Another ongoing discussion on the #SocialCoop forums is whether or not our instance should increase the character cap for posts.

I initially felt pretty favorable toward this idea, then agnostic, and am now finding myself feeling more negatively.

One of the points that a number of our members have raised is that Mastodon isn't designed for long form posts, and the more I think about it, the more sense this argument makes.

Arguably there are technical fixes for the interface mismatch, and that's true, but at some point I if you implement enough fixes, you end up with a platform that isn't really Mastodon anymore.

The crux of the matter for me is the question of how long form posts (or Twitter-style threads) are handled.

To a certain way of looking at it, so-called "threads" (a term I dislike, because I wish "threads" referred to conversation threading, not monologue posting) are an awkward workaround for when people have more to say. But I think they've become something more than that.

I believe that micro-blog "threads" have become their own writing style, with advantages and disadvantages.

A big advantage of monologue threads is that they make it easier to engage with specific statements individually.

When I read a long article that I want to share with other people, I try to pull out a quote or two that really resonates for me. When I want to share a "thread", I instead boost one or more specific posts within the thread.

Sometimes I boost the top, sometimes the second from the top (which often is where the real substance begins), and sometimes it's something in the middle that I really want other people to see.

When I'm *writing* micro-blog style threads, I try to structure them accordingly: I create breaks between ideas with a thought toward "does this idea stand alone, and will I feel okay about it if it gets boosted and people read it out of context?"

It's a different style of writing, which is special because it can appeal both to readers who have time to sit and read a complicated essay and readers who just want to get a tidbit of content and move on.

A boosted post that comes from the middle of a microblog "thread" might reach a wider audience of people ready to read the whole thing than a boosted longform essay would.

There are, of course, ways of making smaller tidbits of longer form writing more visible, and of making longform posts more accessible to people who might not have the leisure to read something longer, and bloggers use an array of strategies.