Resolved Editing Collection Thread Failure Message Please enter a message with no more than 10000 characters

Discussion in 'Bug Report Forum' started by wilo, Mar 14, 2016.

  1. wilo

    wilo Rising Member

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  2. A Toubib

    A Toubib Midnight Xbox Crew

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    Are you trying to enter a message with more than 10000 characters?
     
  3. HEX1GON

    HEX1GON 2997cc Staff Member

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    If you plan on having long posts or lists, I suggest double posting under your first post to keep it ordered. Otherwise you have no choice other than to create another post and link to it.
     
  4. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    Don't make two threads. Simply reply to the thread with an update, which you can then link to within the first post (leave space). Left of Like Quote Reply on the bottom right of your latest post is a number e.g. #2 - right click and copy the link. e.g. Hex's post

    [EDIT]
    Just looked at your thread. Don't post a link to every game then!

    The sensible thing would be to embed a few group pics, then link to your album if anyone wants to see more.

    In fact, where you posted the update that every game has a pic, you can edit that and use it as part two, linking to it from the front... but seriously, no need to hotlink to every game. Use an album-based service (e.g. Imgur) and post a link to the album for all the individual stuff. All the games spread out is usually sufficient, though!
     
  5. wombat

    wombat Site Supporter 2011,2013,2014,2015

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    I guess the "10000" is configured to fight ultra long spambot posts which usually contains a ton of hyperlinks and thus characters? Perhaps it's worth a try to up this number a bit, to lets say 15000?
     
  6. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    Perhaps it's worth listening and being more concise ;) No need to spam lots of individual photos - use an external album.
     
  7. wombat

    wombat Site Supporter 2011,2013,2014,2015

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    I hear you, but this goes beyond using an external album. Some text heavy topics will also run into problems because of this limitation. In my opinion it would be worth trying to experiment with upping this number and see if it has any (negative) effect on automated spambots. If it doesn't, there will be no harm done and the heavy typers among us will have less headaches :)
     
  8. Bad_Ad84

    Bad_Ad84 Keyboard Error: Press F1 to Continue

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    Most spam is under 10000 letters anyway
     
  9. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    It's a good exercise in being more concise. Pretend you're writing a magazine article with limited space. Being concise makes it more interesting - people don't want to read a lot of waffle ;)
     
  10. wombat

    wombat Site Supporter 2011,2013,2014,2015

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    I agree that in many cases a "WALL OF TEXT" is not very inviting to read, but there are always exceptions to the rule.

    Take for example my X360 sales thread, there is little to be 'more concise' the quantity of items is in this case the bottleneck. So in cases like this a increase of the writing cap would be very convenient, instead of being forced to make place holder replies to your own thread for the event one reaches the 10000 characters cap.
     
  11. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    Yeah... let's take that....
    1,150 characters.

    My turn!

    608 characters.

    I didn't even go through the whole list and I saved 542 characters. Let's take a look at how....

    Well, you had a lot of repetition! Everything was PAL promotional copy not for resale, so that might as well be a header, not repeated. I trimmed it even more because "not for resale" is usually implied by "promotional copy" and you can shorten "promotional copy" to "promo". I then looked at other common factors - most were in mint condition, so that can be a byline - mint unless stated. I also made your byline about no instructions more concise. That way, all you need to say about each game is anything that deviates from that - basically, when a game is sealed, has a manual or has a defect.

    It makes it easier on the eye, too - less overwhelming. I opted for closing up the gaps, but it probably wouldn't make a difference, count-wise.

    There's usually a more concise way of saying it... you just have to think. One thing that I notice Americans do a lot (especially on instructional YouTube videos) is say:

    Right. What you need to do first is go ahead and...

    If you're talking, that's wasted a few seconds. In text, you've used 49 characters. And you haven't actually said a damn thing! If anyone is guilty of saying that at the beginning of a sentence, think how the sentence would be without it. Does it still make sense? Of course... because you don't need to say "go ahead and turn the computer on" when you can just say "turn the computer on!" ;)

    Talking of limits, @wombat - sales rule number 8:

    Soo.... does anyone else have a post that simply must be longer than 10,000 characters? ;)
     
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  12. wombat

    wombat Site Supporter 2011,2013,2014,2015

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    Touche @retro, thanks for pointing out the -now for me- obvious trimming that can be done. I see I have some editing ahead of me.

