Forum Suggestion: To avoid shitposting

[Mroz4k]

Okay, like I´ve mentioned a hundred of times already, this is incredible problem.

Therefore, this Suggestion should apply for these Sub-Forums:

• Town of Salem (Announcements, Patch Notes, Frequently Asked Questions*, Ask Question)
• Feedback (Bug Reports, Steam Bug Reports, Feedback, Suggestions, Report Player*, Role Ideas)
• Public Test Realm (PTR Bug Reports*, PTR Feedback)
• Discussions* (Town of Salem Discussion, Strategic Discussion, Off Topic Discussion*
  
  *These boards could be excluded from this rule.

The suggestion is really simple - in order to be able to post anything, the comment needs to have at least 300 characters.
This would significantly improve quality of upper Forums.
Since this may seem as "too much" to everyone, here is my Medium-to-high quality comment on another Suggestion which is 334 characters long:

This was suggested in the past and was popular suggestion, my opinion still stands that this would be a good idea, as it would liven up the gameplay a lot in my opinion.

Current game sounds are really, scarce. Playing without music is pretty much as good as playing without sounds at all.

hopefully they add this along with Emotes.

So, as you can see, this is not difficult to achieve, it basically relates to 2,5 lines of text.
250 character limit would be the lowest I would personally go.

Anything less gives high potential for low quality commenting, especially shitposting.

Purposed avoiding of this rule by adding invisible characters to your message would be punishable by removing of the comment and Moderator issued warning, as it is with all the Forums rules. Continuous shitposting despite the rule would be punishable by ban, as it always was.

There is added Poll to see what people think about this - now, do note that I will only count in the votes for "no" if the person explains their reasoning behind this.

Again, want to point out I will not count votes on Poll which say "No" unless they were successfully defended on the comment.

[EdmundMcGaben]

I agree to an extent, but not that much.

A short post can also achieve the quality of a 300+ letter post. Its all about its quality, not the letter number.

[deferentsheep]

It´s most certainly not incredible problem. Already posts are good and bad, despite length.

So, as you can see, I´m filling my already complete post just to get past the character limit, just like shitposters will do, if this is implemented.

Again, want to point out that adding a character limit will not solve the problem of immature user.

[Ansem555]

I agree with this suggestion as it's a thought I had before. Although another problem to be looked at is using a Quoted post (or set of posts) to get the proper character numbers, although those types of posts would be easy to rat out as still 5 word or less responses.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I only voted halfway because 250 to 300 characters still seems a bit much. Lowest I'd say is 200, no lower.

[Mroz4k]

I agree with this suggestion as it's a thought I had before. Although another problem to be looked at is using a Quoted post (or set of posts) to get the proper character numbers, although those types of posts would be easy to rat out as still 5 word or less responses.

Edit: Forgot to mention, I only voted halfway because 250 to 300 characters still seems a bit much. Lowest I'd say is 200, no lower.

You have a great point with the comments, and I am not entirely sure if the "quoted parts" could be excluded from the character count for some authomated check.
So, great point there, but at the very least it would be a good step in better direction, as it would remove the "non quoted" shitposts.

I dissagree with 200 characters limit, because on Forums this relate to one and a half line. This is in my opinion still most likely a low quality comment. You cant fit too much into 200 characters unless you were commenting in points, rather then whole sentences.

I agree to an extent, but not that much.

A short post can also achieve the quality of a 300+ letter post. Its all about its quality, not the letter number.

Yes, it is about quality, but like I mentioned its virtually impossible to fit in even mediocre quality into a post below 250 characters.

Thing is, we could argue on what is or is not a quality post... but that is sort of a personal opinion of its own.

So, lets set up quality post ladder:

• Shitpost is "no" or "lel" on a super long quote.
  Example: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=28419&p=820492#p820492
• Low quality post is usually quickly written, one or two sentence long post, which contains the author´s opinion but lacks any sort of explanation on why.
  Example: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=27417&p=827528#p827528
• Mediocre quality post is still short, but also contains at least a brief explanation of the point that was stated by an author.
  Example: viewtopic.php?f=39&t=28291&p=817394#p817394
• High quality post contains explanation, links to URLs, properly cropped pictures or well done quotes, its esthetically pleasing to read and contains many more.
  Example: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=27291#p788394
• Top quality post contains all the things that high quality post does, but is also unshakeable, for example its based fully on historic events in a fashion thats timelapped. Basically you cant attack the opinion in it or prove it wrong, because its done bulletproof. I myself have only ever done one Top quality post, and I dare to say I have seen maybe 10 of them on Forums so far.
  Example: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=17569&p=472273

Saying WHY something you said works that way, aka explaining your point, is what separates low quality posts from better, higher quality. Not how long the post is, or if it contains something relevant, which is what I suspect you consider to be your reasoning behind quality.

