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"TLDR" is unnecessary

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Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#71

Post by chadzawistowski »

Pitarou wrote: post #65

TL;DR is a useful convention for busy readers, but it should be at the beginning , not the end. Look at the lede (the first sentence or two) of any article in any newspaper. It's marked in bold face, and summarizes the whole story. It helps the busy reader decide if he wants to "drill down" by reading the rest of the article. TL;DR could do the same thing, if only people put it at the beginning . I teach essay writin…

You know, I think you're on to something here, but I believe that on forums such as reddit, the tl;dr is usually read first anyways. People seem to skip to the bottom of a long post to see what the conclusion is.

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#72

Post by bartonfink »

egypturnash wrote: post #56
gliese1337 wrote: post #15

TLDR is a pragmatic device; it's a written discourse marker. Calling it "unnecessary" is just like saying that "well...", "y'know", "so...", "like" and all those other little "filler words" that your high school English teacher doesn't like are "unnecessary". In formal prose, where all that's supposed to matter is textual semantics, sure, they're not necessary, and I wouldn't use them there. But in informal discourse…

Yes, exactly. The "TLDR" is all-caps, so it grabs your eye out of the wall-o-text that you may be skimming over, and says "hey here is my basic point". And maybe then you'll go "hey that's an interesting point" and scroll back up and read their lengthy argument, story, or whatever, in all its labrynthine discoursiveness. And now to demonstrate it I will include some lorem ipsum. Hipster Ipsum, to be precise. Swag pol…

Interesting tangent, as someone who was fluent in Latin many moons ago (could speak it at an English conversational pace), I literally had to force myself to ignore your filler (which includes several Latin fragments).

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#74

Post by fusiongyro »

johnfn wrote: post #13

I 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…

That's both a very narrow, unhealthy view of writing and a pretty fatalistic attitude towards your readers. I don't like TL;DR any more than the author of the article, but I don't think having an abstract or brief synopsis decreases the likelihood of you "winning" the essay—or if it did, that this alone would constitute a good reason not to use them.

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#75

Post by fusiongyro »

richforrester wrote: post #23

From a UI/UX perspective: "TL;DR" improves scannability. As a reader, prefacing that first line/paragraph with "TL;DR" means that all I'll have to read is just that part. This is useful because not everyone uses their first paragraph or sentence to outline the general idea of the article. For example, there might be an anecdote, or a quote, or whatever else to start the article.

It's pretty poor UI/UX compared to what we used to use: long subtitles and abstracts set out in separate fonts at the beginning of documents. It's an improvement on a wall of text, but it's not an improvement on traditional writing styles so much as an improvement on slightly older internet writing styles.

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#76

Post by dinkumthinkum »

I think TL;DR; also serves an important role of sarcastically dismissing unreasonably long diatribes that go nowhere, say for a Steve Yegge blog post or something like that. Although, I agree for prefacing you're own work with TLDR, it is somewhat annoying usage.

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#77

Post by kamjam »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #61
geuis wrote: post #44

A TLDR already has a name, a "summary". Not only a mere extra 4 characters, it's not an acronym for a phrase but a word that says what it is. Amazing, really. The biggest problem I find with TLDR is that people that use it do so incorrectly. You don't put your summary at the end of the article. You put it at the beginning. I also find many writers who use TLDR explicitly are rather poor writers. Lots of spelling and…

Summaries usually have more detail. A TLDR is closer to a thesis statement, but somewhat more flexible/informal.

Let's face it, if you add a TLDR, your summaries probably don't need to have that much detail, I doubt you are targeting the kind of audience that needs that much detail (or patience)

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#78

Post by gabrielrotbart »

TLDR: Today's emerging conventions are tomorrow's traditions.

The tools that the English language now has to summarise and communicate thoughts most likely emerged as a convention after years or decades of use, just like any other part of linguist evolution.

I also disagree that having an acronym unfamiliar to someone would prevent them from reading on.

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#79

Post by egypturnash »

bartonfink wrote: post #72
egypturnash wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. The "TLDR" is all-caps, so it grabs your eye out of the wall-o-text that you may be skimming over, and says "hey here is my basic point". And maybe then you'll go "hey that's an interesting point" and scroll back up and read their lengthy argument, story, or whatever, in all its labrynthine discoursiveness. And now to demonstrate it I will include some lorem ipsum. Hipster Ipsum, to be precise. Swag pol…

Interesting tangent, as someone who was fluent in Latin many moons ago (could speak it at an English conversational pace), I literally had to force myself to ignore your filler (which includes several Latin fragments).

It's from a "Hipster Ipsum" generator. Designers traditionally use a piece of malformed Latin to indicate "there is some text here" without having actual text.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum

Re: "TLDR" is unnecessary

#80

Post by mehulkar »

Pitarou wrote: post #67
mehulkar wrote: post #14

I like TLDR for being able to cmd+F to it quickly. In a well written article with an abstract or a good first sentence, I still have to find the first sentence. With a TLDR, I can jump to that section quickly. I know this sounds like the height of being lazy, but I assure you, it's not.

Wouldn't it be even better if the TL;DR was at the beginning so you didn't have to cmd+F for it?

It would be, but having honing in on a specific set of characters is easier than trying to figure out which one is the summary sentence.
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