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🧵 Thread (11 tweets)
In which an HN commenter offers me writing advice but fails to understand the implication of second sentence: https://t.co/qWZ4sDUR3n
Partly I'm verbose just for personal stylistic reasons but partly I write for an audience which happily crunches through 10,000 words before breakfast. (And, as I've mentioned before, some people who read 10,000 words before breakfast then go on to run the world.)
There are many readers who don't have the patience or capacity to get through a 3,000 word piece. There are many publications which understand this about their readership and have editors rein in authors who'd do space-inefficient things like citing sources and being precise.
"So who are you writing for, anyway?" The intersection of people who have to professionally care about a particular software vendor bricking large portions of the financial system and who don't enjoy the root cause analysis of that incident being word salad.
(I deleted the words "word salad" from my essay linking to a particular government document on security programs which could not decide whether it meant that in terms of "the totality of activities of a financial institution implicating security" or "specific executable code.")
"So how do you take comments on writers from readers?" I try to be like a well-adjusted doctor: the patient is probably right about their subjective experience. And then sometimes they'll confidently advance opinions about the provision of medical care, which get less deference.
"Are you analogizing yourself to a doctor?" That is a regulated profession conducted by educated professionals. I'm definitely not as skilled at writing as some people, who accreditation boards agree must be addressed as doctor, are skilled at practicing medicine.
@patio11 just a fun little @patio11 shit test - does the AMA actually require that doctors MUST be called doctor? or is it a suggestion of some kind like, if a doctor chooses to go by their first name Jamie are they technically in violation of some rule