@Deferent
You are right, it wont solve a problem, because like you said, shitposters will fill their comments with bullshit to get past the character limit.

But a Moderator will solve it, for avoiding the Forum rules, because this would now be an actual Forum rule.

Just because they dont actually do it right now doesnt mean this wont change soon enough. Just you wait and see.
If there is one thing about me, its that I wont quit until I´ve achieved my goals and am pleased with the state of these forums. This was proven number of times before, this time it wont be any different.

I´d like to see shitposters loose all of their post count, as that is the forum "reward" for posting, but why should there be reward for nothing?
Because shitposts are nothing.

I think Moderators should have ability to affect someone´s post count, with it being an appealable punishment for TP. Naturally I believe Moderators keep some sort of ledger with punishments, I dont think such a change would be abusable. But it would be great incensive to keep shitposters in line.

[youngbloodgaming]

I will admit that replying 'no' or 'lel' to a long post is a shitty thing to do, but forcing people to write well thought out replies to things that they might not be able to form a cohesive thought on is pushing it a little. For example, if someone states their opinion, but just has a gut feeling about it and can't find the words to explain why something may or may not be a good idea, their replies are going to be a little 'mediocre' or 'low quality' according to you, but someone who shares the same thoughts might come along and better explain it. All it takes is a nudge for someone else to maybe see what someone else is talking about.

a 250 or 300 character limit is pushing it a bit high. Sure, no one could explain themselves thoroughly in 140 characters or less (unless they're on twitter), but forcing someone to meet a certain standard to please some people is pushing to to 'a bar too high'. Not everyone is going to follow this and not everyone is going to agree with it. It's really hard for me to actually form a cohesive statement about this whole thing (especially since I haven't slept, so this is basically me shitposting oops) and I lately can't even pay attention to the letters I'm typing (since when was 'can't spelled with a 'k', I will never know why I tried to do that, or why I skipped that 'e' in tried....). People will lose train of thought quickly. Sometimes it's better to keep things short and concise and to a point, you know?

[Gobln]

i think the poll speaks for itself.

[Nellyfox]

Skimmed the thread because class as a disclaimer.

Character limit is easily abusable plus you're stripping away freedom of speech essentially. May add more later.

[youngbloodgaming]

I forgot about the 'freedom of speech' aspect about it, but I think that's what I was trying to touch on, just in more sleep-deprived wording.

[braboobssiere]

i disagreed. quality of post have no standard and various on peoples (as long as its not a clearly spam such as a single word of "no" and "lel" or just some emoticon (without any word/description) also, we already have 'report the post' and moderator to deal with that

[Nellyfox]

One more note on this. What if you're answering a yes/no question in Ask Questions ? Also, for announcements and patch notes, short responses are fine in my opinion. You're punishing people with this even if they really have nothing else to say.

[agigabyte]

Now I would make a longer post here, but it would just echo others and there's no point in that. Just going to say that I disagree.

[NFaker]

Artificially elongating posts just to be able to post will just reduce the quality, not improve it.
Maybe you could petition for a sub forum for more refined posters, but the character minimum will certainly not be acceptable to most others. Which your poll and the comments nicely reflects.

[Mroz4k]

I realize the system on its own is pretty flawed, especially with what Ansem mentioned about the quoted posts.

I thought about this more, since I can admit this was a spur of an idea kind of Suggestion, as I´ve thought about alternatives but could not find a better one.

Here is a better one.

The same thing applies, with one difference - any post below the said character limit will not be rewarded with post count. This gives people chance to respond in a short manner, but at the same time gives people incensive to try and put down something of much higher quality.

Artificially elongating posts just to be able to post will just reduce the quality, not improve it.

Did you even read the whole thing? I mentioned that artificially prolonging your posts would be reportable.

I don't know why you're so obsessed with post quality, but this pseudo intellectual shit has to stop

Oh, somebody is butthurt! Well, lovely! Go cry some more, maybe?
Or wait, no. Go learn some manners then try it again later.

i think the poll speaks for itself.

Yea.
Shows this is a problem far worse then I thought.

Anyways, I am not going to give it up. The Forums will look like they used to even if its going to cost me all my energy.

