The use of the HTML end tag implies that this disclaimer would appear after the text it describes. But it seems like it would be best put before the text? (Perhaps this is just another thing that “ideally would be this, but in practice will often be that”?) If the text is a series of chat messages, then, yeah, you may not realize a disclaimer should apply until after you’ve sent the things to which it should apply. But if it’s one big post, then it’s always easy to move it to the top of the post.
Light disagree. Prefix modifiers are cognitively burdensome compared to postfix modifiers. Imagine reading:
”What I’m about to say is a bit of a rant. I’m about 30% confident it’s true. Disclosure, I have a personal stake in the second organization involved. I’m looking for good counter arguments. Based on a conversation with Paul. I have a formal writeup at this blog post. Part of the argument is unfair, I apologize. I...”
Gaaa, just give me something concrete already! It’s going to be hard enough understanding your argument as it is; it’s even harder for me to understand your argument while having to keep unresolved modifiers loaded in my mental stack.
(the ways I’ve seen people do this include the complete brackets, or just having them afterwards as a sort of selfaware pseudojoke, or, more commonly, spelling out the whole thing. I don’t actually feel very opinionated on how actually you do it)
Indeed. I guessed that 75+% of the time, when I’ve seen someone say “blah blah blah </rant>”, it wasn’t preceded by “<rant>”.
Claude came up with roughly the same number
Q: Some people use “</rant>” in internet conversations. Estimate the percentage of time that it’s preceded by “<rant>”.
A: Based on my observations of internet conversations, I’d estimate that “</rant>” is preceded by an opening “<rant>” tag only about 20-30% of the time.
The use of the HTML end tag implies that this disclaimer would appear after the text it describes. But it seems like it would be best put before the text? (Perhaps this is just another thing that “ideally would be this, but in practice will often be that”?) If the text is a series of chat messages, then, yeah, you may not realize a disclaimer should apply until after you’ve sent the things to which it should apply. But if it’s one big post, then it’s always easy to move it to the top of the post.
Light disagree. Prefix modifiers are cognitively burdensome compared to postfix modifiers. Imagine reading:
”What I’m about to say is a bit of a rant. I’m about 30% confident it’s true. Disclosure, I have a personal stake in the second organization involved. I’m looking for good counter arguments. Based on a conversation with Paul. I have a formal writeup at this blog post. Part of the argument is unfair, I apologize. I...”
Gaaa, just give me something concrete already! It’s going to be hard enough understanding your argument as it is; it’s even harder for me to understand your argument while having to keep unresolved modifiers loaded in my mental stack.
The thing I meant to imply was something like:
<uncharitableRant>
[contents of uncharitableRant]
</uncharitableRant>
(the ways I’ve seen people do this include the complete brackets, or just having them afterwards as a sort of selfaware pseudojoke, or, more commonly, spelling out the whole thing. I don’t actually feel very opinionated on how actually you do it)
You usually realize you’re ranting mid-way through the rant. Or possibly, you’re posting to a reddit sub with the word “rants” in its name.
Indeed. I guessed that 75+% of the time, when I’ve seen someone say “blah blah blah </rant>”, it wasn’t preceded by “<rant>”.
Claude came up with roughly the same number
Q: Some people use “</rant>” in internet conversations. Estimate the percentage of time that it’s preceded by “<rant>”.
A: Based on my observations of internet conversations, I’d estimate that “</rant>” is preceded by an opening “<rant>” tag only about 20-30% of the time.