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Stefan_Schubert comments on In favour of terseness - Less Wrong
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One reason people write long posts is that they want to anticipate objections (that may or may not be nit-picky). The reason for this is that having to modify your views as a result of the discussion is generally seen as a failure.
The solution to this is to see posting and discussion less as a competitive game the purpose of which is "winning" and more of a cooperative game the purpose of which is learning. That goes for both posters and commentators, obviously.
That said, you often need to explain difficult ideas in detail in order for others to understand, as noted below.
Yes, Unfortunately, to assume a querulous reader is largely correct.
The other reason to contain as much of the arguments and counter-arguments as you can in the original is that people are far more likely to read the post than the comments and comment responses.
Also, if you don't include objections and counter-arguments, you run the risk that someone will read your post, think of an objection, fail to think of a counter-objection, and dismiss the idea, where s/he might have accepted it if you had included more.
True. Perhaps some posts should include separate "anticipation of objections" parts. These could be skipped by people who prefer terse posts but would have to be read by anyone who wishes to comment.
Or we could do the opposite pattern and try to have a high-level takeaway/summary that in theory could get you 80% of the value of reading the post in 20% of the time.
We could call it an "abstract"! Or a "tl;dr", for the younger generation.
Most LW posts don't have them, and they typically aren't comprehensive enough to get you 80% of the value of reading the entire post.
They can tell you whether a post is worth reading, and give the writer a target to aim at.
Nit-picky objections can be addressed in footnotes[1]. And you can address legitimate qualifications and caveats by first giving a broad, intuitive overview of what you believe, while cautioning that the position you can actually stand for is more complicated than that.
[1] Since some folks may be unfamiliar with them, here's how you actually add a footnote to your comment or post.