Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read

"I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short"

The tl;dr label is often used to point out grossly excessive verbosity, or to introduce a short summation of a longer piece. It can be misused as a tactic to thwart collaborative editing, or, worse, a stoop to ridicule.

A second contributing factor can be that a writer incorrectly believes long sentences and big words make them appear learned. Or an inexperienced contributor may fear they will not be clear enough with fewer words. Even capable authors recognize the risk of distorting what they're trying to express in too brief passages.

Some policies and procedures can encourage overlong prose due to imposing arbitrary limits. The Did you know? process requires established articles to have a fivefold expansion of prose within a seven-day window to be considered for listing on the main page. This can encourage over-verbose writing to game the system.

A trusted aphorism states that "brevity is the soul of wit." Similarly, "omit needless words." Editors are encouraged to write concisely and use plain vocabulary when possible, always keeping in mind English may not be a reader's native tongue. If length is essential, a short summary is advised.

Text should be trimmed if redundant or split into another article when appropriate. See: summary style and WP:SPINOFF. Be clear before excising copy that it can't be refined and kept. Tagging bloated plot summaries at movie, book, and play pages with the {{}} template is not as good as winnowing them yourself.

Some linguists (such as Geoffrey K. Pullum in posts at Language Log) criticize Strunk & White's advice "omit needless words" in the fear that unskilled editors may mistake even necessary length for dross and delete it. Strunk and White, however, were unambiguous that concision does not require "the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell." Deleting is not always equivalent to improving, and intelligently differentiating the cases deserves care.

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