BuddyPress.org

May be simple or hard, depending on you, but it can be achieved, through some jquery

This is just off the top of my head in post-form.php in your theme

`function textLimit(field, maxlen) {
if (field.value.length > maxlen + 1)
alert(‘To much Text!’);
if (field.value.length > maxlen)
field.value = field.value.substring(0, maxlen);
}`

now the textarea:

`<textarea cols="20" rows="2" value=""
onkeyup=”textLimit(this, 40);”>`

Set “40” to limit