[onomatopoeia]

Disagree for reasons already said. Quality > Quantity. Plenty of quality things can be said in few words. Your overall posting pattern seems to indicate that you want to be in control of everything. You want to say how the community should be and who should be allowed in it because you control your own Minecraft server or some shit like that. You want to be in control of banning people such as the Derp Crew when it's clearly not what the Devs want. This isn't your game. This isn't your forum. People aren't here to please you. They're here to exchange information and have fun. I don't know about other users but does anyone aside from mroz actually care about post count? It literally means nothing. Adds nothing to your life or credibility.

TLDR; Things are fine and the mods know what they're doing. Shit posts are easy to scroll by. Post counts mean nothing.

[Nellyfox]

Oh, so artificially making your posts longer gets you reported ? If they don't abuse it via spaces or invisible characters, then it'll be pretty hard to tell. And again, my example still stands.

Thread in Ask Questions asks: "If a witch controls an arsonist to himself does he douse himself or ignite his targets?"

If you can seriously come up with an answer with a minimum of 300 characters then I'd be amazed. The longest reply I can see is "He'd ignite, as visiting yourself as arsonist makes you ignite your doused targets."

And then again you're really putting restrictions on freedom of speech a bit. Also yeah, post count really means nothing. I don't get why people obsess over it.

[Alzar]

Voting no on this. I'm sure a lot of people would rather not inflate their posts with links to make it "high quality". Discussion can happen with short, concise statements, or it can happen with your new documentary about ToS history. I'd prefer if they set in place stricter restrictions on what's considered spam, with better examples and definitions on what defines a cannable thread.

Also let mods can obvious baits, since those have been popping up a lot recently. :I

[NFaker]

"If a witch controls an arsonist to himself does he douse himself or ignite his targets?"

If an Arsonist is forced to target himself he will ignite any previously doused targets. (88)
Arsonists can't douse themselves, ever. The only way an Arsonist can be doused is if there are multiple Arsonists.(202)
This doesn't only apply to Witches making Arsonists target themselves, Transporters would have the same effect.(314)
-

"If a witch controls an arsonist to himself does he douse himself or ignite his targets?"

They will ignite. Arsonists can't douse themselves.(51)
-

Is the former post better?

[Nellyfox]

I'd say the latter only because there's a bunch of unnecessary information, while useful, not really needed.
Then you also have questions that can be like "Can cleaned roles be revived?". The simple answer is just no, you can't say much else from that.
And what about the threads about steam coins ? I just link the FAQ thread, there's no reason to say anything else if it's linked, and if there's a thread for it there's no reason to not link it in that situation.

[NFaker]

Off topic:

"Can cleaned roles be revived?". The simple answer is just no.

Wait what!? Since when?

[Nellyfox]

Last I checked they can't be but it's been a long while since I've been a retributionist with a janitor. Maybe I'm wrong.

[EdmundMcGaben]

Off topic:

"Can cleaned roles be revived?". The simple answer is just no.

Wait what!? Since when?

You dont know the role of the cleaned person, he can be a not immune neutral, or a neutral killed by a night immunity piercing role, or heck, janitor mightve cleaned his mafia or himself. Thats why cleaned roles cant be revived.

[m0rogfar]

The suggestion is really simple - in order to be able to post anything, the comment needs to have at least 300 characters.
This would significantly improve quality of upper Forums.
Since this may seem as "too much" to everyone, here is my Medium-to-high quality comment on another Suggestion which is 334 characters long:

I don't think you would get a huge quality increase, instead you're just going to kill the forum because no one will want to come. Furthermore character limits aren't good for new members of the community who want to ask a simple question on the forum because they actually want to get good at the game. There are plenty of other issues with this like unnessecary wording and things that won't look good in general. Some people may get stressed by it (personal experience with autism spectrum disorder tells me it could be one).

So, as you can see, this is not difficult to achieve, it basically relates to 2,5 lines of text.
250 character limit would be the lowest I would personally go.

Anything less gives high potential for low quality commenting, especially shitposting.

It also removes your ability to agree with someone even though you don't have much to add. This then disincentivises making a truely good post because no one is allowed to respond positively to it since they can't add anything. Also in many cases you can make a decent post in less than 250 characters if you really want to. That's the same group that would make good posts with a limit to characters so nothing is gained.

There is added Poll to see what people think about this - now, do note that I will only count in the votes for "no" if the person explains their reasoning behind this.

Again, want to point out I will not count votes on Poll which say "No" unless they were successfully defended on the comment.

This part is just dumb. You can't just say that you will ignore everyone who disagrees with you but not everyone who agrees unless they make a long post. That isn't how life works. Furthermore the entire existance of polls is to remove +1/-1/yes/no posts and make them easier to organise so the entire poll is pointless for anything not in your favor. You can't go around giving your opinions an advantage in a subjective discussion.

