If someone wrote a bad review of the Grauniad saying that a recent article was riddled with horrific journalistic malpractice, how many people would see and believe it?
That's certainly an issue, though I suspect that there's a somewhat mitigating factor: Journalists don't want to be embarrassed in font of their other journalist friends, who are more likely to follow such things than the general public.
Also, thank you for "Grauniad"! If anyone else isn't familiar:
> The Grauniad is a nickname for the UK national newpaper, the Guardian, because of a now ill-founded reputation for typos. The name was given to it by the satirical magazine Private Eye. The Guardian newspaper earned its reputation for lots of misprints in the days of hot-metal printing when it was published in Manchester (it was originally called the Manchester Guardian), and the editions that appeared in London were very early editions brought down by train, before all the errors had been spotted.
Re: Bad Press Releases for Studies - I think scientific studies have bad UX. They are not written for consumers of scientific studies, either layperson or experts in the field. They are written to pass review and get published.
Studies, especially studies involving humans, should have a standardized information header for that field, including funding source, type of study, population information, etc. Most of the pertinent is in the abstract already, but you have to hunt for it and it's worded slightly differently each time.
I might have been a little hyperbolic, but the argument is that if we had a better distribution mechanism, that manual effort wouldn't be needed, and this would have benefits like people being able to contribute more to the conversation without spending time building up an audience. Given things as they are today, it should certainly be a thing.
This is a great piece of content both as a stand alone article and as a commentary to Erik Hoel's piece.
I think Substack is good candidate to bring your wishes to life. But they need to work more on its discovery feature and launch a bunch of others.
Thanks again.
P.S I read also your article about how you're dealing with comments and laughed out loud when I read this 👇
"I rewrote the post to be “gentle”. Previously my approach was to sort of tackle the reader and scream “HUMIDIFIERS → PARTICLES! [citation] [citation] [citation] [citation]” and “PARTICLES → DEATH! [citation] [citation] [citation]” 👏😭
You made my day really. So thanks for the information, your honesty and the entertaining. 💡👏🙏
This is fundamentally about the friction in getting information and why brands exist. "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was a good heuristic when the computer market was new and confusing and spending lots of money on a computer from a random company that quickly went bankrupt and ended support was a real threat.
In the same way you can't go extremely wrong by reading the Guardian especially if you take into account their strong leftist bias. That requires reading the Guardian like you watch objects in the rearview mirror, knowing that their bias distorts reality in specific ways.
You could find better sources but it would take lots of effort and accepting even bigger errors in the beginning until you identify a more reliable source.
If someone wrote a bad review of the Grauniad saying that a recent article was riddled with horrific journalistic malpractice, how many people would see and believe it?
That's certainly an issue, though I suspect that there's a somewhat mitigating factor: Journalists don't want to be embarrassed in font of their other journalist friends, who are more likely to follow such things than the general public.
Also, thank you for "Grauniad"! If anyone else isn't familiar:
> The Grauniad is a nickname for the UK national newpaper, the Guardian, because of a now ill-founded reputation for typos. The name was given to it by the satirical magazine Private Eye. The Guardian newspaper earned its reputation for lots of misprints in the days of hot-metal printing when it was published in Manchester (it was originally called the Manchester Guardian), and the editions that appeared in London were very early editions brought down by train, before all the errors had been spotted.
(https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grauniad)
Huh, that sounds like a common explanation for why judges usually don’t go nuts even though they are highly unlikely to face hard consequences.
You’re welcome! The newspaper still makes comically embarrassing typoes, but I assume at no higher a rate than any other paper. (My personal favorite: https://mobile.twitter.com/suketumehta/status/1474200801006473223)
Re: Bad Press Releases for Studies - I think scientific studies have bad UX. They are not written for consumers of scientific studies, either layperson or experts in the field. They are written to pass review and get published.
Studies, especially studies involving humans, should have a standardized information header for that field, including funding source, type of study, population information, etc. Most of the pertinent is in the abstract already, but you have to hunt for it and it's worded slightly differently each time.
Why shouldn't following independent writers be a thing?
I might have been a little hyperbolic, but the argument is that if we had a better distribution mechanism, that manual effort wouldn't be needed, and this would have benefits like people being able to contribute more to the conversation without spending time building up an audience. Given things as they are today, it should certainly be a thing.
Thanks.
This is a great piece of content both as a stand alone article and as a commentary to Erik Hoel's piece.
I think Substack is good candidate to bring your wishes to life. But they need to work more on its discovery feature and launch a bunch of others.
Thanks again.
P.S I read also your article about how you're dealing with comments and laughed out loud when I read this 👇
"I rewrote the post to be “gentle”. Previously my approach was to sort of tackle the reader and scream “HUMIDIFIERS → PARTICLES! [citation] [citation] [citation] [citation]” and “PARTICLES → DEATH! [citation] [citation] [citation]” 👏😭
You made my day really. So thanks for the information, your honesty and the entertaining. 💡👏🙏
I think we might have to pay people to do good writing?
Just like you can buy a guide to the best restaurants..
This is fundamentally about the friction in getting information and why brands exist. "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" was a good heuristic when the computer market was new and confusing and spending lots of money on a computer from a random company that quickly went bankrupt and ended support was a real threat.
In the same way you can't go extremely wrong by reading the Guardian especially if you take into account their strong leftist bias. That requires reading the Guardian like you watch objects in the rearview mirror, knowing that their bias distorts reality in specific ways.
You could find better sources but it would take lots of effort and accepting even bigger errors in the beginning until you identify a more reliable source.