On Thu, 16 Apr 2009, Rachel Lee Cherry wrote: > On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Azalais Aranxta <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Thu, 16 Apr 2009, Rachel Lee Cherry wrote: > > > > The writer of the post is already, by posting it on a journalling > > service and not a blogging service, giving me the option of > > reading it in any colour, shape, form I care to, with or without > > images. Why is giving me the option to say that only the first > > 3, or 5, or 10 paragraphs will appear on my reading page (which > > is mine, not part of their journal), and I can then click the > > link to get to the rest, any worse than giving me the option to > > read it in pink text on a yellow background if I feel like it? > > I don't get this. > > Because it changes what I (as a writer of nonfiction posts) > might put in those first few paragraphs. It'd change my writing > style to a more newspaper-y format, forcing me to write a lead > for any long posts so that readers know what lies beyond the > cut. And I'd expect few readers, especially those who've never > read my writing before, to click a cut with mysterious > contents.
Even if this is a reader option? Because readers who want this option are less likely to read your post if there is no cut, and readers who want this option will likely not read long uncut rambling nonfiction posts, anyway. I know that if I'm reading nonfiction posts that aren't also personal posts, I'm not going to read past the first three paragraphs if I haven't seen any sign of what the eventual point of all that text is going to be. > Just like paragraphing and the use of asterisks rather than bold formatting > (or the <b> tag vs. the <strong> tag), it's one more thing I have to keep in > mind when writing a post. There are all kinds of things that you have to keep in mind when writing a post, but I don't think that's a bad thing. Of course, I am an avid user of the strong tag. > And I imagine it'd give fiction writers even *less* space in > which to draw readers into the story. Most fic writers use summaries or warnings or something like that. I know Denise doesn't warn, but most people do, and generally there are pairings and other information. I actually don't think any of the fiction writers on my lists *don't* cut stories; most people I know who read fiction on journalling sites read their flist to get all the personal stuff about their friends and note where the stories are, then go back to the stories when they have time. (Most of the story reading isn't done for instance on breaks at work, given the tendency of fic to be nsfw anyway.) > > >How hypocritical is it to say "Here, have x-thousand > > >characters of writing space, but your readers are only ever > > >going to see the first 140 characters before being forced to > > >click a cut. CHOOSE WISELY"? > > > > I don't quite get how that is hypocritical at all. I'm kinda > > baffled. > > Because on one hand it says "Write lots more! We like long-winded writers!" > and on the other hand it says "... As long as you're not *too* longwinded. > No one wants to be forced to read your tripe." It's welcoming and limiting > at the same time. I'm still baffled. I thought the selling point of long post length was "so you can post long things all in one place" not so that you could force people to read long things as they find them on their reading pages instead of when they have time to adequately sit down and read them. Acknowledging that long pieces of writing are a good thing and simultaneously acknowledging that people don't always have time or inclination to read them on the fly does not strike me as hypocritical in the least. It's not about whether or not you are boring, it's also about where you're reading stuff, how you like to read your page (all at once, all topics, even if you're reading on the bus on your iPhone, or personal stuff/skim for fic/meta/essays to read later first, then read the meaty stuff in privacy without distractions). Granted, many people will skip cut posts by certain people with certain tags, but they'd do that anyway; the difference is that if they have the option to skip what they don't want, they'll read the rest of it and be more favourably inclined to you when they do. > Readers decide in different places whether to stop reading a news article or > a novella. It'd be hard as hell to insert an automatic cutoff that would be > kind to both writers. So, encouraging writers to place the lj-cut themselves if they want to control where I find it sounds like a good thing to me. If their choice is 'not at all' they are not likely to stay on a lot of the reading lists out there. > > Particularly if people know it. I also don't think anyone was > > proposing a 140 character limit. > > It came up as an example upthread (sorry, I lost who used it), but not as a > serious suggestion. It was a takeoff on LJ's April Fool's post, which *did* > pretend that LJ would be instituting an automatic cut after 140 characters: Yah, that was a joke though. > And readers ought to take up their annoyance with the writer, > not with the service the writer uses. Dreamwidth can't force > people to use good netiquette and shouldn't waste energy > trying. See, my philosophy is different; I think social media should encourage social behaviour, and that things which enable people who don't agree on every topic but still like each other to stay in touch are NOT wasted energy. When people are forced to interact without filters they end up very quickly taking everyone they disagree with vehemently about something off their list for the sake of their blood pressure. I don't think "don't read me if you don't want to read everything I have to say no matter what you are doing and where you are" is the attitude to take if you want to communicate with people who don't already know they're going to love everything that you say. I also think that discouraging antisocial behaviour and reducing its impact on people without censoring people are good goals. By allowing people to say "I'm only going to see the first five paragraphs" or whatever, you're taking a burden off people with accessibility issues and reducing the impact of people who want to force their issues down other people's throats, trolls, and the like without actually stopping anyone from putting the content they want up in their journal. Azalais **************************************************************** Azalais Aranxta (~malfoy) ataniell93 on LiveJournal and Vox http://groups.yahoo.com/group/malfoymadness "I know the true world, and you know I do. But we needn't let it think we all bow down." --Christopher Fry _______________________________________________ dw-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.dwscoalition.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dw-discuss
