If somebody were to have read only the summary points and agreed with your post, you would have caught somebody who misunderstood the article because they didn't read it...but how do you plan to "hook" the people that skim articles and extract the summary points themselves? Aren't they just as susceptible to misunderstanding the content as well?
I believe that summaries [and skimming] are definitely useful and do not detract from the spreading of information or the gaining of knowledge. In fact, I would say that they contribute to both.
> Aren't they just as susceptible to misunderstanding the content as well?
Yep! The only distinction between skimming and reading a summary is that skimming at least gives you the opportunity to spot something interesting, stop, and read it fully.
I also wouldn't confuse speed-reading with skimming, so long as the speed-reading gleaned as much from the text as slower reading would.
> I believe that summaries [and skimming] are definitely useful and do not detract from the spreading of information or the gaining of knowledge. In fact, I would say that they contribute to both.
I disagree. I think that they are dangerous tools -- useful occasionally, but too easy to abuse. I'm being more vocal about it nowadays because "TL:DR" has recently become a "thing", and I'm concerned that larger numbers of people seem to be considering it acceptable to skip reading a 10-minute article in favor of reading a 10-second summary of it. Rather than debate that here though, I'd just point to my comments elsewhere on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2563051
