prase comments on Detecting Web baloney with your nose? - Less Wrong

-3 Post author: uzalud 10 November 2012 03:50PM

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Comment author: prase 10 November 2012 06:43:24PM 6 points [-]

In my experience, absence of paragraphs is strongly correlated with low quality of the text. Do you have examples of good walls of text?

Comment author: buybuydandavis 10 November 2012 07:17:11PM 4 points [-]

I think walls of text are matter of time and place. My recollection is that Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin wrote in very long paragraphs, with very long sentences in them.

For contemporary texts written for the web, I'd generally agree, and even if I don't think the writer is a crackpot, I'll stop reading because of the difficulty of visually tracking through a wall of text.

Comment author: Thomas 10 November 2012 06:49:50PM 0 points [-]

I can't say I have. But I would't judge a text based on some peculiar font use, either.

You have to read and understand why it is good or why it isn't. Shortcuts like "funny grammar" are not reliable.