I was recently talking with a friend about the lengths of some blog posts, and it’s made me think about mine. My friend noted that many people turn off when they encounter long posts, for an obviously varying sense of “long”. I agree. Certainly, it depends upon how interesting the subject is, and how engaging the writing is — and my own tolerance may be more than that of some — but, yes, I’ll sometimes give up on a too-long blog entry, news article, or whatever.
It made me wonder about these pages, where I don’t tend to be brief. What I write is certainly not as long as some, but it usually goes to the long side. To an extent, that’s intentional: it feels... unsatisfying... to only write a few lines. There are exceptions, of course, and sometimes less really is more. But, in general, if I don’t have more to say on the subject, is it worth writing? Is it worth reading?
So I thought I’d ask my readers. Clearly, not everyone is interested in everything I write — I know there are some who come for the political stuff, some who wish I’d stop that and stick with the computer things, and some who glaze over at anything to do with computers or mathematics. But for the bits you read, does my post length seem too long, too short, or about right?
If I haven’t already talked with you about this outside of these pages, please leave a comment here and tell me what you think.
6 comments:
In general, I don't have a problem with long posts. Yours have never seemed too long to me, that's for sure. I may not read all of all of them, but that'll be due to topic, not length.
I think your content length is fine. You should continue to write as much as seems suitable to you.
Catherine
just right
I haven't noticed the posts being too long to read easily--when the subject is interesting to me, I am willing to read quite long posts (but again, haven't pinpointed this blog in my head as one that's exceptionally long).
I'd go with juuuust right.
Your posts are certainly longer than the ones on most blogs I read, but they're also much more interesting and detail-rich.
I sometimes star them in my Google Reader to read later when I have more time, but I can't remember a time thinking, "too long; did not read."
I really enjoy your blog, Barry. You comment on a variety of topics, you neither post so prolifically that I feel I can't possibly keep up nor so sporadically that I would just give up. The length of the posts always seem to be appropriate to the subject matter. "Keep up the good work!"
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