Do replies need a character limit?

February 25, 2025 5:46 AM

Just because your reply has a lot of characters, that doesn't mean you have character, am I right. Okay.

I've noticed a trend towards filibustering commentary here. I myself am prone to the occasional long reply. And look, sometimes we have a lot to say. But when these replies hit -- the "buckle up, here comes some game theory" replies -- I suspect most of us just check out. I know I do.

We all have different ideas of what a long reply is. And I know that one could be necessary; sometimes they're even great! But I also think all of us agree that a reply CAN BE too long. It's probably not necessarily to cite examples. We all know.

My questions are: should we have a character limit for replies, and if so, how many characters. I'm thinking quite a few, but probably not like. Three million.

I rescind this post if, God help me, there IS a character limit. If there is...I mean, there isn't, right? Because...no. There couldn't be. ...Right?

posted by kittens for breakfast to MetaFilter-Related at 5:46 AM (84 comments total)

no
posted by sagc at 5:52 AM on February 25 [23 favorites]

Now that I've gotten the character limited version out of the way: even you say that sometimes a long comment is valuable. How would you set the limit to a number that allows for those valuable comments, while still discouraging the ones you dislike?

Choosing whether to read a comment, or whether to scroll past it (j/k and maybe ./, scroll on comment pages, as a tip) is still possible, especially if your only issue is that the commenter bores you.
posted by sagc at 5:54 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Fuck no. A character limit? If something is too long for you to want to read, don't read it.
posted by fennario at 5:55 AM on February 25 [14 favorites]

Also, someone would have to check, but I don't think anyone has ever posted a comment they'd written themselves that's longer than the Treaty of Westphalia - so people probably aren't running up against any technical limits at the moment.
posted by sagc at 5:56 AM on February 25 [4 favorites]

Is there an example you can point to where a character limit would have helped?
posted by Vatnesine at 5:56 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

Huh?
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:04 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

I'm the master of terse comments but I say no.
posted by tommasz at 6:17 AM on February 25

Short answer, no. Long answer, noooooooooooooooooo.
posted by lucidium at 6:21 AM on February 25 [10 favorites]

Character limits are pointless. The only thing they are going to achieve is that people are going to break their posts up into multiple posts. If people have something to say, they are going to say it.
posted by Barry Boterman at 6:26 AM on February 25 [10 favorites]

Agree with others, this is a nonstarter of an idea for me. Character limits are a technical solution to the social problem of community standards and moderation, i.e. irrelevant for Metafilter as currently constituted.
posted by dbx at 6:27 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

Absolutely not.
posted by bowbeacon at 6:32 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

No. Filibusters are an important tell.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 6:41 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

No.
posted by lawrencium at 6:42 AM on February 25

Okey dokey!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:47 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

I don't want to link to anything, because it's literally not a matter of "not liking" a long comment, it's a matter of not reading one. I will plow through some long ass comments but sometimes it's like, "Jesus Christ."
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:49 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

I like the ability to have long comments here. Even if I don't always read them, I think it contributes to the discourse.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:58 AM on February 25 [4 favorites]

Rough morning?
posted by wanderlost at 7:06 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

TL;DR
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:10 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

I don't really think so, no.

Although, between you and me, I sometimes think there should be a character limit on relationshp focused AskMe posts. I'm kidding! I'm kidding. Sort of.
posted by kbanas at 7:20 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

What I've noticed is that replies that *I* think are too long are usually favorited by others, meaning someone got something out of those long replies, even if I didn't care for the format. Different folks, different strokes, community, and all that.

If there was a limit, then we'd have to decide what the limit is and that seems unnecessary at this point, as there hasn't been a technical problem with reply length. As someone else mentioned, a reply can be at least as long as the Treaty of Westphalia, and that's plenty!

For the curious, here's stats on the Treaty of Westphalia (via)):
characters: 87941
words: 14808
sentences: 385
paragraphs: 261
cpaces: 14547
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:21 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

Realistically there is already a character limit - strings can only be so long in the backing database. Depending on the software this limit could be 2Gb but I suspect that the server software would prevent comments much shorter than this from being POSTed in the first place.

More seriously, this is an interface problem. Long comments take up y-axis page real estate in a way that can be obnoxious if you just want to scroll past them. At least one other site allows comments of a certainly length and then hides the rest behind a [read more] button that expands the comment to full size.

