7 ms·

I wonder why so many articles today have so many words but yet so little content? This one has a mile-long introduction. The headlines question could have been

by adminu 7y ago

I wonder why so many articles today have so many words but yet so little content? This one has a mile-long introduction. The headlines question could have been answered in rather few words. I feel a short answer had satisfied me. To make it even more frustrating to me the article teases different but-wiping techniques used today without telling me which ones. Thanks for that... I said I wonder why, I guess that was a lie. It's about having marketable content, "making the reader feel related to the situation", etc. It does strike me as bad practice though, especially when it comes to actual news. Sometimes I read an investigative piece and think to myself that it might be over soon, after all what could the author possibly have left out at this point, only to take a look at the scrollbar and realize I am at 50%. I wished for a bit more brevity, not the brevity of leaving out facts for the short clickbaity stuff but leaving out all the unnecessary filler material.

mhb 7y ago
I enjoyed your comment, but would have appreciated it even more if some of the words had said what the Romans used instead of making me look at the TFA.
- mhb 7y ago
  OK here: But instead of reaching for a roll of toilet paper, an ancient Roman would often grab a tersorium (or, in my technical terms, a “toilet brush for your butt”). A tersorium is an ingenious little device made by attaching a natural sponge (from the Mediterranean Sea, of course) to the end of a stick. Our ancient Roman would simply wipe him- or herself, rinse the tersorium in whatever was available (running water and/or a bucket of vinegar or salt water), and leave it for the next person to use. That’s right, it was a shared butt cleaner. (And of course, there were other means of wiping as well, such as the use of abrasive ceramic discs called pessoi.)
  - Endy 7y ago
    Thank you for posting this - you added more value than that entire article.
    - guitarbill 7y ago
      The wikipedia article used quite similar wording and images, and you can click through to some more topics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylospongium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylospongium
      - FabHK 7y ago
        TIL that "In the middle of the first century Seneca reported that a Germanic gladiator had committed suicide with a sponge on a stick. The German hid himself in the latrine of an amphitheater and pushed the wooden stick into his gullet and choked to death."
        Endy 7y ago
        In that alone Seneca thus reported that Roman culture had every right to be dismantled. If you push a man so far that he'll kill himself with a sponge recently up someone's butt, your entire society has gone too far.
- stoppergoo 7y ago
  Oh you made a meta comment on his comment. Inception
- slim 7y ago
  here's the picture that should have been in the lead http://static.nautil.us/16038_96fb9b48825b741083d35b0137af1be0.jpg http://static.nautil.us/16038_96fb9b48825b741083d35b0137af1b...
ubittibu 7y ago
For real, I can’t stand this kind of longform. They take three simple facts and write an article that is more a short essay. And when the write starts with an accurate description of weather, place or person, “It was a foggy winter day in …”, “we reached a hidden part of the shore”, “is a tall woman with bright expressive eyes" you know you’ll be stuck in a fifteen minutes reading without learning anything.
- madez 7y ago
  Do you actually keep reading? If the first sentence is that way, I immediately close the tab. From the articles about occurrences and domains I have personal knowledge of I learnt not to trust in the factual correctness of media articles. If they on top of that start with a story, I'm off.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  That's Nautilus for you. Pages of fluff for a few lines of facts... Once upon a time their articles had more substance.
- eevilspock 7y ago
  Not all writing is utilitarian. People in tech, on average, prefer the utilitarian. They also, as a whole, on average, are considered to have below average social skills and below average art skills. Their coincidence is not a coincidence. > To make it even more frustrating to me the article teases different but-wiping techniques used today without telling me which ones. Thanks for that... For an introduction to South Asian "toilet technology", both very accurate and very humorous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ [EDIT: also quite humorous is how this is getting down-voted into the toilet. Is it defensiveness? Angry denial?]
  - nine_k 7y ago
    So, the article about the stuff ancient Romans used instead of toilet paper is an art piece? Well, fine, why not. It's just posted to a wrong forum then. Hence the readers being nonplussed.
huffmsa 7y ago
You prefer 10 Ways Roman toilet practices were weird! Number 2 will shock you!? No thanks, I like a conversational story. This Wis written like how the author would tell it live. Humans remember things best when there is a bit of narrative to root the facts to.
- Youden 7y ago
  Personally narrative only helps me remember when I care about it, which usually isn't the case when I read this kind of article. For me the endless fluff around the information is just wasted time.
asveikau 7y ago
As a father I found the tangent about the kids doing their business on a family vacation relatable, funny, pleasant, joyous. You may find it extraneous but others of us are enjoying the odd tangents in our lives.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
personlurking 7y ago
I still follow the "Wadsworth Constant" from several years ago, which says one can skip the first 30% of content to get to the heart of the thing being discussed. Otherwise, I just skim through, looking for anything relevant to the title.
- dbrgn 7y ago
  Works on HN too, apaprently. (This thread, QED.)
chongli 7y ago
I wonder why so many articles today have so many words but yet so little content? Because short articles are penalized in search engine rankings.
WalterSear 7y ago
* Writing is cheap, research is expensive. * People are rewarded for how long they can keep people looking at ads, not how much value those readers find in their work. * Finding/re-engaging an audience via aggregator sites such as this one is cheaper than maintaining an audience loyal to the quality of your journalism. For the most part, people click on titles, rather than domain names. The end result is small amounts of content, disbursed as slowly as possible, with a clickbait title.
FabHK 7y ago
Dude, an article about Roman anal hygiene is not to be read for important facts. It's feuilleton, reading as pleasure per se, light-hearted entertainment, path, not destination. Having said that, I agree that a) this article was extremely light on facts, b) many other long articles about actually important topics digress way too much on setting the scene.
- nobodyandproud 7y ago
  Agreed. This is a perfect article to read, while sitting and taking care of #2.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
LoSboccacc 7y ago
all those digression are used to spam links to third party blogs, which in turns cross link back on some other article. if it was just the answer paragraph + affiliate paragraphs you'd notice it, rule of thumb is one paragraph of content per one of cross-linking.
snambi 7y ago
I wonder any of this is real.
davesque 7y ago
Can't you just skim over that stuff?
4ndrewl 7y ago
I wonder how anyone could consider this as being "so many words", or being so time poor that they couldn't spare 4 mins to read it...
- troutwine 7y ago
  I share the GP's complaint. It's less about the length -- it's not all that long -- but about the meandering nature of the form. The introduction of the author's family is not extensive enough to grab my attention as a reader, nor does the banality of the situation make them feel like anything other than a small bit of padding, nor do I feel closer to the author for our shared experience. Had the article started at "Modern American society..." this would have been a much snappier opener, though I'd argue that paragraph 4 should be rescued in some fashion.
brontide 7y ago
I was equally annoyed by the narrative intro, angrily skimming to find the answer. Unfortunately, I think its a trend within information media – I find myself skimming Atlas Obscura the same way I skim Nautilus. These articles are good for keywords to prompt the real search… This style is leaking into documentaries too. The best example is "Wild Wild Country" – a six hour long docuseries where I still had to read the wikipedia page afterwards.
api 7y ago
SEO?

