Topic: Why do some campaign members posting essay? (Read 907 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.

Some campaign require you make such long post because they require you have not less than a certain number of words on your post for it to be considered quality enough to be counted for payment and so the campaign participants try to put up such long post so they meet the requirements and also get paid, some other posters believe the longer the post the better the quality because even campaign managers more like count and keep long post than they will do with short post except those short post are straight to the point and have got good quality.

But this doesn't mean length of post means good quality as some lenghty post might just be bluffing and unnecessary usage of words which could be avoided but then the quest for "quality post" makes people still post regardless.

Afaik, all signature campaigns character quota requirement (if not all, then vast majority) so Stake is not an expection here. The reason he singled out Stake is probably because of their tendency to attract spammers and shitposters due their low payment and high weekly quota. And I guess its easier to hide the shitpost if you write a wall of text, or at least that's what they think.

Posting essay or not is not what is against the forum rules, the question is that are they spamming, trolling, or doing plagiarism, if not then what they are doing is not worth a punishable offense, the last aspect I may like to talk about is that if the content of what they are posting is off topic, then all you could do is to just report them to the moderator, the last thing to completely avoid them is putting them on ignore.

Some signature campaigns (like Stake's for example) have requirements on the number of characters that have to be in a post.  So while they may have a very simple answer that could be given in a few words, they are incentivized with money to make their posts a little longer in order to reach the character requirements that have been set.  I'm not familiar with how widespread this is with other campaigns, but perhaps that explains why you singled out Stake. 

A few years back, this was a pretty respected practice because good posters weren't so easy to find on the forum. There were some who exclusively wrote essays, and good ones at that.

Now, looks like inflation and the tech downturn has given people a lot of time as well as motivation. On top of that, it has become far too easy to write a lot without saying much.

What i notice though is that there are fewer novel topics of discussion coming up. Its mostly the same things being talked about that we used to argue since the days of Segwit. Jamie Dimon anyone?? LOL.. I maybe wrong on this as I am just finding my way back to the forum after some time. Maybe I haven't been to the exciting nooks yet.

While I still maintain it's not a "Stakes" specific problem with "epistles" as replies from users in that campaign as many are alluding, I admit that I've also run into users who aren't on that campaign writing epistles as posts. Some aren't even in any campaigns, yet they write in such a manner. I guess it's a writing technique for people who write that way. For me it's boring reading through such lengthy posts, especially the one whose link is quoted here. Brevity should be top most on the minds of users. We shouldn't bore the community with verbosity.

TBH, I don't read those wall of texts, especially when it is not coming from someone I know too well is a very knowledgeable in Bitcoin. I have tried it several times and regretted at last. Some of those lengthy posts are full of repetitions and non connected narrations which could easily be called off topic.

In most cases what the users wish to say ended in the first few lines but the poster will deliberately stretch the write up to look like a gigantic article. There are people that writes such as habit, such as Jay juan, franky1, LUCKYFLY1 and others, and I read their posts. But recently, it's becoming a norm in the forum.

I guess an essay or long post is not that important, the important thing is you understand and get the point of the post right? It doesnt really matter if the post is long, on the other hand, that could be a positive thing I guess since you could include more details on the post and probably explain it better with just a short post, but it is just going to depend on how you're going to see the long post but for sure it wasn't going to be a negative thing as long as it still has a good thought.

Having a detailed reply for sure might be a good thing for the forum unless they are just typing some nonsense on their post just to make it longer that is where things could easily be a bad thing and probably you could report it for spamming, if it is just nonsense posting. I mean long post does really mean that it is going to be a quality post, and its better to have a short quality post than having a long but low-quality posting.

What posts does constitute an Essay to you?
From the comments that precedes the thread, I find long posts to fall for that category but, I don’t find anything wrong or not okay with having to make a clear narrative on a subject.

It doesn’t have to be about you being a campaign participants to come up with this sort of post and to be frank, you would hardly find campaign participants coming up with long narrative posts especially, when they are about meeting up with post quota.

Short or few lined posts often count for spamming or low effort created content and with that, users tend to do the most to have a clear narrative on a subject to avoid confusion and hope it constitutes to post quality.

