I’ve got the minimum post length set to the default of 20 characters, but my users have developed a work around of adding “Pad, pad, pad” to the bottom of their posts, rather than writing longer more informative posts.
Has anyone got any ideas on how to prevent educate them into stopping doing this, please?
It’s driving me potty!
If users are posting replies which have no value, I’d suggest sending a PM and deleting the replies. And make a general post, perhaps a pinned one, setting out that you’re doing that, because the culture of the community is to have good conversations with substantive comments. But of course using the appropriate vocabulary for your case.
You might lose some goodwill and some users. People like to make low-effort comments. You are, for those people, trying to shift the culture, and you are changing their world.
If people are using short comments where they might instead use likes or reactions, then make sure they know that likes (or reactions) are appreciated and are the preferre alternative. Again, using the right language for your case.
Meine Idee wäre die Funktion Watched Words zu nutzen das es entsprechen geblockt oder geflaggt wird.
Shorter limit than 20 chars would be the most elegant solution.
Are their comments worthwhile, but too short? Or are they stupid and they add stupid words to get by?
If those padded comments are useful, then lower the limit, as suggested. If they are garbage fluff, you might just silently delete them. If you want to “educate” them, you can send them as many PMs as you have the stomach for. You could try customizing the “too-short” text to sometihng like “Dude. Your message is too short to be useful. If you add more useless stuff to pad it, it’ll be deleted"l” text to say something that might “educate” them. They probably won’t read it, but if it changes, there is an increased likelihood that they’ll notice it.
That’s how you deal with misbehaving members.
The warning can be in public, friendly at first, but a strong moderator note at the end. Then you move to a warning PM.
If people don’t listen, chuck them out for a few days, that usually gets their attention.
If afterwards they continue to waste your time / devalue your community, you just ban them.
Or as said above, consider lowering the limit if that’s better for your community 