No official guidelines have been put forth on that question. If you do edit in a way that could invalidate replies, you should put in a note to that effect. The main reason not to edit is that people who have already read the article are unlikely to see the edits, whereas they would be looking for new comments.
I have to confess that I had a “tl;dr” reaction too; I wasn’t hooked within the first three paragraphs or so, and I scanned for the hook after that but didn’t find it.
Do you mean on the first, or on the second, edited text ? If on the second then it is probably not a good idea for me try to repost this for the moment. I should first attempt to learn how to write more compellingly.
I think that this post still needs another rewrite. I would recommend making it shorter again, and using bullets and other organizational tools. Also, even just a full space between paragraphs would make it more readable. This is the first post that comes up, by the way, when you search ‘theism’.
No official guidelines have been put forth on that question. If you do edit in a way that could invalidate replies, you should put in a note to that effect. The main reason not to edit is that people who have already read the article are unlikely to see the edits, whereas they would be looking for new comments.
Then I shall note here that I made that edit, and rewrote the whole text.
TBH, after this long I’d make a new post.
I have to confess that I had a “tl;dr” reaction too; I wasn’t hooked within the first three paragraphs or so, and I scanned for the hook after that but didn’t find it.
Do you mean on the first, or on the second, edited text ? If on the second then it is probably not a good idea for me try to repost this for the moment. I should first attempt to learn how to write more compellingly.
Ooops, sorry, didn’t realise you’d already done the rewrite.
The rewrite is a definite improvement. I still feel you haven’t made your case, I’m afraid.
I feel my issue, beyond the poor writing style, is that I am making not one but two cases.
The case about theism in particular, and then a more general case about tolerance, which is linked to the theism problem, and contains it.
A good deal of what I wanted to say for the second case, as well as stuff I hadn’t thought of, has been better said in the recent It’s okay to be (at least a little) irrational post too.
I think that this post still needs another rewrite. I would recommend making it shorter again, and using bullets and other organizational tools. Also, even just a full space between paragraphs would make it more readable. This is the first post that comes up, by the way, when you search ‘theism’.