[natly]

> Writers have a responsibility to ensure that they take reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of their statements, and that those statements are clear.

What a crazy take. Writers can write whatever they want. A book of poetry or prose doesn't have to meet some HN rationalist level of accuracy and rigour.

[plaguepilled]

Writers can do whatever they want, sure, but actions which make their intention harder to parse also make it harder to engage with their work. Since writers who publish to the public want others to read their work, it becomes their responsibility in a capacity to write in a way that makes their intended message comprehensible.

Said another way, there is no law that forces me to write in English. I could interleave uncommon French and German across this comment (borrowing terms from other languages is nothing new!).

But if I flexed language proficiency without regard to which words are commonly known, it may make my comment less accessible, and therefore you may choose not to engage with what I'm saying or respond. That might not be a problem for me, but regardless the decision is my responsibility.

The responsibility for clarity does not come from someone else - it is an extension of the decision to publish.

This does extend to prose and poetry by the way. Both are written to conventions within the disciplines and follow patterns. Those patterns are very different to ordinary speech but they are certainly there, and readers judge writers on those merits.

It isn't to say a writer is lesser as a person for writing out of convention, but the convention provides a framework to interpret the art. If the convention isn't broken for a meaningful reason, it can detract from the wider message.