Can we have number markers on the posts? You know, sequential. And then each para should have roman numeral markers.
That way when we argue we can really hhooooome in on the precise point that aggravates us to the point of sleepless nights and suffering the vicissitudes of insecurity about our own righteousness. And rightness. And don’t think that’s a political thing - you’re wrong there - it’s a … side thing, like … sides.
Bullet points won’t cut it - too imprecise. For instance, my own lack of knowledge about anything whatsoever I type about needs to be masked by the imposition of a structure upon which my self-righteousness can lean and thereby lend me an aura of credibility.
What I actually had in mind was some sort of community pointing and laughing plan. The miscreant would see a huddle of avatars in the corner of the screen and his own in the center. He would hear mumbling and laughing and see some of the laughing avatars pointing in the direction of his avatar, and more laughter. No resolution possible. Next day, back to “normal.”
There are post number markers, but they are hidden by default. If you click on the date in the upper right, or the share button at the bottom of each post:
You can get the post number of a particular post if you really need it. (It’s also in the URL as you scroll down, e.g. this post is /12075/12 where 12075 is the topic number and this is post #12 in topic 12075.)
We haven’t seen a problem with excessive words in posts, which is why I just increased the Discourse-wide default from 16k chars max to 32k chars max.
We have seen a problem with people posting too few characters as replies. It’s worth noting that the Discourse default is 20 characters minimum, but here it is set to 6. Still a bit low for my tastes, but at least it isn’t at the previously-insane setting of two.
Count me in this category. Since notifications are sent to the particular person(s) to which you respond I think it’s more convenient and logical (since every post can contain various sub-topic discussions) to not mix it all together. I want to tell that guy that I disagree/agree with this particular statement. If I write to him after already addressing 2 other people in the same post he may well click the notification, decide it has nothing to do with him based on the initial commentary and move on. That doesn’t make for good idea exchange.
Individual notifications are sent to every single person you quote or @name mention in a post.
If a person has such a short attention span that they can’t find their own name in your post that they were personally notified about, it probably doesn’t matter what you say to them.
You’re probably right, but I think it bears consideration from a behavioural-analysis point of view. Sadly I feel that most internet users skim-read everything and if it doesn’t engage or relate to them within the first 10 seconds they’ll switch off and click away. When they see their ideas being challenged publicly it’s hard for them to disengage.
My first thought is that it should probably not apply to the meta category. I got the warning in the Firefox problem thread, but that was because I was trying to explain what was going on and follow your suggestions. It is not like I wanted to be in that discussion …
Still, there was a lot of back-and-forth in that Firefox troubleshooting topic. I would ask a question, you would reply, I would respond to it, etcetera. If someone posts 3, 4, 5, … 12 replies in a row all on their own… that’s much worse.
And don’t forget, I would probably get the percent of posts education panel as well. That’s why it’s just there as a reminder, not a hard block. Hard blocks are a much different thing.
The hard (impossible?) part is going to be content identification. How do you tell the difference between 3 people having a raging flame war and 3 people having a great discussion both /w a rapid post rate besides 24/7 human monitoring.
