Another datapoint: I think this post is in fact reasonably self-contained, but gives the impression of not being. That is, it begins with a reference to something that (I guess) most of us have never heard of, and a link to a Tumblr; then in the next paragraph it makes reference to another thing that most of us have heard of but some are probably not familiar with; and then it goes on to do what at first glance looks like “elaborate a bit on the characteristics of these groups that are supposed to have been defined elsewhere” but turns out to be more like “give descriptions of these groups that are pretty much self-contained”. So the problem isn’t that it actually depends on the prior discussion elsewhere, it’s that it looks rather as if it’s going to.
I think that if it had begun with something like this:
There are many systems for classifying people into a smallish number of personality types [perhaps insert links to MBTI, that post about MTG colours, etc. here]. I’d like to describe one that seems to me to work inexplicably well for classifying people’s opinions about normative ethics and scrupulosity. It’s part of the Sorting Hat Chats [NB link] system, but you can read the following without knowing anything more about that (or about the actual Hogwarts Houses, which this system resembles only vaguely) than that we’re going to put people into four buckets labelled Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Slytherin.
… but continued more or less exactly as it now is, then waveman and lifelonglearner might have been much happier with it. (But I am not them and could be wrong about that.)
Another datapoint: I think this post is in fact reasonably self-contained, but gives the impression of not being. That is, it begins with a reference to something that (I guess) most of us have never heard of, and a link to a Tumblr; then in the next paragraph it makes reference to another thing that most of us have heard of but some are probably not familiar with; and then it goes on to do what at first glance looks like “elaborate a bit on the characteristics of these groups that are supposed to have been defined elsewhere” but turns out to be more like “give descriptions of these groups that are pretty much self-contained”. So the problem isn’t that it actually depends on the prior discussion elsewhere, it’s that it looks rather as if it’s going to.
I think that if it had begun with something like this:
… but continued more or less exactly as it now is, then waveman and lifelonglearner might have been much happier with it. (But I am not them and could be wrong about that.)
I’ve edited the post in light of these criticisms; if the solution didn’t address people’s concerns, I’m happy to hear about them.