25charlimit

[IIMarckus]

Posts are to meet the minimum of both 25 characters AND 4 words.
All of your post must contain at least 25 characters and at least four words. There are no exceptions. Along with that, messages that contain characters in order to override this limit are not allowed and will be dealt with harshly.

So somehow saying "I am posting a link: ASMSchool" is all right even though just saying "ASMSchool" is not? Despite the fact that they have the same semantic value? Ridiculous.

 

[Buoysel]

Do you have a question, or is this just spam?

 

[IIMarckus]

That rule is there to prevent posts like "lol, yeah" or "q4e, that's awesome" or "^ this" or other small, meaningless, retarded posts that add absolutely nothing to the overall value of the thread.

If a post contributes nothing to a topic, then the moderator should warn based on that, not on the fact that it has x number of characters.

 

[Buoysel]

Buoysel: He's arguing against how useful the 25 character limit rule is.

AH...

Yeah it is annoying at times, but I agree, we need it to help keep the spam down.

It's like quality control.

 

[Morkula]

Uh, that's why we have mods. They have brains. They can tell when a post is spam and when it isn't. Just because a post is over 25 characters doesn't mean that it's okay to post it. I think you know that and you're just trying to argue a ridiculous, moot point.

 

[Legobricks]

That rule is there to prevent posts like "lol, yeah" or "q4e, that's awesome" or "^ this" or other small, meaningless, retarded posts that add absolutely nothing to the overall value of the thread.

You make threads sound like donation boxes.

The limit serves its purpose well though, for starters it's annoying going through one/two word posts.
On boards without much moderation, whole threads are often comprised of very short, meaningless posts — everyone only saying yea or nay, never why; this is also annoying and really rather pointless.

 

[IIMarckus]

It's a preventative method. In most cases anything under that number of characters doesn't add much to the thread, so we stop the posts from being made before they are.

I can understand filtering in some cases. In this case, I made a post that got through and triggered no automated "your message is too short" controls. After it got through, I was cautioned not to do it again, even though the post made a valid contribution to the topic and was not padded with spaces (or whatever those kids do to get around those filters). Does this fall under what you described?

 

[IIMarckus]

You're missing the point. The filter is there to catch worthless posts. If a worthwhile post makes it past the filter, then no harm done. Therefore, no warning or caution should be necessary.

 

[Morkula]

Chances are a worthwhile post will be more than 25 characters. Come on, it's not THAT hard to write 25 letters, spaces, and punctuation marks. That's pretty much a complete thought - a short one at that. If your post is less than 25, it's probably not "worthwhile".

 

[Azonic]

You're missing the point. The filter is there to catch worthless posts. If a worthwhile post makes it past the filter, then no harm done. Therefore, no warning or caution should be necessary.

There's always going to be exceptions. The point of the filter is to catch unnecessary posts. Yes, it might prevent some good posts that actually contribute, but that's not the point. The forum just wants something to catch worthless posts.And besides, 25 characters isn't much. It takes an extra three seconds to put something into a sentence. Explain what you said into further details, voila.

The majority of posts with < 4 words / 25 characters are spam.

 

[Sylphiel]

The only time a "worthwhile" post that's under limit will make it through there without adding garbage is if there's a link of some sort posted.

However, personally, if a post is just a link, then I have to wonder just how worthwhile it really is. It's a simple copy/paste job that, even with putting it in bbcode, really doesn't take much more time than putting in silly stuff to bypass things. Would it really be that hard to explain things in there as well? Then you'd definitely have a decent post, which is the whole point of having the filter in the first place, and you wouldn't be worrying about if it will catch you or not.

 

[Legobricks]

There's always going to be exceptions. The point of the filter is to catch unnecessary posts. Yes, it might prevent some good posts that actually contribute, but that's not the point. The forum just wants something to catch worthless posts.And besides, 25 characters isn't much. It takes an extra three seconds to put something into a sentence. Explain what you said into further details, voila.

The majority of posts with < 4 words / 25 characters are spam.

Then surely the post can be made and whether it's deleted or not left at the discretion of the relevent section's moderator instead of the filter, no?

 

[Morkula]

Then the forum just gets cluttered up with deleted threads and people will take advantage of not having a character minimum.

The filter is there for a reason. It's not going anywhere. So just stop beating a dead horse.

