| First of all, I apologise for the delay with this announcement due to the holiday season. As part of our ongoing forum improvements, two changes were pushed yesterday, along with bug fixes to the previous announcement. Minimum Character Counts We have implemented minimum character restrictions for all main boards on the forum, excluding BBCode, quotes, and spaces. Spam is a very large problem on our forum. One-word replies are already against our Site & Forum Guidelines: and yet these posts are still prevalent everywhere on the forum. Thus, we have been forced to implement a minimum character count to reduce the number of these posts. These limits are as follows:
People have noted that there are anime and manga titles which are shorter than 15 characters. However, the Recommendations board is not a simple listing board; please take a few seconds to write why you are recommending the user that anime/manga or how it fits with their request. This board is currently a mess of duplicate threads and posts filled with only series titles and no actual discussion, and we'd really like to work towards improving this board in the future. With this implementation, we would also like to re-evaluate the simple listing rule, since the main difference between a listing thread and a simple listing thread, is that a simple listing thread contains no explanation of thought. If you like to participate in these listing-type threads, you can help encourage the removal of this rule by taking a moment to write why your answer is what it is. Finally, please do not fill your posts with nonsense to meet the minimum character limit. This includes writing how you are typing more to meet the limit, swearing at the moderators, or filling your posts with nonsense. If you do, please be prepared for your post to be removed without notice and/or for you to receive a warning or ban for spam. The difference between meeting the limit or not is only a matter of a few words and a number of seconds. You don't need to reply 'Yes/No/Okay/+1' etc, or only quote other users. The forums are discussion boards, not one-word reply boards. I think you'll find with some use that the minimum character limits are not hard to meet. Quick Edit A quick edit feature has also been added to forum posts. This allows you to make slight changes to your posts (i.e. to fix typos) without needing to load the edit page and then re-load the thread to see your changes. It acts like the quick reply button, but for edits. If there are any issues with the function, please let us know here. Bug fixes and some Char limit changes Info here Small update The forum games minimum post count is now 0. |
ArdanazJan 7, 2016 4:28 AM
| Minimum character count is not really useful to be honest. |
FlameWingman21Dec 25, 2015 8:59 AM
FlameWingman21 said: Minimum character count is designed to curb one-word replies and reaction img/vid only posts, among other things. It will be quite useful in that regard. The news board in particular is plagued with these.Minimum character count is not really useful to be honest. Meeting this requirement is not difficult and should come naturally for anyone who can think beyond what they had for breakfast. |
| As mentioned above, I've already noticed this too and these requirements are all pretty easy to follow so no real problems there either. |
 Forum set made by my secret santa, Nate! |
| They wouldn't be a problem if you start punishing people for it. I always see a couple users on news threads being literally like "ok", "good", "bad", etc, I have reported them and it would be "dealt" with but they'd be there next thread doing the exact same thing, I'm all for not banning people on first offences but when it comes to the point that I have to ignore people to not see spam, then you should think about taking action against them. lequack said: Literally in the OP. Good job.At least remove it from the recommendations boards. There are several manga and anime that are under 15 characters. The shortest one in my list is just 3 characters (it is a manga called Gon) and I think it is a really good recommendation for anyone looking for a short manga with great art. |
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| I quite like these changes. A question, though. Are the club forums effected by the same limitation as the Forum Games now, meaning 1 character limit? 1 character always was the minimum limit (I believe), so I'm wondering since the Forum Games were explicitly named under 1 character limit and club forums not. |
| i think its better then nothing some people dont spam only one word |
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| Yeah no, get the fuck out with this seriously, wont this courage people more to spam one liners by any means possible? |
KladDec 25, 2015 9:26 AM
| I think this is a good idea, but I think people already have found a few ways around this. |
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| Sasuga MAL, once again proving you guys have no idea how to properly run a community. |
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| Well if you are keeping this, I have to ask why did you include spacing in the character limit. |
| MAL Jjust keeps getting better. |
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-Elevated- said: The ones who do it purposely are the ones who will suffer the consequences.Yeah no, get the fuck out with this seriously, wont this courage people more to spam one liners by any means possible? |
| I feel it would be nice if Mal staff did polls for these kind of things before deciding to introduce them, its been seen time and time again the community has objections which don't feel addressed. This rule although an interesting idea won't stop spambots or trolls (both of which post more than 30 characters) Instead it'll most likely annoy users and probably encourage negative discussion to threads lowering activity on the forums. |
| I've been here way too long... |
RedArmyShogun said: Why should spacing be included?Well if you are keeping this, I have to ask why did you include spacing in the character limit. |
