Topic: Why do some campaign members posting essay? (Read 947 times)

Posts that are long and wordy and do not express opinions clearly are of course no better quality than posts that are short and straight to the point. Some users create long posts to attract the attention of merit sources or other users to merited them - but if the post has no useful substance, then of course the post is not considered quality.

Long posts are not necessarily quality - and vice versa, short posts don't mean bad. It is important to pay attention to presenting clear information and conveying clear ideas rather than sacrificing a lot of time, causing many readers to ignore them and the post.

It is good when we know what we ought to do without doing it too much. There are people that like writing too much and they can't express themselves without writing articles. This might not be there fault because it's there nature. We need to understand that and not have to blame them because of the nature they make posts. There are people that can express themselves in few words with better understanding than others that may not be able to write words in a shorter ways with better understanding. If we see any thread that has too much words that we can nit read or comprehend, we can always leave it and look for something else.

A long post isn't necessarily a good post, the same way that a short post doesn't mean that it's bad. There are occasions where both can be sufficient to get your point across. Generally, if you can explain something using simple language and without too many words, it should be the preferred way to go about it. But it takes time and space to correct it all if you are replying to someone who asked many questions or made plenty of mistakes in their post.

An essay is a form of self-expression that allows campaigners to share their opinions, views, and beliefs. It can be an important way for them to express their views on specific issues or problems. Publishing an essay can be a strategy to draw attention to one's campaign or the idea being presented. The more persuasive and informative an essay is written, the more likely it is to attract attention and generate discussion.

I ask myself same question too, why make a lengthy post people won't bother to read? Then it occurred to me that a particular topic can interest someone so much that he carefully analizes each point he makes so well that whoever stumbles on the post will be glad he read the writeup. Most time it is not all about seeking for merits, validation from campaign managers or even seeking for attention. You can be so vast in a particular topic that you'll be surprised at the whole stuff you've written. 

Another thing is the timing of your post. A lengthy post can actually be noticed in the first two pages. Making a lengthy post on a 15th page sounds like a joke to me, especially now we have lots of lazy readers around, the possibility of the post being skipped by many is high.

A detailed and well-explained respond is very important. If the user wishes to explain in detail, he may write it as an essay for the person to understand. I do not believe this is a problem to be concerned about. I've come across some replies that look like essays, and when I read the first two lines, I know that this person is saying something relevant, whereas in other cases, you can tell that this person is just trying to write so that their response is lengthy, which happens mostly in the gambling discussion section. Quality posts cannot be judged by the amount of words you write, but the more you write, the less likely your post is being looked into to be called spam post.

Campaign managers who rely on long posts to pick campaign participants are like managers who look at earned merit of users in making their picks. If someone writes a long (and expectedly, boring) post on page one, there's a chance that it gets read unlike when that same post is on page 10 or on a mega thread. These are some of the little things that should mean something. Most times, these lengthy posts don't make much sense like the two-three liners and they get passed over more. What's the essence of making posts others don't bother to read?

I'm a bit late, but I only saw this thread today

I'll give you my opinion: sometimes I've come across posts that were too long and sometimes hard to read
What could help a lot is to better format the text and the post itself, the use of images, emoticon, arrows, lists and tools that the forum offers makes the message much more pleasant and organized to read, but it takes more time to post
This would help a lot to make long posts more attractive

Obviously, this doesn't apply to long posts with no purpose

No, they know that pretty well that no merit source would fall for those posts. as @Apocollapse mentioned. they are mostly done to qualify for the signature campaign. campaign managers mostly count long posts. because they look high quality.
they are also used for merit farming between friends or alt accounts.

The reason behind long post that some times appear as essay can't be narrowed to a single reason, there are other persons who are necessarily not writing because of their involvement in a campaign, some may be exhaustively talking about something or proving a point and such post usually have quality when the content are careful red. Been in a campaign has been the post comm reason some persons make such long post but there are others too who are not in a campaign yet they still make lengthy post because they have got a vast knowledge about a particular topic they are responding to.

How healthy such post is to the forum is something I don't really have a good idea about but we all have the freedom to exhaustively make our contributions within the allowed text length permited by the forum per post and replies, I'm not aware of any exceptions at the moment but if you, do well to share please.

I feel like this is a personal attack or something lol. In any case, here's a piece of my brain regarding why I like to post "essays" as you put when I comment.

First off, I'm more of a follow your train of thought guy rather than someone who's more comfortable with brief and concise thoughts. I feel like I can express myself much better that way than if I had to strictly follow mechanics for posting or whatever. Second, I think moderators and campaign managers like content-heavy comments more than those that do not have a lot of thought put into them. In that way I get my comments secured from removals, I get higher chances of being accepted into signature campaigns (which I would lie if I say I am against cause what the hell you're getting paid to say your mind), and I am able to provide more noteworthy content to people who need it, especially those in the gambling section which I frequent in. If you see just how degenerative most comments in the gambling boards are, you'd come to realize why posting more informative and hence longer comments become necessary rather than a stylistic choice.

