To Cut or Not To Cut?

[firstfrost]

My book reviews, in general, are longish. It seems moderately common to put the entirety of such things behind a lj-cut, presumably to be polite, and I've done that in the past, too.

On the other hand, I'd rather just read everything in one friends view and not have to follow a bunch of links, so I end up deciding not to cut, more often than not. Is this differently irritating, to have a big long chunk of text that you have to read or skip? (but really, why does anyone read live journals at all if they don't want to read the text?)

Comments

[mijven.livejournal.com]

I tend to cut for other people, in part because of the long-ish factor but mostly because I'm ranting about something stupid or rambling on about the kids which I assume is something not everyone wants to read about.

That said, I do think it's silly to have cuts. :) Unless it's an icon community like fireflicons where people put "how I did this" and full songs of lyrics used behind the cuts.

[mijven.livejournal.com]

Oh wait - I should have posted the above with my new, firefly inspired, icon! ;)

[jadia.livejournal.com]

They don't seem too long to me to leave uncut. :)

[jdbakermn.livejournal.com]

Cuts are silly unless the content of the cut isn't necessary to the post. Example, a recipe for a dish that was great at a recent dinner party. I really dislike following links to get the actual post. Tirinian has done that occasionally at it's annoying.

In this case, the entire post is a book review, and if you put the reviews behind cuts, that's just silly.

Of course, I *like* book reviews, so maybe I'm biased.

Ditto

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

I vote for what he said. Cuts are hyperlinks, and you use hyperlinks for hypertext, not text.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Currently I go back to my friends page occasionally to see if there are new comments on to a message I had commented on. In that case it's easier to scroll through the whole page if there aren't really long posts.

On the other hand, I always do click on the lj-cuts, so you make a good point.

and another thing

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

You seem to have a different definition of long than I do, since I didn't find your book review to be long. Maybe because it had titles and whitespace?

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Well, in my window, it's more than a page. :)

[twe.livejournal.com]

If it were mine, I'd put it behind a cut because it's long - it take up most of my window and so makes it harder to scan through a whole page of friends stuff. (Also I don't always have time to read a long post, though I sometimes come back to them later.) But people have different tastes.

I've been putting pictures behind cuts too, but perhaps that can stop when they get fotobuilder up and running...

I'm still wishing they had categories, like typepad does... that would be cool.

On a separate note, what's with the time?

[twe.livejournal.com]

Why does my last comment think it was posted at 7:59pm? It's only 4:00pm as I type this reply.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

livejournal has been using GMT for a while. I think it's a little odd that it doesn't mark the time that way, though.

[merastra.livejournal.com]

I do cuts because I have a lot of disparate groups in my friends list and have noticed that I appreciate the cuts when I'm reading. I don't have a lot of time to read so I scroll quickly through to get a sense of what happened since last I looked and that's easier if more fits per page. Then I open cuts in a separate window.

[bluepapercup]

I don't mind the uncut nature of your posts. They don't seem that long to me, and I personally am lazy, and don't mind having a big scroll through.

[countertorque.livejournal.com]

My journal is formatted for me. It's my journal. Other people are welcome (and encouraged) to read it. But, the formatting is part of the content and I'm the author. I think your journal should follow similar guidelines :)

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Huh. Yeah, I like that. :-)

[dpolicar]

Well, since you're asking for an opinion, I prefer shorter entries and cuts... that way I can scan my friends page and drill down if I want details (generally speaking I have to follow links anyway, since I'm often interested in comments). But I'd hardly describe it as irritating. And heck, it's your livejournal.