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.

[Dualgunner]

Snip.

Regarding snipping, quotes have a blue arrows button that links directly back to the post in question. If you want to talk "disrespect" then respect the quoted poster enough to click that blue button to go back and read their post in the full context it was originally posted in.

[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.

[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.

[HyoMinPark]

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

SE pays attention to the number of likes in a post; if a post has several hundred likes, they’re more likely to pay attention to it.

2. The maximum posts you can do per 24 hour window is about 10.

Maximum allowed posts is 20/day.

[KisaiTenshi]

SE pays attention to the number of likes in a post; if a post has several hundred likes, they’re more likely to pay attention to it.

That has NEVER been the case in the English forums at all, in any shape.

The only time they even consider "likes" is in feedback threads for the Live letter, and even then, most of that is ignored in favor of softball questions.

If likes were money, people use them. Instead likes are just a way for people to go "I have nothing to add, but don't want to reply with a 10char."

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.

The character limit is a Japanese thing. Ever see a Japanese novel? It's 1/10th the size of an English one of the same story. This also also why Twitter increased the post size for the non-east-asian languages.

As for the post limits, it's more of a moderation measure. If people can't post more than 10 posts or so within a 24 hour window, then people will think twice about engaging with pointless flamewars with trolls, and instead concentrate their posts to stay on topic. It also keeps spammers from posting to the forum as you can't post to the forum for about 24 hours after you've logged into the game.

Most "western" forums don't have these limits, because western people have an inflated ego, and see "dem's fightin' words" everywhere if everyone isn't praising them.

Another issue is "necroposting" which is when people dig up a thread, only to not add anything new to it. If a thread is older than 30 days, that is a necropost. If someone used the search (eg the forum search, or google) and post to something without checking the date of the last post, then that's a necropost. People sometimes do this intentionally if something has changed, and there is a limit to how many threads you can make as well.

This forum is not really that bad about it except for some posters who create essentially identical threads just to stoke the fires of an argument they were losing in another thread to bury the previous one, and all the other conversations with it.


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[HyoMinPark]

The only time they even consider "likes" is in feedback threads for the Live letter, and even then, most of that is ignored in favor of softball questions.

Nah, most are probably ignored because people ask questions that aren’t related to the topic of the thread. Like asking the creator of Ivalice job balancing questions. Or asking the person in charge of the STF questions about future glamour options. I can’t even fault devs for ignoring questions from the NA side because people don’t read the threads and just ask whatever.

The character limit is a Japanese thing. Ever see a Japanese novel? It's 1/10th the size of an English one of the same story. This also also why Twitter increased the post size for the non-east-asian languages.

Both the character limit and the post limits are anti-spam measures. Because apparently the 1.0 forums had issues with that. Hence 1,000 characters only/20 posts per day.

[Sigma-Astra]

Most "western" forums don't have these limits, because western people have an inflated ego, and see "dem's fightin' words" everywhere if everyone isn't praising them.

.....I think that's a bit rude to make a generalized assumption that everyone who lives on the western side of the hemisphere have inflated egos, especially after you just talked about flamewars and trolls. I mean, it doesn't matter what side of the world you live on, everyone has an ego, just some people make their own more apparent than others.