Loomio
Mon 8 Apr 2024 2:19PM

Proposal to revisit extending the character limit for posts

EB Evan Boehs Public Seen by 249

In 2022, a proposal to extend the post limit limit was opened, and while it yielded fruitful discussion, it never entered a formal voting stage. I frequently find myself running against this post limit, and many other instances that we federate with have a limit that is much higher.

To kick start discussion, here are my notes on the previous thread:

Pros:

  • Many servers already have this

  • Very little storage burden

  • Makes it easier to post longer things

Cons:

  • Additional maintenance burden as we would need to switch to a fork (which could have it's own pros/cons), or apply a minimal patch to the mastodon codebase to extend the limit (Basically just replacing a few `500`s with whatever `x` we decide)

  • If people don't like longer posts, the local timeline could be marginally worse (the federated timeline already experiences this).

I will open the floor for discussion and then begin a voting phase. For clarity, the two questions at hand are

  1. Should social.coop extend the character limit?

  2. If so, what should it become?

MN

Matt Noyes Mon 8 Apr 2024 5:33PM

@AG I agree and I find it helpful to have to pare down my posts to 500 characters.

M

maren - @[email protected] Mon 8 Apr 2024 2:58PM

Seconding @Eliot Lash 's comment! I would want to defer to the tech working group about this. If they can confirm that merely patching our otherwise default mastodon instance is both the right solution and easy to maintain, then I think we can have a clearer conversation about whether extending the post limit is something we actually want. Since currently this conversation is about two things simultaneously.

Assuming that TWG confirms its easy though, I would very much support extending the post limit. Most mastodon clients already but long posts behind a fold, so I don't see how this has any drawbacks. My personal bias is that I think character limits below approximately 1000 artificially constrain discussion enough that it meaningfully and negatively impacts expression, incentivizing hot takes and flattening nuance.

EB

Evan Boehs Mon 8 Apr 2024 3:10PM

@maren - stillgreenmosssocial.coop for what it's worth, I just skimmed the codebase and it appears that all references to 500 tie back to this file, including in the frontend. If it is really as simple as changing 500 to something like 1500 in this one specific spot, this feels like the right way to go, it could be potentially as simple as:

sed -e "s/MAX_CHARS = [0-9]*/MAX_CHARS = 1500/" ./app/validators/status_length_validator.rb

(note: untested)

JF

Jonobie Ford Mon 8 Apr 2024 4:32PM

Like others, I'd want the TWG to weigh in. Socially, though, I have drifted in my thoughts - I originally found 500 a nice forcing function, but now feel like something in the 1000 range would be nice. Like others, I don't want it "too long" (and acknowledge that's completely subjective when it flips over). But I'd like something along the lines of 1000 characters.

EB

Evan Boehs Mon 8 Apr 2024 4:56PM

@Jonobie Ford Agreed. Usually I find myself about 100-200 characters over, so anywhere between 750-1000 would be ideal

KT

Kathe TB Mon 8 Apr 2024 5:09PM

Got to admit that I would be against extending the character limit because I personally find creativity in that limit in my posts. It's hard to be brief. Practice makes it easier.

I would also agree with only taking on this change if we have someone willing to maintain that fork.

J

Jay Mon 8 Apr 2024 6:25PM

I wouldn’t want more characters, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to burden the tech group with the extra work that it would entail.

HB

Hollie Butler Tue 9 Apr 2024 5:26AM

I'd vote for a longer post limit. If you already skip longer posts, that's great - no one is asking you to write longer posts, you're free to keep skipping them. Increasing the limit won't affect your habits, but it will be very beneficial to folks who need more space. I enjoy longer posts, both reading them and writing them, and wish that it were easier.

It's rare (like a handful of times in the last 18mos) I see anything longer than 800-900 characters - and Mastodon has auto-collapsed those, so it isn't like I'm looking at an essay all at once, I have to open the post to read it all and it's easy to skip if I'm not interested. But if that's the fear, and it's that easy to change the limit, why not shift it to 1k characters (rather than 10k or whatever)?

C

CedarTea Tue 9 Apr 2024 3:17PM

Personally, I'd like a bit more room in my posts. I often end up having to thread pretty heavily when I get into discussions with people. It's one thing to do in my own isolated posts I'm throwing out into the fedi, but the 500 cap makes it pretty tedious to have conversations. Relaxing this out a bit, even to 750-1000, would be a big improvement to my experience. Though I consider all of that moot if the TWG says it'll be a big deal to implement and maintain.

BV

Brian Vaughan Tue 9 Apr 2024 7:25PM

My experience as Twitter increased its character limits, and then as I moved to Mastodon with its higher default limit, is thaf my posts have tended to become longer as the limits increased. It has an effect on the style of my writing and on the flow of conversation.

My feeling is that 500 characters is about optimum; I can express a thought with sufficient context that I find that simple misunderstandings are rare. It feels relaxed to me.

This is all subjective, and I'm not strongly opposed to an increased character limit.

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