How much text to people read?

[dans79]

I have no problem reading a post that's a few thousand words long, as long as it's written well.

By written well, I mean organized thoughts, and paragraphs.

[mendis]

Sorry to ask an offtopic question. How many people here read more than 3 or 4 lines if a post is written like a blog post? Personally, i would skip the whole stuff if it visually looks like more than 5 lines.

I guess you've never read a book then. Or did it just take you a very long time?

4 lines. Walk away.

Come back. 4 more lines. Walk away

Etc.

You are right. I don't read books! Academics was the most painful experience of my life.
Thanks to online video learning portals of modern times!

[johnny comelately]

There is an associated interesting matter actually.
It brings up literacy, articulation, eloquence but all that has nothing to do with the message the author has.
So the drawback in this forum is it functions somewhat in a populist and elitist manner with an adversarial undertone, is that what gives everybody a fair hearing, fair being the operative word.

That leads me to the case of godlameroso, who had much to offer but was badly managed.
Quite unfair in my opinion.

To avoid misunderstanding my post is not meant as a criticism as such but a prompt for remedy

[Sieper]

Apparently people do not read much text at all as the subject line still reads "to" instead of "do".

[RZS10]

For example, right now I have 3 topics up, say one of which I do not want updates on = Is the RB18 dominant, but I want all others unless I add (remove) another. (picked that one at random)

Only other thing might be going via subscription to threads, but it would list all of them, not just unread - having unread only for subscribed to threads would be ideal.
_______

With regards to long-ish posts:

Five lines is barely more than two sentences and seemingly way less than the average post length here.

The moment one adds some quote or source it's instantly more and most of the times it's impossible to continue a discussion which already contains longer posts without writing something slightly longer oneself.

I personally don't mind long posts as long as they're written in a way that allows me to skim through them and by that i mean separate throughts in separate paragraphs (so essentially what dans mentioned), longer lists formatted as such etc. even if it makes the post appear longer than it actually is, visually stretching it out - most users here do compile their posts that way, fortunately.

I run my own posts through the preview multiple times, changing the formatting to the point i'm happy with it and where i wouldn't be put off if it was written by anyone else.

The opposite of well composed posts are 'wall of text' style ones where everything is just a massive block, add missing punctuation and i'm not reading it, unless it is a reply to me directly.

Case in point:
With regards to long-ish posts, five lines is barely more than two sentences and seemingly way less than the average post length here. The moment one adds some quote or source it's instantly more and most of the times it's impossible to continue a discussion which already contains longer posts without writing something slightly longer oneself. I personally don't mind long posts as long as they're written in a way that allows me to skim through them and by that i mean separate throughts in separate paragraphs, longer lists formatted as such etc. even if it makes the post appear longer than it actually is, visually stretching it out - most users here do compile their posts that way, fortunately. I run my own posts through the preview multiple times, changing the formatting to the point i'm happy with it and where i wouldn't be put off if it was written by anyone else. The opposite of well composed posts are 'wall of text' style ones where everything is just a massive block, add missing punctuation and i'm not reading it, unless it is a reply to me directly.

[johnny comelately]

Just saw these rules on another forum, thought it was worth a larf :

" Don't be a dickhead to each other, or about others, or other subreddits

Assume questions are asked in good faith, and engage in a positive manner

Avoid political threads and related discussions

No medical advice or mental health (specific to a person) content"

[Just_a_fan]

With regards to long-ish posts:
[...]

One of big issues regarding post length is people that insist on quoting entire posts which are then quoted again. The result is several posts, often consecutive, that are mostly just big quotes with one or two lines added by them. It makes reading threads on a phone very tedious. It's simple laziness as it can be avoided easily enough.

One can even delete the entire quote and just leave the user name tag part. Then other people can easily click on arrow next to the quoted name to be taken to the original post if necessary.

But even selecting text and deleting the rest, as I did here, can be very helpful to keeping thread flow.

[Big Tea]

With regards to long-ish posts:
[...]

