long responses vs. short responses

[aaron]

i don't frequent a lot of forums but out of the two or three i do, i've noticed that there seems to be a pretty big dichotomy amongst the residents in regard to how they choose to word their posts. some people can type forfuckingEVER about certain topics and some people prefer to offer short and to-the-point responses or questions. which do you guys prefer reading/posting?

[diehllane]

It depends. Some topics need explanation... Others just need a re-direction to another thread or something similar and a long response there would seem kind of pointless and excessive.

[vlame]

It depends. Some topics need explanation... Others just need a re-direction to another thread or something similar and a long response there would seem kind of pointless and excessive.

qtf!

[Niode]

I do both!

Where do I fit in?

[philipofmacedon]

Everyone should follow Strunk and White's prescription to "omit needless words." If someone has a greater number of ideas to explain then his post will necessarily be longer than someone with fewer ones, but all posters should strive for an economy of words. This is a hallmark of good writing. It's inappropriate to waste a reader's time.

I think that the same could be said about games. Anytime a game is artificially lengthened beyond what its mechanics and story can sustain, it becomes diluted, tiresome, and boring.

I don't mean to be too harsh, but it seems like the internet is filled with awful, bloated writing. Then again, it's true, as the Grammar Wizard teaches us, that everyone makes mistakes.

http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF099-Grammar_Wizard.gif

[Mozgus]

Short, for the love of god, short. Unless you're typing up pages on a very technical tutorial that would benefit quite a few people, just keep it short.

[Cerulean]

or a detailed review. short preferred or it becomes tl:dr

[Daniel Primed]

This is where we use the maxims of netspeak:

Maxim of Quality

Try to make your contribution one that is specifically:
Do not say what you believe to be false
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

Maxim of Relevance

Make your contributions relevant

Maxim of Quantity

Make your contributions as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange
Do not make your contributions more informative than required

Maxim of Manner

Be perspicuous and specifically: avoid obscurity, ambiguity, be brief, be orderly

[lordofduct]

yey, maxims of netspeak... like some on can decide the rules of how we should communicate on the internet. As if we are all here for the same reason.

I voted long posts for two reasons.

1) I post long posts... I am avoiding being a hypocrite.

2) I hang out at forums for 1 reason: to learn. I assist anyone who has a question to whatever length I possibly can. Hoping that in the process I may learn something new, and they might learn something new. And because a forum is stored for so long, some one months down the road will learn something new.

I attempt to keep my posts relevant, with a couple tangents possibly on similar topics that might be a neat fun fact. For the most part though I try to get in depth as to how and why things work. A simple, "it does because the smarties in the world say it does" is not a good enough answer in my book. Getting deep down into the guts of a topic opens you up to the logical reasonings behind WHY things are the way they are. And if you the student can see just why it works this way... you might remember it better.

It's like in Algebra class... what was the most common question?

"Why is it like that and when will I ever use it?"



example:
I help out on programming forums with math questions. A question about circles and tangents come up all the time. Then after I answer they then always shoot to ellipses, spheres, and other geometric shapes. So I just blast out the specifics of geometry in math and low and behold... everyone says "thanks, that answered my other question!".

[Gamerforlife]

I have a natural tendency towards typing a lot when I'm thinking about something. I've had to make a real effort to try and change that, which I think I have when it comes to forum posts. Though I find I still need to work on shorter E-Mails.

Personally I like posts of moderate length, I often find short posts to bear little of interest. It's often people saying something obvious, something you've heard a million times already, or expressing an opinion without really explaining it or backing it up in anyway. There's just no food for thought there. I like to know what people are thinking, which one sentence doesn't usually tell you. If you say you hate so and so. My first thought is why? So I don't personally mind when people make longer posts because it says to me that they are really putting some actual thought into something.

However, you can have a post that goes on and on forever at which point someone may have gotten completely off topic and is just rambling.

One thing I find important when making a fairly longer post. Don't make it a wall of text. Make paragraphs, or just put in a space when you're moving on to a different thought or example.

So yeah, I'm voting for longer posts. If all forum posts were kept short, most topics would get boring pretty quick in my opinion. No one would really be saying anything.