[WikiEN-l] About tl;dr

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 11:28 AM 6/3/2010, Steve Summit wrote:
>It doesn't matter how you justify a too-long screed; if its
>length prevents people from reading it (and it will), your
>message is lost.  It's as simple as that.

Problems with this concept:

Length will not prevent all from reading it. Rather, those will read 
it who are interested. Others won't. The message is not lost, it's in 
the archive, and, in any case, I know for a fact that some read the 
long posts, and appreciate them. Some comment on list, a few. Others 
take the trouble of thanking me by email. So, you can blame them!

"Screed" implies an emotional state on the part of the writer. It's a 
snap judgment, if you don't read the piece. And this is one of the 
"assumptions" I wrote about that can interfere with understanding.

Basically, length will indeed prevent some from reading, but these 
are not my target audience, except for a few. (I.e., there are some 
who don't read simply because they don't have time.)

Underneath all this is a presumption that I have time to write more 
condensed material. I don't, generally. When I do have the time, and 
have a point to make, i.e., some message I consider necessary to 
communicate effectively to a broad audience, I do it.

So, practically speaking, the choice is between writing what I write, 
or not writing at all, not between writing longer or shorter pieces.