Yeah, that would have been a great headline. Then, no one would have read the post, no one would find out the guy would like some help, and the project would be that much closer to sinking into oblivion.
Enough of this nonsense. I think the highly popular nature of the post, and the productive discussion that ensued, means that the post and headline were good. I certainly did the guy more good than harm, by bringing the attention of a community of hackers to this issue.
This reminds me of when I was editor of my college newspaper, and I wrote a headline that said "Student Raped in Gesling Stadium." The university and the campus cops all wanted us to say sexual assault and were pitching a fit. But we felt the strong language was justified, and we printed the word RAPE in big bold block letters. As a result, there was immediately hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on improving campus security.
In this case, I wrote that headline because I knew people would read it, and I knew that they wanted to read it, and I knew that they should read it. The last thing I was doing was trying to give the guy a hard time.
Yeah, my bad, you're totally right, this site (and the world) will be so much better when everyone starts writing catchy, sensational headlines that don't reflect the actual content of their articles. I'm glad you're fighting the good fight to bring that mentality here, I really don't get enough of it at Reddit.
Enough of this nonsense. I think the highly popular nature of the post, and the productive discussion that ensued, means that the post and headline were good. I certainly did the guy more good than harm, by bringing the attention of a community of hackers to this issue.
This reminds me of when I was editor of my college newspaper, and I wrote a headline that said "Student Raped in Gesling Stadium." The university and the campus cops all wanted us to say sexual assault and were pitching a fit. But we felt the strong language was justified, and we printed the word RAPE in big bold block letters. As a result, there was immediately hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on improving campus security.
In this case, I wrote that headline because I knew people would read it, and I knew that they wanted to read it, and I knew that they should read it. The last thing I was doing was trying to give the guy a hard time.
I think Bit Rot is pretty catchy.