Yeah, I should have said that a decent rate of info transfer is often only one of several desiderata, and sometimes a piece can score well enough on other dimensions that it can perform poorly on that (i.e. be relatively uninteresting) and still not be “bad”.
(That said, even writing that needs to be fulfil other functions should generally try to be as interesting/readable as possible within those constraints. Some legal judgements are actually quite easy to read, while others are awful.)
I agree with this. I also think writing can only be “bad” with respect to a goal of some kind, whereas it can be “boring” regardless of its goal.
Very often, that goal is to engage the reader, communicate clearly and memorably, etc. -- for those things, boring → bad.
A couple of random/extreme examples off the top of my head, assuming a generic purpose of “being useful to readers” (I haven’t thought this through):
Legal texts are (probably) often boring writing but not bad writing.
Some Buzzfeed articles are (probably) bad writing but not boring writing.
(So I also appreciate the “Unless you’re in one of the few contexts where you actively want your writing to be dull” disclaimer in Will’s comment.)
Yeah, I should have said that a decent rate of info transfer is often only one of several desiderata, and sometimes a piece can score well enough on other dimensions that it can perform poorly on that (i.e. be relatively uninteresting) and still not be “bad”.
(That said, even writing that needs to be fulfil other functions should generally try to be as interesting/readable as possible within those constraints. Some legal judgements are actually quite easy to read, while others are awful.)