Forum etiquette - double-posting vs separating ideas?

[Iscah]

This is something I've been wondering for a while when making posts in this forum. Because of the "like post" feature I feel like it makes sense to split up my replies to discusions where we are talking about more than one topic. Otherwise if I talk about two separate things in the one post, people might want to 'like' my response to one of those statements but disagree with the other?

But on the other hand, general forum etiquette (across the Internet) is "don't double-post", although that's been established long before the era of Facebook 'likes'.

So which is better? Double-posts or multiple-thoughts posts? Am I just overthinking this?


(PS. throwing in another thing while I start a discussion on forum formatting - personally it bugs me a little when people just replace quoted text with "snip" - I feel like at least a one-or-two word summary of the deleted text would be helpful, especially if that person has made multiple posts in the conversation. What do others think on that?)

[Canadane]

If they're two rather varied thoughts in the same topic, just make a second post.
You already seem to be aware of editing past 1000 characters so you're leagues ahead of some.

I also agree that 'snip' is the worst thing. I don't know or remember what someone's replying to, especially if it's four pages back. Keeping context with quotes is the idea, and just replacing it with some word does nothing for me. I don't want to go back to the quoted post just to see what someone should have included in the first place.

[Krokov]

I like all in one post I guess but meh I'll read multi if needed.

[KisaiTenshi]

This is something I've been wondering for a while when making posts in this forum. Because of the "like post" feature I feel like it makes sense to split up my replies to discusions where we are talking about more than one topic. Otherwise if I talk about two separate things in the one post, people might want to 'like' my response to one of those statements but disagree with the other?

Likes don't mean anything except for the Topic poster.

In a thread, you should consolidate all your replies into one post on the same page to avoid three issues:
1. This is not a chatroom.
2. The maximum posts you can do per 24 hour window is about 10.
3. The maximum character limit is 1000 characters.

As long as a thread has not progressed to another page, keep editing the post to respond to anything previous to your post. This is what I do up to three or so other replies.

I also agree that 'snip' is the worst thing. I don't know or remember what someone's replying to, especially if it's four pages back. Keeping context with quotes is the idea, and just replacing it with some word does nothing for me. I don't want to go back to the quoted post just to see what someone should have included in the first place.

Bingo. Only trim out the parts you're not responding to. Doing "-snip-" or changing the text other than bolding/italics, is insulting the quoted poster in a way that putting your hands over someone's mouth while they are talking is.

[Rinuko]

Double post is a thing here. Just look on when housing was debated or recently, the upcomming mobile app.

I'm for making a big thread instead of making 5 on same subject.

[Iscah]

Double post is a thing here. Just look on when housing was debated or recently, the upcomming mobile app.

I'm for making a big thread instead of making 5 on same subject.

I'm not meaning creating multiple threads on a topic. I agree, it's much better to keep all the responses in one place and let the length of it indicate the amount of interest in the topic, but that's a discussion for another thread (or several).

What I'm talking about is when the discussion within a thread goes off in multiple directions, and you want to respond to multiple things within that thread that are unrelated.

[reiichi]

Multiple response posts are prolly fine, but at that point, I'd probably just multi-quote in one larger post if they're t least semi-related. If they're two completely different topics, it sounds like a good time to branch to a new topic/thread for the other discussion. (Although the moderators here can't really be expected to assist with that given limited staff and high post volume.)

Regarding snipping quotes, I generally do that if I'm responding to a post that's on the same page, and perhaps only 1-2 posts above, when limited by character limits. (These forums are annoying, but not the only offender. And there are times where bypassing it with an edit is a pain, like on mobile.) Usually, I default to chopping up posts into the sections I'd want to respond to otherwise.

[Rongway]

Likes don't mean anything except for the Topic poster.

Lots of Likes are one of the things that get SE's attention.

So which is better? Double-posts or multiple-thoughts posts? Am I just overthinking this?

If two ideas are not directly related, even if they both address the same question or problem, they should be separate posts. This is especially true if the ideas conflict, or one of the ideas is so "out there" that people will avoid liking the post even though they love the first idea.

If the two ideas belong together, or it's reasonably clear that a vast majority of people who like the first idea will also like the other idea, or the ideas don't need validation/devattention, one post be enough.

Regarding snipping quotes, I generally do that if I'm responding to a post that's on the same page, and perhaps only 1-2 posts above

I don't think it's a cardinal sin or anything, but we should remember that the number of posts per page can be customized, so what is on the same page for one person might not be the same page for another.

But the point of a quote is, as Canadane said, to provide context, which is mostly lost when snipping.

[Theodric]

I use the 'snip' approach since it's convenient and I assume that if somebody is truly engaged in a thread then they'll be reading through it before responding themselves. With the frustrating limitations in place on this forum I don't tend to go as in-depth in my replies as I would elsewhere.

[Sigma-Astra]

I use the 'snip' approach since it's convenient and I assume that if somebody is truly engaged in a thread then they'll be reading through it before responding themselves. With the frustrating limitations in place on this forum I don't tend to go as in-depth in my replies as I would elsewhere.

Why do we have these kinds of limitations anyways? Is there a fundamental reason why we can only make starting posts with 1000 characters or less first, before editing them as much as we want? Also, why do we have a posting limitation per day too? I'm afraid that I haven't been on the forums for very long and this is mind boggling when I've been to other game forums and generalized forums that aren't nearly so restrictive with their userbase.