By reading one-liners, or depending on them to see if you're going to read the article, you're missing all the little stuff that separates the good from the bad.
Yes. Welcome to the cruel world of information overload, where I don't have time to read 95% of the brilliantly crafted content that is being created on the Internet, to say nothing of the stupid stuff.
Yes, judging books by their cover blurbs and reviews is haphazard, even cruel. Yes, you miss out on a lot of good detail. Yes, it remains absolutely necessary.
I have to judge what to click on by: The title, a skim through the comments, and the link destination (which I actually find most significant -- I clicked through on this and read the real thing specifically because it had Powazek's URL on it, and his last article really hit home.)
Incidentally, "sometimes it's useful" is a terrible post because it has no content and is banal [1], not because it is short. There's a distinction between empty sentences and brief sentences! The summary we're all pointing fingers at had a lot of content, even if it wasn't anywhere near as pleasureable as the actual article.
Meanwhile, a parenthetical note: The flagging system is for things that are "spam or egregiously offtopic". And if you live in a happy land where you seriously believe that "how to avoid working in unacceptable situations" is egregiously offtopic for hackers, congratulations! I hope your amazing run of luck continues, for your sake. Because, in my world, Powazek's advice comes in handy on a monthly basis.
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[1] Just about any comment on a site can be useful sometimes. Even "first post" is useful: It demonstrates that the comments are working and that the comment moderation is very sloppy.
Ok... but why are you being so ironic and offensive? Was I a jerk? I am being nice to you, and disagreeing in good terms. No need to treat me like that.
I was going to craft another response to you, but really, you're demotivating me with your choice of words. Welcome newbie to reality? Congratulations? My sake? Your world? What's up mf, can't we talk normally? At least agree that we disagree on these summaries?
Gee... cool down. If you like the summaries, upvote them... by the amount of positive votes they're getting lately, they seem to be pretty popular... but I was just trying to understand why it looks like they're here to stay and at the same time say why I don't like them...
Edit: I typed this reply before you added more text to yours, so it looked like all you were doing was mocking me :p
My apologies. I'm sure I did overreact. But when someone flags a submission that could well have been part of one's autobiography for arbitrary deletion as hopelessly offtopic it does feel rather like a slap in the face. This is presumably why the "flag" vote total is kept secret, and folks aren't encouraged to post replies talking about how or why they flagged something.
But it was almost certainly an innocent mistake (it's not as if the intended use of the "flag" button is known to anyone who hasn't read the entire guidelines page or been present during its invention) so I'm sorry that my reply came out as snippy as it did.
Yes. Welcome to the cruel world of information overload, where I don't have time to read 95% of the brilliantly crafted content that is being created on the Internet, to say nothing of the stupid stuff.
Yes, judging books by their cover blurbs and reviews is haphazard, even cruel. Yes, you miss out on a lot of good detail. Yes, it remains absolutely necessary.
I have to judge what to click on by: The title, a skim through the comments, and the link destination (which I actually find most significant -- I clicked through on this and read the real thing specifically because it had Powazek's URL on it, and his last article really hit home.)
Incidentally, "sometimes it's useful" is a terrible post because it has no content and is banal [1], not because it is short. There's a distinction between empty sentences and brief sentences! The summary we're all pointing fingers at had a lot of content, even if it wasn't anywhere near as pleasureable as the actual article.
Meanwhile, a parenthetical note: The flagging system is for things that are "spam or egregiously offtopic". And if you live in a happy land where you seriously believe that "how to avoid working in unacceptable situations" is egregiously offtopic for hackers, congratulations! I hope your amazing run of luck continues, for your sake. Because, in my world, Powazek's advice comes in handy on a monthly basis.
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[1] Just about any comment on a site can be useful sometimes. Even "first post" is useful: It demonstrates that the comments are working and that the comment moderation is very sloppy.