jamail77 said:
RJ 17 said:
So in a way, it does indeed devalue the act of reading the actual post itself since the reader already has all the major information summed up for them in a couple sentences.
For that matter, if you're going to write the TL;DR at the beginning and give out all the major information from the start, then why bother writing a Wall-o-Text in the first place?
No. The person who decided it was worth skipping the post based on seeing a courteous TL;DR for the people it is NECCESSARY FOR is either lazy and/or looking for convenience and efficiency in a manner that isn't lazy. Either way they are the one devaluing the act of reading, not the TL
R.
It's devaluing reading by
encouraging people to simply skip the post. In a way, it actually devalues both the reason to read the post and the entire point of typing it. It's like saying "Look, I know the internet is full of lazy jackasses, so despite the fact that I spent 45 minutes typing all this up because this is a topic I feel passionate enough about to actually put some real effort into expressing my thoughts, I'm just going to put the main points here at the beginning so everyone can just skip by all that thought and effort I just put forth since they'll already know what I'm wanting to say." And if that's the mentality, then what's the point of anyone bothering to read your post? They've already gotten everything they need to know right at the beginning.
Anyone that reads the TL;DR and then decides they want to keep reading is probably someone who would have enjoyed reading the Wall-o-Text in the first place and thus wouldn't even need a TL;DR to begin with.
For that matter, if you're going to put the TL;DR at the top...why bother with an essay-length post in the first place? You've already said everything you were wanting to say, going any further would be a waste of your time.
TL;DR should be for people who have a lot to read that day or are on a short time limit or have some understandable personal reason and restriction.
Personally, I don't think we should have to "TL;DR" in the first place. For people as described above, there's a little saying that I like to remind myself of: "There's time." The post isn't going anywhere (unless it's something bannable/reportable, and if that's the case then you really shouldn't care what it says anyway), you don't have to read it the first time you see it. Perhaps you're short on time. Perhaps you've had a long day and can't be arsed. Perhaps you've already read 40 posts and have no desire to read an essay. If you're truly interested enough to care about the context of that post, then you can simply put it off to some other time. Read it when you're more refreshed. Read it when you haven't just read 40 other posts. Just come back to it later.
kris40k said:
If your post is so long and uninteresting that I'm not going to read it, I'm not going to scroll, scroll, scroll to the bottom to find a summation, I'm just going to skip it. If you added it at the top, I would have least seen that and gathered what you felt was important to summarize.
Annnnnd now the reader lacks context and details.
Which, in turn, leads to situations such as this:
Happyninja42 said:
The thing I find funny about the TLDR thing, is when someone responds to the TLDR, and the OP replies with something like "Did you actually READ my post? Because your answer completely ignores the fact that I covered that very specific issue in the body of the discussion!"
When I see that, which granted isn't too often, I just think "Well you gave them a condensed question to answer, and now your mad at them for only answering that?!"
And situations like this, in turn, are part of why I don't think it's good to write in a TL;DR bit in the first place, regardless of where it's placed.
