[The E]

No, Mobius, this is not derailing.

You see, in the end, it's like this. 50k characters is enough. As has been pointed out, that's equivalent to about 9000 words, or nearly 40 pages of printed fiction. Now, I can't fault you for having the creativity and perseverance necessary to write that much, but at some point you have to ask yourself if you really need that much, or if your intended audience can actually take that much.
For reference, the entire Blue Planet ref bible, which is our repository containing the entire backstory of BP, dossiers of most of the major players in the BP universe and other stuff, is currently at a little bit under 50k characters, and even that is too long to be considered postable.

Now, regarding storage, several things have been pointed out already that could work for you even better than forum posts, like files on a shared FTP server, or files stored in a version control repository. If you need help setting up the latter, I can help you out. Since you are looking to distribute these bits of story so that your team members can look them over and submit corrections, a version controlled storage site, like Launchpad, github, or Google Code would be best for you.

[Mobius]

Well, someone ended up saying that I should shrink what I wrote and that seemed a bit OT to me. Glad BP is under the 50k limit, but with the flood of ideas we've having, breaking this limit is necessary. We have many factions (almost one per Sol planet) and other stuff to describe in INFASA, such as certain technologies and situations, so staying below that limit is virtually impossible at the moment... not to mention the work that will be done on important INF SCP stuff like the EA, GTVA after Capella, the Melia Gate, etc. etc. We have many things to describe, much more than BP currently has, so I wouldn't be surprised of that.

It may be too much but someone may still find it a good reading or, at least, reckognize that INF's gaps in terms of storytelling are part of the past.


In any case, the problem has been solved: I now can add the descriptions and fictions to INF's website, and will rely on that for publication while the private board will be used as usual for development purposes.

Now, the initial question is more a curiosity: any particular reason why the limit has been kept to 50.000 characters? Do SMF limits have anything to do with it?

[General Battuta]

Well, someone ended up saying that I should shrink what I wrote and that seemed a bit OT to me. Glad BP is under the 50k limit, but with the flood of ideas we've having, breaking this limit is necessary.

this makes no sense

We have many things to describe, much more than BP currently has, so I wouldn't be surprised of that.

wrong

It may be too much but someone may still find it a good reading or, at least, reckognize that INF's gaps in terms of storytelling are part of the past.

if the documents you sent me to edit are any indication...maybe, but you're not there yet

You need to learn to say more with less. When you sent me your story material I took one skim through it, nearly fell asleep a quarter of the way in, and rapidly decided that editing it was a waste of my time and effort.

You want to make sure your readers don't make the same decision about actually reading it.

[Mobius]

I meant more than what you made public until now, as I don't know what else you're doing at the moment. Oh, and that doc is currently undergoing serious upgrades.

[General Battuta]

I meant more than what you made public until now, as I don't know what else you're doing at the moment.

Again: length is not what is important. Blue Planet currently has about 80,000 characters/15,000 words of public fiction., which is about 60 manuscript pages. Which is arguably too much. I would have liked to use even less.

Oh, and that doc is currently undergoing serious upgrades.[/color]

That's good to hear. Starwolf seemed like a pretty decent writer from what I saw. I myself have a tendency to go long, and people usually have to remind me to keep length under control. I can easily do 10,000 words a day, which is bad bad bad.

Look, Mobius, think of it this way. You're a painter. A painter does not make a painting by using as much paint as possible. He uses the right paint in the right places.

Length restrictions will make your writing better. Most professional markets will not accept short fiction over 10,000 words and 5,000 is ideal. More importantly, readers won't read.

[Mobius]

/OT

?

[The E]

While this may be offtopic regarding the question of whether or not the length limit of posts should be raised, it is my firm belief that when a customer asks "Why can't I do x?", it is usually best to respond with the question "Why do you think you want to do x?" Because most times, the ensuing discussion will help to better define the customer's requirements.

In this case, your requirement is not "I need more space for my fiction." You want to make your fiction better, and all we're saying is that a) there are better ways of getting that done than forum posts and b) your belief that you need to use that much space is quite possibly mistaken, as most people will not be willing to spend that much time reading up on backstory that they may not need.

In addition, what you said earlier, about how those humongous pieces of writing are detailing every faction your mod is using? That suggests to me that there ARE natural points that can be used to break up your fiction. It suggests to me that your 200.000 characters requirement comes more from a misunderstanding of the process called collaborative writing, than any actual need.

There's another thing to consider. If or when it becomes time for you to compile your version of species.tbl, you will have to boil all that information, or a good part of it, down into pieces no longer than 4096 characters. Starting that reduction process sooner, rather than later, is recommended.

[General Battuta]

moved to pm

[Fury]

No, character limit is not going to be raised for posts. Use Inferno website to post final stuff, for development stuff you can use something else like Google Docs.

Everything that needs to be said has been said, I'm closing this topic.