
"TLDR" is unnecessary - tarr11
http://douglastarr.com/tldr-is-unnecessary
======
gliese1337
TLDR is a pragmatic device; it's a written discourse marker. Calling it
"unnecessary" is just like saying that "well...", "y'know", "so...", "like"
and all those other little "filler words" that your high school English
teacher doesn't like are "unnecessary". In formal prose, where all that's
supposed to matter is textual semantics, sure, they're not necessary, and I
wouldn't use them there. But in informal discourse, they're essential; not for
conveying propositional information, but for negotiating social discourse
information.

~~~
egypturnash
Yes, exactly.

The "TLDR" is all-caps, so it grabs your eye out of the wall-o-text that you
may be skimming over, and says "hey here is my basic point". And maybe then
you'll go "hey that's an interesting point" and scroll back up and read their
lengthy argument, story, or whatever, in all its labrynthine discoursiveness.

And now to demonstrate it I will include some lorem ipsum. Hipster Ipsum, to
be precise. Swag polaroid tempor iphone echo park ethnic 8-bit, cosby sweater
beard semiotics in. Magna organic neutra, exercitation laborum quis jean
shorts aliqua ex eiusmod gluten-free pitchfork butcher. Cosby sweater disrupt
keytar qui, beard pariatur lo-fi sustainable magna skateboard sint farm-to-
table umami. Intelligentsia pour-over flexitarian, banh mi meh ad meggings
thundercats ex. Labore tofu aliquip officia kale chips, bushwick single-origin
coffee. Quinoa laborum velit 3 wolf moon placeat eiusmod, nisi brooklyn cred
VHS stumptown. Gastropub try-hard intelligentsia, fashion axe 3 wolf moon wes
anderson actually officia proident laboris american apparel do.

High life pitchfork ad tousled wolf, fugiat gentrify put a bird on it keytar
nesciunt beard aliqua jean shorts post-ironic laboris. Flexitarian vice
aliquip pork belly non, anim commodo eu. Dreamcatcher nulla cred, echo park
church-key retro sint neutra vice mustache. Vero deep v art party, blog
organic bicycle rights labore pinterest wayfarers polaroid quinoa jean shorts
vice. Ad banh mi authentic art party. Trust fund et banjo bespoke portland.
Cardigan disrupt american apparel aliquip kale chips non.

Craft beer vero cosby sweater kale chips ex nihil cardigan, truffaut authentic
photo booth sed. Irony ethnic keytar post-ironic, ugh enim tonx truffaut
before they sold out. Kale chips tattooed terry richardson keytar marfa carles
artisan, sunt flexitarian vice ex. Umami sapiente direct trade etsy ut, hoodie
readymade jean shorts brooklyn VHS cray polaroid. Anim pork belly swag minim.
Master cleanse narwhal cred pinterest. You probably haven't heard of them wes
anderson est, high life truffaut culpa stumptown ethical williamsburg vero
sapiente.

Etsy plaid irony, brooklyn post-ironic williamsburg dolor butcher master
cleanse pariatur aliqua next level cred. Seitan aliquip qui disrupt lomo
literally. Sapiente tumblr laborum, gastropub bicycle rights non post-ironic
pug ut. Do nisi narwhal, ad odio before they sold out disrupt brunch tumblr
polaroid dolore +1 odd future. Viral officia readymade, plaid forage assumenda
post-ironic cupidatat you probably haven't heard of them portland sint qui.
Cardigan try-hard portland id selfies four loko, assumenda ethical letterpress
aesthetic. Neutra non art party locavore aesthetic, actually freegan tonx
cardigan godard ex gentrify.

TL;DR: One sentence with a block of all-caps beginning it sure catches your
eye at the end of a long post.

~~~
bartonfink
Interesting tangent, as someone who was fluent in Latin many moons ago (could
speak it at an English conversational pace), I literally had to force myself
to ignore your filler (which includes several Latin fragments).

~~~
egypturnash
It's from a "Hipster Ipsum" generator. Designers traditionally use a piece of
malformed Latin to indicate "there is some text here" without having actual
text.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum>

------
johnfn
I don't think this is generally true. The purpose of long form writing is to
make the reader draw a conclusion that they may not agree with at the
beginning of the article. Studies have shown that once we form a conclusion,
we're much less likely to change our minds, so if an article lead with a
controversial point we'd internally say "no!" and stick to it rather than
letting the article make its point. By not knowing exactly what an article is
arguing, we're more receptive to things that could go against our intuition.

I do agree that TL;DRs can be elided for articles that simply state facts or
uncontroversial ideas.