Of course this has accessibility issues. But so do long comments in screen readers.

Personally I haven't noticed a problem with needlessly long comments here. I hate to say it, but this is probably more of a mod issue - a comment long enough be be truly disruptive should be removed.
posted by AndrewStephens at 7:26 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

There's no, there's hell no, and there's aw hell naw.
posted by Lemkin at 7:29 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

Character limits seem very...1998 internet, for a lack of a better way to put it. Seems like a solution in search of a problem that was solved long ago (database storage size). There's also a readability problem, of course, but the eyes can skip what the database cannot.
posted by pdb at 7:29 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

we might run out of creamed corn, but you will pry our verbosity from our cold, dead, hands
posted by ginger.beef at 7:41 AM on February 25 [7 favorites]

Please no
posted by obfuscation at 8:29 AM on February 25

You are advocating a technical solution to a social problem. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work:

(X) Not everyone agrees with your definition of bad behavior
( ) You're denying yourself the ability to respond to ___________ which is worse than the original problem because: ______________
( ) Assholes are very good at standing right on the line and insisting they did nothing wrong
( ) ...*
posted by zamboni at 8:43 AM on February 25 [5 favorites]

Yeah, simplified and short is ALWAYS BEST.

Click here to start.
posted by lalochezia at 8:52 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

No.

Character limits would have stopped flabdablet from posting these amazing responses describing how pressure relief valves and expansion tanks work in residential plumbing systems.
posted by jpeacock at 8:59 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

do you hear what I hear

what I hear kittens for breakfast saying is, Please respond to all my posts with excessively long sentences and convoluted, meandering digressions
posted by ginger.beef at 9:06 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

I'm +1 for this just to mess up the consensus.
posted by Diskeater at 9:21 AM on February 25

posted by Diskeater

Story checks out.
posted by zamboni at 9:26 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

After a thorough review of my comment history, I'm comfortable with comments having a limit of 2531 characters. You may proceed.
posted by mittens at 9:34 AM on February 25 [2 favorites]

Is there a way to add paragraph breaks after maybe 10 sentences or so? Because I find it really hard to read a wall of text without line breaks, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
posted by Orkney Vole at 9:55 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

The loss of Loquacious' long rambling Tales of the Pacific Northwest would be a terrible thing, IMO.

Not everyone needs to read the long comments but they should stay for those who want to.
posted by supermedusa at 9:58 AM on February 25 [7 favorites]

Full disclosure, what tipped me over to the "create your first MetaTalk" point was the fact that I specifically keep seeing these verbiage dumps in threads about AI. I strongly suspect these are people just flooding the area with shit to kill the conversation. And by "shit" I mean chatbot babble.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:13 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

I think this is a great example where a rule would be bad, but if the context is that chatbot input is being dumped in a thread, it warrants a look.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:19 AM on February 25 [6 favorites]

The idea of a character limit is so ridiculous, and would be so destructive to Metafilter that it's hard for me to believe the suggestion was made in good faith.

Are you trying to kill Metafilter kittens for breakfast? Do you really hate us that much?
posted by jamjam at 11:21 AM on February 25

As it happens, jamjam, the truth is tha
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:29 AM on February 25 [13 favorites]

> I specifically keep seeing these verbiage dumps in threads about AI. I strongly suspect these are people just flooding the area with shit to kill the conversation

OH. well if you'd just lead the thread with that it woulda been a complete flipflop in the other direction. don't nobody wanna hear that mess.
posted by glonous keming at 11:45 AM on February 25 [3 favorites]

And by "shit" I mean chatbot babble.

What on earth? We just had a thread about not including ChatGPT text in comments. Or are you saying...people talking about AI in threads about AI is...bad?
posted by mittens at 12:09 PM on February 25

(For people who joined us in the last few years, here's why people are referring to the Treaty of Westphalia.)
posted by brainwane at 12:10 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

It's probably not necessarily to cite examples. We all know.

I would definitely be more receptive to your argument if you would link to specific comments that you find unreadably long.

I don't want to link to anything, because it's literally not a matter of "not liking" a long comment, it's a matter of not reading one.

