# Discourse wants long rambling posts instead of posts replying to specific comments **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [October 20, 2020, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406 "2020-10-20T13:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/21 "2020-10-24T22:11:51Z")
Well sure that’s why the default is a limit of three sequential replies rather than a limit of, say, one. That’d be way too restrictive. A nice common ground where we prevent most of the ambient accidental badness while also not limiting people’s ability to reasonably express themselves. That’s what we strive for at Discourse. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/22 "2020-10-24T22:21:31Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > Well sure that’s why the default is a limit of three sequential replies rather than a limit of, say, one. That’d be way too restrictive. A nice common ground where we prevent most of the ambient accidental badness while also not limiting people’s ability to reasonably express themselves. That’s what we strive for at Discourse This may make sense to you, but as a mobile phone poster, I can tell you it’s extremely difficult to multi-quote on a cell phone. There’s often not enough real estate for accurate editing, quotes get dropped into an incorrect insertion spot, etc. Much safer to post separately. Also, if a person responds to many posts in one rambling post, when people then reply, it easily becomes one big mess. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/23 "2020-10-24T22:26:01Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > but as a mobile phone poster, I can tell you it’s extremely difficult to multi-quote on a cell phone Bit of a red herring; even _typing_ on a phone is more difficult. I’d expect shorter, more succinct replies on mobile as a direct function and influence of the platform. You could make a pretty coherent argument that on mobile the image is the best, most efficient, and preferred form of communication – and that argument (correctly) predicts the rise of Instagram and the like. You know “one image worth a thousand words blah blah blah” (And man I really wish Facebook hadn’t been allowed to buy Instagram, because Instagram would be completely eating their lunch right now. Instead we get… more Facebook world dominance 😭) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/24 "2020-10-24T22:35:20Z")
as a side note: how do you quote another poster on a phone? I can’t highlight and get the quote bubble. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/25 "2020-10-24T22:39:56Z")
The quote bubble always pops up for me when I highlight, as long as I only highlight the exact part of the response I want. If I highlight anything past the end of the response, it can’t pull up the quote bubble. Maybe it’s browser-specific? I use Brave, which has worked like a champ through the migration (no ads, everything appears the way it’s supposed to, etc). ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/26 "2020-10-24T22:41:19Z")
Yeah, the highlight can’t escape the post body area or it won’t offer the quote option. You can repro this on desktop as well. I’m reading all of this as an argument for styluses on mobile phones! 😉 I’m not even saying that ironically, I think it does make sense as phones trend ever larger… and the Apple Pencil is absolutely amazeballs on an iPad Pro if you’ve ever tried it. Really impressive. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/27 "2020-10-24T22:46:49Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > I’m reading all of this as an argument for styluses on mobile phones! Won’t work properly with my screen protector, sadly. ---
**Author:** ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/codinghorror/32/4242_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/codinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2020, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/28 "2020-10-24T22:48:47Z")
Finger “selection” on mobile is definitely a PITA a lot of the time. It has gotten significantly better since the olden iPhone 3 days, but it’s true there’s a limit to what you can do for fine selection with big ol’ finger sausages. But I’ve also seen people write novellas on mobile devices. And kids are growing up native to this stuff, so… sometimes you have to stop fighting the future and just roll with it? I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/29 "2020-10-25T03:50:04Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > Finger “selection” on mobile is definitely a PITA a lot of the time. It has gotten significantly better since the olden iPhone 3 days, but it’s true there’s a limit to what you can do for fine selection with big ol’ finger sausages. But it’s ideal for people with tiny hands who tweet a lot. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/30 "2020-10-25T04:24:15Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > Well sure that’s why the default is a limit of three sequential replies rather than a limit of, say, one. That’d be way too restrictive. A nice common ground where we prevent most of the ambient accidental badness while also not limiting people’s ability to reasonably express themselves. That’s what we strive for at Discourse. I used to write one long post, replying to all the things I wanted to reply to in a thread. In recent years i have made a conscious effort to break that up into separate posts, especially if I’m following more than one conversation in the thread. I think it makes it easier to read, and easier for the next person to comment. So this feels like a step backwards to me. I get that you don’t want a brand new poster to write fifteen replies and take over the thread. I think the restriction on regular posters is counter-productive, though. I also don’t care for the software imposing style on the posters. If you have a poster whose style is really a problem, the mods can deal with it. But that’s pretty rare, imo. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/31 "2020-10-28T01:16:31Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I also don’t care for the software imposing style on the posters. This. Emphatically, this. I just got that warning again on a different thread. I kept coming up with ideas after the edit windows for my posts. Discourse doesn’t like that - if you don’t think of everything all at once, bad on you! Since I’ve evidently broken Discourse’s shibboleths, I’ve just muted that thread. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/32 "2020-10-28T01:49:42Z")
Actually, that’s a SDMB thing. Discourse lets you edit what you wrote. And I think the default is that you can edit it forever. It’s the SDMB that chose to limit us to a short edit window. Maybe that doesn’t play well with some other Discourse defaults, though. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/33 "2020-10-28T02:14:27Z")
It’s an SDMB thing that if I make two posts 10 minutes apart, think of a third thing 30 minutes later that’s relevant and try to post a 3rd post after 30 minutes, I’ll get a warning that I’m not being polite to other posters? ---
**Author:** ![Enjoy\_Slurm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enjoy_slurm/32/3937_2.png) [@Enjoy\_Slurm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enjoy_Slurm)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/34 "2020-10-28T04:45:14Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s moderating something that we never found useful to moderate on our board before, so it obviously doesn’t need to exist. Congrats on becoming a mod. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2020, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406/35 "2020-10-29T08:36:05Z")
> [@codinghorror](#): > > That said **it is a site setting so if the site staff / admins decide that, yes, it is a good idea for a single user to be able to sequentially reply to the same topic 10, 100, 1000 times in a row… this limit can be disabled wiith 30 seconds of work by visiting the Site Settings area in Discourse.** I just wanted to emphesize this for anyone who may have missed it. If this is a big problem for people here, and the mods agree, maybe Mr. Zotti can go in and make the change. Ball in our court. ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discourse-wants-long-rambling-posts-instead-of-posts-replying-to-specific-comments/923406.md?page=1)