    (in regards to active active sales threads, I was under the impression that I was complying with this rule by only having 1 thread* active on the first page of the Marketplace. Every now and then I bump an older thread, making it active again and pushing the other one back in the que. *being exact, at the time of writing there are two on the 1st page due to some off-topic talk in one of my sales threads.)
     
  13. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    Try working in publishing. You'll get your piece to a polished gem, only for the editor to trim it down even more. "Ohh yeah!" ;)

    [
    That's pretty much why we haven't said anything ;)

    Regarding your edit, there's a fair bit you could probably do. Here's something that will shock you. How many characters do you use before you get to the first item for sale? Have a guess.

    2,165! Yes, over 20% of your allowance is used on other stuff!

    OK, so let's look at that quickly for you.

    You do like me, try to format it nice. Just remember, making something bold takes up 6 characters. Making it a colour or bigger takes even more. So limiting your use of formatting helps. (Bold is probably best... maybe save it for headings, though? I could have cut that list down even more without 14 uses of bold (x6 = 84 characters... but it does look good).

    Your first sentence - no need! The post has a last edited stamp. Sold items removed is obvious. You don't need to say prices slashed because you used cross-through!

    -----------------------------------------------------------
    -----------------------------------------------------------

    That's 119 characters wasted on dashes! Why not just separate things with

    A NEW HEADER
    And a new section.... blah blah, lovely items! ;)

    Check out my other sales items - YES! Good use of space... or is it? The character count for links includes all the url= code and such. And you've already said it in your footer.

    Check out my other sales items - see my footer. That's 47 characters. Your way - 777 characters.

    Check my feedback - sure. Don't need the dashes again. You could even put it in your footer.

    Shipping prices - are you sure they're right for every country and do you keep them up-to-date? If you want them, fine. Most people just ask, though.

    Disclaimer - good!

    By the way, you have a section of black text. That usually happens when you copy and paste from somewhere else. It's hard to read on the red and black theme. It's everything from the disclaimer down to X-men.

    Anyway... it's up to you how you format your listings. That's just some things I see - do with it what you will. Or nothing - I don't mind ;)
     
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  14. wombat

    wombat Site Supporter 2011,2013,2014,2015

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    I'm definitely going to put your tips into good use. In some cases I will have to be less 'economic' with the formatting, simply because it makes it easier for readers. For example I notice that before I would get quite a few PM's in regards to "is this item still for sale", once I started manually mentioning the last date of editing / sold items removed messages like this noticeably decreased. It's finding the right balance between being more concise and the perfect formatting :)

    Relieved that I'm not breaking the marketplace rules :)
     
  15. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    I'm sure you will come up with the perfect balance. You don't have to remove the date for example. If you had a link to sold items, that would be sufficient... e.g. they are in post 50 so you link to that. Some like to see historical price data, so it keeps them happy! ;)

    That's the secret, really - think about what's repeated in the post and how to avoid the repetition, consider whether large amounts of text (or pictures) could be linked to elsewhere (another post or even a second thread), be sparing on your formatting but format the post nicely... it is indeed a balancing trick! ;)

    Going back to @wilo's original post, you definitely don't need to link to an individual photo of every single item. In fact, just your SNES hardware pics (the first section) take up 1,311 characters. You don't need to list every single item or photograph every item - have an overview photo or series of photos in the thread. I'd suggest Imgur as you can make an album and link to that for everything else... maybe mention a few highlights.

    Even listing the items but not linking to photos of every one will save a lot of characters - 70 per item! There are 12 items in just that first section I mentioned - so that's 840 characters saved by not including links!
     
  16. TriMesh

    TriMesh Site Supporter 2013-2016

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    Just out of curiosity, is this 10,000 character limit something hardcoded into the new board software? Since he could make that post in the first place, it seems clear that the old board software had a larger limit, and I'm rather surprised that it wasn't copied over as part of the board migration process.
     
  17. retro

    retro Administrator Staff Member

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    His post is 9,500-odd characters. He now wants to add more to it. There has always been a 10,000 character limit.
     
  18. ASSEMbler

    ASSEMbler Administrator

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    Increased the limit, from now on if you know you have a huge amount of content, make a few "reserved" posts after the main post so you have area to work in.
     
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