Minor rant on lj-cut tags

[pne]

Please, people, when you use lj-cut tags, could you at least arrange for the post to make sense even if you don't use them?

Usually, when I read my friends page, I scan through the entries, and ones I want to read more closely and/or where I want to read the comments, I click on the comments link, opening the page in a background tab. Then when I'm caught up (or have read as much as I have time for), I read the opened comment pages one by one.

By that time, I've usually forgotten who, if anyone, used lj-cut tags or what they were, so seeing half-sentences is a bit disconcerting. Similarly, if someone gets to the entry through, say, a memory or a link, they won't see the cut tag.

So if the cut tag starts a sentence, I'd prefer it if you repeat that half-sentence underneath the cut; if you use, say, three cuts to mark off sections, perhaps you can include the cut text as a kind of sub-header underneath as well so you know what belongs together.

Consider a sentence such as, "Please don't." WTF? Don't what? In context behind a cut tag that says, for example, "My advice on dancing in my backyard naked:", it makes sense... but please try to write things that make sense without the context of cut tags. (Heck, even if I click through the first cut tag in a post, I might not have remembered the other four cut tags.)

...This rant is not really addressed to any of the people on my flist; it's something I've mostly seen in a couple of communities I watch, and was prompted most recently by reading some of the memories of a specific user. But I still wanted to get it out.

Comments

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you. Believe it or not, I sometimes go back and edit posts just to make the spacing make sense both with and without lj-cut tags, because I don't always get it right on the first try.