You're a grown-up, you don't have to take a spanking if you don't want to

touché

TL/DR is interesting because it's usually used by the person posting something that they think other's might find "too long" -- it's as Blarg says, an indicator of summary offered for those who would look at it and say "too long, I didn't bother reading it all". It is much less frequently used by readers to comment "that was too long, I didn't bother reading it"

Yeah, if magic is supposed to be kept secret from Muggles, why is their doorway in the middle of the most crowded train station in London? Also, that rat sitting in Ron's lap and sleeping with him in his bed for ten years is actually a grown man (ewww).

Burgundy
"But, but I don't do that... I have SO dug myself into a hole with this thread."

I wasn't implying that you did, merely commenting on how I read "reality" based stories as opposed to alternate universe offerings. And no, far from digging a hole, you've brought up and interesting subject, that of taking the time and effort to construct a (hopefully) believable story as opposed to simply writing an action vignette. The former invites more criticism, as it is more ambitious, but it should garner more praise and admiration as well.

"And you guys have all been SO much nicer than I deserved. If I had submitted this thing to peer review instead of here, I would have been torn to shreds."

Hmmmm, there may be a story here. Don't know how believable it will be though...

That is interesting. So it's not really a "too long/didn't read" comment but rather a "too long/don't read" warning? Weird. Somebody takes the time to write something long and then warns people not to bother reading it because they assume their readers have ADD or didn't want to read it in the first place. How considerate. Now if only people would be kind enough to write "TS/DR: this sucks/don't read" think of all the time and agony that could be spared?

Good points, and just because they keep their magic secret, what is to stop any one of them from buying a gun and taking out Voldemort faster and more efficiently than any incantation? If your mortal enemy says, "avada," with a good semi-automatic, you could get off quite a few rounds before he/she could ever finish saying, "kedavra."

A story about writing a research paper, submitting it for peer review, and being told to make the following list of corrections before it can be published? It would be extremely believable, and riveting. People would read it.

Yet once it was introduced and employed to interfere with natural causality in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, it never appeared again, did it?

Just as, following the climax of "Superman: The Movie," in subsequent Superman motion pictures his ability to 'fix things' via reversing time wasn't referred to as a potential solution to desperate situations.

Then again, in "Star Trek: Voyager" time-traveling to alter the existing timeline was clearly overused as a convenient 'deux ex machina,' wasn't it?

"Time, time, time, look what's become of me..."

--C.K.

As long as you don't add "TL/DR".

So you wouldn't actually get spanked (physically) by your academic colleagues if the research paper wasn't "satisfactory" to start out with?

Standards in 'academia' must really be slipping these days...

--C.K.