HTML breaks: bad form?

August 29, 2002 12:04 PM

Are HTML breaks (br) bad form in a post?

This may be picky, but I'm a writerly-type. While I know a post is best as one paragraph, it's very tough for me to resist some type of break where grammar/common sense dictate a paragraph break should be. Still, I thought the above post was sloppy-looking or something when I actually saw it posted.

This is picky, but sometimes so are you : )
posted by Shane to etiquette/policy at 12:04 PM (23 comments total)

I find it makes a post much easier to read, especially when the poster is addressing several ideas at once. A huge block of text is none too easy on the eyes.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 12:06 PM on August 29, 2002

I know from experience that readers think a huge block of text is intimidating. They are less likely to read it. Paragraphs just look more manageable...
posted by Shane at 12:08 PM on August 29, 2002

The key point is that "front page real estate is expensive", and should be treated as such. Graph breaks look too much like separate posts and mean furrowed brows and scanning back to reread. If your post is so complicated that it needs separate paragraphs, it's probably too long period -- and you should either trim what you're saying, or put a [more inside] to make your further points.
posted by dhartung at 12:21 PM on August 29, 2002

There are a couple competing problems here. One is that the page is filled with other posts, and they are separated by whitespace. Introducing breaks in posts leads to confusion, which annoys some. Breaks also make posts longer, which takes up more screen real estate. When a typical post takes up 3 unbroken lines, and a 12 line-feed eating post shows up, people wonder why, espeically when it's not four times better, while taking up the space of four posts.

I know from experience that readers think a huge block of text is intimidating. They are less likely to read it. Paragraphs just look more manageable...

While this is true, it's been demonstrated time and time again that *any* post can be edited down properly to a couple lines free of line breaks. There have been some great rewrite suggestions in previous metatalk comments, based on long posts at MetaFilter. It'd be great if the site had an editor to do this, but it does, and it's up to everyone to edit themselves down to a reasonable space.
posted by mathowie at 12:24 PM on August 29, 2002

This is picky, but sometimes so are you
whaddaya mean, "sometimes"? That's it, see you in MeTa ... oh, never mind.

What Matt said. Brevity is sublime. Long front-page posts always feel like a sales pitch ("please read me! I'm really, really neat!").
posted by whatnot at 12:37 PM on August 29, 2002

Clarify:

No line spaces here. I agree, A Full Line Space Between Para's = Bad (e.g. I have 4 para's here with a line between each.)

Just a "br" which pushes the next sentence onto the following line.

If your post is so complicated that it needs separate paragraphs, it's probably too long period.

A paragraph can be as small as one sentence. (br)
Anyway, it didn't look right...
posted by Shane at 12:39 PM on August 29, 2002

As a matter of writing technique, the particular post in question should not have been broken into different paragraphs. Ergo, no line breaks are necessary either. Any post that requires more than one paragraph should probably be a front-page, more-inside post anyway. The first paragraph should introduce the main link or links, and the inside paragraphs can provide supporting evidence and background links.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:40 PM on August 29, 2002

Oops. I had 5 para's in that last message (counting "Clarify".)
posted by Shane at 12:42 PM on August 29, 2002

I'm all for keeping <BR>s while disallowing <P>s.
posted by me3dia at 12:43 PM on August 29, 2002

I'm partial to one catchy line with a [more inside]. It makes me want to read the thread.
posted by timeistight at 12:43 PM on August 29, 2002

As a matter of writing technique, the particular post in question should not have been broken into different paragraphs.

I disagree. While para breaks are, to some extent, a matter of personal style, I believe it would have been best written as multiple para's in a normal book or magazine format.
posted by Shane at 12:49 PM on August 29, 2002

<BR>s / <P>s

That's what I'm talking, m3dia. Never a <P>. Regarding <BR>s, I'll probably just end up considering any future post a "one paragraph challenge."

Thanks, all.
posted by Shane at 1:03 PM on August 29, 2002

Speaking of<P>s. *Sigh*
posted by Shane at 1:08 PM on August 29, 2002

[Warning: analness ahead] Shane, I don't see any reason whatever for a line break in the above post. Separating the opening link from the rest of the post with a line break is obviously not the "house style," so where does the idea come from? People who read MeFi know the yellow bold sets off the main URL; there's no need to do more to draw attention to it. Front page conciseness trumps Strunk.

