I hedge a lot in HN comments. Uncharitably, because I’m thinking defensively about how people respond to my comments. Charitably, because it’s more accurate that way.
Long-form content suffers from hedging more that HN comments do. As a writer, you may think highly of your confidence level, and you may want to communicate the difference between a claim that you’re confident about and a claim that you are unsure about, but the right way to do that is to provide the information necessary for other people to come to the same conclusion. If that’s not possible, or it’s not germane, or you’re just busy doing something else, then you don’t do it, and that’s okay. It’s often just irrelevant for people to understand how much you believe something.
The tradeoff I see here is between clarity and precision. If you focus too much on precision, the clarity of whatever you’re trying to say suffers.
Long-form content suffers from hedging more that HN comments do. As a writer, you may think highly of your confidence level, and you may want to communicate the difference between a claim that you’re confident about and a claim that you are unsure about, but the right way to do that is to provide the information necessary for other people to come to the same conclusion. If that’s not possible, or it’s not germane, or you’re just busy doing something else, then you don’t do it, and that’s okay. It’s often just irrelevant for people to understand how much you believe something.
The tradeoff I see here is between clarity and precision. If you focus too much on precision, the clarity of whatever you’re trying to say suffers.