You have a great point with the comments, and I am not entirely sure if the "quoted parts" could be excluded from the character count for some authomated check.
So, great point there, but at the very least it would be a good step in better direction, as it would remove the "non quoted" shitposts.

I dissagree with 200 characters limit, because on Forums this relate to one and a half line. This is in my opinion still most likely a low quality comment. You cant fit too much into 200 characters unless you were commenting in points, rather then whole sentences.

Depends on the one and a half line. A line that get's straight to the point can do a whole lot especially if you're just adding something to something someone else said. No need to make posts unnessecarily long.

Yes, it is about quality, but like I mentioned its virtually impossible to fit in even mediocre quality into a post below 250 characters.

Thing is, we could argue on what is or is not a quality post... but that is sort of a personal opinion of its own.

Something that subjective also shouldn't be in the rules because rules you agree to in a terms of service generally shouldn't be subjective. Kinda removes the point of having rules when you have "we will remove your post when it does not fulfill our expectations for a post Mroz will like" in the rule set.

Saying WHY something you said works that way, aka explaining your point, is what separates low quality posts from better, higher quality. Not how long the post is, or if it contains something relevant, which is what I suspect you consider to be your reasoning behind quality.

This is pretty true i think. You can't put a number on quality. Something can be better even if it's smaller if it's higher quality.

Just because they dont actually do it right now doesnt mean this wont change soon enough. Just you wait and see.
If there is one thing about me, its that I wont quit until I´ve achieved my goals and am pleased with the state of these forums. This was proven number of times before, this time it wont be any different.

That attitude... just ugh. This isn't your personal board nor should it be. Communities are made by people and you can't shut out a large amount of them because you don't like them especially when you aren't "above" them in any way. You're even with them. Also you come off as a huge jerk here, not sure if intentional.

I´d like to see shitposters loose all of their post count, as that is the forum "reward" for posting, but why should there be reward for nothing?

I don't think removing the benefits of a high post count would have any noticeable effect. Although making people becoming trusted users being tied to actually doing things for the discussion instead of post count is a good idea since it allows people making quality posts become trusted quickly.

I think Moderators should have ability to affect someone´s post count, with it being an appealable punishment for TP. Naturally I believe Moderators keep some sort of ledger with punishments, I dont think such a change would be abusable. But it would be great incensive to keep shitposters in line.

People post short posts because of modern internet culture not just to raise an artificial number on an obscure forum board.

[NFaker]

Off topic: Spoiler:

Off topic:

"Can cleaned roles be revived?". The simple answer is just no.

Wait what!? Since when?

You dont know the role of the cleaned person, he can be a not immune neutral, or a neutral killed by a night immunity piercing role, or heck, janitor mightve cleaned his mafia or himself. Thats why cleaned roles cant be revived.

I don't need a ToS theoretical reason. Retributionist have been able to revive cleaned roles just as Amnesiacs have been able to remember them, at least sometime in the past. Anyway, lets not derail the thread. Don't blame me.

[Mroz4k]

Like I´ve mentioned, the suggestion has some significant flaws.

What I would like to point out is that it seems I am the only one taking this problem seriously and am trying to do something about it, rather then giving my compassion and then moving on.

Its undeniably a problem.

Therefore I am more inclined to what I proposed afterwards - that all the posts below the 300 characters would not be counted towards post count.

This would be good enough compromise for everyone - obviously shit posting is still spam so that would be handled by the Mods, but anything that is just plain low quality comment or an answer on the Ask Question and doesnt give option of longer answer would not be "rewarded".

This would serve as good enough incensive for people to create better comments, but would still give everyone the freedom of speech and expression via the shorter one.

But a common low quality poster wouldnt rise up with their post count while other User who creates quality posts would.

Lets not reward people for being óutright lazy.

Not to even mention that I suggested that certain Subforums could be exceptions from this rule, Ask Question being one of them because like you mentioned, some questions asked would not be 300 characters, nor would be some of the answers.

@m0rogfar
I havent bothered to read more then the beggining of that, moreless I just scounted through it since I dont have the time.

But you do realize I was here, on these forums, far far longer then you have been?
What I am suggesting is nothing new - I mean, we never had character limit, but the Forums used to be much higher quality.

That was back when GMods wouldnt tolerate such amount of trolls and just in general Shitposting in the upper section of the Forums.
So no, no Utopia, just melancholy. Craving for the good old Forums the way they used to be before the Trolls and users from the Flow turned it into this.
Back when commenting on the upper part of Forums meant you were met with intelligent people who respected each other, each other´s opinions and went around in (moreless) peace.

Also, seriously, stop the Off-topic, go make a thread and talk about it elsewhere.