That's absolutely true... Some campaign requirements are too demanding... I seen a couple of crap lately - from stakes most especially... So I decided to look up their requirements and I was convinced. Sometimes, they go off point, all in a bid to make the post voluminous - I don't know why OP doesn't read to check for stuffs like quality and substance...I also realized that most of their participants are having bulky post as compared to merit ratio... I think it's basically for that reason.

---

For the genuine ones; threads, guides etc ... We all know.

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

To express their ideas, and suggestions and base them on their experience.
If you think sharing information that benefits people who read this and takes a lot of text or words to fulfil their questions they dont hesitate to give a lot of their knowledge to help other members of the community. Its your free will to give information that's the forums for. But make sure the contents are related to the discussion some posts have tons of words and tl;dr but doesn't related to the topic just their benefit is to post to be counted on their signature campaigns. Make it clear and understandable i guess its enough to prevent having a long post.

This long essay writing could have come in as a result of forum requesting for quality posts and other supporting services such as SMAS BLACKLIST that existed a few years ago and to avoid being listed there... users went for essays to stay off their radar  

But all in all, this misconception of long essays is equal to a quality post is still debatable as a simple word or two to a question can stand as quality afaik....but I guess some users want to stand out and grind for merit (most obvious reason)

Other reason for essays is because its easy for a manager to pick you if you are into Signature Campaigns and just makes it easy to sieve out from the one two liners... provided grammar, sentence construction is above average and their is actual sharing of knowledge/information in those essays.

Write whatever you want in your style and stop crucifying people for writing so much. I don't even know the sensible reason for this topic only for the fun of it as some might write a few lines as possible and still make no sense, while some might write much and all making sense, and vice versa. So it is unfair to say that those who are writing much are all writing rubbish. You can only treat cases individually. In case you don't know, the topics and replies that are much could carry a lot of semantic load and I know that this is not only good for the writers' improvement but also for the campaign the writer campaigns for.

Some of you do not care about the campaigns that pay you but for the money, while others care about the two and deliver as they should, even more. What I wouldn't be happy about is writing long lines with no meaning, that is so bad and such errors must be corrected. But if the wording is good and coherent, then let it be. As for "junder", I haven't read his posts but it is not a must that you earn merit on the forum before you are considered good and only an unwise/partial person wouldn't know that the merit system is not perfect. The guy, as I check now, writes mostly on the gambling section that fetches almost no merits, so what do you expect?

Mind you, it is not all quality posts that will attract merits, most are unappreciated. So leave people to how they naturally can write but correct them or point their attention to where you feel they are doing things wrongly and stop being perfect.

Writing style is a personal freedom. Members cannot be judged for long articles. Some of them intend to fill the articles with unnecessary words to make them seem long, but others may not be able to express their idea well without providing long explanations.

I know what you mean. Sometimes members are really passionate about the subjects and can be a little excited to let you know how they feel.
Also some of them have post minimums they make sure to abide by in signature campaigns. So you'll see a lot of filibuster content.

Funny, but I think the reason why most campaigners or users here post bulky stuffs is because if the perception that this here community has which is " bulky actually might increase quality" although I say this from IMO. but that being said most of them is just there posting style and I know of a particular poster although he doesn't promote any campaign but he is known here as the father of bulky post and not just bulky, his post are always incised and filled with lots of information @jayJuanGee.

Long posts are indeed very tiring at times. Sometimes, at the beginning of a post, you understand how it will end. I think there are no fans of long reading on the forum unless the author has won the users' trust as a person who always lays out the value of words.
There is a saying: “Brevity is the sister of talent,” so the one who knows how to express his thoughts without the presence of “water” in the texts is truly a genius.

As someone who is more comfortable sharing my whole train of thought rather than summarizing shit into a single sentence, I feel like this is insulting, as if to say that long posts doesn't make the content any better. The thing is that besides the campaign requirements, every single one of us here push for better and more productive content rather than trashy posts made by people who just wanted to farm interactions and impressions in this forum, and so with that comes the premise that people would need to create longer posts with full-on explanations (just like this one) rather than summarize their whole shit just so your low-attention-span having ass could read it.

Matter of fact I think I speak for everyone here when I say we'd rather have longer posts with more content than have people post something like "I approve of it." or "I am scared of the current state of bitcoin blah de blah" which frankly does not contribute to the discussion and is deliberately added to just farm as much posts as possible.