One of big issues regarding post length is people that insist on quoting entire posts which are then quoted again. The result is several posts, often consecutive, that are mostly just big quotes with one or two lines added by them. It makes reading threads on a phone very tedious. It's simple laziness as it can be avoided easily enough.

One can even delete the entire quote and just leave the user name tag part. Then other people can easily click on arrow next to the quoted name to be taken to the original post if necessary.

But even selecting text and deleting the rest, as I did here, can be very helpful to keeping thread flow.

I agree very much with this, especially if it is a pic or vid. Also (and I am as bad as any) 50 lines of text and vids by several posters to reply to one sentence of it.

[Just_a_fan]

A good example of the excessive use of quoting is seen in this thread: viewtopic.php?p=1094976#p1094976

A very long, and extremely informative, post is repeatedly quoted three or four times in one page of the forum.

On some forums I use, mods would dive in and edit most of that out and leave "excessive quoting removed - don't do it again!" messages instead. Others have in-built rules that prevent excessive quoting, although I have no idea how such things are implemented.

[LM10]

The question if a text longer than a few lines should be read is disrespectful to those who write them. Furthermore it’s awkward to ask this in a forum which exists for, well, exactly that.

If you want to ignore posts with more than 5 lines, try out Twitter.

[mendis]

The question if a text longer than a few lines should be read is disrespectful to those who write them. Furthermore it’s awkward to ask this in a forum which exists for, well, exactly that.

If you want to ignore posts with more than 5 lines, try out Twitter.

Lacking context is a dangerous thing! I asked this question in Red Bull thread where a few posts were just getting longer and longer. A mod decided that it can become it's own thread. If you didn't like this thread, you could have ignored this!

viewtopic.php?p=1094772#p1094772

[Big Tea]

The question if a text longer than a few lines should be read is disrespectful to those who write them. Furthermore it’s awkward to ask this in a forum which exists for, well, exactly that.

If you want to ignore posts with more than 5 lines, try out Twitter.

I think most posters here know who's long posts are going to be worth reading, and who's is hammering the same points to death for the umpteenth post in several threads.

Skipping a post because you can not be bothered is not the same thing as skipping it because you have heared it several times already.

[RZS10]

One [big issue] regarding post length is people that insist on quoting entire posts which are then quoted again.
[...]

Yep.

[Jolle]

How much what?

[johnny comelately]

Just saw these rules on another forum, thought it was worth a larf :

" Don't be a dickhead to each other, or about others, or other subreddits

Assume questions are asked in good faith, and engage in a positive manner

Avoid political threads and related discussions

No medical advice or mental health (specific to a person) content"

But on a more serious note and following this theme about other sites guidelines regarding netiquette:

"We want our readers to be able to engage in constructive debates, share stories and discuss our content.

In order to have high-quality debates that are characterized by mutual respect, it is essential that you follow certain rules.

Please refer to the specific article or video in each comment.
Please write your contributions in German / English (please specify the language of the offer, exceptions are possible).
We do not tolerate any form of discrimination, racism, sexism, homophobia, abuse of minorities, religious insults, profanity or other forms of hate speech.
In particular, we oppose insults and degradation of our authors.
Any comment containing conspiracy theories and/or deliberately misleading information is not allowed.
The abuse of the comment sections as advertising space for commercial or private offering of goods and services is not allowed.
The publication of private data such as addresses or telephone numbers in comments is not allowed. In your own interest, you should avoid posting material that violates your privacy and data rights or those of others.
Please ensure that quotes are cited accordingly in your comments, if possible. When quoting copyrighted material or uploading copyrighted audio, video, or images, remember that you need the rights to use the content. We reserve the right to hide external links.
Avoid using all capital letters as this could be perceived as verbal aggression.
In the event of violations of these guidelines, comments will be edited, hidden or completely deleted by our community managers without prior agreement. In the event of persistent or serious violations, we reserve the right to block users from our channels temporarily or permanently.
We reserve the right to change and update this netiquette."

It would be better if the tone here was less trying to adversarially prove someone wrong sometimes by quite derogatory means and gravitate towards helpful learning from each other because the collective knowledge in here is amazing.
In that way the moderators would be essentially out of a job, how utopian !