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    1000 characters is already long enough that many people will skim it without reading fully. At 10000, the only people who would read that are the people who wouldn't be causing problems in the first place. Commented Nov 5 at 20:48
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    Rooms with complex rules should be able to link to those rules and include an abridged version in the modal. This request is actually an example of why I question the creation of this feature for all rooms. Commented Nov 5 at 20:57
  • @TheGuywithTheHat Hosting websites costs real money and if we can migrate content from an external website to Stack's domain that's a real impact for us, and it's better to show exhaustive rules natively in the chat domain rather than trying to send users off to some other site to read rules for a chatroom on Stack Overflow. If users don't read rules that's on them; it's not my concern. Commented Nov 5 at 21:03
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    @TylerH The rules wouldn't need to be on an external site though. You could make a Bookmark for it and link to that, create a separate chatroom just for the rules, etc. No need to host your own site for this. Commented Nov 5 at 21:14
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    You could also host the rules on the site's meta since rooms are generally tied to a specific site... or keep them in a Page on GH for projects that might be there - which doesn't charge for public Pages as far as I'm aware? Commented Nov 5 at 21:37
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    @TylerH if 5% of people don't read the rules, that's a problem with those people. If 95% of people don't read the rules, that's a problem with the rules. Commented Nov 5 at 22:44
  • @TheGuywithTheHat Sort of, but not really... but again that's not my problem. If this feature wants to be useful, at least for the rooms I'm an RO of, it needs to have a higher character count than 1,000. A half measure which is what its current state is is arguably worse if I'm forced to use it. If it can't be increased then we should be given the option to disable it completely. Commented Nov 6 at 16:07
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    Seems like it's "disabled" by simply not filling in the fields? Or is content required? The instructions say you may set "up to three", so zero would be less than three. That said, one of the points in my answer is that it's not obvious that it's optional. Commented Nov 6 at 16:11
  • @Catija I thought you still have to click the checkbox of 'agreeing to ToS' regardless of whether you filled something out? Or is that just for the Stack ToS for Chat? It's hard for me to test on my own. Commented Nov 6 at 16:14
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    There's two separate modals - the first one is just general to chat, as far as I can tell. Hopefully that only gets displayed the first time a user enters chat generally, not every new room. Commented Nov 6 at 16:16
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    we know people don't read terms of service/conditions for sites where they are using credit cards, applying for services etc. etc. one reason for this is that life is, literally, too short to read the agreements for every site people access. so while it might sound good in theory to blame users for not wading through thousands of words before ordering a bag of potatoes or joining your chatroom, in general, this is not a reasonable requirement. Commented Nov 7 at 23:45
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    how many points do you think the average user will retain from 10,000 versus 1,000 words? for a 1 hour lecture the guidance says you should try to communicate at most 3 points. reading is different from lecture attendance, of course, but people will not retain 10,000 words of rules, even if they read them. 1 week later, they may remember 1 or 2 points, if they've read carefully and you've communicated well. Commented Nov 7 at 23:48
  • @cfr It's not just about retaining it all after a single read, like some ToS you will never read once. Rather, it's also about having a place to point users to for all the rules. Right now it's a half measure, at best, for complex, high-activity rooms with specific purposes. It's not really useful for rooms like SOCVR or Charcoal, etc. which goes to Catija's point about questioning this rollout for all rooms. Commented Nov 10 at 19:38
  • well, I don't think showing that kind of reference in a dialogue users have to check off is useful. having it available in the room, however, I can see. so I'd think for that kind of case, you'd be better with a feature split here, so that a longer version could be linked directly from the room/brought up from the room, but something shorter shown in the dialogue box. (I don't much like the dialogue box thing to access chat at all.) Commented Nov 10 at 21:29
  • and I still have my doubts about the usefulness of rules for chat which can't be communicated in fewer than 10,000 words. Commented Nov 10 at 21:32