Having had a good look at the recent threads in this part of the forum, and having heard opinions of others, I like to ask you all to consider the length of your posts.
How often do you like to read long posts by others and how often are you bored silly?
How often do people say things in too many words that would be better said in a few words?
I, for myself, am tempted to ask Mel to lower the amount of words for each post again. And there are people who feel the need to use two times the allowed length…
So be kind to all others, and when you write a long post, edit it till it is half the length. (You will notice your writing skils improve, and so will the response.)
Willeke
Hi!
What is a long post? If I say “I am replying to your message in the last post you made” rather than “re: your ultimate post” does that make it any better to read - or just shorter? If shortness is the goal (and it may be) why do we not put George Bernard Shaw’s idea of shortening spellings or go to IM systems such as saying “C U nxt wk” instead? Because to do so we introduce the possibility of misunderstanding - and there seems to be plenty of that - and we also introduce the idea of not using a very rich language!
You know, you always have the option of not reading what is written. Sometimes it is also possible to hear more than is being said and, by inferring something, take offence when a simple explanation would have clarified. Some can make long boring posts, but that is part of the rich panoply of life - without which we would all be the same, terribly efficient and somewhat boring also, perhaps like the long posts or perhaps like the short posts. If this is not the medium for exchanging messages in a free format, what is?
Some have difficulty with the English language and that is something that has to be overcome. If it were all written in French or Dutch or German, I would still attempt to read it but I may not be able to make “native sense” of the post. That does not make the post any less valid, just because it is long.
It would certainly be good to improve our communication skills, but that does not mean that we should cut our comments in half, particularly if that means … well, I guess that my post has to cut short there.
Lindsey,
I only asked people to consider the length of their posts.
Nothing to do with content or language.
As a moderator I feel I do not have the option not to read, to prevent abuse of the forum, but it does touch my point.
What good is it if a lot of regular visitors look at a post, see that it does cover more than their screen and do not even start reading.
Most of the posts on the mission of the guild are of the length that drives people away, but also many theoretical pieces about the mechanics of knots, as well as getting an online knotlist working.
I have written for my website, and each time I rewrite a bit I find that by cutting out the unneccesary parts I get a better text as result.
I do not ask people to tell half what they want to tell, I ask them to reconsider their words and use less words to tell more.
Willeke
Willeke -your one more puzzle spiel is a prime example.
Willeke,
In your delightful post “One More Puzzle?” you doubtless used your skills to reduce the length of your post before you published it, yet in order to put over the exact detail you required the final post ran to an excess of 50 lines. Quite a long post by many standards, yet every word essential and a delightful and informative post which triggered considerable interest.
I would suggest to you that any post over ca a dozen lines is boreing if the content is of little interest to the reader, and that it is the interest of the content rather than the length which is an issue. We are all different, and whereas I found your puzzle captivating, doubtless others did not and would have considered the post ‘Too Long’, if like you they felt they had to read it.
Some of us might not be ultra efficient in the use of the language, but I hope that unless the board is running out of space, that you allow folks to continue to express themselves as best they can and do not move to your proposal to restrict post length. It would have been a shame to have missed your puzzle because it was too long to meet agressive board rules, and it would be a shame to miss someone elses thoughts because they were not quite proficient enough to cram them into a limited size post.
Derek
Hi Willeke,
I apologise that I guess I missed the point of your post - which perhaps I should not have - but, as an alternative to restricting the length (this just makes people post twice) maybe you could ask postings to respond to only one point at a time? Perhaps also, if the post is going to be long, use the Private message system? I feel that when someone responds, they are using the system as it was intended - to get discussions going, to chat about anything you want to. The word chat means light informal conversation and the forum is labeled Chit Chat.
As for the length of posts on the Guild Mission - the postings have been expressions of frustration or of desire to have something not now present, and this is one place of expressing something quickly and effectively about both views. Evidently people are feeling some level of interest in this, even if part of some of the posts is not exactly on point. Their point is very well taken by me - I read frustration, anxiety, interest, desire for change, desire for action - all very healthy indicators that conversation is working and that many people want to take part in providing a solution. Perhaps some suffer from verbal diarrhoea, but their post is very valid and I have read every word of every post.
Please reconsider asking to have length be an arbitrary limit to this very useful forum for expressing ideas - here in the USA we consider that limiting the expression of ideas to be tantamount to limiting freedom of expression, which leads to limiting ideas, which leads to a state of oppression. Certainly we are not at that point in this forum, nor do I think we would want to be if we are to have a useful forum. We have to be careful when we say “chat about anything you want” - we may just get what we asked for!
Thanks for letting me post this without having to edit it for length!
Lindsey
snip.. Most of the posts on the mission of the guild are of the length that drives people away, snip..
How do you know this?
It certainly is not driving me away, nor the other posters who have driven this to become one of the hottest threads on the forum.