~~~
fusiongyro
That's both a very narrow, unhealthy view of writing and a pretty fatalistic
attitude towards your readers. I don't like TL;DR any more than the author of
the article, but I don't think having an abstract or brief synopsis decreases
the likelihood of you "winning" the essay—or if it did, that this alone would
constitute a good reason not to use them.

~~~
johnfn
I think you misunderstood my comment. I wasn't speaking just about having a
TL;DR or not but instead more about the difference between long essays and
short passages.

Characterizing my opinion of writing as either something you 'win' or 'lose'
is itself narrow (and frankly, almost insulting). I have to feel that you
coming off this way is a byproduct of the Internet. I'm not trying to chastise
you here. I understand that what I wrote initially might come off in a way I
didn't intend, but you have to meet me halfway by assuming I'm not a total
jerk.

Writing isn't about winning or losing, it's about sharing ideas. And yes,
there are better ways and worse ways to share ideas. A conversation around a
dinner table is probably better than an essay ever will be - but you can still
try to get there. You can either hear this fact and say "aha, I should try to
be more clear in sharing my ideas" or you can say "that's fatalistic, and
writing isn't a game." I can't fault you for choosing the latter, but I do ask
that when I choose the former you remember that I do it just because I want to
be understood.

~~~
fusiongyro
Please accept my apologies. Lately it has felt like everyone around here is
trying to win. I should not have assumed you were and I seem to have fixated
on the wrong elements of your comment.

------
pmorici
The US military frequently uses the abbreviation "BLUF" (Bottom Line Up Front)
for the same purpose as TLDR at the beginning of an email. It's not like the
idea of tldr is some perversion born of the Internet.

~~~
gpcz
One of my favorite pieces on writing is "Effective Writing for Army Leaders,"
available at <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/p600_67.pdf> . They
have hilarious side-by-side comparisons of poor and good writing, such as pg.
13 and 14 (pg. 7 and 8 by page number). I found this during a brevity kick I
had after reading David Sirlin's "Writing Well."

~~~
mjs
That's pretty awesome! Although I think the elements of the "poor" example
that draw attention to some potentially pertinent information shouldn't have
been removed. (For example, the fact that the applicant is not mission-
essential during a training cycle, and that given he has not previous cold-
weather injuries, he may be less susceptible to them.)

------
geuis
A TLDR already has a name, a "summary". Not only a mere extra 4 characters,
it's not an acronym for a phrase but a word that says what it is. Amazing,
really.

The biggest problem I find with TLDR is that people that use it do so
incorrectly. You don't put your summary at the _end_ of the article. You put
it at the beginning.

I also find many writers who use TLDR explicitly are rather poor writers. Lots
of spelling and grammar mistakes, and the inability to make concise, cogent
points. And not knowing what cogent means.

~~~
gliese1337
That biggest problem you find is your own creation- it is a result of assuming
that "TLDR" is the same as "summary". While it may have the same literal
meaning, clearly it is _not_ the same as "summary", because you find it to be
used differently. This is because it has a different purpose in discourse.
Most synonym pairs are like this; you think they have the same meaning, until
you do a corpus analysis and discover that they're used totally differently in
practice. Truly perfect synonyms are extremely rare.

~~~
Pitarou
I've never seen a TL;DR that wouldn't serve the reader better if it were put
at the beginning, rather than the end.

~~~
repsilat
Often when I begin writing a comment the ideas I want to get across are only
half-formed. Once I've written out a bunch of text exploring an issue I often
hit themes and conclusions that weren't clear to me before I started typing.

It seems bad to admit this, but I'm either too lazy to go back and rewrite or
I just don't care enough about the audience to give them a well-formed read.
Occasionally I think I'd feel "dirty" going back and putting the conclusion at
the top, as though I'd be pretending that the insight came to me fully-formed,
that my stream of consciousness just happened to dispense a perfect micro-
essay on the topic.

That said, many of the best comments I read are "well-composed", and the posts
made without relfection or consideration probably contribute to the decline in
tone.

TL;DR: I'm conflicted.

------
richforrester
From a UI/UX perspective: "TL;DR" improves scannability.

As a reader, prefacing that first line/paragraph with "TL;DR" means that all
I'll have to read is just that part. This is useful because not everyone uses
their first paragraph or sentence to outline the general idea of the article.
For example, there might be an anecdote, or a quote, or whatever else to start
the article.

