Minimum character limit

So I know many bulletin boards use a feature that enforces a minimum character limit (it's not that big, usually like 10 characters or so) as a measure of preventing useless posts. Is there any particular reason why OTS doesn't utilize this?

word association thread. plus nothing states a point better than a well thought out smiley sometimes!

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Well many tech-related and General/Off-topic issues cant be properly identified with just one or two words.

Originally posted by armystud0911
word association thread. plus nothing states a point better than a well thought out smiley sometimes!

I believe actually, he was asking for reasons why OTS does not utilize such a limitation--reasons why we should, well, they go without saying.

are there really that many posts that fall under 10 characters?

Yeah.

Now that I've had my fun (couldn't resist)... a minimum character limit would at the very least encourage some people to think before they post, because they actually have to come up with something more than just one or two words. From my experience in other forums, it's stopped me from posting certain things that, in retrospect, would not have made a difference. And for parts where it was supposed to make a difference, I was pushed to elaborate a little more (e.g. above post, I would have probably elaborated by citing examples, or talking about where/when it occurred most often).

yea i would like this enabled here too (bye bye word association thread)

Great suggestion, actually ... I'll see how I can push it on my next update ... of course, knowing some of the people here, they'll just post wiseass things like:

yeah + smilie smilie smilie

or

smilie smilie smilie x 10

That's the main reason I didn't bother imposing the restriction in the first place, but we'll see what I can cook up...

Well isn't there a smiley limit of 8 per post anyway? I know that doesn't make things much better, but it's certainly useful to keep in mind.

Of course, if they're *really* trying, they could just use IMG tags to direct to the smileys instead.

Do people here actually post less than 10 words? (faints)X 10 Wordy as I am most of the time/ beyond the current generation's attention span as has been pointed out to me, I am not sure that a minimum is a good idea. Sometimes one word is sufficient to get the point across. Those of us who work with words live for those days when one word says it all.

As I mentioned earlier, even in posts where "one word says it all", further (and careful) elaboration can only help improve the utility of a post.

Using one word to get your point across may sometimes seem like a cool way to communicate... in a chatroom at least. But in a bulletin board, I think that if you're going to post at all, you should at the very least have to use one coherent sentence.

I mean, wouldn't you be annoyed if you were following a particular thread(s) and when you saw that there was a new post on it and clicked on it only to find a bunch of posts like "lol" or "haha," or even in the case that the one-worder might be appropriate, "Yeah"?

the occasional gerbil spam is tolerable.