TL;DR... What about "Too Long, Didn't Listen?"

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I have a question for anyone regarding the too long; didn’t read (TL;DR).

I have made a post that encourages deep thought about protecting themselves on the Internet so that people would see less of the “Safe Browsing” warnings.

The only thing you can trust is yourself and not trust Google at all. Be vigilant about clicking in links in phishing emails. Install ad-blocking extension if you have to. Add Pi-Hole to your network. Go a step further. Install NoScript and only trust domains to not load malicious scripts. Go even further. Create profiles for different sites using your web browser of choice. Why not have your own domain name? Use StartMail and create multiple email aliases for your own domain name. Only use one email address per site. If your site suffers a data breach, use a different email address. Use a password manager. Browse the web using only Linux if you have to. Do it in virtual machines if you want to go a step further.

Start with only allowing port 80 and 443 in your network firewall for basic Internet access. Want to use Steam and play games? Go online and find what destination ports to enable from the inside of your LAN. Need to use Zoom? Jitsi Meet? Same thing. Separate your IoT devices from your computer network. Have a couple of network switches and access points? Put those management interfaces in its own network. Need I go further? Need I must tell you to keep your OS and software up to date?

The weakest link in the security chain is you. If you cannot trust yourself, you need to evaluate your threat model. What are you trying to protect? Your computer? Your data (keep your backups offline until you need to restore from a backup and test your backups)? Your network? Once you know your threat model, hopefully you won’t come across a “safe browsing warning” page. If some page gave you a warning out of the blue and you know that page does not have any malware, then something is up. Don’t trust Google or any big tech companies.

As someone commented “tldr” and “welcome to the Internet” (by the way, I’ve been using the Internet since the late 90s, so I blocked that user for good and moved on), should I take that even further and use “too long, didn’t listen” in long conversations? Especially in job meetings (I seriously won’t do that as that would be very unprofessional)?

Should I really cater and appease to the “TL;DR fanatics” on the Internet with such a very low reading effort? Because it seems like Brodie Robertson didn’t appease to the “TL;DL fanatics” who would not take all the effort to listen to him on his video.

I know. Welcome to the Internet, because I despise that “TL;DR” crap… I feel like this “TL;DR” slang has spread way too far on the Internet just to make me feel like using that “TL;DL” slang in any kind of meetings.

PS: I hope I do not mean to insult anyone who’s reading rate has already been in declining state. I’m pretty sure I have already answered my “too long; didn’t listen” question (unprofessional indeed while in a job) but I thought I might ask when it comes to worst-case scenarios.

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The ability to transmit information concisely is just as valuable as being able to expand on it, adapt style and provide good examples to the target audience. This is an important skill to have in many aspects of life, even trivial ones like when telling a joke. Push it too far, and you might get yourself into trouble; too dull, and you may not make it into the next interview or date with that special someone.
Keep in mind that even when people read something about a topic they are interested in, they may still find it annoying to go through it fully at some point.

For example, someone interested in programming starts watching videos, but finds the examples given are too simple and starts speeding up the recording.
Later, that person may try reading a book, but the author’s style is too obtuse, with too many and too poor analogies that make even simple concepts hard to understand.

If you see someone asking for summaries too often that may be a clear sign that they simply are not attentive enough. On the other hand, someone who is asked often to summarize or clear something up may need to work on their own communication skills.

So, no, don’t try to please people. Just because we call it “TL;DR” today doesn’t make it anything else than what it really is: failure to communicate. Either things are being explained too poorly, or the message has reached someone outside the target audience.

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Okay, thanks. I will try my best to keep it short even if I do want to share and encourage deep thoughts that might be insightful to a reader. Maybe I don’t want to keep it too short as often as I could, because if I do that, I won’t be able to put a lot of thought on what I’m trying to say. So yeah, I do not want to please the TL;DR people on the Internet. What is important to me is to focus on the audience and that’s what all that matters to me.

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