by adminu 7y ago

mhb 7y ago

I enjoyed your comment, but would have appreciated it even more if some of the words had said what the Romans used instead of making me look at the TFA.

mhb 7y ago
OK here: But instead of reaching for a roll of toilet paper, an ancient Roman would often grab a tersorium (or, in my technical terms, a “toilet brush for your butt”). A tersorium is an ingenious little device made by attaching a natural sponge (from the Mediterranean Sea, of course) to the end of a stick. Our ancient Roman would simply wipe him- or herself, rinse the tersorium in whatever was available (running water and/or a bucket of vinegar or salt water), and leave it for the next person to use. That’s right, it was a shared butt cleaner. (And of course, there were other means of wiping as well, such as the use of abrasive ceramic discs called pessoi.)
- Endy 7y ago
  Thank you for posting this - you added more value than that entire article.
  - guitarbill 7y ago
    The wikipedia article used quite similar wording and images, and you can click through to some more topics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylospongium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylospongium
    - FabHK 7y ago
      TIL that "In the middle of the first century Seneca reported that a Germanic gladiator had committed suicide with a sponge on a stick. The German hid himself in the latrine of an amphitheater and pushed the wooden stick into his gullet and choked to death."
      - Endy 7y ago
        In that alone Seneca thus reported that Roman culture had every right to be dismantled. If you push a man so far that he'll kill himself with a sponge recently up someone's butt, your entire society has gone too far.
stoppergoo 7y ago
Oh you made a meta comment on his comment. Inception
slim 7y ago
here's the picture that should have been in the lead http://static.nautil.us/16038_96fb9b48825b741083d35b0137af1be0.jpg http://static.nautil.us/16038_96fb9b48825b741083d35b0137af1b...

