[Question] What is the difference between shortform and post?

[Cassidy]

Answer:

Shortform is:

• for strange or uncertain ideas where you are not sure where to post

• for unprepared, exploratory or spontaneous posts without details

• won’t show up on forum’s frontpage/​main page, among other posts

  • is sorted by users instead

  • examples of shortform content

In comparison to that, a full post is shown on the front page /​ main page.

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Could not find answer when searching for this (or similar) query in the forum. This is likely explained as part of the writing introduction posts, but somehow doesn’t show up as a search result. Since it’s a basic question, the answer should be easily accessible.

So would probably be good to rename the title of the respective post with explanation to above; or add the full question inside the post content. Alternatively, I can add the commented answer into this description. So next person can easily find it. :)

Related beginner questions:

• When to use shortform vs post?

• When to use questions type vs multiple questions + context in a full post?

Thank you in advance.

[Erich_Grunewald 🔸]

FWIW, there’s some information in the Forum user manual, which is accessible via the “About the Forum” link on the sidebar:

Do you have an idea so strange or uncertain that you’re not sure whether to post about it? Do you have something to share, but not the time to write about it in detail?

Shortform posts are built for these cases — they represent “exploratory, draft-stage, rough, and off-the-cuff thoughts.” They let you shove an idea out into the world with minimal fuss. (If you’re still confused, that link has lots of examples.)

(I agree it’s not obvious how to find this information.)

Edit: Actually, now I just noticed that a similar text is shown in the placeholder of the textbox you see when writing a shortform.

[Cassidy]

Thank you. I’m quite surprised the forum user manual didn’t show up as a result when searching for it. Even now if i search for “what is shortform” directly, I find my own post here, but not the manual.

I vaguely understood what shortform posts are now, and edited my post according to that. Please let me know if I misunderstood it.

[Sharang Phadke]

I think you’ve noticed that we haven’t invested a ton in our onboarding experience on the Forum, and it’s something on our list. As I mentioned in your other post, I’m hopeful this is another thing we can work on once the Forum team hires a product designer!

[Cassidy]

Thank you for your response, looking forward to upcoming improvements. :)

I wasn’t aware what was previously prioritized and what not yet. Since I got encouraged to post, I thought giving newbie feedback might be more useful and easier to start with. :P
It seems like the common issue is that I can’t find answers to basic questions via the search page. So I’ll add that in your feature suggestion thread. :)