Length does matter to some people and not to others.

I think that you can hit the high points of what folks need to know, try to keep it as short as possible, and realize some folks just won't bother to read an unusually long question. My experience has been that sometimes they ONLY read the main question and don't bother with the extra information too.

I'd suggest the following on a long question:

1.) Offer a tip that is large enough to entice people to want to take the time to read it.
2.) Make the question in the header part very clear so that people who are interested in the subject will be more willing to take the time to read the longer details.
3.) Offer only ABSOLUTELY necessary details if it's overly long, knowing you can offer additional information in the comments as necessary. Give the answerers enough to get started, and then you can clarify more through comments and discussion after posting the question.

Keep in mind, if you post it with a tip and it's a long question and no one answers it because of the length, or the answers you get are just not quality ones from folks who didn't bother to read it, you can always select 'no best answer' within three days of asking the question and you'll get a full refund of your tip amount.

You can then use that experience to tweak your question and try again. If your question specifically is whether or not there is a character or word limit for the question, as far as I know, there is not for the text description of the question (but there is, of course, for the 'header' part of it).

Asker's Rating:

Permalink | Report