I am aware that for comments we have maximum of 600 characters to type and by curiosity I just happened to type some random words in a comment box. I expected that when comment exceeded 600 characters I will not be able to type but instead it showed - 'you exceeded X characters'. I am just curious but afraid to do this - what happens if I post a comment with more than 600 characters?
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10$\begingroup$ If only there was a way for you to try that yourself... $\endgroup$– Asaf Karagila ModDec 28, 2020 at 18:47
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5$\begingroup$ What happens is the comment you try to post will be rejected (you will not be able to submit it) unless or until you lower the character count. I.e., SE software ensures that no one can post a comment with more than 600 characters, by design. $\endgroup$– amWhyDec 28, 2020 at 18:50
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6$\begingroup$ @Asaf "but [they are] afraid to do this". $\endgroup$– quid ModDec 28, 2020 at 19:49
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7$\begingroup$ @AsafKaragila - I think it's nice that the OP didn't to trash up a post with their test comment. Probably unnecessary, but still nice. $\endgroup$– JonathanZDec 28, 2020 at 22:12
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$\begingroup$ Since Asaf mentioned testing it for yourself, I think the Formatting Sandbox can come in handy for such situations. But I also concur with JonathanZ that it was polite of the OP to have asked here first instead of "trash[ing] up a post with their test comment". $\endgroup$– The AmplitwistJul 2, 2021 at 13:32
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2 Answers
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In a way literally nothing happens. You click "Add Comment" and the situation stays unchanged. The "too long by" flickers briefly, but that's it.
As explained in a comment by amWhy there is a check on submission.
I dimly recall that in the very early days this was handled much less gracefully, and the text in the comment box got cleared instead.
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7$\begingroup$ Re: I dimly recall that in the very early days this was handled much less gracefully. I guess you might be right about that: Comment over 600 chars lost v.s. simply display error message. $\endgroup$ Dec 29, 2020 at 7:30
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What will happen when I write a comment longer than 600 words?
As such nothing happens. When you will write the comment longer than 600 words and click on add comment it will display a message "Too long by $x$ characters" where $x$ represents total characters minus 600. Here is a refrence what happens when I enter something longer than 600 characters-
What actually happens is that as soon as the system finds the number of characters to be more than 600 it says too long by some k characters. If you click on Add Comment as such you won't get any message but your comment won't be added.
What to do if I want to post a comment longer than 600 characters
If you feel that that the comment is much longer than 600 characters and can be helpful to answer the question just post it as an answer but remember before posting that do write something like "Just an extended comments". If you feel like you are giving opinion and will not much be helpful in answering the question you can definitely type first 580-590 characters in 1 comments and then in next comment put the remaining words.
Ok I understood this but why the limit on comments
As stated by User Guffa "The limit on the comment length is pretty reasonable. If you reach the limit, it's usually because you are using the site in a way that was not intended. The commenting function simply isn't suitable for something like a long discussion, so if you try to use it for that it will naturally feel very limited."
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$\begingroup$ Does this answer your question OP or you have any more doubt? $\endgroup$– user876009Jul 1, 2021 at 8:46
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1$\begingroup$ I've also heard rumors of a new experimental approach that consists in breaking the comment into two or more comments. However it is yet untested what happens when you try to do that. $\endgroup$– AsinomásJul 1, 2021 at 21:40
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$\begingroup$ @Yorch I do it most of times in meta $\endgroup$– user876009Jul 2, 2021 at 1:59
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$\begingroup$ @Yorch: breaking the comment into two or more comments --- You mean like this? I've been doing this for many years, although it's probably not considered "best practice" here. For what it's worth, this recent comment somewhat explains my approach to answering questions here. $\endgroup$ Jul 10, 2021 at 17:09