Most blog posts are unpaid labor. It's not blogger's job to explain everything to everyone, because blogging is not their job. As a frequent blogger myself, if I had to dumb down my blog posts for the dumbest, most inattentive readers, then that in itself would be a good reason not to blog at all. I'm just not interested in that crap. I write for an "intelligent" audience, and I don't care if that sounds elitist.
If you paid for a product, then you have the right to complain. But with blog posts, you're consuming text for free. You can choose not to consume it fully, and that's fine, but pedantically telling bloggers to change their writing style is stepping over the line. Bloggers have no obligation whatsoever to cater to the inattentive, or whomever you believe they need to cater to.
I shared a piece of feedback earlier in the thread based on what I saw to be the source of confusion.
I'm not arguing that bloggers have to explain everything to everyone.
I'm not arguing that bloggers have an obligation to cater to the lowest common denominator.
And I'm not arguing that everyone is missing the point.
To bring this back to where I started, in a meta-discussion about people getting confused about the meaning of the words written, the only point I was trying to make was that this is happening for an understandable reason, and this reason goes away entirely with a slight reframing without fundamentally changing anything.
I'm not even arguing that my specific reframing is the best way to do it or that the author must go change anything.
I think my perspective may make more sense if you imagine that I'm trying to understand why people are misunderstanding, and that I find it interesting to explore those reasons. I find this interesting for admittedly selfish reasons: I want people to understand the words I read, and I reflect on my own writing style to see if I'm reaching who I want to reach.
In a post about writing blog posts, such an exploration seems appropriate.
I agree.
> and this reason goes away entirely with a slight reframing without fundamentally changing anything.
I disagree, because I disagree with your diagnosis of why it's happening.
I'd argue that it's a failing of the engagement-driven information economy.
The Internet is full of posts with lists of hot takes that are completely literal. It is in this landscape that a reader finding a post like this must decide how to interpret what the reader is trying to say.
> It’s clear he doesn’t believe this list of cons
For the reasons outlined, this was not clear at all. It was clear that the author felt someone shouldn't care about these cons, but that is quite different than concluding that the cons aren't even worth believing.
There are times that cons are true, and those cons are outweighed by the pros. There are times when the cons win.
This is a time when the cons are false. Mentioning that would be helpful. This is my primary point.
> But these are real things real people think about a lot when they think about writing or creating and sharing it.
Yes, and my point was that the issue can be very easily solved by just framing it as such with almost zero change to the overall content.
"None of these are true" vs. "You shouldn't care about these cons". It's a small change that completely shifts the meaning of the list and brings more readers onboard.
> Honestly, the lack of comprehension...
There's a similar lack of comprehension emerging in this thread about the broader information landscape, and why content like this can be indistinguishable from content that is carrying the opposite underlying message.
And let's say for sake of argument that the primary problem is one of comprehension. That implies a broader trend that requires corrective behaviors, and concluding that "that's just their problem" doesn't seem to be very useful for anyone involved either.
I deeply support the underlying message the author is trying to convey: write stuff! I don't want my comments here to be misconstrued otherwise.