• Rentlar@beehaw.org
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    3 days ago

    A little bit. If I offer too specific expert knowledge I could be doxxing myself, so I make a version that sounds like I just picked it out from the top search engine result, but works well enough as an answer.

  • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    Dumbing things down is a sign of respectlessness towards the audience. So no. I am not doing this. I sometimes write things in a shorter way due to the nature of the medium, though.

    But my Mastodon instance is configured to allow up to 5000 character per message, so there is plenty of space if I feel like.

  • ChaoticNumber@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    Yes and no.

    I think that there is a fine line between dumbing something down and sounding condescending. In time, I found that not treating people like morons is the best approach, i.e. accessible language and simple explanations must be used to aid in the speed and understanding of the information you are disseminating.

    Because nobody wants to sit there and brainstorm something they don’t understand, they’ll just move on. But if you treat them like babies, people will just be annoyed and stop paying attention.

    So its quite the nuanced subject, communication is an art-form.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      2 days ago

      We’ve all seen the “I’m very smart” people who come to social media, use random vocabulary vomit because they want to sound smart, and it happens here a lot. I agree with you, that’s great if you can, and I won’t say you “have to dumb yourself down”, but often they do it to sound smart and want to feel superior because they think most people understand.

      Actually a lot of people do understand them, they’re just eye rolling at how pretentious they’re being.

      There’s a balance. After all why use many word when some word do trick?

  • Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org
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    2 days ago

    I almost don’t want to. If you can’t handle honesty, truths or straightforward and shoot-straight kind of opinions. Then engaging in communication is simply not for you and nobody should have to walk on eggshells all of the time to appease someone’s incapable sense of getting the point.

  • dogerwaul [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    if anything i smarten up. text allows me to organize my thoughts and analyze my word choices. i can say much more and provide more detail over text. when i talk i feel stupid lol.

  • SoulWager@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    Not often. Certainly not when I’m shouting into the void.

    When I’m answering a question or responding to a statement, I’ll generally match the level of the existing discussion. I still try to say what I mean, but I’ll try to avoid concepts with a lot of missing prerequisites. Target audience matters too, if you ask me how orbital rendezvous works, you’ll get a different answer depending on where you ask the question. For example, I’d probably skip explaining how orbits themselves work if you asked in a community dedicated to kerbal space program or children of a dead earth, focusing instead on what the person asking is probably trying to do. Similarly, a comment in a community dedicated to real life space exploration is getting a more detailed answer than the same question in a community for the general public. Basically different assumptions about what the person already knows, and what the person wants to find out.

    • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      I try to rewrite for an audience that’s unfamiliar with American idioms and will read any disagreement in a snotty tone of voice.