 

[Azonic]

Then surely the post can be made and whether it's deleted or not left at the discretion of the relevent section's moderator instead of the filter, no?

So let's have the moderators go through every single one-worded spam post in a forum, delete and/or edit them to the forum's liking, get a forum flooded with closed threads, and have every admin / mod's Report CP flooded, shall we?

Go have a look at forums without a character limit, especially Smogon. There's a ton of "lol" and "hi" posts.

Edit: Mork. :< [/late]

 

[Legobricks]

So let's have the moderators go through every single one-worded spam post in a forum, delete and/or edit them to the forum's liking, get a forum flooded with closed threads, and have every admin / mod's Report CP flooded, shall we?

Edit: Mork. :< [/late]

WITH THE FILTER STILL CHUGGING ALONG ALL THE MERRY WHILE, obviously.
If someone goes and bypasses the limit, yet their post is still contributing well enough to the topic, all is fine and dandy. Just these posts should be left to the moderators.

So just stop beating a dead horse.

I'll beat you then.

 

[IIMarckus]

The forum just wants something to catch worthless posts.

And if a worthwhile post makes it through the filter, no harm is done.

Are you not comprehending what I'm saying? I'm not on some crusade to delete the filter or whatever.

But

through happenstance

my post

(a worthwhile one, thank you very much Cowrie)

made it through.

The thread was not spammed up as a result.

I did not intentionally break the filter (and if links are such a common problem for the filter, fix the filter).

A contribution in reply to another poster was made. (Cowrie, the post in question needed no explanation, because the relevant part of a previous post was quoted. Brevity is underrated.)

And a moderator got on my case about it anyway.


Again:
I'm not on some crusade to delete the filter
I'm not on some crusade to delete the filter
I'm not on some crusade to delete the filter

What I am doing is agreeing with what Ausaudriel says here:

It's a preventative method.

The purpose of the filter is to prevent worthless posts from entering the database. If a worthless post gets blocked by the filter, good. If a worthwhile post gets blocked by the filter, that's fine because they can lengthen it with little trouble. And if, by chance, a worthwhile post makes it through the filter through no fault or intention of the poster, then no harm is done to the thread, no warning or caution is necessary and everyone can go their merry way.


Do you see what I'm saying now?

 

[Vernikova]

What I am doing is agreeing with what Ausaudriel says here:The purpose of the filter is to prevent worthless posts from entering the database. If a worthless post gets blocked by the filter, good. If a worthwhile post gets blocked by the filter, that's fine because they can lengthen it with little trouble. And if, by chance, a worthwhile post makes it through the filter through no fault or intention of the poster, then no harm is done to the thread, no warning or caution is necessary and everyone can go their merry way.


Do you see what I'm saying now?

I'll just put my two cents here.

Does it really matter? If all you need is a post with 25 characters, which include letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and spaces. You can easily get 25. Take this as an example:

Are you getting the Platinum when it come out in America?

or just

Are you getting Platinum?

If you answer is

Yes.

That answers the current conversation and sticks to the topic but it doesn't actually contribute to it. Unlike an answer like:

Yes. I'm going to choose Piplup for my starter.

or

Yes. I really can't wait for it to come out.

This would give Random Poster on a thread regarding Platinum to continue the conversation. The answer that only specified "yes" would, like I said contribute, but wouldn't keep the conversation in a short span of it and would allow more people to enter. The Random Poster would the have to ask something such as "What starter are you going to get?" to continue when you could've just answered it in your first reply.

Of course, most people would be able to explain it better than me, but that's what I think the rule was trying to get at.

 

[Legobricks]

Does it really matter? If all you need is a post with 25 characters, which include letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and spaces. You can easily get 25. Take this as an example:

[...]

That answers the current conversation and sticks to the topic but it doesn't actually contribute to it.

As redundant and obscure as it seems, IIMarckus is making a point (and a perfectly valid one at that IMO).

An interesting definition of contribute you must have then.

 

[Vernikova]

As redundant and obscure as it seems, IIMarckus is making a point (and a perfectly valid one at that IMO, because there's always that one post in the many that you simply can't think of bugger all else to say).

An interesting definition of contribute you must have then.

Well, I am pretty interesting. :D

Anyway, there should be no reason for complaint when you can just write a full sentence.

"Just write a full sentence," would've worked, so it's not hard.

 

[IIMarckus]

Do you see what I'm saying now?

stuff

Apparently you don't understand.