Minimum post length

This Site Feedback 🐞 This forum issues and requests
29

We should test it with min post length of 1.

6 Likes
30

I can’t say for the 10 chars for sure because I support and don’t support the 20 chars threshold :stuck_out_tongue: It’s just quite ok for a goodly structured response to something.

What I want to say though is that :pray: emoji, even though it’s original meaning ( think it says it on emojipedia aswell, not sure) is about high five, which corresponds to the response of gratitude, but in several cultures is considered erroneously as praying icon, which is what one has to write to spawn this emoji. So, I think this emoji shouldn’t be included in the expansion list to avoid confusion while using it

1 Like
31

Not sure if there is other emoji to show something similar to gratitude/thank you for most people.

32

This is going in the right direction, but I suggest starting with the furthest alternative to testing. Or with 5 characters, which allows “thanks”, but blocks +1, yes and no.

I find even more reactions in the form of emoticons difficult. As already written, these can be interpreted very differently. In contrast, there are many clearer rules for translations of the written word (and even here misunderstandings are not excluded).

1 Like
33

If someone asks, if something is correct, “Ja” is a high quality answer. If someone asks, how many XYZ are needed, “5” is a high quality answer. Do you think I should add nonsense, just to satisfy a “minimum post length” rule? Some people prefer the KISS principle (KISS principle - Wikipedia). :grinning:

4 Likes
34

I understand the argument of both sides - Discourse offers options for replacing a short reply by an emoji which was not available in the old forum. As soon as everyone got used to it I am sure most of the very short replies will disappear. On the other side these options do not cover all possible cases as pointed out in different posts before which makes it necessary to type some nonsense characters just to cover the minlenght requirement.

What I dislike most with the minimum length ist the arrogance behind the rule. Someone decides to fix a willy-nilly minimum lenght and every user has to follow. OSM is an open project and it would suit the forum well to be open enough to allow its users to decide what they want to write and in how many words.

The “tons of irrelevant notifications/emails to dozens or hundreds of people” suspected by @nukeador have not been a real problem in the old forum as far as I have noticed. There is zero proof this will happen in reality, it is just an assumption. If this should really grow into a serious problems the introduction of a minimum length could be kicked off. Until there is no reason to justify a limit at all. That is why I do not see the need of any minlenght at all at the time being.

PS: If the argument pro minlength is to avoid irrelevant and annoying short posts in public discussions why is there a minlenght for private messages as well 
?!?.. this is nothing but nannying imho.

4 Likes
35

I think this is a maybe seldom used but good example of quality not depending on length.
I do agree that 11 :+1: at the bottom line of a contribution are better than 11 separate replies with +1. But as community members get more acquainted with the quick response button, short replies without discussion contribution (“low quality”) will reduce.
But not all short and constructive contributions can be handled by unambiguous emojis as quick reaction. Communication has to rely on widely understood entities especially on a world wide platform, so restrict them to the most common ones.

If one looks at the contributions in this forum, most of them widely exceed the 20 char limit (this one too :grinning:).
But in the few cases where a shorter text would suffice the limit is just annoying. This overweighs imho the even fewer cases with minor information content (“noise; low quality”).

1 Like
36

If nobody knows about the definite meaning of an emoji we should not think about using it as a comment to another persons post. The description of :pray: in the list of emojis available here in the reply box is “pray”, not “thank you” or “gimme five”. I agree with @Mammi71 that emojis are a nice fancy feature but should not be overstressed as replacement of written replies.

1 Like
37

actually not. I’d set it to 1 and see what will happen (nothing special I guess, we could simply continue to use the forum as we used the old one, without automatic rules about formal criteria bossing us around)

5 Likes
38

Repeating your personnel standpoint does not add to a quality discussion. Does it?

2 Likes
39

I must honestly say I agree with you on your actual view and would not support a demotion.
The character limit is meant to create reasonable communication. And no, statements like “yes”, “no”, “thank you” etc. is not useful for effective communication. The software is called “Discourse” for a reason. I am in favour of clearer and more reasonable communication on this platform.

40

Effective communication is one thing. Spoon feeding of the users another.

The freedom of speech for adult members of an open community is more important than restrictive rules to enforce formalities or to avoid assumed notification noise.

6 Likes
41

one actual example of tonight: poster asks “can you please import te following houses” and then forgets to include the link.

A simple reply: “Please, which.” will not do.

42

Freedom of speech? Are you serious?

1 Like
43

Indeed to the quesition “what is the minimum length of an answer” my answer would have been:
1
It’s a complete (and sincere answer). The system may ask if an answer less than 20 characters is really wanted and if an emoticon would be preferable. But that’s an answer to another question: what is the minimal length for an answer without warning and what should be the warnings if any?

1 Like
44

The freedom to formulate your reply in a way you like as an adult member of an open community 
 if that suites you better 


2 Likes
45

Clearer communication is also short clear answers without a lot of verbiage around it to reach 20 characters minimum length.

1 Like
46

Copy from the German forum:

It would also suffice if Discourse asked: Your post is very short, wouldn’t you rather answer in more detail, alternatively use a reaction or send it anyway? But this is more a question of principle for Discourse.

Let’s test it by radically reducing the minimum number of characters (1 to max. 5).
I don’t expect the readability of the Topics to suffer. I don’t expect there to be a lot of informationless posts and a significant increase in noise in notifications.
But I do expect a significant increase in user satisfaction :slightly_smiling_face:

6 Likes
47

:+1: This would be a much better approach than just block the reply as it is now.

3 Likes
48

I think it is basically very simple.

There is a promise to make the transition to the new forum as easy for the veteran users as possible. In the old forum, +1 is an established and accepted answer, and in combination with a cleaned up quote is considered good style. Therefore in the spirit of this promise, +1 must be possible here, too. As this is just a setting and has no technical issues, just set it to 2.
Trying to forcibly re-educate users to use a different method, with no technical neccessity, would be a blatant and willful violation of the “easy migration promise”.

Furthermore, we have a poll that shows that users want their accustomed +1 back. So with what rationale should you refuse a clear and overwhelming democratic vote?

I suggest: Set the minimum length to 2 right away, allowing for “+1”, “Ja” and “No” as established for the last 10+ years.
If discourse actually has better alternatives to offer, people will migrate to them in their own time, fewer clicks for a :+1: might do the job by themselves. No need to force it and piss off people from the start. If they do not migrate, the alternatives simply are not better.

3 Likes