People express themselves differently, some like me like to do so in a few words, some others do so in so many words that they do not know when it turns into an epistle, and there are actually readers who take their time to read carefully through these epistles because they believe that that is what they should be seeing in a forum like this.

It doesn't matter if your writing in very many words or a few words, because the most important thing should be that someone can learn from what you have written in some way.

In my personal opinion and experience, for a post or participation here in the forum to be informative and worth of merits that post needs to be a certain minimum volume of information and pictures attached to it in the best of the cases. Nonetheless, there have been also posts which are rather short and received merits, but those are valuable for a different reason, rathed for their informative value, they are funny, amusing or point out something is which obvious; the matter is more likely to receive merits if it is posted by a recognized member of the forum, instead of a newbie.

The size of the post does not have much to do with the value of it for this community, a long post can either be good or plain garbage, depending on whether it is alligned with the context of the discussion or not. Perhaps, we are getting used to shorter interactions in other places of the internet like Twitter or shorter paragraphs in Discord/Telegram, so when we switch back to this place and encounter long texts, we don't feel like reading them. I can certainly feel identified with that phenomenon.

when you say "essay", it depends on what you mean. If it's just because of the length of the writeup, I doubt that's a problem to be worried about.

If I have an opinion to share and would need to make it detailed so the person reading it can understand what I'm saying, then I can't reduce the length of my writeup and make less meaning out of what I'm saying just because I don't want to be seen to be making a lengthy post.

The only problem what writing a lengthy writeup is with regard to those people that spam the forum with unnecessary post that is difficult to understand but is at the same time lengthy and they will post multiple of it at different boards in the forum

Some members have this feeling that if they post something very long like inform of a text book that they can be merited, like it seems informative to them but they forget that it mustn't be like that, cut it short and give out the important part of the post. A short and simple post can pass the message without stressing the readers and many users on this Forum don't like reading much (long post), like having a long note as post (some can be informative no matter how long), they (the readers) see it as a waste of time.
And is not only campaign members, those who always do such even if they know the post won't generate traffic they still go ahead to do just to impress are also those that are not yet in a campaign.

Based on my observation some of the most merited replies I mean replies not the Original poster of the thread are short concise informative and on point, I prefer to pattern my style to that kind of reply instead of posting a long essay, after all this is still a community discussion it's like we have a group of people in conversation done online, and we have readers to consider too.
I just wonder will those people who write long posts will still do it if they are not in a signature campaign.

It's definitely unhealthy to the forum because instead of finding short but quality posts, some participants chose to create lengthy post in hunt for merits. Because if this merit system does not exist, I don't think these people will put too much effort on posting to the point that they end up creating more of like essays. But sad to say, instead of gaining attraction and merits from the readers, some just didn't dare to read the post since the reading time may be time consuming. Even myself, I usually don't go after with these long posts since it keeps me looking what and where the main point is. I would rather want to read a short but well explained thoughts and ideas as its certainly not tiring to read.

What do you mean by essays, is it mean big articles or long replies? Well, it is not the campaign participants who are writing essays it is just those who are most active and participating and contributing as in terms of useful content so called essays. And there activity and contribution made them rank fast, and also help them build some trust and they became the active member of this forum.

So once they become the active members so most of these active members are now part of some campaign which are paying them money for making posts, so this time there optimism about the creativity of posts increased more and they are trying to be more creative. Which is a good thing and there is nothing bad in it. But I doubt this creativity will remain the same means at the same level as it is now due to the ban on some campaigns. Well, let's see the impact but I don't think it would be that big.

I never thought that someone would consider my posts as Essays but if you think like that than I can't change your mind. I try to explain my point of view in detail so people can understand them easily but sometimes I don't make long posts. I know that many people may consider somewhat longs posts as Essays but it's important to read the posts carefully before coming to a conclusion. I will always be making some posts longer if detail is needed in those posts and would make other posts shorter if they can deliver the message in short format.

I have seen posts of some members which were very long in length and it was hard to read those posts seriously. However, I won't name anyone in this thread as many others might know those members already. I find nothing wrong in those posts and sometimes I feel that the members who make such long posts might have enough knowledge to share with us and I also believe that it would take those members a lot of time to make such long posts.

