As a cofounder of http://tldr.io I'd say that having a tl;dr separated from the main article is very useful for readability. Like ps for example it helps structure the text. tl;dr version of articles are essential to get directly to the point. As an heavy reader I like to have theses summaries detached from the article.
"TLDR" is unnecessary
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Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#32TLDR: Write like Hemingway, not like Faulkner.
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just simply isn't true. It does mean "too long, didn't read" as in, "this wall of text is too long. I didn't read it."
Honestly, "T L ; D N R" and "... Too Long; I didn't read it" Doesn't make sense. "N" does not pick out the beginning of any word. If you chance across the tag, your interpretation is less obvious than, "... Too Long; Do Not Read" The contraction makes sense, and thus the natural transformation into a meta-informative suggestion makes sense. Contractions serve to convey information, usually engendering more intimate d…
tl;dnr
Yes, of course I read it; but _why_ am I posting it?
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#34So the TL;DR of this article is:
- Author should summarize their idea in the first sentence of their writings.
- Prefixing this summary with TL;DR is useless and asinine as it stands for "Too Long; Didn't Read".
http://tldr.io/tldrs/50f34acc3ea2fa3e06001f25/tldr-is-unnece...
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#35If 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 b…
> 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…
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.
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#36[deleted]
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#37I agree in principle, but I feel like the author might be missing the point; the reason "tldr" is used is because it has evolved as an efficient speech marker.
If you think about forum posting as a medium, then a "tldr" makes sense -- generally, you scroll down a list of messages. When you encounter a wall of text, you can either start reading (to see if you'll want to read the rest), or keep scrolling past until your eyes reach the "tldr" symbol, which draws you to the main "point" of the post without requiring you to mentally invest in reading the whole first paragraph.
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#38I don't think this is generally true. The purpose of long form writing is to make the reader draw a conclusion that they may not agree with at the beginning of the article. Studies have shown that once we form a conclusion, we're much less likely to change our minds, so if an article lead with a controversial point we'd internally say "no!" and stick to it rather than letting the article make its point. By not knowin…
Yes I agree. tl;drs versions are especially useful for high quality content like the articles on http://longreads.com.
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#39I like how the first sentence embodies the very idea it is espousing. If you read only that sentence and close the page, you've still have taken away 80% of the information of the piece.
An important UI component for this technique to land: the first sentence must be short, and on its own line. Do that well, and a "TL;DR" prefix is optional at best.
Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary
#40I don't agree with the Douglas's interpreting an author's own writing of a TL;DR as answering the question of whether the author himself read it -- rather, it is pre-empting the question that might be asked by readers.
While it is true that it is entirely possible (and common practice) to provide the content of a TL;DR in the first sentence, it might not always be there. The reader can only know if the first sentence was a summary by first reading it (see the Halting Problem).
TL;DR is an elegant solution to this problem because it only requires five (minimally four) characters to be read to identify the summarizing statement, and then consume its content. And with the immense amount of content begging for my attention on the Internet, I for one appreciate being able to quickly determine if reading the article in question is something I will likely want to do.
TL;DR: TL;DR != opening sentence