catapult magazine

so very often while reading on cino, i’m fed up with how long some posts are. i have been accused of this same thing on thinkwonder, but here it’s different, many of you posters are posting great stuff, but you’re so wordy about it that i miss the point.

i’m not sure if it’s a word, but one person (mdb) said it this way, susinctness is a virtue. unfortunately i cannot spell. so that quip may be lost in my lack of spelling.

K.

Not to be contrary, but while they take awhile to read, I really like some of the long posts. I think some topics are deeper than others and they require a lot of explanation for each thought. Textbooks are too long, too. But they get the job done.

Being more succinct is a good thing to work on, though. Personally I suck at it. Which is why I said “Being more succinct is a good thing to work on, though” instead of “cultivate brevity.” D’oh.

I appreciate your point — and think it is well taken in regards to making every word count. But I would argue that in our highly complex world which still gets talked about in shallow sound bites and 30 second news clips, it is important to have a place where we can dig into subjects a little bit. Longer posts take some thought to get through, but when they are jammed full of insights and thoughts, I don’t mind them.

enok,

I totally get what you are getting at, yet at the same time I take *cino as not just a posting ground…but a chance to develop a sort of friendship and relationship with those around me in this some what cyber-playground. To do that means to allow those around me to speak their minds no matter how wordy they get. One thing that I am taking from all of this is the apparent personalities of those posting. I can see, with a bit of certainty, who has a sense of humor and who doesn’t. Who prefers Steinbeck and who prefers Veggie Tales (and for some it is both). While not knowing hardly any of the faces of those posting, I am beginning to know them…maybe from the inside out.

Quite honestly, there are some subscriptions I do not read as carefully as I do others due to the “longwindedness” and the rhetorical ring around the rosie. I still try to keep up on them, but much more prefer to ingest what is written and think about it during the day. The Culture In Me post has been going bonkers lately…and those involved are having a great time pushing eachother to think about what this is all about.

OK I have said too much…

thanks for all the responses. esp jvb. i dig it. really i don’t know if there is a solution to this problem. i mean alot of the stuff that is posted here i really respect. it’s thought through and it is really help ful. it’s just that it is long. and i think maybe it’s more my problem than yours.

so yea, i’m gonna try to wade through some more posts.

bu-bye

something that helps long posts become more readable is breaking them up into smaller paragraphs—not that i want to succumb to the sound-byte syndrome BBC was referring to. but small type is easier to read and digest when we can visually process one idea at a time, especially when those ideas are as complex as some that get thrown around here.

just a.

thought.