Not everything can be pithy, and not everything that can be pithy should be. You're making a design specification based on a value judgment. As the site designer, you should stick to functionality and usability issues, and steer clear of deciding for others whether to use two words or two pages. You're so hands-off most of the time, and that has always been to the Compendium's benefit. It makes no sense to single out this one issue, especially when you're not even right.
I expanded on that aspect because you singled out long paragraphs by using them as a prime example against my decision, not because of some some super-important value on which I based my entire judgment.
There's a lot of more important reasons I chose to increase the line height on the site that were very much rooted in functional/usability aspects, namely the readability of the text. Certainly, it makes the large paragraphs more perceptually unapproachable for the timid, but compared to having large paragraphs that look pretty but take significantly more energy to read, I felt it was a better trade-off.
To those reading but who really aren't, because you're just that way (I know you aren't Josh, but someone will inevitably use this as an opportunity to butt in, so I want to take this opportunity to stop them):
Just because closely-spaced, large blocks of text look pretty when you're PRETENDING TO READ them, IN REALITY they are HARDER TO READ.Do NOT try discussing this from a "I think it looks" or "Everyone else thinks" perspective, because GROUPTHINK does NOT ALLOW people to THINK PAST their SHALLOW ANIMAL PERCEPTIONS.If you don't have RESEARCH or YEARS OF REAL EXPERIENCE as EVIDENCE then please don't try to give your two cents.But back to our discussion:
If you want to use exceptionally large paragraphs as an example of why I should give up readability for making the site prettier though, then why shouldn't I also try to dismiss the perception that such paragraphs are normal? Right or wrong, ample whitespace is important for readability, and these paragraphs don't provide that. Just because I can hide their size doesn't mean I should, especially when the trade-off is functional/usable.
Hell, I even tried to hide it as much as I could. That's part of the reason why I chose to use a small font to begin with, otherwise people start feeling those paragraphs are "too big" again. But screw it. They should look as big on this site as they would on any other site or on any other media.
Anyway, my biggest concern is that people seem to want to use this issue as a means to influence a decision that shouldn't even be open to discussion. The next thing you know, just because any Joe nobody with eyes can pick out some aspect of the layout and argue about it, he'll run with it and then feel big that he's leaving his mark. It'd be just like choosing the color of the bikeshed.
That's why all this arguing is bad, even though it won't make a difference. The content will be how you, Zeality, and the others write it, and the layout will be as I design it, and that's the end of that.
