For a long time, Eliezer has been telling me I should write more like he does. I've mostly resisted, preferring instead to write like this:
- Explain the lesson of the post immediately, and outline the ideas clearly with lots of headings, subheadings, lists, etc.
- State the abstract points first, then give concrete examples.
- Provide lots of links and references to related work so that readers have the opportunity to read more detail about what I'm trying to say (in case it wasn't clear in a single sentence or paragraph), or read the same thing from a different angle (in case the metaphors and language I used weren't clear to that reader).
At the recent Effective Altruism Summit I tried to figure out which personal features predicted writing style preference.
One hypothesis was that people who read lots of fiction (like Eliezer) will tend to prefer Eliezer's story-like style, while those who read almost exclusively non-fiction (like me) will tend to prefer my "just gimme the facts" style. This hypothesis didn't hold up well on my non-scientific survey of ~10 LW-reading effective altruists.
Another hypothesis was that most people would prefer Eliezer's more exciting posts, while people trained in the sciences or analytic philosophy (which insist on clear organization, definitions, references to related work, etc.) would prefer my posts. This hypothesis fared a bit better, but not by much.
Another hypothesis was that people who had acquired an epiphany addiction would prefer Eliezer's style, whereas those who just want to learn everything efficiently would prefer my style. But I didn't test this.
Another hypothesis that occurs to me is that people with short attention spans could prefer my more skimmable style. But I haven't tested this.
Perhaps the community would like to propose some hypotheses, and test them with LW polling?
Speaking as someone with fairly serious attention deficit disorder, I find Eliezer's style (and Yvain's as well) is particularly good at holding my attention for long periods of time. Where a more bare-bones article would require me to use willpower to finish reading, I will tend to become hyperfocused (a less commonly recognized aspect of ADD) on one written in a style I find entertaining.
I have ADHD, and also find EY's writing to be more engaging.
EDIT: Part of the problem with lukeprogs "more skimmable style" is that it is actually possible to skim and sortof get away with it, whereas in EY's "more narrative style", you lose the narrative flow if you start skipping, so there is a higher apparent cost to not paying attention. Hence I remain engaged with EY's writing, and start skipping things in luke's.