I'm having trouble understanding your reasoning; are you saying that, if you disliked the content of a comment, you would feel more inclined to link to an example, but since it's solely its length you object to, you don't want to link?

Full disclosure, what tipped me over to the "create your first MetaTalk" point was the fact that I specifically keep seeing these verbiage dumps in threads about AI. I strongly suspect these are people just flooding the area with shit to kill the conversation. And by "shit" I mean chatbot babble.

Have you tried flagging those comments for moderator attention and indicating that you suspect that the contents are generated by LLMs/chatbots? If so, what happens after you do that?

Also, about how many different MeFites do you suspect of acting in this manner? If it's under, say, 5 people, then I'm much less inclined to support a sitewide rule shrinking the allowable comment length. We could instead ask the mods to have a word with those folks.
posted by brainwane at 12:18 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

I miss Meatbomb.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:36 PM on February 25 [6 favorites]

As it happens, jamjam, the truth is tha

I can't tell whether you're modeling the behavior you desire or don't think I can handle the truth — and if it's the latter, you might be right!
posted by jamjam at 12:41 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

I rescind this post if, God help me, there IS a character limit. If there is...I mean, there isn't, right? Because...no. There couldn't be. ...Right?

Our comments are stored in a database, so there definitely is a limit of some kind. I guess if the Treaty of Westphalia can be posted, it's more than 65535 characters (2¹⁶ - 1, a common limit). Only one way to find out.

Our comments are stored in a database, so there definitely is a limit of some kind. I guess if the Treaty of Westphalia can be posted, it's more than 65535 characters (2¹⁶ - 1, a common limit). Only one way to find out.

Our comments are stored in
posted by ssg at 12:54 PM on February 25 [3 favorites]

posted by Wordshore at 12:54 PM on February 25 [3 favorites]

No.
posted by dg at 1:09 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

of course we all know the treaty of Westphallia comment was carved out by Matt.

but using the treaty of Westphalia as a benchmark for how long a comment should be, I suggest a career in the diplomatic corp.
posted by clavdivs at 2:04 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

As long as we are unburdened by what has been, no limits.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 3:01 PM on February 25

No.
posted by hototogisu at 3:21 PM on February 25

I realize that a lot of people seem to think the point of MetaTalk is to argue about stuff for days in the most heated fashion possible, but I really just thought, "Huh, this amount of verbiage seems anti-conversational to me." Again, I have seen this happen in every AI thread, and in that context, I have to wonder whether it's actively weaponized text, not even the product of a good faith participant, just grey goo that is intended to kill a conversation. But I also just sometimes see an amount of text that goes on for thousands and thousands of words, which again seems like the opposite of a conversation to me. OTOH, some of those comments are great. On the weird mutant third hand, I'm not sure all of them are that great.

So, whatever. If people want to see replies that go on interminably, live your life, dude, sing your song of hyperglossalia. Have f
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:25 PM on February 25 [4 favorites]

I think you should probably post a third comment in your own thread accusing people of bad faith commenting. That will really sell it.
posted by hototogisu at 3:30 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

In all seriousness, what in the world is your problem? This is exactly what I meant in the other thread when I said I wouldn't be a moderator here for any money. The title of the post isn't a statement, it's a question. I am not sure why a question is read as an invitation to argument. I'm sorry this site has taken on such a sour temperament.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:48 PM on February 25 [3 favorites]

You keep making references to people flooding the zone with shit to kill conversation, though you won’t cite examples, and you’re asking me what my problem is?
posted by hototogisu at 4:07 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

Nobody argued. They answered. And then you got all mad because people answered “no”. None of this was heated.
posted by bowbeacon at 4:08 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

And nobody is mad at the mods here. Modding this thread is very easy, because it is a calm discussion.
posted by bowbeacon at 4:09 PM on February 25

Sure. Well, bye.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:17 PM on February 25

For what is worth, there are definitely answers on Ask that I find obnoxiously long and I have, on occasion, flagged them as a derail. Certain people seem to be very pleased with the sound of their own text, and can veer far off the course of a helpful answer. So I can see where kittens for breakfast is coming from. I like the idea of collapsing very long comments behind a "read more" break but this thread has made me realize it'll never happen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Jemstar at 4:19 PM on February 25 [3 favorites]

For the curious, here's stats on the Treaty of Westphalia

Per this Readability Checker, the Treaty of Westphalia is Very Difficult to Read.

