I think LW posts often have chaotic formatting: headings and subheadings but then also lists and sublists, all with both bold and italics used for multiple purposes like emphasis, labeling a paragraph, etc. It’s especially confusing when the post has multiple sections and those sections have different formatting methods, like if one is a nested list with multiple layers while another has paragraphs with the first sentence in bold like in a paper, etc.
I think it’s usually better within a single post to use e.g. only one level of heading, one level of list depth, and to use bold for emphasis, without using italics for emphasis. And many posts that are ~1k words or shorter don’t need headings.
update: As an example, Matt Levine’s blog has headings, italics but not bold for emphasis, and one level of list depth.
Nested headings can sometimes be easier to follow, like when a paper has Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion sections each with subheadings. Also, bold and italics have subtly different meanings as do headings vs lists vs nested lists. Some simplification is probably justified though.
I think LW posts often have chaotic formatting: headings and subheadings but then also lists and sublists, all with both bold and italics used for multiple purposes like emphasis, labeling a paragraph, etc. It’s especially confusing when the post has multiple sections and those sections have different formatting methods, like if one is a nested list with multiple layers while another has paragraphs with the first sentence in bold like in a paper, etc.
I think it’s usually better within a single post to use e.g. only one level of heading, one level of list depth, and to use bold for emphasis, without using italics for emphasis. And many posts that are ~1k words or shorter don’t need headings.
update: As an example, Matt Levine’s blog has headings, italics but not bold for emphasis, and one level of list depth.
Nested headings can sometimes be easier to follow, like when a paper has Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion sections each with subheadings. Also, bold and italics have subtly different meanings as do headings vs lists vs nested lists. Some simplification is probably justified though.