Excerpts are a lens setting, not a global preference

Long-form is welcome on the substrate, but the feed density should match the lens's cognitive intent. Calm wants the full post (you came here to read deeply). Default wants ~60 words plus a click-through (you're scanning what your follows are thinking about today). Quiet news wants ~40 words.

We rejected three nearby options:

• Hard character cap on posts. Twitter's 280 is artificial. The substrate's pitch is that the user is the One — we don't tell them how much they're allowed to think. Length is the author's call.
• Per-user excerpt preference across all lenses. This duplicates what the lens-switcher already does. v0.5 keeps prefs minimal; a v0.6+ custom-lens composer can carry per-user nuance.
• Infinite-scroll auto-expand inside the feed. This is the manipulative pattern (lazy-load tricks the user into staying). An explicit click is cognitive consent.

Detail and profile pages override the lens excerpt to full — landing on a permalink or a profile is an intentional deep-read action, not a skim.