Look at the last three days of posts (all imho, of course): This could have easily been 1 paragraph. I don't see the reason this wonderful post needed a paragraph break at all, although the first line break is sorta OK. This overused them. Line breaks worked here because the song lyrics were all very short. No reason for the line breaks here, though. Why the need for a new paragraph here? Another person who thinks opening links need to be set off with line breaks posted this, a move that again ignores the obvious standard style. The paragraph breaks here bracketed something that shouldn't have been there. This would work perfectly well without the paragraph break.

There. I think that's all of the posts that used line/paragraph breaks in the last three days. How many of those breaks were necessary? Almost none.
posted by mediareport at 11:32 PM on August 29, 2002

Thanks for the research, mediareport. I concur.
posted by timeistight at 2:36 AM on August 30, 2002

[Warning: analness ahead]

Um, thanks for the warning, Media.

; )
posted by Shane at 6:09 AM on August 30, 2002

Did you need three paragraphs to say that? :)
posted by mediareport at 6:51 AM on August 30, 2002

Maybe it's just that I run a high resolution screen, but I have no problem with paragraph breaks or screen real estate. I can scroll down with the greatest of ease, so this doesn't bother me.

I have noticed that I occasionally get confused by paragraph breaks and think that two paragraphs are actually two posts. I usually end up scowling at the incoherence of it all until I realize that it's simply an extra paragraph of the previous FPP.

What bothers me more, on the other hand, is FPPs that are so cryptic, so obscure, that I have no idea what I'm going to be reading about. Sometimes I'm scanning and I don't have time to go off and read the link at that moment to see if the post will interest me or not. So brevity is the soul of wit, yes; obtuse posts are just a pain in my ass.
posted by Jonasio at 8:33 AM on August 30, 2002

In all seriousness, I looked at some posts and came to the conclusion that I didn't need the first (br) in my post. The fact that the first para quote was linked in amber (mustard?) color font would have set it off nicely from the second para. Otherwise, though -- I just can't lump two valid paragraphs together. Better to just write a whole new shorter para combining the two.

Geez, now I'm the anal one.
posted by Shane at 8:40 AM on August 30, 2002

Um, while we're all up in our anuses, just so you know, Shane: excessively long strings of linked text seems to bother some folks, too. Hey, don't shoot the messenger... ;)
posted by mediareport at 9:09 AM on August 30, 2002

...excessively long strings of linked text seems to bother some folks, too...

No, no problem, we may as well pick nits since we're enjoying it.

I agree entirely with the example you pointed out. But mine didn't bug me, frankly. Not sure why, except that mine was 3 lines long as opposed to 6. And I didn't really see any keywords in the quote that I liked enough to be solely linked to the article.

I guess you could fault me for the fact that the 3 lines of linked text were (defacto) bold and mustard-colored, and thus perhaps called undo attention to the post in a potentially tacky manner. But it just didn't bother me much.

In the future I'll probably avoid linking entire sentences. But, under the anal microscope (isn't that an ugly to picture): I think I would do this post again similarly, but:
a) eliminate the first (br)
b) pare down the length just a bit
c) possibly substitute "MetaFilter" for "pr0n" (or use both)
and
d) keep the second (br) before the last sentence.

Which gives me an idea:

Why don't we start a MetaTalk thread someday where we start with a link only, and we each try out how we would make it into a post? Then we pick each other apart. Woo hoo! Might be a fun exercise. Just not on a weekend, please. My eyes will be killing me tomorrow.
posted by Shane at 10:33 AM on August 30, 2002

d) keep the second (br) before the last sentence.

Let me tell you why I think that last part's a mistake. In IE, anyway, text on MeFi flows to fit changes in the size of the browser window. That means that any line break you put in is quite likely to look ugly to someone, somewhere. Like so:

Does your boss still peek over your shoulder and find you looking at
"pr0n"?
C'mon, 'fess, up, tell us your stories...

Shane, you don't need to put line breaks in your front page posts.
posted by mediareport at 10:47 AM on August 30, 2002

Okay, now I really am all nitpicked out. Have a nice weekend.


posted by Shane at 11:32 AM on August 30, 2002