~~~
fusiongyro
It's pretty poor UI/UX compared to what we used to use: long subtitles and
abstracts set out in separate fonts at the beginning of documents. It's an
improvement on a wall of text, but it's not an improvement on traditional
writing styles so much as an improvement on slightly older internet writing
styles.

------
city41
TLDR mostly shows up in places like Reddit. The communication that happens on
Reddit is unlike anything we've ever had, millions of people all gathering to
casually talk with each other. There is no expectation of depth (anymore,
anyway), nor do people put much stock in Reddit comments. Thus TLDR helps
people's ideas get across and also probably improves readership of comments
(people read the TLDR, and then realize they should go back and read the whole
thing). It's a new construct that has evolved for a new form of communication.

~~~
derleth
> There is no expectation of depth

There is in some subreddits. Not the big ones, but that's the point of having
subreddits, isn't it?

Any time you want to generalize about all of Reddit, think of New York City:
"There's no expectation of depth in New York City" just sounds wrong, doesn't
it?

~~~
city41
True, but TLDR also tends to not show up in smaller subreddits (at least, the
smaller ones I am subscribed to).

------
natural219
I agree in principle, but I feel like the author might be missing the point;
the reason "tldr" is used is _because_ it has evolved as an efficient speech
marker.

If you think about forum posting as a medium, then a "tldr" makes sense --
generally, you scroll _down_ a list of messages. When you encounter a wall of
text, you can either start reading (to see if you'll want to read the rest),
or keep scrolling past until your eyes reach the "tldr" symbol, which draws
you to the main "point" of the post without requiring you to mentally invest
in reading the whole first paragraph.

------
aroman
I don't agree with the Douglas's interpreting an author's own writing of a
TL;DR as answering the question of whether the author himself read it --
rather, it is pre-empting the question that might be asked by readers.

While it is true that it is entirely possible (and common practice) to provide
the content of a TL;DR in the first sentence, it might not _always_ be there.
The reader can only know if the first sentence was a summary by first reading
it (see the Halting Problem).

TL;DR is an elegant solution to this problem because it only requires five
(minimally four) characters to be read to identify the summarizing statement,
and then consume its content. And with the immense amount of content begging
for my attention on the Internet, I for one appreciate being able to quickly
determine if reading the article in question is something I will likely want
to do.

TL;DR: TL;DR != opening sentence

------
cleverjake
I disagree. While something that is well written shouldn't need a tldr, it
does service as a device for people who consume a lot of text. Its a standard
shorthand indicating the author did in fact write a summary

~~~
alttab
Agreed. Plus, people are trained to ignore "wall of text" but will indeed read
text labeled as tldr. It's communicating a summary. Due to the mixed bag of
good writing on the Internet, we as readers cannot rely on the first sentence
being an all encompassing summarization of the points.

------
edw519
TLDR: Write like Hemingway, not like Faulkner.

~~~
jacobolus
Hemingway is not the example you’re looking for:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceberg_Theory>

~~~
nswanberg
I agree but edw519 is a smart guy and I would give him the benefit of the
doubt and assume he attempted to capture the essence of a "tl;dr" comment:
short, vaguely corresponding to the material, and ultimately misleading.

~~~
lostlogin
I might add traumatic to that little list, having just read A Farewell to
Arms.

------
waxjar
I find this a pretty weak argument against the tl;dr. "tl;dr" has become a
noun, that means one-line / extremely short summary. Language sometimes grows
like that.

A better argument against the tl;dr would be that the piece you're writing it
for becomes redundant, provided it's an accurate tl;dr. The term tl;dr
wouldn't be needed then, because the tl;dr itself becomes your piece.

If it isn't an accurate tl;dr, there's no reason for providing it in the first
place, except maybe for giving a rough idea of what your piece is about. OP
rightly points out, though, that conventions already exist for just that. A
descriptive title or an introduction clearly distinguishable from the rest of
your piece, for example.

