The new update is amazing! The ONLY complaint I have is the 10 character minimum. Perhaps I’m
the only one, but sometimes it’s nice to just give a yes/ no, 
or something along those lines. It’s not a big deal, but would be nice to not have this minimum 
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Yes, I find it rather annoying. As you noted, sometimes a yes or no is appropriate. In other cases I’ve received an annoying message to the effect that my sentence was incomplete. Apparently the grammar police at discourse can’t accept a simple “why?” in response to a comment as a complete sentence.
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The default is twenty 
characters, so you’re already working under a substantially relaxed regime, for the record. 
My fairly strong feelings on the matter is that this is a system of discussion. And discussion isn’t about snap-quick 6 letter replies, it’s about actual conversation using words… and sentences… even paragraphs!
If what you want to say is a simple “I see you” acknowledgment such as “yes” or “cool” or “gotcha” then use the 
button. That’s literally what it is for!
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The button is a poor excuse for “yes”, “cool” etc.
You cannot force a discussion. Natural discussions contain one or two word answers quite frequently. Maybe you were raised differently.
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And we should point out that the minimum has been reduced to four characters.
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I support this, mainly because of Buy / Sell / Trade which requires regular bumps, so people come back and check in on their BST topic… having to come up with something to reply with every day is kind of a chore.
“Natural” face-to-face discussions and online discussions are … quite different. For one thing, people type stuff to you online that they would neeeeever say to your face. Which brings me to …
You’re like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino! I can just see your face squinching up into a wrinkled grimace as you croak those words out in a gravelly voice. Hugs! 
It’s hard living in my mother’s basement.
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Right, but is it really all that different? Granted we structure the things that we say little differently when we can type them out, conversation still flows organically. That means that sometimes it is appropriate and effective to reply with a single word, or just a couple of words that don’t add up to 10 characters.
I know this isn’t an issue anymore, since it has been changed, but I still don’t see how that rule was supposed to encourage more discussion. If there is a discussion to be had, we will discuss. These are topics that we are passionate about, and that’s pretty much the only reason we’re here.
Case in point, even when someone only wanted to reply with one word that didn’t fit the rule, they would type [10 characters] at the end, which is just petty.
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I thought emojis were to be used for character totals.
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See how that works!
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Right on.
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For bumping a BST topic, I just edit my last post each day. It doesn’t mark the topic as having a new message (after all, there really isn’t a new message, nor does it need one), but it does put it at the top of the list of “changed” topics, which serves the purpose I need it to.
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Yeah, that is good, but it a) only works if you made the last post and b) it’s rather hidden behavior so hard to explain. If someone else posted in your #buy-sell-trade topic, you must make a reply to bounce the topic.
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Yeah, that’s true. But at least that means the BST topic is active. When it isn’t, it doesn’t make sense for the OP to keep adding messages to the end when they can just edit their last one.
It’s radically different. Online is typing and words, basically written communication and a specific form of writing at that. It is also write once and usually broadcast to many (all?).
Face to face is watching another individual human and forming words that come out of your mouth-hole while watching the other person’s response in real time as you’re speaking.
They couldn’t be more different, really.
True. It also makes anyone looking at the BST have to scroll up through a bunch of bumps. If I see a BST with lots of bumps I usually trash lots of them to make the post easier to see.
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Yeah the bump mechanism is far from ideal, but I was very swayed by @AndreBoulay’s (correct) argument that the goal is to get people to come back and actively do something to check in on their topic, a kind of constant gardening. It’s the right and proper mindset to have for #buy-sell-trade.
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Fair enough. But wouldn’t editing the latest post constitute adequate “gardening” rather than adding noise in the form of a “bump” message to the end of the post stream?
I think @AndreBoulay’s idea is that it may not be apparent to other members that the OP is actively bumping the post when the “edit the last post” technique is used. I agree.
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