Word Limit

Well, some of you have been, for lack of a better term, complaining about us having no word limit in our posts. The thing is, PA was for roleplayers of all levels, but I have noticed that a lot of members post one liners and its usually these members who are unrealistic...

so perhaps we should raise the word limit to 100? Opinions?

Depends, is this in RP or for everything?
also, for people who will whine about this, and there will be a few, you'd be able to set the guidelines of your own RPs to lower i'm sure, but only ones that you start.

100 is a little much Darren, I'd say do it to 50. Cause I mean, even I don't get 100 words sometimes...

Well i'd say we could leave it at 30, but be alot stricted with it. Like, quite alot stricted with it, if we can start there, then we could move it to 50 i'd say, but 30 to 100 is a large jump in post length

Okay fine, so sometimes you don't need to go overboard with posts but when you are role-playing with someone you at least want them to chuck out a paragraph or at least try to match what you're writing yourself. 100 words isn't unreasonable but if it’s not needed then don't bother -- a bit like with Jess at the start of the Order meeting because you really didn't need loads there, you could have done it but it wasn't needed . It's all fine and dandy not having a word limit but that just let’s laziness come in and then there really is no point in rp-ing if all you're getting back is a line and sometimes a badly written ones at that! It's not even particularly difficult to get 100 words anyway; it’s all about padding out the posts out a bit.

There are complete polar opposites on this site in the way of posting length. There's Amelia and her massive mother of all posts and there are others that can barely even do a line with proper spelling, punctuation etc. in it. Raise it by all means but I think something needs to be done about the lack of attention to detail. Its fine having a few letters wrong due to typing errors because there are some things even the computer can't pick up but some people need to make friends with Mr. Spellcheck in Microsoft Word and actually read through their posts prior to submitting them. Bah. I dunno. Ignore my rant it you want but this frustrates me to no end.

100 is a bit too much methinks.I mean come on that's like you say minimum 8 lines + per post which some people that are begginers can't write.

Every topic should have specified the post length. I mean if two people roleplay with 3 liners no one should care because that's how they made it. Regarding to massive threads...well you put the limit for each one. Again 100 is too much. That would attract begginers away.

First, I did not realize I was known as the person with "massive mother of all posts" Elijah

I think word limits encourage better writing. I know that there are members on the site who find it difficult to write that much, but I also think there are members on the site who are very capable of writing more than they do. If you consistently allow people to post with only one line of text, they never try for anything better. I understand the concern about ostracizing newbie writers, but I also think the bar could be raised slightly and enforced better. I think 50 words would be a good start.

I'm not knocking them!
I'm glad someone actually does massively-huge posts! It's refreshing.

Anyone can do 100 words, its not difficult. They just can't be bothered most of the times. I guess we could make 100 words (or 60, not less than that though) as the minimum word count but sometimes allow the member to do less than that. For example, in Jess' post at the Order, he wasn't required to do anything more than that and even if he did it would be just a heap of useless stuff. However, we could make it so that if members consistently break the word limit, they get punished, but sometimes they can do less.

Thats Winstons idea btw.

100 words isn't really that hard. A lot of times people are just lazy. Watch this, for example.

Keith walked into the room. Nobody was there, so he sat down. (12 words)

Keith walked into the room, dragging his feet a bit and sighing. Today had not been a good day. Nobody was in the room, so he sat down. (28 words)

Keith walked into the room, dragging his feet a bit and sighing. First the bad grades in potions, then being knocked over in the hall...today had not been a good day. Nobody was in the room, so he sat down. (41 Words)


Keith walked into the room, dragging his feet a bit and sighing. First the bad grades in potions, then being knocked over in the hall...today had not been a good day. And it wouldn’t have been that bad, except everyday felt like this now. He didn’t know if he was even cut out to be here. Nobody had told him it would be so hard. Glancing around, he saw that nobody was in the room, so he sat down. (80 words)

Keith walked into the room, dragging his feet a bit and sighing. First the bad grades in potions, then being knocked over in the hall...today had not been a good day. And it wouldn’t have been that bad, except everyday felt like this now. He didn’t know if he was even cut out to be here. Nobody had told him it would be so hard. Hogwarts had seemed like fun and games at first, but now he was beginning to realize there was work involved; real work. He couldn’t just skate by anymore. Glancing around, he saw that nobody was in the room, so he sat down. (108 words)

I just turned a 12 word sentence into a 108 word paragraph without much effort. Not only that, but the person can respond to my post better. They can see Keith is in a bad mood, they know why, and they can make a much better post in response to that.