The other reason to contain as much of the arguments and counter-arguments as you can in the original is that people are far more likely to read the post than the comments and comment responses.
Also, if you don’t include objections and counter-arguments, you run the risk that someone will read your post, think of an objection, fail to think of a counter-objection, and dismiss the idea, where s/he might have accepted it if you had included more.
True. Perhaps some posts should include separate “anticipation of objections” parts. These could be skipped by people who prefer terse posts but would have to be read by anyone who wishes to comment.
Or we could do the opposite pattern and try to have a high-level takeaway/summary that in theory could get you 80% of the value of reading the post in 20% of the time.
The other reason to contain as much of the arguments and counter-arguments as you can in the original is that people are far more likely to read the post than the comments and comment responses.
Also, if you don’t include objections and counter-arguments, you run the risk that someone will read your post, think of an objection, fail to think of a counter-objection, and dismiss the idea, where s/he might have accepted it if you had included more.
True. Perhaps some posts should include separate “anticipation of objections” parts. These could be skipped by people who prefer terse posts but would have to be read by anyone who wishes to comment.
Or we could do the opposite pattern and try to have a high-level takeaway/summary that in theory could get you 80% of the value of reading the post in 20% of the time.
We could call it an “abstract”! Or a “tl;dr”, for the younger generation.
Most LW posts don’t have them, and they typically aren’t comprehensive enough to get you 80% of the value of reading the entire post.
They can tell you whether a post is worth reading, and give the writer a target to aim at.