← Back to context

Comment by lapcat

1 month ago

> But I think one should also be wary of articles that make you angry and tell you what you suspected all along. (eg see the commenter elsewhere who doesn’t care about the details and is just angry). It’s much easier to spot this kind of rage-bait piece when it is targeting ‘normal people’ rather than the in-group.

The article was published by an Apple developer and user, i.e., myself, on my personal blog, which is followed mainly by other Apple developers and users. My blog comprises my own personal observations, insights, and opinions. If you see any rage, it would be my own personal rage, and not "bait". Bait for what?

I’m not interested in telling you what to put on your blog. Do whatever you like.

The headline is defensible but, in my opinion, quite sensationalised. People are likely to interpret it as being for an article making much stronger claims than the article actually does. I think a lot of the interactions people had with this submission, especially early on, were because the headline made them mad, rather than because of its contents. I think if one is interacting with some submission here due to a maddening headline, one should be wary about such interactions being driven by emotion, leading to poor discussion that is not particularly anchored to the topic of the article, rather than being driven by curiosity.

  • > The headline is defensible but, in my opinion, quite sensationalised.

    How would you write the headline?

    There's always a criticism of headlines, but headlines are necessarily short. It's like critics want the entire article text to appear in the headline, which is impossible.

    I don't know what defensible but sensationalized is supposed to mean.

    > I think a lot of the interactions people had with this submission, especially early on, were because the headline made them mad, rather than because of its contents.

    That's pure speculation on your part, because the headline is very short and vague. In any case, it's not my fault if people read the headline but not the article. I want people to read the article, not just the headline.

    • I would probably aim for a title like ‘what does the “Enhanced Visual Search” feature do in iOS 18 and MacOS 15?’ Or ‘how much data is sent to Apple for the new “Enhanced Visual Search” in Photos’.

      I think the early comments on this submission were because the headline made them mad because they were incurious and not particularly related to the topic of the article making – most could be under any article about Apple Photos. One early comment was about switching to alternatives to Photos and another was, paraphrasing, ‘I’m so angry. I don’t care about homeomorphic encryption or differential privacy’. Others seemed to follow the theme of the latter. After a while a comment attempted an overview of some of the technical details, which I thought was better.

      Perhaps a more precise complaint is that many of the early comments didn’t really depend on the contents of the article – they could go under many Apple submissions – and I think it’s more likely for comments like that to be written while incensed.

      I don’t think you’re to blame for the comments people choose to leave.

      1 reply →