Well, a post can be long and still contain no relevant ideas but just some beating around the bush. Some comments can be short but still contain a very informative idea; that's also how some comments can be long and also contain a very well-detailed explanation about the topic of discussion.

A comment can be equally short but irrelevant to the topic of discussion, so it all depends on the member and how he or she wishes to make their post.

Apart from the fact that the campaigns in which I have ever participated required me to make comments that were not less than 100, 150, and 200 words, respectively, I normally like my comments to be very informative, right from when I was a newbie. From my post history, you can tell that right from when I joined the forum, I didn't write less than 200 words in most of my posts. That doesn't mean that if I come across some topics that require me to make only a few words of comment, I will.

Although some members think that it's when they write long essay, that's when their post can be counted as a quality post, or that will aggravate the merit source to splash some merit.

Conclusively, a comment can be an essay but useless; a comment can be short and still useless. Vis-à-vis, a comment can be short and very informative, just as a long comment will also be very informative. It all depends on the commenter and their ability to use either a short statement with one or two paragraphs to pass on their reasonable opinion, while some people actually like to give a very detailed explanation with long paragraphs, making sure they link together every possible scenario and example that would help the reader understand what they are saying.

Yes , I also noticed many users especially in the gambling section and altcoins section. You already gesture the reason which is compaign rules to make a long most have a more than 300 or 400 characters. Members are trying to increase extra 3-4 sentence after main point.


Yes, if the details provided after main point further disclose the main idea and help readers to easily understand.

No , If just repeating of nonsense idea again and again without any further information.

it's healthy for the forum since the Google bots will like unique content and the Google bots index the pages faster for the search engine. 

since you are referring to the Stake campaign, you should know that the manager of the campaign removes the users who don't write longer posts. that's why they make it very long. this applies to other campaigns because they indicate posting around 250 characters. they like it that way like people will notice the siggy.

Most likely, their mindset might be if they create lengthy post, that will automatically earn merit because of the various insights included in their post. But in reality, it will only confuse the reader and might discourage some readers from reading it due to the fact that its so tiring to read. That's why I don't see positive effect on members having that posting habit. It's still better to create a short but precise post, rather than to create confusion and tiring effect on part of the readers.

However, this is also case to case basis. If the topic requires a detailed post and would mean elaborating all the significant details, then posting like an essay may be an advantage. But still, only few of the members would likely to respond to that certain thread.

Do they get paid more for writing essays? I think it has more to do with merits than post quota for signature campaigns. Some believe long posts have higher chances of getting merits than concise and short posts. This belief did not come from thin air, there are members who reward long posts just because they feel the OP has put a lot of effort into writing a wall of text. Members who have been rewarded their ability to make long posts will find it difficult to change even as they grow in the forum.

Yes, there are many in the gambling section, most of them Stake, as the OP said. Another example would be junder, which I've been talking about recently. You can see that making the written rubbish too long can earn them a bonus and that's why you see so many in that campaign writing long posts that at first glance look coherent but without basically saying anything meaningful.

"Unhealthy" is when one forum members calls out other forum members about things that they dont like.

If you think the post is irrelevant, report it. Let moderators take action and move on from that. If you are still getting bugged by that user, put them on your Ignore list, report the manager about it and leave.

I do not appreciate people calling each other out like this, this is a place where people should be able to hang out like a coffee-shop adda, forget about campaigns and all. If you guys still have to mudsling, we got all sorts of social media for that, toxicity is nothing new, adding to it in unhealthy, trying to remove it makes it wholesome.

Theymos has an insight into this, so he emphasizes how members of this community should treat this platform, this is a discussion platform, not Medium like a platform where content took 5 to 10 minutes to finish reading, it's ok to do 6 liners but posts that looks like an essay like what OP trying to imply is not good, posters should try to digest their post if they are replying to a discussion, and just make it worth reading.

This is definitely based on the topic, but I can sense what you are trying to say OP because you were specific about some campaign participants.

IMO, it's okay to post long post on an informational thread, like a thread that are just suppose to go 2 to 3 pages and you'll already get the answer you are looking. However, on threads that have active discussions like for instance the NBA thread, it's a pain in the eyes when someone making long post like he was summarazing all the events on a certain day. Just my personal opinion, I don't find it appealing.

