Long posts aren’t polite. They’re like bores in the pub. But they needn’t be. Conventions such as introductions, extended entries, excerpts and abstracts vastly improve their manners.
Spike Hall is writing about long weblog posts. He comments
“I think it’s a matter of the reader’s interests. If a reader wants to keep a current glossary of Radio Userland tools, for example, entries that give “name, rank and serial number” would be appropriate taste.
In the case of this reader preferences in my areas of deepest interest, however, require deep reading and, thus delve deep, multilayered, writing from authors I wish to learn from. Therefore I tend to read those who grab aholt of big topics and shake them thoroughly. The shaking of big mental objects takes more words.”
I very much agree. But whether you’re trying to get a huge audience or have nobler (and more sensible) aims in mind, I think there’s a presentation issue here.
While I don’t think here’s much point trying to standardise lengths of posts – it’s probably even a bad thing – I do think there’s merit in trying to add some structural rules to long posts.
As soon as posts go beyond a certain wordcount, then they’re either one of two things: rants, or considered pieces. Either way, they break away from the “conversational” nature of shorter posts – the “this made me laugh”, “have you heard about this?”, “a curious thing happened to me” posts. Longer posts tend to be more like essays, albeit written (sometimes) in a less formal manner. Essays have a grammar that includes abstracts and/or introductions. Why? Because they’re a courtesy to the reader. Assuming whoever is reading the essay is interested at some level, abstracts and introductions outline some reasons why they might want to invest the time in getting a fuller picture. Spike does this in his post with a summary, which got me reading the rest of the post. And I think this sort of courtesy is probably needed with longer posts.
So when use abstracts/introductions in blogs? Well, personally, I come across long posts in one of two ways: via a browser, and via an aggregator. Via a browser, I find sites that use introductions and “Continue reading” links for the full piece useful. It helps me get a sense of not just the post, but the blog as a whole. Via an aggregator, excerpts that are more than just the first x words of a posts are helpful. Of course, if you’ve got an introduction/abstract, then maybe that would do?
So, er, if you have got to the end of this: do read Spike’s post, and I know, I know – I’m a pot calling several million kettles black, but I’m going to try to improve, and on the subject of kettles, I think it’s probably time for a brew …