If, instead of an n-post series arguing against Taubes on the object-level of nutrition, you had written one (potentially long!) post on those rationality points, I would be happy.
In retrospect, I think I may have made a mistake breaking the series up as finely as I did. However, the idea that taking a post that would be Main-suitable, and breaking it up into pieces of no less than 750 words would turn those posts into “discussion” posts strikes me as really odd.
However, the idea that taking a post that would be Main-suitable, and breaking it up into pieces of no less than 750 words would turn theses posts into “discussion” posts strikes me as really odd.
I think 750 words is pretty short, and that may be the main issue here. (I’m having a hard time teasing apart the strengths of the various reasons I think this.) My Value of Information: Four Examples was about 3k words, and the idea of splitting it up into four separate posts to Main seems odd to me. (That post is one of five (six if you count the table of contents) in a sequence which came out to something like 11k words total.) As a collection of discussion posts, sure, especially if I was posting an example whenever I came across one.
Consider Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism, since I linked to it a upthread. It’s about 2200 words- it seems like a good length for a post, and in particular the right length for that particular concept. It’s also got three sections- an introduction, Pretending To Be Wise, and Meta-Contrarians are Intellectual Hipsters. Splitting the post into three subposts seems like it needlessly disrupts the flow and makes the concept harder to understand and discuss- without the examples at the end, the discussion of the first section might be confused, and in the comments you’ll see various people propose other triads, which are good to have all in one place.
But even if the combination is better, what should we make of a single section? Pretending To Be Wise is an about half-length presentation of another main article, and so might make for a decent main article on its own. But the last part seems more like an “here are some examples, discuss” which is suitable for discussion because it’s missing the theory that makes it a compelling main post- which is in the first and second sections.
[Edit] I should also make clear that I don’t think it’s that odd to have a sequence that moves between Main and Discussion as appropriate- but I don’t think there are many (or possibly any) examples of that yet, and so it may be odder than I think of it as being.
I should also make clear that I don’t think it’s that odd to have a sequence that moves between Main and Discussion as appropriate- but I don’t think there are many (or possibly any) examples of that yet, and so it may be odder than I think of it as being.
I can see the point of having the main parts of the sequence in Main and appendices in Discussion, but having Part 1 in Main, Part 2 in Discussion, Part 3 in Discussion and Part 4 in Main (named that way) seems confusing to me.
I learned long ago—I think doing high-school journalism—that 250-300 words is the limit for a letter to the editor, ~750 words is a good length for a typical article or op-ed, and 3k words is a feature article. In college and later grad school, I learned 4.5k as a typical term paper length, and I made the chapters in the two books I’ve written around 6k words. Obviously, academic papers and academic book chapters can be much longer than 6k words.
I’ve been approaching this from the point of view of “blog posts should generally be like typical newspaper articles or feature articles; a term paper or a book chapter as a blog post is usually too long.” But maybe I should think of feature article / term paper as the standard?
I think that the feature article and above (though empirically the standard here seems to be about 2k, rather than 3k) as the target for Main, and the op-ed and below for discussion, is a good split. I think that shorter articles can be worth it for Main, but the quality and relevance bars are higher (and they should be standalone).
In retrospect, I think I may have made a mistake breaking the series up as finely as I did. However, the idea that taking a post that would be Main-suitable, and breaking it up into pieces of no less than 750 words would turn those posts into “discussion” posts strikes me as really odd.
I think 750 words is pretty short, and that may be the main issue here. (I’m having a hard time teasing apart the strengths of the various reasons I think this.) My Value of Information: Four Examples was about 3k words, and the idea of splitting it up into four separate posts to Main seems odd to me. (That post is one of five (six if you count the table of contents) in a sequence which came out to something like 11k words total.) As a collection of discussion posts, sure, especially if I was posting an example whenever I came across one.
Consider Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism, since I linked to it a upthread. It’s about 2200 words- it seems like a good length for a post, and in particular the right length for that particular concept. It’s also got three sections- an introduction, Pretending To Be Wise, and Meta-Contrarians are Intellectual Hipsters. Splitting the post into three subposts seems like it needlessly disrupts the flow and makes the concept harder to understand and discuss- without the examples at the end, the discussion of the first section might be confused, and in the comments you’ll see various people propose other triads, which are good to have all in one place.
But even if the combination is better, what should we make of a single section? Pretending To Be Wise is an about half-length presentation of another main article, and so might make for a decent main article on its own. But the last part seems more like an “here are some examples, discuss” which is suitable for discussion because it’s missing the theory that makes it a compelling main post- which is in the first and second sections.
[Edit] I should also make clear that I don’t think it’s that odd to have a sequence that moves between Main and Discussion as appropriate- but I don’t think there are many (or possibly any) examples of that yet, and so it may be odder than I think of it as being.
I can see the point of having the main parts of the sequence in Main and appendices in Discussion, but having Part 1 in Main, Part 2 in Discussion, Part 3 in Discussion and Part 4 in Main (named that way) seems confusing to me.
This is useful.
I learned long ago—I think doing high-school journalism—that 250-300 words is the limit for a letter to the editor, ~750 words is a good length for a typical article or op-ed, and 3k words is a feature article. In college and later grad school, I learned 4.5k as a typical term paper length, and I made the chapters in the two books I’ve written around 6k words. Obviously, academic papers and academic book chapters can be much longer than 6k words.
I’ve been approaching this from the point of view of “blog posts should generally be like typical newspaper articles or feature articles; a term paper or a book chapter as a blog post is usually too long.” But maybe I should think of feature article / term paper as the standard?
I think that the feature article and above (though empirically the standard here seems to be about 2k, rather than 3k) as the target for Main, and the op-ed and below for discussion, is a good split. I think that shorter articles can be worth it for Main, but the quality and relevance bars are higher (and they should be standalone).
Thanks. I will follow this rule in the future.