For those who are forcing themselves to make a long post just to look good, I suggest do it with sincerity as it can be seen in your post if you are sincere or not, making a long post doesn't make you a quality poster automatically.

Irrelevant essay on any topic doesn't make any sense. This is an ongoing discussion that has made into the first page on this board many times. I am not able to share those links as this topic itself is irrelevant for me.

There are a few like you who come up with one liner or two. There are others like JayJuanGee who have the ability or talent you can say to write long paragraphs.

Unless you try to explain in detail, considering a new topic or a reply which covers everything, you would be not considered a good poster here. There are a few who can reply in one word in the forum, they gained reputation because they were accurate and to the point with their replies. Not everyone can achieve such kind of reputation unless being technically sound.

Essays look good on profile, they give illusion of being a quality poster, tho when you read the post, you realize how much of quality it is.

Most of the essay type posts found here can be trimmed down to couple sentences if they were to be rephrased. Very few has this ability to keep you glued to read whole post with such type of posts.

An Essay is not a bad thing? Isn't it when somebody says a whole load of rubbish that it becomes a problem?
There are things you need to explain with long essays and epistles while some just need a couple of lines, so there's no point complaining about essays. Instead, complain about long posts with no quality. Complain when a person uses an essay to explain what he could have done in a couple of lines.

If you can't read long posts or you find them very uninteresting, you can always avoid them, but make sure not to comment on what you didn't read. You can also advise the OP to use the right paragraphing to make his post more readable or add pictures and graphs where necessary to reduce the writing.

I don't know about others, but most of the time, if I find myself in a situation where I'm writing a long post, it's always when I find a topic of interest and I have more to say, which I can't just combine into 1 to 2 paragraphs. In such a situation, I try as much as I can to say out whatever I have in mind regarding that particular topic or matter.
 
A long line post does not make it unique, but the fact that it is passing is what makes it stand out among others. But many people have always gone their own way, writing their own bible and dictionary, and this has been their own way of making their posts. I don't know why most people do that; it could be that they always have what to say or they don't just know how to hit the nail right in the head without having to explain the process of doing that.

Also there is one campaign that give rewards to some of their posters. And if you look at those who usually get the rewards, love to write long essays, Lol. I think you know what campaign I'm talking about. Anyhow, I have nothing against them, that's there style and it suit them best. But in any case, it doesn't depend on the length of your post if your target is to get merit. There's even one liner wherein I saw getting merit. And if you get your message across the board then good. And on the other hand, most of the time I just skipped those long replies, I mean how can you reply if it has everything on it,  .

Exactly. Most of the time when most members attempt making contributions they tend to give every single idea they have at that moment concerning that topic. Come to think of it , what would a quality post be on this forum if it lacked proper and detailed information?

Definitely it has always been encouraged to make quality contributions here than spamming with just a few lines in some cases. I don't think most people who actually settle down to read such replies see them as an essay. I mean what harm could it be reading 10 lines of a quality reply properly arranged in paragraphs be?

OP, it'd help if you posted an example or two of what you consider to be an essay, because that word might not mean the same thing to both of us.

But assuming what you mean are very long posts then yes, I've noticed that for years--especially since the start of the merit system.  What I find annoying is when members who obviously can't write English for shit make posts that are extremely bloated, i.e., using a ton of words but which say next to nothing in terms of content.  I guess they think the more they write the better their post will be judged by merit sources, their campaign manager, or whoever.

Yep.  And that AI-generated stuff kind of scares me, because I think it's probably made it way easier for a non-English speaker to write something that looks to be high quality in perfect English, and I'll be damned if I'd be able to tell the difference if I'm not familiar with the member's style of writing (which I'm usually not unless they're an older member, in which case they wouldn't be using AI to write posts anyway).

It is true and such posters intentionally do it to hide their non sense posts. Just write as lengthy as possible and assume their posts contain something interesting. In fact, no quality on such posts.

Hahaha, essay indeed!

Let me ask you a question, have you read an article with detailed information and not a summary that only contains 1 or 2 lines? This is not a mere social media platform where you just write yes or no, if you say yes, why the yes?

