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If you really need a TL;DR, you failed to fulfill your promise to the reader. Writing should be concise, accurate, and to the point, and we as writers should al

If you really need a TL;DR, you failed to fulfill your promise to the reader. Writing should be concise, accurate, and to the point, and we as writers should always strive live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words." When someone opens your webpage, they are entering into an implied agreement with you. They are seeking information and you are supplying it to them. If they are unwilling to uphold their end of the bargain by demanding a TL;DR from me without giving me the chance to read my words, I don't feel any obligation to satisfy them. The other half of this implied bargain is that I simply offer what they came to find, and if I fail them in that regard, then I should be required to post a TL;DR because all 2000 to 3000 words I blathered out should be in 50 words or less. If I was able to offer a 50-word summary, then I would have simply tacked on an extra 25 words and eschewed the TL;DR. If you don't like my attitude, that is fine. You probably aren't my target audience, and this is fine. The World Wide Web is a very large place.

IvyMike 14y ago
> Writing should be concise, accurate, and to the point, and we as writers should always strive live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words." I think the feeling is often "I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." Of course on the web, this is short-sighted and self-defeating. If you have a valuable thought that you commit to the web, you do so in the hopes that it will be read many, many times. You only have to write it once. So to agree with dizzystar, respect your (potential) readers and spend a little more time making that thought concise.
- dizzystar 14y ago
  It is short-sighted and self-defeating because there is nothing written in stone that says that your content is immutable. I love it when I receive emails from readers asking me to clarify some point, or telling me about spelling errors. I also get requests to remove paragraphs. After about 5 minutes of pondering it, I find that they are usually right. It's not that difficult to delete a paragraph.
ableal 14y ago
The original "Omit needless words" seems to have mutated in the wild: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-08/news/0911070240_1_promise-writing-elements http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-08/news/091107024... 'A reader of "The Elements of Style" once sent E. B. White a clipping of a book review that misquoted William Strunk as having advised writers to "Use less words!" White wrote back: "I often wish Strunk could come alive so that I might hear the gnashing of his teeth."'
Terretta 14y ago
> ... live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words." If paraphrasing Strunk he deserves a grammatically correct quote: "Use fewer words." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx // As noted in a sibling comment, the actual quote is "Omit needless words." http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html

IvyMike 14y ago

> Writing should be concise, accurate, and to the point, and we as writers should always strive live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words." I think the feeling is often "I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." Of course on the web, this is short-sighted and self-defeating. If you have a valuable thought that you commit to the web, you do so in the hopes that it will be read many, many times. You only have to write it once. So to agree with dizzystar, respect your (potential) readers and spend a little more time making that thought concise.

dizzystar 14y ago
It is short-sighted and self-defeating because there is nothing written in stone that says that your content is immutable. I love it when I receive emails from readers asking me to clarify some point, or telling me about spelling errors. I also get requests to remove paragraphs. After about 5 minutes of pondering it, I find that they are usually right. It's not that difficult to delete a paragraph.

ableal 14y ago

The original "Omit needless words" seems to have mutated in the wild: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-08/news/0911070240_1_promise-writing-elements http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-08/news/091107024... 'A reader of "The Elements of Style" once sent E. B. White a clipping of a book review that misquoted William Strunk as having advised writers to "Use less words!" White wrote back: "I often wish Strunk could come alive so that I might hear the gnashing of his teeth."'

Terretta 14y ago

> ... live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words." If paraphrasing Strunk he deserves a grammatically correct quote: "Use fewer words." http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/less-versus-fewer.aspx // As noted in a sibling comment, the actual quote is "Omit needless words." http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html