Posting on BitcoinTalk: how do I know when my post is "too long"?

[Bttzed03]

There is no standard on what's too long or what's too short here because everything depends on the individual readers. Write as many as you want but try to avoid post padding. Oftentimes, I click preview and read it first to see whether I can remove or reword some phrase to shorten the post but not sacrificing the content.

[tvplus006]

...So I wanted to ask.. how long is considered "too long" for a post? Are mine okay or should I write shorter ones? I'm trying to contribute as much as I can, but I don't want to turn my account into a wall of text nobody reads.

Here it is appropriate to quote Mark Twain, who said: "I would have written shorter, but I didn't have time". After all, it takes a lot of time to briefly describe the main idea and not force others to read a long, incomprehensible text. So we all have to make an effort to write clearly and briefly.

[d.kevin29]

Alright. Thank you, everyone for your replies. Will try to adapt to shorter messages in the future.

As a reply to Loyce and a few other members requesting a summary of the OP, here it is:

"I'm not a native English speaker, and I often find myself having to repeat/explain ideas to make them understood. Because of that, I think my posts are way longer than they should be.. and people don't like reading walls of text.

Although I love writing & debating, I think this is an issue that leads to users skipping my posts due to the length of them. What do you think?"

[hd49728]

The issue does not mainly come from English proficiency. If a poster has bad posting style, that user will make too long, and distracting posts with mother tongue too.

Posts are made up of some root things: Main ideas (most important), then supporting ideas (less important, and only to support main ideas to clarify its with explanations, details, examples, figures, and so forth).

To start off, if a poster does not have a good idea to begin with, his or her post will always nonsense, and less or zero value.

Let's assume that a poster has good idea to start, his or her post will be lengthy enough if that user does not include distractions to his posts. Whenever distractions occur, posts will become too lengthy.

[airdnasxela]

It's okay to have a longer posts as long as you're explaining your side and it all make sense. That's fine. Don't worry much about how long you post is, because there's always someone who will read your posts no matter how long it is.
It's not about the length, it's about the point you're trying to say.  But if you really find your post very long, then summarize it. Remove the unnecessary and not that important part. But for me, the longer the post you have, the more you have something to say which is good compared to only give one-line opinion that is not very helpful.

[UserU]

I'd rather read posts in multiple single lines than a huge wall of text droning on the same repetitive thing mentioned prior.

[sovie]

There is no hard and fast rule on how large a post can be named as 'too long'. But usually many don't read posts that cross three lines. Post as small as you can so that your posts are read by many.

[agentx44]

English being my secondary language, I almost always find myself in situations such as stating things using words that could be interpreted or just not being able to make my point across. That leads most of the times to the need of explaining my point so everyone would understand it the way I meant to say it.

However, I've started looking a little bit through my posts and honestly I have a little feeling they might be too long. I write very long posts and I am starting to doubt many are reading them, because reading 5 posts of mine would probably take you more than 7 minutes to read..

I really like writing and sharing my thoughts with this community, but I'd rather write shorter posts and have them read by more than have long-a$$ ones nobody would waste their time on reading.

So I wanted to ask.. how long is considered "too long" for a post? Are mine okay or should I write shorter ones? I'm trying to contribute as much as I can, but I don't want to turn my account into a wall of text nobody reads.

Whenever you are posting here in bitcointalk, it is not really necessary that you make it too long. The important thing here is that you clearly express your views and opinion about a certain topic and it is relevant enough for others to appreciate and if lucky, merit your post. In my long journey here in bitcointalk, I always avoid putting too much in my comments cause I know others wouldn't have the interest to read it if it's too long. Just put the main point and make sure it's relevant, that would be enough I think.

[LTU_btc]

I also have similar problems sometimes. Sometimes I'm failing to express myself shortly. I write quite long posts sometimes and then I see that poster after my have nailed it just in two sentences.
I don't think it's because of language barrier, because I have same problem in my native language. Maybe my communication skills is just not good enough.
But long texts isn't always bad thing. Offcourse, it will be read by less people, but well written long post is always interesting. But text formatting is very important then. No matter what it will be written, if it will long wall of text without paragraphs. I usually skip such posts, because it's just too difficult to read.

[Henri Cartier]

Posting too long is not a problem but it will be good if you answer to the point. I have seen a few of your posts which are elaborated posts. Maybe you can try to explain your thoughts to the point instead of explaining it more.

Also, you can write in points, use some formattings to make your post look good and precise. Lengthy posts/paragraphs without any formatting will make the users feel bore to read.

[Negotiation]

It doesn't matter if the post is big and small In fact the post will not be big or small, it will depend on which topic you want to post Also if you feel that the post is getting bigger then you can write down the actual word of your subject. But everyone who writes will understand.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…>

I personally do not find your posts exceedingly long, but I do tend to read the threads I’m interested in from head to toe. People have different ways of expressing themselves, and trying to mould everyone to specific patters is not really what this should turn into.

Likewise, those that post one-liners could formulate a similar question pointing in the opposite direction, and here I dare say there is probably more cause. Often people write generic one-liners lacking what matters: the substance of the content, followed by the expressivity used.

Side note: Related and yet unrelated at the same time, I took a look at Forum Merited Messages- Does size count?, created quite some time ago though, and with a specific prism that analysed only merited messages at the time (no way I’m going to update it now- I recall it took me ages to complete).

<…> It turns out that 65,07% of the sMerited posts have less than 100 words, another 18,41% have between 100 and 200 words, 6,45% between 200 and 300 words, 3,24% have between 300 and 400 words, and only 6,82% are above the 400 word barrier (somewhere near a word page in size) <…>

Things may have changed since then a fair share.

[CryptoInsights]

Looking at your past Threads created, I could find the below threads

• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5220411.msg53691464#msg53691464
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5194150.msg52804896#msg52804896

They are long but are worth reading. It did not matter to me that it was long as it was informational. I think it is not wrong to explain more. 

[Sanugarid]

English being my secondary language, I almost always find myself in situations such as stating things using words that could be interpreted or just not being able to make my point across. That leads most of the times to the need of explaining my point so everyone would understand it the way I meant to say it.

However, I've started looking a little bit through my posts and honestly I have a little feeling they might be too long. I write very long posts and I am starting to doubt many are reading them, because reading 5 posts of mine would probably take you more than 7 minutes to read..

I really like writing and sharing my thoughts with this community, but I'd rather write shorter posts and have them read by more than have long-a$$ ones nobody would waste their time on reading.

So I wanted to ask.. how long is considered "too long" for a post? Are mine okay or should I write shorter ones? I'm trying to contribute as much as I can, but I don't want to turn my account into a wall of text nobody reads.

You can already tell if your post is too long if you are already adding up too much content to the point where it is becoming irrelevant to the topic already. On my long run here in bitcointalk, I always make sure that no matter how short or long my post is, straightforward explanations are already there and it is relevant in the topic always. No matter how long your post is, it will still count as one. Maybe you are longing to get a merit but that's not the proper way on how you can gain merit, you only need to give a high quality post that answers the topic very well.

[nakamura12]

Not all situation can be explain in short and you must need a long post that contain the information needed that is why you must summarize what is the most important. Some only need short  post and most cases are not complicated topics. If you think it's long then make it a bit short.