People need to learn from you. Fine, it's not all answers or narration that require one to write so much, but most of them require it. This is how you know those who mean well for the forum as they take their time to explain facts. It costs them nothing to write 2 lines like some do. Nevertheless, reading their post at times, you will get the entire gist of the discussion, not like writing short lines.

Besides, this is good for campaigns. Choose your writers wisely!

I definitely understand the op perfectly, and to be honest, i do come across such long comment mostly in the gambling and gambling discussion board, and you guys know what?, I don't bother reading such posts or comments.

And for those who do make such long posts, I know the reason why, most especially for those in the Stake signature ad campaign as myself, long posts like that earns the posters the weekly bonus, and to be honest, the few times I tried reading such posts, I discovered that those who post such long comments actually do not have anything unique to say from what others users have said, they just keep repeating what either they have previous said or what other users have also said, doing it in such a manner it becomes very long so that the managers can consider it a quality post, and unfortunately, i do not think the managers actually read such posts before giving it credit.

For me, I will always prefer posts that are well summarized, kept simple but written with high intellectual, that is, straight to the point and hits the nail on the head, much better than a block full of rhetorical words after words comment simply repeating same thing over and over again.

Do you have an example of the essays you speak of? It will help to know if they were just stretched out beyond the required characters to pass the message or were actual helpful posts.

Most campaigns have a character requirement, but they are mostly within the range of 100-150, not essay worthy numbers at all.

- Jay -

That's Sam Reomo its still ok

But how about this one, it's a challenge reading this post.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.63389484

I already mentioned that I have no problem with this kind of post if a user is motivated to write a long post but the majority of readers prefer a summary, this is still a discussion community where people will read posts that are short with substance and can participate in a discussion, now how can I quote on that post without losing the substance of the discussion.

Actually, it depends on the purpose of the post, if a person has the purpose of explaining something in detail at once, then he has to make the size of the post a little bigger. Moreover, many people usually keep the length of the post a little longer to avoid spam, but that doesn't mean that a simple short two-line post is not qualityfull. Sometimes even a two-line post can contain a lot of important informative information that can't be found in an eight-ten line post.
That's a real truth, But I don't think it's right to put everyone in the same queue. Yes, there is a minimum character requirement for signature campaigns, but you don't need to make a big post to fulfill it. The requirement is fulfilled in two or three line posts. However, there is a report option for those of you who think there is a problem with the post, and there is no guarantee that the big post will not be spam, you can always quote the posts in this topics.

I don't want to mention names because there are many. Most of them are probably coming from stake campaign. It seems like some of them are trying to make a post longer when it can be done with short post.


I think merit sources knows what post to be merited. They are aware if a user is just trying to fill the campaign requirement and trying to force a long post to impress their campaign manager. I hope campaign managers would also look on members that makes long post which arent' really necessary.

---

You are one of the most merited member in the forum and I like your post because it doesn't need to be too long, you'll only make it long when necessary and yet you can convey your thoughts effectively. I wish there are more people like you.

---

I have no grudge against members that do long post, but I am just disappointed on some who value their post based on quantity, not quality.

Simply because a lot of users think that posting long topics makes it highly more likely for them to receive merits; even though if you read most of those, the thread seems to be pretty forced(character and word count wise). Not to mention that some are ChatGPT-generated.

If anything, it makes me far less likely to give merits. Just freakin get to the point without all the unnecessary fluff.

Don't worry, even if you didn't mention Stakes' signature campaign participants, we all know that you're referring to this users.

This user's post also seems like an essay: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/samreomo-885934

It doesn't mean a long post equals a high-quality post; most of this post is just to meet signature campaign quotas.

Because long post make your post looks high quality, this will give some advantages like:

1. The moderator will high unlikely to delete your post.
2. The campaign manager will count the post without going to check the point/message of the post.
3. Merit sharing with alts will be hard to busted because people think long post deserved to be merited and merit is subjective.

I'm not sure if it's healthy or unhealthy for the forum since no one has a right to change someone else posting habit and as I said above, the moderator won't delete such post. So it's what it's.

Sorry about the title. While reading some posts, I noticed that some campaign participants seem to be posting essays. Have you noticed the same, or is it just me? If you also notice this, do you think it's healthy for the forum?