Flesch-Kincaid formula: 31.20
Gunning Fog Index: 22.85
SMOG: 17.76

This one says "189 of 357 sentences are very hard to read."
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 4:32 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Mod note: One comment removed at poster's request.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:51 PM on February 25

XCI.
As to Confiscations of Things, which consist in Weight, Number and Measure, Exactions, Concussions and Extortions made during the War; the reclaiming of them is fully annull'd and taken away on the one side and the other, in order to avoid Processes and litigious Strifes.

History repleats itself.
posted by clavdivs at 7:10 PM on February 25

The character limit needs to be at least one bigger than this comment about wilderness survival.
posted by surlyben at 8:33 PM on February 25 [6 favorites]

Nobody wants to see the 🧵 icon
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:58 PM on February 25 [2 favorites]

We should have vowel limits. We'd have more rhythm.
posted by Thella at 2:54 AM on February 26

Character limits are pointless. The only thing they are going to achieve is that people are going to break their posts up into multiple posts. If people have something to say, they are going to say it.

This. And some of our longer winded commenters already tend to do this anyway.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:04 AM on February 26

No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read every comment on every post

I routinely scroll past long comments

If I see a ton of favorites on them, I might scroll back up and skim a bit until I find the good stuff

I routinely scroll past a lot of short comments, too, looking for comments with high favorites and/or familiar names

It's so weird to propose prohibiting long comments when you can simply... not read them
posted by Jacqueline at 5:23 AM on February 26

It's so weird to propose prohibiting long comments when you can simply... not read them

Agreed and, if the follow up reasoning is "chatgpt comments" or "pure bad faith comments" then we already have rules against both of those things (right?) so why would a character limit be a rational imposition on otherwise rule-abiding comments?
posted by fennario at 6:27 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

No.

I contemplated my first ever use of Ai by prompting ai with "answer random a question with no using 25,000 words"
posted by chasles at 7:16 AM on February 26

I contemplated my first ever use of Ai by prompting ai with "answer random a question with no using 25,000 words"

it's what kittens for breakfast would have wanted
posted by ginger.beef at 7:34 AM on February 26

Sometimes you just gotta accept that people will do things that are annoying as shit, and you don't need to implement a policy or code change about it.

Source: me @ myself in the three Discord servers I mod trying to determine whether something is actually, genuinely disruptive, or if it just pisses me off personally.
posted by brook horse at 7:43 AM on February 26 [5 favorites]

Sometimes you just gotta accept that people will do things that are annoying as shit, and you don't need to implement a policy or code change about it.

Source: me @ myself in the three Discord servers I mod trying to determine whether something is actually, genuinely disruptive, or if it just pisses me off personally.

Agreed.

Source: me @ myself 1000x daily as the parent of a middle school boy with ADHD.

So many conversations with myself about "Do I need to correct this behavior for big-picture reasons, or just tolerate my own irritation?"
posted by fennario at 8:16 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

LOL I was just thinking that I learned this from teaching Child Development to undergrads for a year, and how much better my life got when I started asking myself, "Is this actually a problem or are they just 19 years old and annoying, which is their job at that age?" Once I learned to be chill about that I sort of just extrapolated the "is it a problem or just annoying" to everyone else with varying degrees of success.
posted by brook horse at 8:22 AM on February 26 [8 favorites]

I will plow through some long ass comments but sometimes it's like, "Jesus Christ."

That sounds like a you problem.

I know that sounds glib, but - honestly, some things are actual problems and some things are just things that annoy us personally, you know? I've personally never made a MeTa about people who use the words "veggies" or "birb" or "kiddos" even though those words make me itch. I also wouldn't DREAM of making a MeTa about them because - everyone's different and there are some things that just aren't overall problems but are matters of personal preference. And for the things that are matters of personal preference....I just suck it up, buttercup. If it means I don't read something, oh well. If I miss out as a result, oh well.

This isn't a site problem.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:28 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

LOL I was just thinking that I learned this from teaching Child Development to undergrads for a year, and how much better my life got when I started asking myself, "Is this actually a problem or are they just 19 years old and annoying, which is their job at that age?" Once I learned to be chill about that I sort of just extrapolated the "is it a problem or just annoying" to everyone else with varying degrees of success.