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| I don't particularly mind, just gonna take a little bit to get use to, though I have a bad tendency to write pointlessly long posts to begin with it isn't really an issue for me. Hopefully it won't be a problem in the Help ID Anime thread though, don't exactly need to post that much characters. Guess quoting the person would solve that problem, hopefully. For the quick edit, I know it's extremely, extremely minor but I don't like how it shows "Modified by UserName, X minutes ago" instantly after using it unlike regular edit which it doesn't show if you do it within like 3 minutes or something. I don't want people to know I'm editing my post! |
RedArmyShogun said: Spacing doesnt work anymoreWell if you are keeping this, I have to ask why did you include spacing in the character limit. |
| 30 is way to much. Also its a pretty dumb thing to do when there is not a character count displayed as you type. You people really expect people to fucking count every character in their post? Thats bullshit. This will encourage spam because the large numbers, not discourage it. Also some people have image (with words in it) or video replies that explain everything they want to say. |
| As I said on another thread I feel that this is your guys laziness. People are breaking the rules because people are hardly warned. the rules are treated as a joke and almost no one reads them if you guys really can't give out more warnings and handle all the spam, then maybe you should increase your moderator count instead of throwing an unnecessary character rule to posts. I rarely see topics get locked, and I never see get people to warned. I feel that the current moderators either are too lazy or have too much to do to try and keep up with all the forums, which is why it should be taken to the staff team for it's current failures to uphold the rules, rather then the users who are having to suffer because of it. |
Max said: TheConquerer said: I feel it would be nice if Mal staff did polls for these kind of things before deciding to introduce them, its been seen time and time again the community has objections which don't feel addressed. The community already has a say through their behaviour, and the site is being changed to reflect that. If the community wants to be treated like adults, they have to act like it. There are plenty of serious perfectly fine replies that are below the character limit. |
traed said: Max said: <br /><br /> The community already has a say through their behaviour, and the site is being changed to reflect that. If the community wants to be treated like adults, they have to act like it. There are plenty of serious perfectly fine replies that are below the character limit. 'Like what' Only 10 characters and feels like a proper response |
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traed said: Temmie is up there criticizing the staff for being lazy and you're here saying it's okay for the rest of the users to be lazy.Max said: The community already has a say through their behaviour, and the site is being changed to reflect that. If the community wants to be treated like adults, they have to act like it. There are plenty of serious perfectly fine replies that are below the character limit. Help me out, guys. I must be reading into this too hard. Are we using double standards here? |
NTAD said: traed said: Temmie is up there criticizing the staff for being lazy and you're here saying it's okay for the rest of the users to be lazy.There are plenty of serious perfectly fine replies that are below the character limit. Help me out, guys. I must be reading into this too hard. Are we using double standards here? I said you're either lazy -or- have too much to do, thus the staff team being too spread out. It's either one of the two, and in either case it means that even more moderators will likely be needed. |
NTAD said: traed said: Temmie is up there criticizing the staff for being lazy and you're here saying it's okay for the rest of the users to be lazy.<br /><br /> There are plenty of serious perfectly fine replies that are below the character limit. <br /> Help me out, guys. I must be reading into this too hard. Are we using double standards here? If you think staff isn't lazy you haven't seen your mobile site in a long time. |
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lequack said: Didn't read the whole thing. Sorry. Story of this board. |
 staff.applications ▼ guidelines.faq ▼ report.abuse ▼ thx.skittles ▼ thx.kina ▼ [H+] ³ ▼ |
| How about having a preview post option? Like for reaction pics or videos. Because not all images shows up on mal and sometimes people would make little mistakes. |
NTAD said: traed said: Temmie is up there criticizing the staff for being lazy and you're here saying it's okay for the rest of the users to be lazy.There are plenty of serious perfectly fine replies that are below the character limit. Help me out, guys. I must be reading into this too hard. Are we using double standards here? Its not lazy if on point. (25 characters and still a fine reply) The numbers should just be a bit lower. |
Temmie said: A good portion of us do have much to do. Which is why I use what little time I have for MAL now to handle the work that I can as well as get the newer mods comfortable with the job.NTAD said: Temmie is up there criticizing the staff for being lazy and you're here saying it's okay for the rest of the users to be lazy. Help me out, guys. I must be reading into this too hard. Are we using double standards here? I said you're either lazy -or- have too much to do, thus the staff team being too spread out. It's either one of the two, and in either case it means that even more moderators will likely be needed. In any case, you haven't said one thing that hasn't been said before. We know the staff needs to expand and the hunt hasn't stopped, but we're not going to take just anyone. There is a thread dictating how to become a moderator for those who are interested and we're always seeking out people who can fill the void. It's just that a lot of promising looking individuals don't have the time to dedicate though or simply don't want to. But if you'd like, we can hire staff like a lot of cops get hired: Ignore their obvious psychological/personality issues and give them a badge and a gun and turn them loose. I'm sure that would work out better for everyone. |