Last Sunday, (yesterday) I was on the chat with some people and asked.
All people there at the time did agree with me. Not many at the time.
But if you look at the names of the people posting, and look at the names of people posting in other posts you will notice that the thread on the mission of the guild are not the same.
I do not object to long posts on principle but I have seen too many posts where after reading I thought: “That can be said in 5 lines, why does he uses a whole page?”
It is those posts I sould like shorter.
And the people who agreed with me did not post in this thread yet, but I have recieved an e-mail with suport.
Willeke
Hi,
Perhaps the long posts result from the “need” to respond live and on-line instead of taking time off-line to compose better text. I think my posts would be much better if I worked off-line but by the time I have read the thread through I am too eager to respond. I wonder how many others post from instinct instead of thoughful consideration.
Some topics are so complex I would rather see plenty of room to flow rather than a space constraint. I can often skip and scan when I know where the post is headed but I also enjoy working through at the pace the author intended.
Well…
I suppose that one solution to the problem of long posts (mea culpa, mea culpa :-[) is the same thing that would solve a lot of other problems, like omitted and/or misspelled words, unsuitable language, unclear questions or answers, etc:
1. Before you click the “Post” button, click “Preview” and read your post.
2. Think it over, make what changes you think are needed.
3. Click “Refresh preview” and repeat point 2.
4. Do not klick “Post” before re-reading your post at least twice.
I try to follow this myself, and this has sometimes reduced my posts by at least half the original size, and (hopefully) increased their quality. It has also stopped me from making posts that I during re-reading realized was totally unnecessary.
It might be slightly off-topic, but I would like to share this one with you all:
http://albinoblacksheep.com/flash/posting.php
Lasse C
How Do All 
Nice one lasse, what a cool link and so true, it’s not hard to apply the same info to this forum, maybe every member should have to watch this, or something like it before being able to post.
As for post length! I have to admit that I can’t always be bothered reading the long posts on here or any forum for that matter,unless the thread is of interest to me, and what makes it worse is sometimes whole threads consists of long post, after long post.
Take care,
Barry ;D
if what you have to say is interesting, length is irrelevant.
sometimes with longer posts it is useful to break up the text into smaller paragraphs. less intimidating (looks easier to swallow) that way. also people who are scanning tend to check out the first sentence of a paragraph to decide if they’re going to keep going.
i admit that i was scanning this thread, so if someone has already said what i just said, i apologize! 8)
Whilst I have no wish to intrude on a topic that I feel is best left to forum members to debate, perhaps the following might be of some use:
http://www.blackwidows.co.uk/clients/imp-guide/forums/index.html
and
http://www.blackwidows.co.uk/clients/imp-guide/usenet/tips.html
FYI, on my most recent spanned long post, I encountered a problem I’ve had
previously: going BACK to chop the post left me with inactive buttons to post
the edited version–had to cut’n’paste fully saved (in other window) text with
a completely new start, I think. (Sorry, wasn’t tracking exact actions to replicate
the problem, but they weren’t other than reasonable ones!)
I favor a longer length for any limit, and also prudence in posting to those who might
go long in writing. Yes, keep in mind topic sentences, paragraphs, and
other ways to make expression easily comprehensible (i.p., using such handy
abbreviations as “SPart” (-; ;D --oops, voting in wrong jurisdiction! ) .
–dl*
Lasse 2 funny. How’s that? LOL
I think that this thread has served its intention.
Most of us feel the need to post long posts every once in a while.
At the same time many of us do wish the others do cut their reaction short every once in a while.
I do hope you all red the advice of Lasse, read and re-read before posting.
For those of you who do the writing and editing offline, to use the full length of the limit, I have a request.
Set a warning at a lower amound of characters than the limit. That way you will not automatically make the lengthy posts but it still alows you to use the full length when you feel the need.
I would like the long posts to be an exception rather than the standard as they seem to be for some people.
But if you have much to say, by all means, say it.
Willeke
Some things can be said more briefly; some cannot, except to the point of some
omission or simplisticness–neither good.
Whereas I don’t believe that a forced limit will much help verbosity except by
maybe reducing the amount of poor expression (that is, it is not so likely to make
the allowed expression better), it is awkward to read necessarily longer posts that
are disjoint over separate posts. Would we like the next listing of Ashley (or other? !!)
Errata to come in installments over several posts?
One place where there is, in the broader e-mail world, great abuse, but I don’t think
so much here (thankfully), is in needless copying or attribution of text to which some
reply is made. Of course, such text must already be in the thread, and any repetition
is just that, but it is helpful to re-present it at times for clarity of the reply;
but this should be done with good focus & use of editing tools.
Posters can be reminded that length is risky business, losing readers sometimes.
“Words to the wise” are sufficient?
knudeNoggin