[whats_a_quasar]

I really don't think that's what he's saying. You are assuming a great deal of malice, rather than positive intent. What he's saying is that there isn't hard evidence that shorter lines are more readable, so he made the style choice of longer lines. You're claiming that most people prefer shorter line widths, but again present no evidence that most people actually have that preference, other than vague references to "countless people". I actually think you're probably right, and if you had data Dan might update his stylesheet. But in the absence of evidence, you're just presenting your opinion as fact, and assuming malice.

[travisjungroth]

This is why it's nice to get people's preferences vs thoughts about preferences. Preferences aggregate, thoughts about preferences do not. If one designer says "Readers like narrow columns more, everyone knows that." and another says "I like reading narrow columns.", I'd give the person speaking about readers in general more weight (even with them going the same direction). But, if 100 designers spoke for all readers and 100 designers spoke for themselves, I'm giving more weight to the second group. Hearing 100 preferences is more valuable than hearing one idea, 100 times.

[RoddaWallPro]

Yeah, that's probably true. He also at least allows people to set their own reading width by adjusting browser.

My frustration stems from the fact that I find the argument "there are no papers with sufficient evidence" to be pedantic bullshit. Like yeah, sure, you aren't even wrong, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I've never seen anyone claim to like 180 char lines, whereas I've seen hordes of people who say it is very difficult for them to read that line length, and prefer something book-sized (lengthed?).

[whats_a_quasar]

Hmm, yeah I actually agree with that way of putting it. The evidence that does exist are the anecdotes, and he seems to ignore that evidence. Many of his readers, myself included, seem to prefer fixed line lengths. So it is a weird choice.

I was mostly reacting to the assumed malice in the parent comment. Based on his blogging style, I think it's more likely that Dan's just a pedantic guy implementing his personal preferences on his personal blog :)

[AlbertCory]

"Not even wrong" FTW. There's even a blog with that title:

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

[lmm]

I prefer longer lines, and hate sites that force a narrow line length.