# Lined notebooks (ruled paper) vs. blank pages 

Source: https://paragraph.xyz/@tudorizer/lined-notebooks-ruled-paper-vs-blank-pages
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Lined-notebooks-ruled-paper-vs-blank-pages?index=0x670e893ba03ffc5512d8f2d88cb72cc95f61359b5877e9b759779f69468467ad8a88d50c
Submitted by tudorizer.eth on 2024-10-15 UTC, 3 upvotes, 2 comments

## Summary

Lined notebooks strike the right balance between freedom and guidance, while a completely blank page is intimidating. The writer, who began a daily three-page Morning Pages ritual because their handwriting is not as legible as they would like, says that dealing with slanted lines and inconsistent spacing is the last thing the mind needs when gathering thoughts. Ruled guides such as quadrille paper and music sheets are described as ubiquitous for students and professionals, and blank paper is presented as an option mainly for pushing artistic boundaries.

## Article

Wishing a fantastic week to all 10 of you!

If you're enjoying my writing, please share this post with your second-best friend and join the /tudor channel on Farcaster 🤝

My handwriting is not as legible as I'd like it to be. Some people have suggested I write more, others have suggested to simply slow down. Both are right, so I started a Morning Pages ritual every day. 3 pages, no judgement, just stream of consciousness, no expectations beyond the process itself.

My medium of choice is a lined notebook, because it strikes the right balance of freedom and guidance.

A completely blank page is intimidating. Gathering one's thoughts is difficult enough, so dealing with slanted lines and inconsistent spacing is the last thing the mind needs. Particularly in moments when aesthetics are at a premium.

Although John Tetlow invented the machine to automate drawing lines, generations before him have come up with the idea – the right type of lines on notebook paper.

The early inventors must have experimented with various alternatives to parallel, horizontal lines, before settling on a few conventions.

As with all conventions, we have a few choices and contexts to choose from, as alternatives to horizontal lines. From quadrille ruled paper to music sheets, these guides are an ubiquitous tool, for both students and professionals.

Could we use plain blank paper? Sure, especially if pushing artistic boundaries.

Guidelines and norms are important for our activities, particularly in collaborative environments.

Very recently Farcaster redefined how channels work, essentially drawing new guidelines. Time will tell if these changes are for the better. One certainty is that the existing communities are writing on a new set of lines, metaphorically speaking.

Part of this doc was inspired by the /okbanger episode about control.

Photo by Damon Lam on Unsplash

## Comments

**tim**: > Very recently Farcaster redefined how channels work, essentially drawing new guidelines. Time will tell if these changes are for the better. One certainty is that the existing communities are writing on a new set of lines, metaphorically speaking.

Farcaster isn't the only app that did this. X also "repurposed" their Bluechecks as a "Paid user" badge.

I gotta say, I always find it somewhat awkward if the same feature is repurposed for something else and I can't really understand why its being done.

On X, for example, for a while, the new Bluecheck confused people who thought that Bluechecks were only for celebs. Now, of course, everyone knows that Bluechecks are a commodity for paying users, but that also means they're not perceived as scarce or valuable anymore either. So I'm not sure that swap was a wise product design decision altogether.

Same for Warpcast channels. I've never used the new channels but I think it is fine for them to iterate on the primitive, but it is a bit awkward that they took one thing from users and gave them the same thing, but it works slightly different.

For Warpcast in particular, however, that's the expected user experience. They're in the business of really trying to domesticate their user base into a more high engagement machine so that it pleases those who look at their stats page.

Contrarily, I guess it would be quite challenging to find such a rude way of dealing with feature change at a software project that is collaboratively owned. User simply wouldn't allow it because their liberty would make their domestication impossible in the first place.

**tudorizer.eth**: Fair. Farcaster and Warpcast have often reminded us they are not collaboratively owned, directly or indirectly.

Do you think they could have simply launched a new feature?