------
dizzystar
If you really need a TL;DR, you failed to fulfill your promise to the reader.
Writing should be concise, accurate, and to the point, and we as writers
should always strive live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words."

When someone opens your webpage, they are entering into an implied agreement
with you. They are seeking information and you are supplying it to them. If
they are unwilling to uphold their end of the bargain by demanding a TL;DR
from me without giving me the chance to read my words, I don't feel any
obligation to satisfy them.

The other half of this implied bargain is that I simply offer what they came
to find, and if I fail them in that regard, then I should be required to post
a TL;DR because all 2000 to 3000 words I blathered out should be in 50 words
or less. If I was able to offer a 50-word summary, then I would have simply
tacked on an extra 25 words and eschewed the TL;DR.

If you don't like my attitude, that is fine. You probably aren't my target
audience, and this is fine. The World Wide Web is a very large place.

~~~
IvyMike
> Writing should be concise, accurate, and to the point, and we as writers
> should always strive live by the wisdom of Strunk: "Use less words."

I think the feeling is often "I made this so long because I did not have time
to make it shorter."

Of course on the web, this is short-sighted and self-defeating. If you have a
valuable thought that you commit to the web, you do so in the hopes that it
will be read many, many times. You only have to write it once.

So to agree with dizzystar, respect your (potential) readers and spend a
little more time making that thought concise.

~~~
dizzystar
It is short-sighted and self-defeating because there is nothing written in
stone that says that your content is immutable.

I love it when I receive emails from readers asking me to clarify some point,
or telling me about spelling errors. I also get requests to remove paragraphs.
After about 5 minutes of pondering it, I find that they are usually right.
It's not that difficult to delete a paragraph.

------
tlarkworthy
But how does the reader know you are one of the authors that summarise
succinctly at the beginning of every article? Especially as they reader may
read many articles of differing quality a day. tl;dr to me, is like statically
typed English, it improves readability if you know to look for it.

~~~
vy8vWJlco
Yup, composition on the Internet is different from composition for print in
which "good writing" used to mean 1) intro, 2) body, 3) conclusion. Now it
means: "get to teh point!!!" and maybe, if you have time, elaborate so people
can follow your train of thought. When people are used to affording only 140
characters of attention, you wind up skipping all the formalities. TL;DR is a
sigil. Sometimes people put it at the bottom (jerks), but at least it's easy
to spot.

------
manamana
TLDR is just a warning to the reader that the rest of the text might not be
worth his time. It also helps to make explicit that the paragraph following it
is a summary of the post.

------
TillE
It's the same basic principle as newspaper articles, or the essay format you
were taught in school: summary first, details later. Or make your points up
front, then prove them.

That only solves a part of the problem, though. Highly upvoted long comments
on Reddit are particularly frustrating because so many of them have content
that's weak or just plain wrong. I'm convinced that only a small fraction of
voters actually read them.

~~~
evincarofautumn
There is also a strong bias toward upvoting more visible content. Higher-voted
comments appear first on the page, getting more exposure. For that reason I’ve
made it a habit to read comments in bottom-to-top order, in order to
artificially make my votes more fair.

------
Angostura
I'm not taking style notes from anyone who uses the word "leverage" instead of
"use"

------
jmitcheson
TL;DR is for people who forget "statement, explanation, example". Usually,
they write some poorly formed paragraph and put a "TL;DR" at the end. Often,
that TL;DR is simply the "statement" part of the paragraph that should have
been at the very beginning anyway.

TL;DR: most people can't English anymore.

------
btipling
Didn't tl;dr start as an insult? What the article is describing is a response
to the insult that is tl;dr.

~~~
riffic
Yes, tl;dr (too long; didn't read) was originally used on the somethingawful
forums as a dismissive reply to a long wall of text post. Eventually, an OP
would preemptively include a TL;DR line in a post to give a warning/summary.

<http://www.quora.com/TL-DR/What-is-the-origin-of-TL-DR> seems to offer a
decent history of its early usage.

------
mmanfrin
Pedantic, but: tldr existed well before reddit.

