I am, as anyone who has read a few of my posts knows, one of the Prolixitarians. And I am not convinced that is a bad thing. Terseness has it's place, but.

In answering a question or in conveying information, one needs to provide enough context so that Auditor (Querent? Asker??) can make sense of your response with out expending a lot of effort. There is a balance that needs to be maintained: the 'one liner' versus 'everything you ever wanted to know and 50% more besides....'. On the whole, I think I prefer less terse answers. I need all the help I can get to remember what we were talking about three minutes ago, and I can always cut to the bottom of the page if I feel I have enough of the frame of reference.

I think what you are asking for is a measure of the Information 'density' of a posting. This is a hard thing to quantify, since what is 'information' one One is 'old news' to an Other; it depends on each persons 'context'.

I am hesitant to relate posting size (or lack there of) with the informativeness of the answer. Given enough context, the two character '\g' response is entirely appropriate. But to someone encountering '\g' out of context (say in a Super Search results set), the answer is cryptic, if not down right un-useful, with out reading the thread that embeds the response.

Your Kilometerage May Vary

----
I Go Back to Sleep, Now.

OGB

In reply to Re: Significance! (XP-wise) by Old_Gray_Bear
in thread Significance! (XP-wise) by blazar

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