YES, I am a recovering control freak with a lot of sensory sensitivity and I was worried how that would impact my parenting. I had to be really intentional about learning the skill to look inward and have that conversation with myself. Now it is advice I give to other parents (if asked), to be thoughtful about when you correct and when you just tolerate kids being kids. What I've observed and experienced is that if you over-correct things and make a rule about every little thing you find irritating, then they are more likely to tone you out. Time and place of course, and consideration of others needs, the 'just annoying' stuff that's okay at home is not okay like on a train or in a restaurant or something. I'm derailing but this is a super interesting topic to me and if I don't stop myself now I could write a book-length comment.
posted by fennario at 8:40 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Unlike some others, I don't think the suggestion is unreasonable or that hugely long answers are purely a you problem -- especially if you read on mobile, really long, low content answers can be seriously discouraging to participating in the thread at all.

I don't think a technical solution is the answer, mainly because I don't think it would help, but also because it would impact high value long responses just as much as low value long responses.

If there is a pattern of certain people shitting up AI threads on purpose to stonewall discussion then that should be addressed in the same way that thread-shitting can be addressed when it is just a one-liner -- by asking the specific individuals involved to step away from the thread or threads like it if they can't participate in good faith.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:42 AM on February 26 [3 favorites]

BIRBS

:D

my default emotional state is annoyance, so I have to work at keeping it chill as I sail through life. people can be annoying and we all have different thresholds and triggers. walking away can be a deep power move. (I mean, from a thread/comment, not like, buttoning)
posted by supermedusa at 9:08 AM on February 26

MeFi: recovering control freak

really long, low content answers can be seriously discouraging to participating in the thread at all

Is this happening with sufficient frequency that we need to collectively search our souls about it?

Honestly it's the propensity for short drive-by comments that seems to warrant discussion but even there I'd chalk up a MeTa of that nature as "Someone is having a Bad Day and needs to vent". Which is fine.
posted by ginger.beef at 9:11 AM on February 26

I personally enjoy most of the very long comments that pop up in the AI threads, and generally find them to be informative and made in good faith.
posted by whir at 9:47 AM on February 26

BIRBS :D

dammit
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:56 AM on February 26

I have composed a truly marvelous comment, which this box is too short to contain.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:20 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Would you consider posting it in a series of seven volumes over the next couple decades?
posted by ssg at 12:56 PM on February 26

The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man returning soup at a deli.
posted by kbanas at 1:10 PM on February 26

I think I know some of the comments you're talking about.

On one hand, I do think that sometimes excessive length can be a conversation killer; people don't want to read and respond to all of that, but at the same time the non-threaded nature of MetaFilter means your replies are in the context of all the replies that came before. It can feel weird to just ignore part of the conversation on tl;dr grounds (at least if you're me). There might be an important point in all that.

On the other hand, I think it's lack of editing rather than bad faith, you know? Sometimes conversations won't be perfect and that's fine.

Or here's a way I'd put it, kittens:

If someone is posting in bad faith, then the problem is that they're posting in bad faith, not the length of their comment. If you can show that they're posting in bad faith, you can moderate it on those grounds; you don't need a new policy. If you can't show that they're posting in bad faith, however, that's not a good reason to implement a new policy.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:00 PM on February 26

Take another look at kfb's actual complaint:

Just because your reply has a lot of characters, that doesn't mean you have character, am I right. Okay.

I've noticed a trend towards filibustering commentary here. I myself am prone to the occasional long reply. And look, sometimes we have a lot to say. But when these replies ...

They're not talking about comments in general, they're upset about replies.

More than likely because they got into a back and forth with another user or users who resorted to very long responses and more or less prevailed by dint of sheer mass of verbiage regardless of the actual merits of their arguments.

This Meta is the latest of a long series where the poster got irritated by something another user did and came here to salve their feelings by proposing a general rule against doing that kind of thing.

And it got the usual response.

But what has also been usual in my experience is that the target, named or unnamed (as here), actually does stop doing it even though the complaint is roundly rejected, and so do other people who think they might have been doing it.

So we end up losing some very desirable content we otherwise would have had, and that's why I replied to the complaint with the asperity I did.
posted by jamjam at 2:04 PM on February 26