Forum Posts - Issues with Posting

The Problem with Posting

One large issue I see when it comes to making posts on the Forums is that there are no clear rules or definitions as to the maximum size, character count, word count, BBCode Count, Image Count, Image Size, ETC.

I was fortunate enough to find that the max character amount is 60k from a Moderator but even with this it was only due to testing and searching the forums.

[image: i.imgur.com]

Even with this, we couldn't find a clear or concise answer as to whether BBCode (Language for Formatting) counted towards the total character count. The only documents related to this were buried multiple pages deep into an old post. Thanks again to the Moderator we found that BBCode does count towards the total character count.

[image: i.imgur.com]

My Suggestion

Add a section to the rules or forums tab that includes the character limits, image size, image limit, word limit, and any other caveats that come with posting on the forums. As it currently stands there are rules and guidelines to follow about the content but nothing about HOW your content can fit onto a forum post, profile signature, forum signature, reply, comment, ETC.


I think this is a simple enough request :)

I mean... it does beg the question... How often does this problem really come up? People have made essay length posts about various things before (I mean, have you seen AndyMans detailed breakdowns?) and this is the first I'm even hearing of a character limit, let alone someone reaching it.

I've personally hit the posting limit multiple times and had faction members hit the limits plenty of times, but the issue lies in the fact that if you keep adding to and editing a post with the default editor you'll eventually have too many characters. Getting a post to 60k characters is easy when you don't have a good understanding of how BBCode works, alongside the fact that their editor has major compiling and formatting issues the background BBCode adds to the character count. Therefore if you don't understand how to write in BBCode yourself using the Source Button (Bottom Right of Editor) you more than likely will have to delete everything and restart a post every so often. Which can be devastating to someone with a serious amount of likes and comments. It can kill the traction of someone's post.

[image: i.imgur.com]

In this example, you don't see the code on your foreground text but it adds to the total character count, the default editor does not make code as clean as handwritten and usually adds up fast.

[image: i.imgur.com]

Not to mention how much space "links"/"URLs" take up in the grand scale of writing a post and even more so if you attach a link to an image, the character count adds up faster than you could imagine.

[image: i.imgur.com]

The reason this is so impactful to the poster is that unless they check their background source code, there is no indicator as to why you can't edit a post besides throwing a "403" error at the top of your screen and un-doing your changes, leading to frustration as it doesn't explain why you can't edit or upload your document.

Fair enough, I guess it's just sampling bias on my part. A counter specifically might just look a bit strange since it'd be dealing with rather large numbers (usually counters are reserved for things like Twitter where the character limit is in the hundreds). But perhaps a counter that only appears when you're getting close to the limit, say after 50k characters for example (since one would really only need to worry about the limit if they're nearing 50k). Or, much like the chat windows, it could simply not allow you to type beyond 60k characters, though I'm sure that too comes with its own frustrations.

In short, posts on Torn can and are several hundred Phrases or Sentences long, one of my posts about happy jumping actually hit this 60k character limit quickly and instead of condensing it I acted to split it into the comments, but I only knew that this was required after hitting a 403 error and contacting a chat moderator, my point being that it should be easier to know the limits of a forum post rather than having to ask a staff member who just happened to know the answer. All I want to see is a clear indicator as to the limits of each forum post, profile signature, and forum signature on a dedicated page or post that is pinned to the top of a section on this website. It would help the vast majority of traders, guide makers, etc... people, with making our posts.

Not gonna write anything that's 60k characters long, but R+ed because OP sounds smart and uses correct grammar and punctuation.

Word and character limits were made to be broken !

Can I get an Amen, Janet ?!

R+

Someone willing to write a long essay in this old style forum deserves praises, not 403 errors.

Edit: grammar

Just to Add onto my Thought Process

The only reason I stumbled upon this was that I was encountering formatting errors out the wazoo when editing a post using the default editor, leading me to learn the BBCode and do all the formatting myself, which is cleaner and more space efficient, but even then I still was over my 60K character limit. Which has brought me down this lovely rabbit hole.

This is an example of what I wrote myself in VSCode

[image: i.imgur.com]

If you're thinking really hard, yes, I am even typing the BBCode manually for all of my comments to keep it clean :)

[image: i.imgur.com]

Bump

I'm not letting this die

Bump

I'm not letting this die

Bump

I'm not letting this die

Happy jump

Ched please dont let this issue die