Why do some people put "(long)" in their thread subjects? (1 Viewer)

[Jeffrey Forner]

I see people do this every now and then, and I just don't get it. Chances are, if you're starting new thread on an Internet forum, you want me to read it. However, if you tell me that it's long and perhaps boring, I'm less likely to be willing to read it.
Furthermore, most of the posts that are labled as long are anything but--at least by my standards. If you know me at all, you know that I can post long threads. For instance there's this thread and this thread. Now I consider those posts to be long, but I don't label them as such, because I want you guys to read it, or at the very least, click on it.
So give. What's the story here? Why do people do this?

 

[Bjorn Olav Nyberg]

I always figured they thought it made them look good. "I'm smart enough to write a long post"

 

[Max Leung]

Size DOES matter.

 

[Patrick Sun]

"Truth in advertising"?

 

[Drew Bethel]

I never got the "long" thing either? I think it's silly to include it.

 

[KeithH]

Some people feel the need to apologize for long posts because of the time they feel it will take for others to read them. I've done that on occasion at the end of a long, but I've never put "(long)" in the subject line. I guess some feel better alerting people ahead of time that "you may want to pass this one by if you don't have much time."

 

[cafink]

Why do people do this?

Probably to let people know that the post is going to be long.

 

[Iain Lambert]

Its probably a habit over from newsgroup posts, where each individual post was downloaded seperately. Its useful to know that something is going to take a little while...

 

[Dana Fillhart]

And yet, you did it too, Jeffrey!

 

[Greg Rakaska]

Its probably a habit over from newsgroup posts, where each individual post was downloaded seperately. Its useful to know that something is going to take a little while...

This is undoubtedly the answer. Back before Al Gore invented the internet , a lot of folks logged into NNTP (network news transport protocol) servers using 2400 baud (or less) modems. "Back in the day" some of those folks paid for access by the MINUTE!
NNTP news readers typically download just the article headers. The user then decides which article bodies to download. At 1200 baud, and $0.25 per minute, it would be costly to download a "long" article so posters typically warned the readers when their posts were long.
My first modem was 300 baud !!

 

[Ron-P]

Why do some people put "(long)" in their thread subjects

Compensating for something else perhaps.
Peace Out~

 

[SteveGon]

Awww...I wanted to make the first penis joke!

 

[Carlo_M]

Great, Ron. Now people are going to be putting "SHORT" on all their headers...