Isn't that true, though, of so many "advice peddlers" on the Internet? Since the dawn of the Internet? Since the first idiot penned their personal rules of "netiquette" - even before the Internet had developed enough of a culture to have customary rules of good manners that had any reason to vary from standard "etiquette"?

Anyone claiming that "the average reader has the attention span of a gnat on the last day of a three-day lifecycle" (to quote myself, here - not your blocked writer, I hasten to add!) isn't wrong. Sadly. But that's okay - we're not writing for them. We can't possibly write for everyone. We can't possibly keep everyone from taking bad advice as GOSPEL.

There was a writer here (now a good friend, and I will not name them) who wrote something to the effect that any post here over the 5 minute mark had better be DAMNED good, or they wouldn't read it to the end. Fair enough. I wrote one that was well over the 10 minute mark, as I recall, and invited them to read it. They got to the end. Challenges are fun, aren't they?

Why bother railing over those who want tiny bites of regurgitated pap and pablum? Why pander to the platitude and pithy quotes crowd? Write your heart out. Your people will read.

BTW, how did you sub in your own voice for the automated audio? It was fun to listen to you rant without robovoice. (Robovoice is better than I'd have expected; 9 times out of 10, it's better than absolutely nothing for accessibility. But if you have the time and ability, it's definitely more fun to hear it in your voice.)