[juletide]

I’m not quite sure how sharing an anecdote about how I, personally, found it difficult to find information in a particular email conveys a “sense of entitlement”—perhaps my phrasing didn’t come across well? The “respectful of my time” thing is just a phrase I’ve generally heard as shorthand for “make the information easier to access,” and I was merely expressing a wish, not a demand.

[biot]

Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but "not respectful of my time" is semantically equivalent to "you are disrespecting my time". Disrespect (verb): to show a lack of respect for; insult. It makes it sound like something that the author has done to you. Your other points were fine about your personal experience. But saying the author is not respectful of you is the step too far.

To improve the wording, I'd suggest something that doesn't imply intent on behalf of the author and solely reflects your own personal views. For example: "I wish the emails were shorter as I don't have time for long-form content". It gets your point across that you have limited time and would prefer concise emails, but doesn't infer anything regarding respect (or the lack thereof) towards you.

[juletide]

Okay. The phrase is in pretty wide use with more casual implications (googling “be respectful of your reader’s time” brings up a lot of marketing email advice pages, for instance), but obviously it's not in as wide of use as I’d thought, so I apologize for overstepping!

I do wish your original comment had been a little less snarky; I’d like to contribute more to HN but it’s not so easy when replies seem to assume entitlement/bad faith/etc.

[biot]

Agreed... sorry for being snarky; I should have explained what I meant originally instead.

I think the difference is that people give authors advice prior to writing an article which amounts to "be mindful that your readers will have to read this". And given that authors have a broad range of readers, it's perfectly fine for an author to consider this and still go ahead with something that's long form and detailed because there's a good chunk of their readership who actively appreciates it (and possibly expects it given patio11's typical article length).

Essentially, claiming the author shows you a lack of respect is disrespectful of the author for the work they put into it. Who has the greater onus to offer respect: someone who actively works to put out free in-depth articles that nobody is under any obligation to read, or those who passively consume those articles? Those who wish to read short announcements can simply say "Great post with lots of details, but is there a channel I can subscribe to which gives me short announcements?" That demonstrates respect.