Poll: TL;DR: Acceptable or not?

[dreadedcandiru99]

I'll try to make this quick (see what I did there?). I'm not naming any names, but every now and then somebody will post a freaking novel in the forums. A few people will actually have a legitimate point to make, while many, many others flood the screen with incoherent drivel, but either way...does that just bug the hell out of anyone else? It's like when you're at what's supposed to be a group discussion, but then one guy gets up and grandstands for twenty minutes.

I've only ever used TL;DR as a response two or three times. It was mainly because I decided that certain posts fell into the pointless long-winded nonsense category, and therefore they were sorta-kinda asking for it. But I've seen a few anti-TL;DR arguments elsewhere, to the effect that "if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

So now I'm curious. What do you think of TL;DRing: valid criticism of a post's signal-to-noise ratio, or just unnecessary rudeness?

 

[Logiclul]

Well, if I read it I'm going to respond to it and have a meaningful discussion if I care about the topic regardless... but I would also add "OP: your first post could definitely be made much shorter for the amount of information you relayed.".

 

[Alternative]

I would only accept its use if some uses it to comment on an overly long and boring rant.
On longer posts i prefer if they put a note saying "in summery" or something similar. TL;DR jsut seems crass to me.

 

[smithy_2045]

If you don't want your post to attract tldr's, dont be boring.

 

[Agent Cross]

If someone makes a long incohoherent post. I'm no reading that shit. But if it's concise, well thought out, and has good/valid points... I have no problems. Even if it's a rant of some sort.

 

[Bertylicious]

I don't understand why you have "sometimes" as a poll response. Its a binary question: it either is or it isn't.

The worst thing anyone can do on an internet forum is be boring. It doesn't matter if someone is wrong or dishonest or cruel as long as they're at least intersting. Preferably funny. Posts which are not pithy are boring.

Don't get me wrong; the optimum post is one that makes everyone who reads it feel more intelligent, confident, loved and optimistic than before but sometimes it's just funny to read something from someone who has a monopoly on bitterness.

 

[BoogieManFL]

If it's too long for you to want to read it, no one cares. Go away. You don't need to make a post and tell us you didn't read it. What good does that do? It just makes you look stupid.

 

[Erana]

In general? It depends. Almost always "No," in my book, but there's always exceptions.

On the Escapist? Nope. Its too easily interpreted as disrespectful. (and rightfully so; its rare that it isn't meant with demeaning implications) And just because you don't get modded for it, doesn't mean its all beans and jelly with the code of conduct.

And yes, you are supposed to care about that thing. :<

 

[evilneko]

Only if it's incoherent crap. Lack of paragraphs is included in that.

It's all too common though, especially here it seems (and especially in the gaming subforum), even with short posts.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yup it's acceptable since a certain someone on here has the tendency to type far too many (I give you a hint, his name start with an E) in the past.
Granted these days his post are somewhat smaller but I am expecting him to make a ridiculous long post at some point. I don't give a danm that his excuse that he's just typing out his thought out, many people on here can get to the point in a single paragraph or two.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

TL;DR means it's likely you as the OP have failed to either convey your message clearly and concisely, or failed to maintain your target's attention(who obviously were interested by the title but who you then lost in your rambling).

If it's just someone being a lazy ass then it's not ok and you'd just ignore it anyway, but if it's a legitimate point that you've rambled on and that great wall of china you've constructed needs some remodelling, rather than getting offended you should take the critique and do something about it.

Include a summary or re-work your post. You've put your post up cause you want to start a discussion, if you're getting lots of "tl;dr's" then you've kinda shot yourself in the foot. Maybe some of your points or arguments can be saved for a later reply.


(oh and to clarify, this isn't directed at anyone specifically, it's more that general 'you' that people use to refer to anyone reading their message. Just thought i should say that so OP or anyone else doesn't think I'm singling people out)

 

[Realitycrash]

I don't understand why you have "sometimes" as a poll response. Its a binary question: it either is or it isn't.

The worst thing anyone can do on an internet forum is be boring. It doesn't matter if someone is wrong or dishonest or cruel as long as they're at least intersting. Preferably funny. Posts which are not pithy are boring.

Don't get me wrong; the optimum post is one that makes everyone who reads it feel more intelligent, confident, loved and optimistic than before but sometimes it's just funny to read something from someone who has a monopoly on bitterness.

Nothing in life is binary (except, of course, binary). There are some times when something that is normally unacceptable is indeed acceptable, due to circumstances.