~~~
joelmichael
I know I saw it on the SA forums, where it may have originated. People would
reply "too long; didn't read" to dismiss a post, which eventually was
abbreviated to just "tl;dr". Anticipating this reply, authors of long posts
would end their post with a "tl;dr" summary.

~~~
lostlogin
Not all the sure about the source as a reference, but Urban Dictionary got
TLDR in 2003. Reddit is 2005ish I think.
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tldr>

------
dredmorbius
TL;DR, summary, critical précis, abstract, thesis statement, inverted pyramid
and similar rapid summation styles are both useful and have a long tradition.

TL;DR is an inherent criticism of writing that lacks sufficient discernable
coherent structure to rapidly assimilate meaning, whether by want of language,
typography, or simply cogent thought. There's a lot of sloppy writing on the
Internet (and off).

TL;DR is a recognizable convention that serves a purpose. It can be tagged on
by others (the way I first saw it used), or be added by the original author,
usually in self-deprecating jest, with the meaning of "do you find this too
long to read, here's my summary" . Better if people would write clearly in the
first place. Surely that's a simple technical problem, no?

TL;DR: Essay misses origins, benefits, and use-conventions of this hack.

TL;DR is, however, remarkably ineffective when it happens to begin every
paragraph of an essay. Please avoid this use case.

------
glennos
This post is poorly argued in my opinion. The author fails to provide an
example of the "tools to summarize and communicate your thoughts" which he
speaks of. As a result, the specifics of his argument are left to conjecture
of the readers, producing an unfocused discussion.

My take on 'TLDR'. It isn't typically equivalent to a well structured opening
paragraph. As others have mentioned, it's more akin to an abstract, as used in
academic writing.

It denotes that the author will most likely use brief text to summarise and,
for the sake of efficiency, it may be in a completely different writing style
to the rest of the text.

TLDR is a useful tool for allowing readers to make a rapid decision as to
whether the following content is relevant to them. In some ways I see it as a
courtesy to the reader.

------
joelg87
I think this a great point. If you're in the habit of writing a TLDR for
articles, maybe you can try writing the TLDR and then afterwards removing the
4 letters "TLDR" and leaving the sentence there. It's great to summarize in
the first sentence.

------
jonathanjaeger
TL;DR is not merely about summarizing. It's a way, especially in the Reddit
community, to add something extra. TL;DR can be a summary, but it can also be
a tool for sarcasm, smugness, or getting a certain tone across. Sure you can
summarize yourself in the opening line, but you can also make a calculated
choice to use TL;DR for some other motive. I often find TL;DR to be a cynical
view of your readership because it's as if you're stating, "I know what I
wrote is long, and you readers aren't taking the time my writing deserves! So
I'm just going to put this summary at the end to shut you up."

------
Pitarou
TL;DR is a useful convention for busy readers, but it should be __at the
beginning __, not the end.

Look at the _lede_ (the first sentence or two) of any article in any
newspaper. It's marked in bold face, and summarizes the whole story. It helps
the busy reader decide if he wants to "drill down" by reading the rest of the
article. TL;DR could do the same thing, if only people put it at the
__beginning __.

I teach essay writing, so I have strong views about this. ;)

~~~
chadzawistowski
You know, I think you're on to something here, but I believe that on forums
such as reddit, the tl;dr is usually read first anyways. People seem to skip
to the bottom of a long post to see what the conclusion is.

~~~
Pitarou
So why not save the reader some effort by putting the TL;DR at the top?

------
calinet6
This is a bit ridiculous. Moving the summary to the beginning is no better.
Simply write more concisely and elegantly.

My favorite illustration of this was in the movie "A River Runs Through It"—a
young Norman brought his essays to his father, who would say always "Good. Now
make it half as long." This was repeated a few times, then it was good enough.
Would that more writers could follow this mantra.

~~~
Dylan16807
No matter how concise and elegant your writing is, chances are it won't fit
into a single sentence. TL;DR still has a purpose.

------
Charlesmigli
As a cofounder of <http://tldr.io> I'd say that having a tl;dr separated from
the main article is very useful for readability. Like ps for example it helps
structure the text. tl;dr version of articles are essential to get directly to
the point. As an heavy reader I like to have theses summaries detached from
the article.

------
lukifer
I like how the first sentence embodies the very idea it is espousing. If you
read only that sentence and close the page, you've still have taken away 80%
of the information of the piece.

An important UI component for this technique to land: the first sentence must
be short, and on its own line. Do that well, and a "TL;DR" prefix is optional
at best.

