Poll: Do you discourage TL;DR in comments? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Do you discourage TL;DR in comments?

3 pointsj_baker6 comments

I'm asking this because I noticed that someone said that TL;DR is discouraged by HN. Personally, I feel that there are two competing desires that hackers have: desire for detail and desire to conserve attention as the limited resource that it is. Thus, I don't see anything wrong with putting TL;DR in a comment.

But at the same time, is this some big faux pas that I've committed unknowingly? Or is this an opinion that's subject to debate?

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I find it disrespectful. If you can't be bothered to read, why bother to comment? If you feel an entry does not deserve your attention, do not give it your attention, and simply ignore it. Actively saying you didn't bother to read what the other person wrote is simply insulting. Make of that what you will.

Actually, I've always thought it was the other way around. It's a bit like saying "I know my comment is long and you might not read it. Here's a brief summary if that's the case."

Oh. I see. I thought you were referring to responding with tl;dr to other people's posts. You were in fact talking about summarizing your own posts. In that case, why not just say what you just wrote, as in "Summary: ..." and place that at the start of your post? Using tl;dr is certainly less polite.

Yeah; occasionally I'll find a good posting that hasn't gotten much attention and I'll write more of a "teaser" than a summary comment, something that will hopefully help other HN readers quickly figure out if it's worth reading.

A straightforward summary is also OK, but including "tl;dr" (newfangled slang which I had to look up a week or two ago :-) doesn't strike me as particularly polite.

You should add the option "I'll upvote any comment that contains TL;DR". My vote would go there.

for people (like me) who do not know what TL;DR means, it is according to Urban Dictionary[1]

Literally, "Too long; didn't read"

Said whenever a nerd makes a post that is too long to bother reading.

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