cyruz said: consider making it shorter to reach a wider range of audiencelequack said: Didn't read the whole thing. Sorry. Story of this board. journalism 101 |
| That's shit journalism moodie |
| It got swept up and staff replied multiple times afterwards without a reply on my question, so I'll share it again; Subpyro said: I quite like these changes. A question, though. Are the club forums effected by the same limitation as the Forum Games now, meaning 1 character limit? 1 character always was the minimum limit (I believe), so I'm wondering since the Forum Games were explicitly named under 1 character limit and club forums not. |
| I can see where the character count is coming from, but 30 could do with lowering a little. Not every thread or reply warrants longer responses depending on their nature. |
 It's an entirely different kind of flying, altogether! It's an entirely different kind of flying. |
keragamming said: How about having a preview post option? Like for reaction pics or videos. Because not all images shows up on mal and sometimes people would make little mistakes. That is already there in the normal replies. Its just not in the quick reply. |
| Do you even realize how short 30 characters is? You could fit more than 4 posts in a tweet.... |
AokaadoDec 25, 2015 4:23 PM
NTAD said: Temmie said: A good portion of us do have much to do. Which is why I use what little time I have for MAL now to handle the work that I can as well as get the newer mods comfortable with the job.I said you're either lazy -or- have too much to do, thus the staff team being too spread out. It's either one of the two, and in either case it means that even more moderators will likely be needed. In any case, you haven't said one thing that hasn't been said before. We know the staff needs to expand and the hunt hasn't stopped, but we're not going to take just anyone. There is a thread dictating how to become a moderator for those who are interested and we're always seeking out people who can fill the void. It's just that a lot of promising looking individuals don't have the time to dedicate though or simply don't want to. But if you'd like, we can hire staff like a lot of cops get hired: Ignore their obvious psychological/personality issues and give them a badge and a gun and turn them loose. I'm sure that would work out better for everyone. If I am saying things that have been said before then maybe it's a sign that enough isn't being done But the difference is here is that cops can still get their job done. I didn't even know there were forum rules for over a year and now that I read them it's obvious that it doesn't matter who's hired. The rules are still not being enforced and this new rule imposed is a sign of the staffs current failures, rather than the users. And this would not be needed if people were hired with dedication in mind rather then how valuable they can be even though their schedule is already fairly busy. |
Paul said: For the quick edit, I know it's extremely, extremely minor but I don't like how it shows "Modified by UserName, X minutes ago" instantly after using it unlike regular edit which it doesn't show if you do it within like 3 minutes or something. I don't want people to know I'm editing my post! I totally agree with this, I like doing my little secret ninja edits without anyone ever knowing about it. |
Forum set made by my secret santa, Nate! |
Sherlockeb said: NTAD said: Temmie is up there criticizing the staff for being lazy and you're here saying it's okay for the rest of the users to be lazy.<br /> <br /> Help me out, guys. I must be reading into this too hard. Are we using double standards here? If you think staff isn't lazy you haven't seen your mobile site in a long time. ^ This is one issue I want to point out in quick edit. When trying to quick edit, every single quotation mark and other symbols turns to ' |
SamiiDec 25, 2015 10:32 AM
traed said: keragamming said: How about having a preview post option? Like for reaction pics or videos. Because not all images shows up on mal and sometimes people would make little mistakes. That is already there in the normal replies. Its just not in the quick reply. Normal reply and quick reply? Huh? Could you elaborate more. Where can I find the normal reply? |
Temmie said: NTAD said: A good portion of us do have much to do. Which is why I use what little time I have for MAL now to handle the work that I can as well as get the newer mods comfortable with the job. In any case, you haven't said one thing that hasn't been said before. We know the staff needs to expand and the hunt hasn't stopped, but we're not going to take just anyone. There is a thread dictating how to become a moderator for those who are interested and we're always seeking out people who can fill the void. It's just that a lot of promising looking individuals don't have the time to dedicate though or simply don't want to. But if you'd like, we can hire staff like a lot of cops get hired: Ignore their obvious psychological/personality issues and give them a badge and a gun and turn them loose. I'm sure that would work out better for everyone. If I am saying things that have been said before then maybe it's a sign that enough isn't being done But the difference is here is that cops can still get their job done. I didn't even know there were forum rules for over a year and now that I read them it's obvious that it doesn't matter who's hired. The rules are still not being enforced and this new rule imposed is a sign of the staffs current failures, rather than the users. And this would not be needed if people were hired with dedication in mind rather then how valuable they can be even though their schedule is already fairly busy. Normally I'd continue this discussion, but this thread is not for bashing the staff (we've had plenty of those) and that seems to be your intent. You seem to have a pretty good idea of what needs to happen here though, so maybe you should PM me all the details? My wall is always open as well. |
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