ubittibu 7y ago

For real, I can’t stand this kind of longform. They take three simple facts and write an article that is more a short essay. And when the write starts with an accurate description of weather, place or person, “It was a foggy winter day in …”, “we reached a hidden part of the shore”, “is a tall woman with bright expressive eyes" you know you’ll be stuck in a fifteen minutes reading without learning anything.

madez 7y ago
Do you actually keep reading? If the first sentence is that way, I immediately close the tab. From the articles about occurrences and domains I have personal knowledge of I learnt not to trust in the factual correctness of media articles. If they on top of that start with a story, I'm off.
tomc1985 7y ago
That's Nautilus for you. Pages of fluff for a few lines of facts... Once upon a time their articles had more substance.
eevilspock 7y ago
Not all writing is utilitarian. People in tech, on average, prefer the utilitarian. They also, as a whole, on average, are considered to have below average social skills and below average art skills. Their coincidence is not a coincidence. > To make it even more frustrating to me the article teases different but-wiping techniques used today without telling me which ones. Thanks for that... For an introduction to South Asian "toilet technology", both very accurate and very humorous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKkryfdtMNQ [EDIT: also quite humorous is how this is getting down-voted into the toilet. Is it defensiveness? Angry denial?]
- nine_k 7y ago
  So, the article about the stuff ancient Romans used instead of toilet paper is an art piece? Well, fine, why not. It's just posted to a wrong forum then. Hence the readers being nonplussed.

huffmsa 7y ago

You prefer 10 Ways Roman toilet practices were weird! Number 2 will shock you!? No thanks, I like a conversational story. This Wis written like how the author would tell it live. Humans remember things best when there is a bit of narrative to root the facts to.

Youden 7y ago
Personally narrative only helps me remember when I care about it, which usually isn't the case when I read this kind of article. For me the endless fluff around the information is just wasted time.

asveikau 7y ago

As a father I found the tangent about the kids doing their business on a family vacation relatable, funny, pleasant, joyous. You may find it extraneous but others of us are enjoying the odd tangents in our lives.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

personlurking 7y ago

I still follow the "Wadsworth Constant" from several years ago, which says one can skip the first 30% of content to get to the heart of the thing being discussed. Otherwise, I just skim through, looking for anything relevant to the title.

dbrgn 7y ago
Works on HN too, apaprently. (This thread, QED.)

chongli 7y ago

I wonder why so many articles today have so many words but yet so little content? Because short articles are penalized in search engine rankings.

WalterSear 7y ago

* Writing is cheap, research is expensive. * People are rewarded for how long they can keep people looking at ads, not how much value those readers find in their work. * Finding/re-engaging an audience via aggregator sites such as this one is cheaper than maintaining an audience loyal to the quality of your journalism. For the most part, people click on titles, rather than domain names. The end result is small amounts of content, disbursed as slowly as possible, with a clickbait title.

FabHK 7y ago

Dude, an article about Roman anal hygiene is not to be read for important facts. It's feuilleton, reading as pleasure per se, light-hearted entertainment, path, not destination. Having said that, I agree that a) this article was extremely light on facts, b) many other long articles about actually important topics digress way too much on setting the scene.

nobodyandproud 7y ago
Agreed. This is a perfect article to read, while sitting and taking care of #2.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

LoSboccacc 7y ago

all those digression are used to spam links to third party blogs, which in turns cross link back on some other article. if it was just the answer paragraph + affiliate paragraphs you'd notice it, rule of thumb is one paragraph of content per one of cross-linking.

snambi 7y ago

I wonder any of this is real.

davesque 7y ago

Can't you just skim over that stuff?

4ndrewl 7y ago

I wonder how anyone could consider this as being "so many words", or being so time poor that they couldn't spare 4 mins to read it...

troutwine 7y ago
I share the GP's complaint. It's less about the length -- it's not all that long -- but about the meandering nature of the form. The introduction of the author's family is not extensive enough to grab my attention as a reader, nor does the banality of the situation make them feel like anything other than a small bit of padding, nor do I feel closer to the author for our shared experience. Had the article started at "Modern American society..." this would have been a much snappier opener, though I'd argue that paragraph 4 should be rescued in some fashion.

brontide 7y ago

I was equally annoyed by the narrative intro, angrily skimming to find the answer. Unfortunately, I think its a trend within information media – I find myself skimming Atlas Obscura the same way I skim Nautilus. These articles are good for keywords to prompt the real search… This style is leaking into documentaries too. The best example is "Wild Wild Country" – a six hour long docuseries where I still had to read the wikipedia page afterwards.

api 7y ago

SEO?