I guess that's about it really for me, but there's also something that I believe could be one of the reasons why you think more people post longer content here.

We got reputable members in the forum like franky1 and The Sceptical Chymist who post short comments generally, but these people every now and again post comments as long as mine as well and I think it just catches the people's eyes when people as famous as them make long posts/comments.

Well long post should not bored people if it has some useful and/or interesting information. If the long essays were the reason people do not read them, then we never would had the blogging websites and articles written on them to get the traffic, as all those articles are also long and take time to read.


Very short post like half liner, one liner or even two lines are considered spam these days, especially if the writer of the post is wearing a signature. It is expected that since the writer got paid to post, he or she should put in some effort and make a reasonably long post (but that does not mean that he drags the post long meaninglessly only to extend it).

There are many people who like to post a bit longer length but sometimes they get bored reading the extra long length posts and many people skip these posts. Many people feel bored while reading long posts but sometimes even long posts contain a lot of important information. Again, many people like to make short posts. In this case, even short posts may contain important information. Many campaign managers ask their posts to follow the campaign's requirements, which must include characters. There are many campaign managers who do not accept short length posts and in their case require posts between 150+/200+ characters. However, no matter if the post is big or small, if the post contains important information, then those posts will be healthy for the forum.

Seems like people are never happy in any way. When someone writes one or two liners, we say that he is posting too short a post etc and when someone is writing a short of essay, we are again complaining about it.  

I would say that it's hard to please everyone but to be honest, if a writer is posting all the one-liners, he is a shit poster and if he is making all posts like an essay, then again he is not being natural and doing it for some purposes like a signature requirement or whatever.

The best ones are those whom you will find the mixers of long and short posts as that is close to the natural habit of writing.

If the long post is on topic and makes sense I don't consider it to be an essay but if the poster is just beating around the bush just to make a long post to attract merit because some merit sources believe long posts deserve to be merited then i consider such post to be an essay.

Long posts can have various purposes. As some think long posts make their post quality look better. Some people think that long posts are better viewed by campaign managers. Again it may be that they can also accept it as a good way to transfer merit. Different people may have different motives. Actually there is no dearth of news channels in present age if one needs to read long post then they can get their knowledge after those news.

What I think effective in forums is that if a member is able to convey what he wants to understand in short form then there is no need to go long. Moreover, not everyone has the desire to wear a long post. There are some things that cannot be explained in detail. The point is that it is a member's perception. Not everything can be solved with restrictions. It is not difficult if everyone tries individually.

Long text aren’t always annoying to read though. Trust me that you can read content that is well arranged and punctuated and enjoy it. One of the things that discourages me from reading long texts is when the OP doesn’t use paragraphs.

For content that has 6 paragraphs, it’s easier and tempting to at least start reading, but reading the other paragraphs depends on how good the first one was. Paragraphs also makes a write up to not feel so long as it actually is. And sadly, things like this, they don’t consider.

I don't understand people who wrote a long text to reply to a simple sentence like I don't understand why politicians talk a lot without saying (or doing) anything.
It is normal to have a long text while you are quoting several people, talking about complex issue, explaining how Bitcoin works for example..etc
Sometimes I wonder if they are using AI to generate the text and paraphrasing it to avoid being detected? Since that already happened before.
Having minimal words requirement has nothing to do with long text since most signature campaigns ask generally to pass around hundred of words which is the equivalent of three or four lines..
Long text are annoying to read and gets more appreciation by the others regardless of how empty they were inside, that's why some people keep doing that intentionally.

The main reason I think is that they want to sound good as if they really do know what they are saying. Sometimes they want merit but receive none. One thing they may not have paid attention to is that it is one thing to write a long content and another for it to make sense to the reader. If you check around, you’ll see simple and straightforward forward posts which receives merit. It’s not about lengthy content, let there be some life in what you’re saying.

I think they should leave the Stake campaign out of this, there are many posters that write in such a way that carries a semantic load and not a summary like some people would want. Summary or not, it is at the discretion of the author, and me personally, I always try to limit what I post even though I have a lot to say. This is because it might be boring the reader if it is too long, but that doesn't mean that if I write more it will still not have more meaning, only that I might leave the rest which I need to discuss on another day when I visit the topic with a similar reply to be made.

It is a free world here and even with the Stake campaign, the campaigner would be paid so far it is up to 150 characters and I believe that should be barely two lines, so nothing is compulsory here. It could also be that some people like writing, just like me, and want to effectively express themselves in what they convey to people. I absolutely see nothing wrong in that even as it is better for campaigns as it shows they selected the right person(s) that can represent them well and not dullrads.