that younger generations are more familiar with it.

The “noise” in the notifications is the only argument. But I am convinced that this will not make a noticeable difference. If people really want to write a comment, they will do so. If the minimum character length bothers them, they will simply write more without saying more. The noise will then only get stronger.
Those who feel it is more appropriate to use reactions will do so. I myself, by the way, also do this if I think it is better in certain cases.

And another technical argument: it is not possible to use reactions for only part of the post. It happens quite often that you agree with one part and disagree with another part in the same post. Or do the supporters have a solution?

translation by deepl

alan_gr · 2022-10-20T14:26:40.820Z

nukeador:

what we need to think here is if we want (and encourage) this to be a discussion forum

My understanding is that we want this to be both a discussion forum and a help/support site, with the latter replacing help.openstreetmap.org (at least I think that is still the plan).

I feel short comments sometimes make sense in the help/support context. Some requests for help require considerable time and effort to provide a response (e.g. navigating to a specific place on the map, checking tags, maybe opening an editor to see how something is presented or looking at the syntax of an overpass query). If somebody made that effort to help me, I would naturally say “thank you”, or maybe “thank you, that worked”. Like @Mammi71 said, maybe it is a generational thing - I would see it both as politeness and a way of confirming the issue is closed.

rmikke:

I think the only type of post where short answers make more sense than reactions is a yes/no question or similar

Again, I think this happens more often in help/support than general discussion. Maybe not for the original question, but for follow-up and confirmation. E.g. if I explain something about access tagging and the questioner says “so just to confirm, you are saying that bicycle=yes overrides access=no?”, I feel “Yes” is an appropriate answer.

waldyrious · 2022-10-20T14:27:24.277Z

One feature, Six mappers and still More ways to map it:

it is not possible to use reactions for only part of the contribution. It happens quite often that you agree with one part and disagree with another part in the same post. Or do the supporters have a solution?

That’s a great point too and I feel the same need at times. The only workaround I’m aware of is quoting parts of the response and reacting individually to it. I would normally avoid doing so if I don’t have anything other than a reaction to add. But I agree it’s a limitation — I should be possible to react differently to different parts of a post, and do so with emoji if those would be sufficient for what I want to say. But that is a separate issue that isn’t related to the minimum post length (I think the quote counts towards the size of the answer).

Mammi71 · 2022-10-20T14:36:41.239Z

waldyrious:

I think the quote counts towards the size of the answer

unfortunately not

as the test proves!

… and again have to write something pointless about it, although two words would have been perfectly sufficient!

quod erat demonstrandum

nukeador · 2022-10-20T14:50:03.001Z

I suggest to made a middle ground compromise and test it for 1 month and then re-evaluate:

Change min post length to 10, so people who really need to say “Thank you” can do it.
Increase the reaction icons to include at least a few ones that can help express gratitude , congratulation or celebration

After a month we can see how this resulted in the day to day discussion dynamics and see if other changes might be needed.

I’d hold any changes thinking on the #help-and-support category for now, because soon the voting plugin should be stable enough to test and can be evaluated with that different design/dynamic.

How does this sound to you all?

rmikke · 2022-10-20T15:00:18.007Z

nukeador:

How does this sound to you all?

Sounds good (and now some extra characters to exceed the limit, which could be avoided if the question was made a poll)

whb · 2022-10-20T15:25:35.497Z

We should test it with min post length of 1.