Comments on: Definitions, Conciseness, Win

By: Nils

Nils — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 09:48:00 +0000

If I gave this definition, my post wouldn’t work. First, because, I already use different ‘definitions’ of casual in my original the post. Many of the points only work for one ‘form’ of casual. Second, because peole would start to talk about my definition of casual and how it is wrong, even more so than they already do.

The post is effective, because different people think of different things when they read ‘casual’. That’s why a lot of the paragraphs make sense to them. A few do not, but that does not invalidate the entire post.

Well, unless you only read the post with the goal to find a weak spot. Some commenters do this – but I wouldn’t be able to convince them no matter how many more words I used.

By: flosch

flosch — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 09:38:27 +0000

I don’t want you to write a peer-reviewed journal article. The only thing I would’ve liked to see is a short, one- or two-sentence definition, of what “casual” and “hardcore” means within the scope of your post. In effect, your post would have the same expressiveness if you replaced “casual” by “herp” and “hardcore” by “derp”, because everybody will read different concepts into those words anyway.

The only reason you would want terms that ambiguous is if you were writing poems. In which case I’d scold you for not writing a sonnet, or using distiches. 😛

By: Nils

Nils — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:41:59 +0000

“loaded” is great. It makes people engage with my post. :).

Of course, it also makes it susceptible to people who want to argue against it, but the point of a 560 word post on this topic cannot be to convince people who don’t want to be convinced. The post is still on my front page for a reason. It generates a hell of a lot of traffic.

I could never achieve that with a scientific analysis – not if most of my readers are non-professionals.

By: flosch

flosch — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:06:22 +0000

I still disagree. 😉 You can get away without definitions if there is an intuitive understanding of the terms that you use as a foundation. But “casual” and “hardcore” are fuzzy as well as loaded.

The definition can be very concise, if all you need is to fill something into the term that you use. You could define casual as “time-poor”, as “comparatively less invested into the game (and prone to change horses at any time)”, as “using games for relaxation”, even as a combination of them. No need for many words.

But saying “something caters to hardcore people and not to casuals” is meaningless if you don’t define the two terms.

By: Nils

Nils — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:08:37 +0000

Definitions are useful for mathematics. But they aren’t as useful for the everyday life. If I wanted to ‘prove’ somethind with my post, I should try to define ‘casual’. But if all I want is to encourage people to think, writing a 4000 world TL;DR monster post – or an entire series that introduces 10 types of ‘casuals’ is contraproductive.

I also appreciated Incobalt’s informative comment.