Communications Depend On Clarity Of Presentation

Ideas of the sort to converse deeply about are ideas that involve radical changes to the way you look at things. They require many words to get across, because communication cannot depend on a shared vocabulary and set of assumptions tuned well enough to the idea to express it both clearly and briefly. Only sustained discursive prose can present enough propositions, definitions, examples, juxtapositions, and inferences to enable someone to grasp a radically new idea.

To grasp such an idea, you go through a period of confusion, and typically you have objections. Understanding how the objections are met is part of grasping the idea. To resolve your confusions, you must ask questions and get answers.

A Wiki lets anyone edit anything anywhere. A Wiki page does not have a naturally linear sequence of posts and replies and replies to replies. Questions and objections inserted into the flow of discursive prose interrupt the line of thought and render the page incomprehensible. Posting an answer right by the question or objection further adds to the chaos. But the answer must be near the question or the thread will be lost.

As a result, Wiki pages tend to degenerate into shards of text snippets that are too short to communicate any idea of substance. Often these snippets are rude little barbs, since soundbites are all that can fit in such a small space. Conversation in depth comes to seem impossible; subtlety is drowned out amid the noise.

Therefore: When presenting an idea, write sustained discursive prose on a page dedicated specifically to that idea. Make the idea clearly complete and understandable.

When asking a question or making an objection, post it after the discursive prose, not in the middle. Under a new horizontal rule, post your question or objection. Take turns appending paragraphs in back-and-forth, chronological format. If necessary, to indicate what your question or objection refers to, quote just a little of the discursive prose in italics, immediately following the horizontal rule.

To make a large objection, of a sort that itself requires sustained discursive prose, consider creating a new page.

---

EditHint: This seems to be part of a WalledGarden:

• CommunicationsDependOnClarityOfPresentation
• WatchTheBorders
• ThinkOfYourCommunicationAsFaceToFace
• OnlySayThingsThatCanBeHeard