Comments on: “Dumbing down” vs “Writing more intelligently”

By: Russ

Russ — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:56:13 +0000

Cam: Did it involve any Google mashups?

By: Cameron Adams

Cameron Adams — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:34:31 +0000

I agree with you Amit. I was talking to Jeffrey Zeldman about this problem the other week and he suggested that we get Jason Fried on IM. I was skyping with Russ Weakley at the time, so naturally I promptly hung up on him.

Long story short, we’ve got a great prototype for a comment-scanning algorithm that will check whether you’re worth listening to. It’s built in Ruby on Rails; you should see an article on Think Vitamin about it soon.

By: Russ

Russ — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:31:54 +0000

Yes, another good quote. However, the one that’s closer to my heart:

“Only a mediocre writer is always at his best”. – William Somerset Maugham

Could be said for a lot of things

By: Ben Buchanan

Ben Buchanan — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:20:05 +0000

Reminds me of Dey’s post http://deyalexander.com.au/blog/2006/04/29/inspiration-with-a-touch-of-envy/

I particularly like “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

By: Russ

Russ — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 03:06:54 +0000

“Almost everything worth saying can be said clearly” – what a great quote!

By: Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:21:48 +0000

John Armstrong wrote about this issue in The Age last weekend, specifically in relation to the humanities, noting â€˜Academic thought about markets is haunted by the idea of "dumbing-down". Popularity, in this view, is easy to obtain; it's just not a good thing to aim for.' He takes exception to this view, as do I. He's right that â€˜Almost everything worth saying can be said clearly.' More thoughts on this to come!

By: Amit Karmakar

Amit Karmakar — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:09:34 +0000

Russ I totally agree and in fact this is something I’ve seen among the so called ‘techos’ and a lot of the web crowd who have got just a smidge recognition(not because of their talent). They probably have little skill but clearly live of networking and name dropping! Writing intelligently takes first and foremost humility, I’m not sure that quality is very Web2.0!!

By: Sean Fraser

Sean Fraser — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:00:49 +0000

I like slang. I like idiomatic words. I like antique turns of phrases. I use them but I also restate my significant points in a simple straightforward manner at the end of an article. My site’s Readability level is 7th grade Wall Street Journal. Huh? Boxes and Arrows had an interesting article July 24th; I failed.

I like your answer for “dumbing down”. Succintly stated.