And the worst thing you can be on a forum is boring?
...Really?
Not insane, crazy, bile-spewing asshole? Because they tend to hurt a LOT of people, but not be boring.
So..No, going to disagree there.

 

[Killertje]

As a response: I don't see how you can justify not reading something and responding to it anyway, it's retarded. Either read it and reply or ignore it completely.

As a summary in your own post I'm fine with it, especially if the post was more than a page long, so that when I've read it all I get a little recap of what you really want to talk about.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

As long as the post is well formatted and broken up into easy digestible portions, I have absolutely no problem reading it. If it's the wall of text and the poster didn't bother to use paragraphs, those burn my eyes.

Example of a wall of text:

Spoiler: hidden

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque placerat posuere tortor eget auctor. Ut nibh arcu, varius non suscipit et, faucibus vitae sem. Praesent placerat dolor vitae urna hendrerit adipiscing. Ut volutpat, justo a aliquam scelerisque, augue tortor sollicitudin magna, viverra laoreet arcu mi sed nisi. Vestibulum euismod varius venenatis. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce non fermentum massa. Aenean aliquet venenatis enim, nec elementum tellus convallis a.
Suspendisse potenti. Morbi ac purus tellus, id congue arcu. Vestibulum erat mauris, bibendum at dignissim lobortis, mattis commodo neque. Maecenas faucibus sodales tincidunt. In a massa ut lectus tristique laoreet. Proin dictum, tortor pretium volutpat vehicula, quam elit lacinia lacus, ac scelerisque lorem ante quis mauris. Phasellus placerat mi in massa fermentum ut consequat lectus auctor. Nullam in condimentum nulla. Vivamus ultricies ante eu mauris tincidunt id pulvinar risus sollicitudin.
Maecenas quis neque odio, id aliquam ante. Cras ultricies ipsum sed ante commodo vitae congue dolor rhoncus. Etiam adipiscing mollis augue eget interdum. Phasellus pharetra ante eu sapien auctor egestas. Cras cursus quam eu magna tincidunt in bibendum urna semper. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Pellentesque eu erat et leo ornare lobortis vel sed metus. Etiam ac eros nec augue gravida.

Example of a post I don't mind reading:

Spoiler: hidden

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quisque placerat posuere tortor eget auctor. Ut nibh arcu, varius non suscipit et, faucibus vitae sem. Praesent placerat dolor vitae urna hendrerit adipiscing. Ut volutpat, justo a aliquam scelerisque, augue tortor sollicitudin magna, viverra laoreet arcu mi sed nisi. Vestibulum euismod varius venenatis. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Fusce non fermentum massa. Aenean aliquet venenatis enim, nec elementum tellus convallis a.

Suspendisse potenti. Morbi ac purus tellus, id congue arcu. Vestibulum erat mauris, bibendum at dignissim lobortis, mattis commodo neque. Maecenas faucibus sodales tincidunt. In a massa ut lectus tristique laoreet. Proin dictum, tortor pretium volutpat vehicula, quam elit lacinia lacus, ac scelerisque lorem ante quis mauris. Phasellus placerat mi in massa fermentum ut consequat lectus auctor. Nullam in condimentum nulla. Vivamus ultricies ante eu mauris tincidunt id pulvinar risus sollicitudin.

Maecenas quis neque odio, id aliquam ante. Cras ultricies ipsum sed ante commodo vitae congue dolor rhoncus. Etiam adipiscing mollis augue eget interdum. Phasellus pharetra ante eu sapien auctor egestas. Cras cursus quam eu magna tincidunt in bibendum urna semper. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Pellentesque eu erat et leo ornare lobortis vel sed metus. Etiam ac eros nec augue gravida.

 

[Batou667]

Some people don't have the time, patience, or attention span to read through a long-winded post, even though there could very well be legitimate points included in it.
In fact, in business writing there's such a thing as an executive summary, which is basically a TL;DR for an entire report.

Exactly. Cliff Notes, abstracts, summaries... tl;dr:ing has been acceptable for a long time.

Reading is a two-way process between the writer and the reader. Naturally the reader should be willing to invest a couple of minutes in trying to understand the text, but the writer should also be courteous enough to write interestingly and succinctly.

Spewing out a wall of text is like standing on the street corner and raving incoherently. Don't be surprised or offended when people decline to pay attention to you.

 

[Bestival]

When something is interesting to read it's never long enough (especially true for a good book). So when you TL;DR something it's most likely because it's long as balls and boring as fuck, so yes, acceptable.

 

[itsthesheppy]

Brevity is the soul of wit.