Now this isn’t a comment on the content of the article itself but, given that your first part in this series has negative votes (at the time of this comment and, most crucially, at the time this part 2 was posted), I question the wisdom of pushing on before addressing the perceived problems with the first post. On the other hand, perhaps you believe continuing to the next instalment will place the first part in a better context. Another theory is that you don’t care about the negative votes or comments and are writing for those who do like what you’re doing, and the downvoters can disembark the boat if they choose. Enough speculation from me, what’s your stance?
Thanks for bringing this up. It seemed that much of the feedback on the first post was that it was too much anecdote and too little content closer to the ultimately useful stuff, like results and methodology. This post has less history and more discussion of things like “okay, what’s the result,” so I think that that issue isn’t so present (and for whatever these very small numbers are worth, this post seems to be doing a little better).
I do expect that this post puts the previous one in a slightly better context. Mostly, my intent with these posts is for them to be seen and for people to get a few ideas out of them—and while it would be good for all sorts of reasons to make these posts high quality in other ways, if people get some ideas out of them but don’t think it’s that great a post, or even down-vote it for valid reasons of style and content-type, that would mostly be a win.
I may well delay the next posts based on feedback and votes, but so far it seemed like the right move to go ahead.
Please, please try to make your writing more succinct (assuming the next post, which has the actual important bits in it, is as long and rambling as these two). I criticised your style heavily in the last post because I want to be able to get your ideas without having to hunt for them.
I think that’s a fair answer, and I especially approve of the mentality you describe here:
Mostly, my intent with these posts is for them to be seen and for people to get a few ideas out of them—and while it would be good for all sorts of reasons to make these posts high quality in other ways, if people get some ideas out of them but don’t think it’s that great a post, or even down-vote it for valid reasons of style and content-type, that would mostly be a win.
I do however believe this makes your series a better candidate for ‘discussion’ and then moving to ‘main’ if it still seems worthy after a few rounds of feedback. The first such round, it appears to me in this case, should be an earnest attempt at stylistic and structural edits out of consideration for your readers, if only because you’re wasting your own time if you write something no-one deems worth the trouble of reading the whole way through in the first place.
As a very basic starting point, there is not really any excuse for posting the entire massive article without a summary break. The use of which is, needless to say, more delicate than simply snipping the bottom X% off the article as it appears on the front page. Good writers on here begin their articles with something that readers can use to get a clear idea of whether they actually want to continue reading, and this beginning to an article is surprisingly difficult to write! However, it is instructive in trimming fat from your prose and writing with clarity because, after all, you probably do want people to click that “continue reading” button if they’re likely to read on and upvote, and not click it if they’re likely to read on and downvote. Why is that rather-patronising explanation relevant here? Because you may have saved yourself a tonne of downvotes on both articles by using proper lead-ins to preselect your readers.
As a very basic starting point, there is not really any excuse for posting the entire massive article without a summary break.
I was just noticing last evening that that summary break is NOT automatically included in an article, and that I was sending the entire posts to the “New” feed. That was not a happy surprise for me :) Your advice on writing summaries is also useful, thanks.
Thinking about what you said about ‘discussion’, I’m going to move these first two posts over there for now. I might try and go back and revise and reorganize the material into something more appropriate for ‘main’, but for now I’m going to move these two out of the ‘main’ feed until/unless they’re in a better form. Thanks again.
Now this isn’t a comment on the content of the article itself but, given that your first part in this series has negative votes (at the time of this comment and, most crucially, at the time this part 2 was posted), I question the wisdom of pushing on before addressing the perceived problems with the first post. On the other hand, perhaps you believe continuing to the next instalment will place the first part in a better context. Another theory is that you don’t care about the negative votes or comments and are writing for those who do like what you’re doing, and the downvoters can disembark the boat if they choose. Enough speculation from me, what’s your stance?
Thanks for bringing this up. It seemed that much of the feedback on the first post was that it was too much anecdote and too little content closer to the ultimately useful stuff, like results and methodology. This post has less history and more discussion of things like “okay, what’s the result,” so I think that that issue isn’t so present (and for whatever these very small numbers are worth, this post seems to be doing a little better).
I do expect that this post puts the previous one in a slightly better context. Mostly, my intent with these posts is for them to be seen and for people to get a few ideas out of them—and while it would be good for all sorts of reasons to make these posts high quality in other ways, if people get some ideas out of them but don’t think it’s that great a post, or even down-vote it for valid reasons of style and content-type, that would mostly be a win.
I may well delay the next posts based on feedback and votes, but so far it seemed like the right move to go ahead.
Please, please try to make your writing more succinct (assuming the next post, which has the actual important bits in it, is as long and rambling as these two). I criticised your style heavily in the last post because I want to be able to get your ideas without having to hunt for them.
I think that’s a fair answer, and I especially approve of the mentality you describe here:
I do however believe this makes your series a better candidate for ‘discussion’ and then moving to ‘main’ if it still seems worthy after a few rounds of feedback. The first such round, it appears to me in this case, should be an earnest attempt at stylistic and structural edits out of consideration for your readers, if only because you’re wasting your own time if you write something no-one deems worth the trouble of reading the whole way through in the first place.
As a very basic starting point, there is not really any excuse for posting the entire massive article without a summary break. The use of which is, needless to say, more delicate than simply snipping the bottom X% off the article as it appears on the front page. Good writers on here begin their articles with something that readers can use to get a clear idea of whether they actually want to continue reading, and this beginning to an article is surprisingly difficult to write! However, it is instructive in trimming fat from your prose and writing with clarity because, after all, you probably do want people to click that “continue reading” button if they’re likely to read on and upvote, and not click it if they’re likely to read on and downvote. Why is that rather-patronising explanation relevant here? Because you may have saved yourself a tonne of downvotes on both articles by using proper lead-ins to preselect your readers.
I was just noticing last evening that that summary break is NOT automatically included in an article, and that I was sending the entire posts to the “New” feed. That was not a happy surprise for me :) Your advice on writing summaries is also useful, thanks.
Thinking about what you said about ‘discussion’, I’m going to move these first two posts over there for now. I might try and go back and revise and reorganize the material into something more appropriate for ‘main’, but for now I’m going to move these two out of the ‘main’ feed until/unless they’re in a better form. Thanks again.