PET PEEVE: TLDR, You said too much, I'm not going to read that but I will still comment

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An old friend here was communicating and reminded me of a pet peeve that I've spoken about before but have spent quite a bit of time thinking about within the last month.

He asked whether something that I was told something along the lines of "you said a lot of words without conveying meaning" when referring to something in the post I wrote about The Tunneler Hypothesis was possibly due to a little too much "Word Salad".

I told him that this did not appear to be the case to me. I went back and read it after it sitting there for a couple of years and it seemed to have meaning and be clear to me. You would think after it sitting there that long that when I came back I would notice.

With that said. I am VERY verbose. I speak a lot. Perhaps in some cases SOME people may think even too much.

You do notice this isn't twitter right? I don't have this character limit telling me I must try to cram deep thoughts and discussions into a small number of characters. This is why I write in places like this.

We are in an age of TLDR. TLDR (Too long didn't read) to me is a form of "Virtue Signalling". I am going to tell people about how technically I was too damn lazy to read. I'm going to spin it like a virtuous and amusing thing by saying TLDR. Sometimes I might go a step further and talk about the thing I didn't read.

To me TLDR is an admission of laziness. It is the sign of a fool trying to spin their foolishness as virtue. If you truly don't want to read something because it is too long. Don't. Move on. Don't brag about it. Don't start talking about it after you didn't read it.

Each of us can look at the length of something and say "I don't have time for that" to ourselves and move on. Time is valuable and precious.

We should not however expect people to dish out content that fits our personal desires. That is unrealistic and a little bit of arrogance and narcissism rolled up into one.

Now what if you are reading something and they say so much you get lost. Do you blame them? Is it their fault you did not understand? Do you accuse them of word salad, and/or writing a bunch of words that lacked meaning? Do you ever stop to think maybe that meaning was there and you just don't see it? Or is it always the other persons problem?

My job is not to cater to your whims. I do like it when more people can relate to my works and my words. However, I know that no two people are alike and I cannot please everyone. I also know that trying to please a certain group will leave me crippled, hobbled, and miserable. If you cannot understand the words I use. Fine, you do not have to read them. I won't be angry. On the other hand if you say TLDR and start talking about it or you say what I wrote had no meaning then I'm likely to call you out on it.

When I read Legal documents my mind trips all over itself and my eyes cross. The same can happen with some white papers and scientific documents. I definitely don't accuse them of using a lot of words that convey no meaning simply because I didn't quickly grasp the meaning. Instead when dealing with those things I have to slow down and spend a lot more time trying to ingest them than I usually do. This is not their fault. It is simply an alien form of communication to my mind. My mind has not been conditioned through practice to understand it quickly.

Now I could say "Ahhh... law speak!" and refuse to read it. I'd learn nothing.

People need to spend a little more time looking into mirrors and doing some introspection when they feel the need to accuse others.



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8 comments
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I pretty much always laugh at the TLDR comments made by people, why even bother commenting if you are going to tell the person you didn't read it? makes no sense to me. I sometimes have to go back and re-read things I just read just to formulate a comment sometimes.

"You just used a lot of words to convey very little meaning"

I think when people use that they just don't want to read the response because they may be wrong in their view. (quote from previous post).

I like the longer form get the brain thinking post or the eyes seeing post. For short form twitter type post there is Dbuzz for people to use on Hive when they really don't have a lot to say.

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Exactly. Thanks again for the inspiration.

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mhhh, so let me start by saying I get your point in both cases. The TLDR one is just rudeness and also not trying to understand but just communicating 'I dont understand' without any hint in where the confusion is coming from is also prty rude. We all like to communicate, but before we do that we should put some effort into using our brains.

On the other hand I remember your old posts that were sometimes easily four DIN A4 pages printed out. You know I live to comment and debate but I always had the problem that I wanted to ask questions or add something in he beginning but wasnt sure you might still get to that point. So I read the whole post before I comment, but I already forgot most of what I wanted to say in the beginning.

But like you said it is your style and it seems to have a lot of fans. My style of rather short posts that are often meant to offend and inspire discussion are not often met with positive resonance :)

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You know a technique for mine that might work for you. If you think of something you want to ask. Start the reply. go back and continue reading. Add to your reply as you think of something.

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I have done the exact thing, but it really disturbed my flow both in reading and in writing the reply, also that frustrating moment when the author actually does go into the topic you also wanted to bring up in your reply and then you have to change your reply... I dont read too many long posts nowadays, but for you I might come up with a new technique: I have two monitors now, I can just have notepad open on the side an make me some short notes that I put together for a reply in the end. The mysterious hidden art of taking notes!

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Heh... I am not going to harass you for a disjointed reply. Yet I understand someone saying "you should do this" because I am told that often about how I write. It doesn't work for me. I basically end up thinking "Sure right after I remove my head and transplant yours".

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I totally get that. Like I said my style is discussion, I dont like to do monologs. However this doesn't work without people like you, ergo I had a pretty huge writers block when I cam back and you were gone... It is hard for me to just pick an idea and then dive deep into it like you do, if anything I envy you.

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Upvoted!

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