To expect people to construct posts for easy reading

[Drew64]

With spacing between paragraphs and sentences, especially on long posts.

I get as far as the first sentence, look down and its an entire page of text with no delineation of paragraphs and sentences.

I end up not bothering to read them in the end.

Or am I just an old fart that needs help with my reading ;)

YANBU, I don't read those posts.

I think a lot of people are posting on phones and maybe like me, doing it in the odd 5 mins around looking after small children. So I tend to feel a sense of achievement if the bloody thing even manages to post!

In general I agree.

However, I do think some leeway is in order when people are posting in a distressed state.

I don't think punctuation and grammar are a high priority in the midst of a crisis.

Maybe they're just brain dumping all the info, judging from the emotions expressed, often incoherently. Some posters seem to be on the verge of hysteria, given the subject matter on some threads.

Part of the bad spelling, lack of grammar and non-use of paragraphs must be overwhelming emotion.

Plenty of other posters are around to reply, if you can't wade through the OP yourself.

I agree it's much easier to not have to read a wall of text.

I don't care what anyone's SPAG is like, or even if they don't know where to start/end a paragraph just as long as they break it up a bit.

I do still read those posts, but I know what you mean.

The thing that gets me is lack of punctuation. Sentences rolling into each other is off putting and reads as disorganised. There are a couple of well known posters that use no punctuation except full stops occasionally, (not even consistent with those) and it makes my teeth itch every time I read one of their posts.

If you can, you should.

Not everyone has English as a first language so the more standard the language the easier it is for them. Also for those using reading software (the origin of the general aversion to text speak, as that cannot be read comprehensibly and thus tends to exclude).

Using paragraphs for long posts really helps on most screens. But I don't post from a phone so don't know how difficult it is to add para breaks if that's what you're typing on.

I can cope with a general lack of punctuation.

However, if it's lacking in paragraphs I struggle with a meter long chunk of waffly print.

It depends. If it's just waffle. I don't bother reading. But if someone is obviously distressed, trying to write something important but obviously struggling with layout/grammar etc then I'll take a bit more time to maybe understand.

There are a lot of people who may not have good literacy skills, but there are still times that we need take the time to figure out what is being said. It might make a big difference to someone.

But obviously we all prefer nicely laid out things to read!

YANBU.

However, as others have said, I will try and read if it appear that someone is really upset and can't quite string paragraphs together.

What puts me off more than anything is an opening sentence along the lines of 'My MIL's brother's cousin's aunt said to my sister's best friend's cat...'. Immediately hit the 'back' button.

One really long paragraph with no fullstops is a killer. I have to be really in the mood to plough through one of those.

To be honest though, i have some days i when i can't face any OP containing more than just a few short sentences and with more than one or two replies.

Everybody on this thread is very careful to use punctuation and split their text into paragraphs.

I agree, it is hard to read some posts and I often miss something vital in a huge block of unstructured text, especially when reading on a tablet or phone.