------
gabrielrotbart
TLDR: Today's emerging conventions are tomorrow's traditions.

The tools that the English language now has to summarise and communicate
thoughts most likely emerged as a convention after years or decades of use,
just like any other part of linguist evolution.

I also disagree that having an acronym unfamiliar to someone would prevent
them from reading on.

------
Charlesmigli
So the TL;DR of this article is:

\- Author should summarize their idea in the first sentence of their writings.

\- Prefixing this summary with TL;DR is useless and asinine as it stands for
"Too Long; Didn't Read".

[http://tldr.io/tldrs/50f34acc3ea2fa3e06001f25/tldr-is-
unnece...](http://tldr.io/tldrs/50f34acc3ea2fa3e06001f25/tldr-is-unnecessary)

------
mehulkar
I like TLDR for being able to cmd+F to it quickly. In a well written article
with an abstract or a good first sentence, I still have to find the first
sentence. With a TLDR, I can jump to that section quickly. I know this sounds
like the height of being lazy, but I assure you, it's not.

~~~
Pitarou
Wouldn't it be even better if the TL;DR was at the __beginning __so you didn't
have to cmd+F for it?

~~~
mehulkar
It would be, but having honing in on a specific set of characters is easier
than trying to figure out which one is the summary sentence.

~~~
Pitarou
I don't see why you're saying "but". We can put the summary at the top __and
__mark it with TL;DR.

------
dinkumthinkum
I think TL;DR; also serves an important role of sarcastically dismissing
unreasonably long diatribes that go nowhere, say for a Steve Yegge blog post
or something like that. Although, I agree for prefacing you're own work with
TLDR, it is somewhat annoying usage.

------
Pezmc
I disagree, I'll often look for a TLDR to get a summary of an article if I'm
unable to spend full time reading it, for example when at work.

I do agree that the acronym TLDR doesn't make sense, perhaps we need a new
acronym?

------
oellegaard
Great point, although tl;dr works for short comments, whereas the "trick" of
putting the summary in the beginning of a text needs some actual "body" before
it works - otherwise it is just confusing.

------
js2
"I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter. I didn't have time to write you a
short one." - Blaise Pascal

Editing takes time, much quicker to slap a TLDR on top I suppose.

------
nvr219
"p.s." is kind of unnecessary too these days but you can still use it. I like
"TL;DR". I think of it as a sub-headline.

------
bane
TLDR is the common man's academic abstract.

~~~
ky3
The abstract is academia's TLDR.

------
keithgabryelski
or just accept that TLDR means more than what your narrow definition and
current pet peeve would otherwise allow?

------
frozenport
TLDR; TLDR has a higher visibility.

------
nighthawk24
No

~~~
etfb
TS;DR.

------
homakov
But how can I know if it's summory or just first sentence?

------
nerdfiles
It means "too long; don't read." I'm not sure why the past tense variation
sticks; but it's a label/post-it/card/sign/placard/billboard/sign-
post/warning/caute!/message not to read the identified text for concern of
irrelevance.

It's like a voting system. The ";" functions as the hash tag: "#tldnr",
"#tldr", etc.

~~~
LesZedCB
This just simply isn't true. It does mean "too long, didn't read" as in, "this
wall of text is too long. I didn't read it."

~~~
nerdfiles
Honestly,

"T L ; D N R"

and

"... Too Long; I didn't read it"

Doesn't make sense. "N" does not pick out the beginning of any word. If you
chance across the tag, your interpretation is less obvious than,

"... Too Long; Do Not Read"

The contraction makes sense, and thus the natural transformation into a meta-
informative suggestion makes sense. Contractions serve to convey information,
usually engendering more intimate dialogue. So it also invites the question of
"why not"? And we all know how that goes. It invites the author and really any
reader to a game not dissimilar to trolling, usually. It may not take a
position necessarily, in terms of the message, and this is not required of
what I am saying; however, an explanation of why one would post it at all
stands in order. I think the conveying of information to other readers is also
important.

~~~
nerdfiles
tl;dnr

Yes, of course I read it; but _why_ am I posting it?

------
huhsamovar
Don't bother reading this. You are not missing anything.

------
derleth
In academic writing, "TL;DR" is an "Abstract".

I'll start deriding TL;DRs as unnecessary when academic writing no longer uses
the Abstract.

