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  • Showing only topics in ~tildes with the tag "article posts". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Do we really need to add summaries to posted articles?

      This seems to happen quite a lot here. Someone will post an article, and then add a comment with an extract from the article, or a summary of the article. Or someone else will come along and...

      This seems to happen quite a lot here. Someone will post an article, and then add a comment with an extract from the article, or a summary of the article. Or someone else will come along and summarise the article.

      This is pointless clutter.

      On a site where we're hoping for high-quality discussion, we should expect people to actually read the articles they're discussing. If the article's so long that it needs a summary, then reading that summary isn't going to give people a good enough insight into the detail of the article before they start discussing it.

      It also has the effect of misleading readers. They see an article post, read the article, and then notice that someone has already commented on the article. When they open the thread to join in the discussion, they discover that the existing comment is nothing more than a summary of the article they just read. They opened the thread for nothing.


      EDIT: I give up. Lesson learned! I am the odd one out here. It is not normal to read articles beforing opening the comments sections. Summaries are desired, even preferred, here on Tildes.

      I shall adjust my behaviour accordingly:

      • I will start including summaries & extracts in my article posts.

      • I will not waste my time opening posts that have only 1 comment.

      I'm not going to reply here any more.

      21 votes