Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.
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WP:TLDR
This page in a nutshell: Write concisely.

"Too long; didn't read" is an often humorous reply to someone who spent far too much time describing something, when the description could have been sufficiently clear and complete with fewer words.[1]

Wikipedia editors like to write; they would not be here if they didn't. Often, what they write is longer than it could be. Administrator candidates are often judged by how much they have written here. This may be the reason that many of the instructions on Wikipedia, from policies and guidelines to MediaWiki messages, could be shorter and simpler while conveying the same message.

New editors find it difficult to learn many rules before they can contribute. They can become discouraged when their lack of understanding prevents them from contributing successfully. Some of our core policies, such as the GNU Free Documentation License, are very verbose, technical, hard to read, and hard to understand. Editors new and old alike will often ignore instructions that they think will take them too much time to understand.

In the classic words of William Strunk,

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.[2]

Although he could have stuck to his first sentence.

Please try to write in as few words as you can, without using technical jargon. When you must write lengthy instructions, please include a summary of them at the beginning. Please try to keep your vocabulary simple so that beginning English users can understand it, too. Thank you.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references you don't need to read

  1. ^ "Too long didn't read". Urban Dictionary. Retrieved on 2008-05-13. 
  2. ^ Strunk, William (1918). "Elementary Principles of Composition", The Elements of Style. Bartleby.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-13.