Apropos of the discussion on Story posts in the forums (how short is too short?):
I?ve been looking for a way to illustrate why it?s a bad idea to do one- or two-line posts to advance a storyline and to show how that makes for a stilted, disjointed, and generally unpleasant read.
I?m not going to touch on why it?s ridiculous to spam up the front page with one extremely short post every five minutes or so, but thanks to the front page, I found a series of posts today that fit the bill very nicely.
The original thread, While one is away, Jadey will... keep his place up? is currently a three-page thread at Red Dragon Inn Forum Index -> RhyDin Town Center -> A Deltas Long Journey. What I compiled below was all submitted today, over the course of 13 posts. 10 of those occurred in less than an hour.
It?s copied word-for-word. I didn?t fix typos; all I did was take out was the intervening headers on each post that make spam-posting like this aggravating. The writing itself is not bad. The characters are interesting. The posting method is terrible.
You tell me which is more readable.
Coming up with this compilation as an example is probably considered gauche by the community at large and offensive or embarrassing to the two members who came up with the originals, but I don?t really care. If they are concerned enough to complain about being singled out for doing something that most of the community is getting irritated about, perhaps they?ll be concerned enough to change their habits.
I?ve been looking for a way to illustrate why it?s a bad idea to do one- or two-line posts to advance a storyline and to show how that makes for a stilted, disjointed, and generally unpleasant read.
I?m not going to touch on why it?s ridiculous to spam up the front page with one extremely short post every five minutes or so, but thanks to the front page, I found a series of posts today that fit the bill very nicely.
The original thread, While one is away, Jadey will... keep his place up? is currently a three-page thread at Red Dragon Inn Forum Index -> RhyDin Town Center -> A Deltas Long Journey. What I compiled below was all submitted today, over the course of 13 posts. 10 of those occurred in less than an hour.
It?s copied word-for-word. I didn?t fix typos; all I did was take out was the intervening headers on each post that make spam-posting like this aggravating. The writing itself is not bad. The characters are interesting. The posting method is terrible.
You tell me which is more readable.
Coming up with this compilation as an example is probably considered gauche by the community at large and offensive or embarrassing to the two members who came up with the originals, but I don?t really care. If they are concerned enough to complain about being singled out for doing something that most of the community is getting irritated about, perhaps they?ll be concerned enough to change their habits.