On 1/26/14 4:16 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
- TL;DR: I'd prefer long posts to be in two parts, as is becoming
standard on the web: summarize in a paragraph or two the core of the
discussion, followed by "TL;DR" (Too Long; Didn't Read), followed by
the detail, especially when difficult to separate the wheat from the
chaff.
It doesn't apply here (at least to me), but have you ever found yourself
writing long technical and/or background e-mails because of some random
person Doesn't Feel Comfortable? Then after it becomes clear 10 or even
50 pages of text later that they aren't even paying attention they then
(amazingly enough) feel entitled to have someone construct them summary
version? Yeah I'll do that for the person who pays me, but that's about
it. I guess there are people that like to do this kind of journalism,
or even find a way to make a living off of it. I am even glad this
kind of activity exists. (And it does exist even for other
semi-technical conversational mailing lists.) However, I think its
clear that once a story lands on arstechnica or slashdot (or even
Nature) that the readers aren't really participants any more than people
that watch Nova are scientists (just for watching).
Marcus
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