I hate TL;DR

I just checked all my posts and changed all instances of "tl;dr" to "summary".

It turns out there were only two of them, but i do think it is an improvement.

Good to know. But for me, someone who enjoys seeing it, I had to expend effort to divorce the legitimate complaint you have from the fact that you called something I enjoy "an ugly internetism" and then closed your post with "/rant".

Previous agreement, and a selection of other words to use.

I dunno, I don't mind. Tl;dr is really an import from reddit, where people often do say long things which don't need to be read to enjoy the flow of the thread. Here, that isn't quite as important, because of the more intellectual nature of the commenting: you really have to read the whole thing to get the whole point. But occasionally, when you just got linked to a really interesting comment, and all you need to know of the post is a broad outline, they can be effective.

But often, tl;drs are good. It forces you to write a short executive summary, which often prompts you to edit the main body of what you've written. It also allows you to indicate your opinions in a slightly more informal way. They're frequently also humourous, which is always good.

So I don't mind them.

tl;dr: tl;dr is not always a bad thing, imho.

The original meaning is definitely not something I endorse- but at this point it's just memetic legacy. The letters don't really stand for anything and condescension is gone. If people want to stop using it; great. But don't think it makes enough difference to have a sitewide norm about it, to correct people, or to go back and edit old posts or comments.

It does have the function that it doesn't look like a regular word, so it jumps up at you from the text when you're scanning it quickly, which is exactly the situation which it is for.

Still, an even better effect can be gained by using some formatting on a summary, so there's no real need to persist with unnecessary slang.

It seems to me that there is a large and relevant distinction between "tl;dr" and "in summation" - namely, they signal membership in different groups.

I've only ever used tl;dr to summarize my own comments, and I only do that when I am consciously attempting to signal humility and low status (as shorthand for "I'm a student, not a professor".)

I managed to resist the temptation to leave here a comment saying only "tl;dr".

Upvoted for clearly expressing a preference, and reasons for having said preference, and being fairly nice about it.

This would be more appropriate as a comment in one of the posts that contains a tl;dr rather than having its own post. I don't like seeing rants on Less Wrong (not that I don't dislike the whole tl;dr thing).

The only reason I don't like tl;dr is because it encourages loitering.[*]

[*] Get off my lawn!

(seriously: people shouldn't be invited to post unconsidered comments about a substantive post, and that's what tl;dr licenses, although some uses are ironic).

I actually struggled to understand what you were talking about until I realised you were conflating an author using "tl;dr" in place of "summary" with a commenter dismissing a post with "tl;dr".

Then I realised that it's hardly conflating if they're the exact same, extremely unlikely combination of letters and punctuation! Whence my strange distinction between a self-tl;dr and an other-tl;dr? I assume from the different usages. I feel like an author is allowed to malign their own work in this way - a kind of British understatement of the quality of their work. Commenters don't have that allowance.

I agree. I think this will be changing my writing style subtly.

I realize it's 10 years later, but wanted to say I searched the phrase "alternatives to saying 'TL;DR'" and found your website – and subsequently went with "Summary" for the document I'm writing. Thanks for the validation.

I don't use it myself, but when it appears in a LW post I see it as a moderately self-deprecating way of saying "Summary".

This is a good suggestion of a third alternative, although one aspect I like about tl;dr is that in a way it "reclaims" the word for polite usage from the rude usage that it's typically associated with.

One thing to keep in mind is that although many seem to be trying to kill it, sarcasm isn't dead and sometimes use of those "internetisms" is meant tongue-in-cheek (I think similar to how 'lower class' language/words/mannerisms sometimes are used by people that normally speak in a more 'upper class' way). Although happening upon an article by someone without reading any of their writing history could cause a person to not know it's in jest.

So you don't necessarily have to get as angry each time you see it.

Bravo! It's a terrible acronym and the expansion thereof rarely makes sense in the context in which it is used.

You have prompted me to declare a pre-emptive downvote for any post with a TL;DR in it.

EDIT: Wow, -3 already? People object to me downvoting based on TL;DR usage? I suppose that is a legitimate preference. Just not mine. Allow me to update - I'd better make it retroactive as well as pre-emptive!

EDIT: Oh, and a bunch of better written posts (by lukeprog and others) just got retroactive upvotes for using "Summary:"