7 ms·

Was anyone else able to detect any semblance of a date that this article was posted? Personally, I think there is something intellectually dishonest about not

Was anyone else able to detect any semblance of a date that this article was posted? Personally, I think there is something intellectually dishonest about not including a publish date in a piece for anything remotely scientific. Context deeply matters. edit: looks like it's Nov 2016, but you need to go to the parent page to see that.

koverstreet 10y ago
What would _possibly_ make you think it was an act of dishonesty, instead of a simple oversight? There's waaaaaaay to much paranoia going around these days.
- markild 10y ago
  I didn't interpret king_magic's comment in the way that it was deceitfully dishonest, but that it was dishonest in that it lacked date. As in, that it is inherently dishonest not to publish with a date, and there doesn't necessarily have to be a dishonest intent behind it.
  - pliny 10y ago
    Honesty is a function of intent (being honest means acting in good faith), so "unintentionally dishonest" is an oxymoron. Perhaps GP meant "misleading", but he said "dishonest" which implies intent to deceive.
    - joslin01 10y ago
      I'm with you, but there's phrases like "intellectually dishonest", where "dishonest" doesn't imply deception as much as just a character flaw in the author where they're being unintentionally dishonest by favoring their own ideas for example. As the OP mentions, context matters and the word dishonesty has a few bends to it depending upon the situation or phrase.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- wrsh07 10y ago
  I assume showing the date published is the responsibility of the publisher, not the author. In which case, it's possible Nautilus has an anti pattern of not showing dates. Yeah, that seems a bit dishonest.
- king_magic 10y ago
  Because, as I said, context deeply matters in science. Intentionally excluding publish date - which, by the way, is also not present on any of this piece's siblings - is intellectually dishonest. If I'm reading this piece by way of a direct link, I have no idea of when it was published, diminishing its current credibility and relevance. Having to go hunt for that information is supremely annoying, and makes me wonder if they made some intentional decision along the lines of "well, if people know this article was from 5 years ago, they probably aren't going to read it because they will go searching for something more up to date", which would in fact be dishonest. To be clear - I'm not accusing them of that, but in an era of rampant fake news, why do anything to cause your readers to question your honesty? I'm sorry, but this publisher exists in 2016, a time in which they know articles (fake or not) are frequently passed around in ways meant to misrepresent science behind them. There is no excuse for not including a publish date. None.
CoryG89 10y ago
I would take it a step further. I want a date on any kind of article, scientific or not. Bonus points for having separate published and last modified dates.
- Just1689 10y ago
  Well that settles it. We have the Encrypt the Web folks. I'd like to see a Version The Web
- teej 10y ago
  Someone, I think it was Copyblogger and others, convinced people that to create "evergreen content" you should take dates off articles and blog posts. The web has been worse off for this advice.
  - jbpetersen 10y ago
    That's what repos and wikis are for IMO.
  - abandonliberty 10y ago
    Even while you're hunting for that date you're improving their metrics :( Having a date on the article is not an advantage here. Unfortunately I don't see this going away anytime soon. Something like a browser plugin that notified you of article date could be helpful, but would face challenges in mass adoption. Have you noticed the general reduction in usefulness/efficiency of web pages? I sure have. Pages turn a 100 word answer into a 10,000 word essay with 5 videos.
- freehunter 10y ago
  I see that so much on technical articles. It really does make a difference if the content was published in 2007 or 2016.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  Also, footnotes citing sources.
arethuza 10y ago
Isn't that because they appear to have "Issues" and "Chapters" that are all published at different times - so in this case the parent page has the date.

koverstreet 10y ago

What would _possibly_ make you think it was an act of dishonesty, instead of a simple oversight? There's waaaaaaay to much paranoia going around these days.

markild 10y ago
I didn't interpret king_magic's comment in the way that it was deceitfully dishonest, but that it was dishonest in that it lacked date. As in, that it is inherently dishonest not to publish with a date, and there doesn't necessarily have to be a dishonest intent behind it.
- pliny 10y ago
  Honesty is a function of intent (being honest means acting in good faith), so "unintentionally dishonest" is an oxymoron. Perhaps GP meant "misleading", but he said "dishonest" which implies intent to deceive.
  - joslin01 10y ago
    I'm with you, but there's phrases like "intellectually dishonest", where "dishonest" doesn't imply deception as much as just a character flaw in the author where they're being unintentionally dishonest by favoring their own ideas for example. As the OP mentions, context matters and the word dishonesty has a few bends to it depending upon the situation or phrase.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
wrsh07 10y ago
I assume showing the date published is the responsibility of the publisher, not the author. In which case, it's possible Nautilus has an anti pattern of not showing dates. Yeah, that seems a bit dishonest.
king_magic 10y ago
Because, as I said, context deeply matters in science. Intentionally excluding publish date - which, by the way, is also not present on any of this piece's siblings - is intellectually dishonest. If I'm reading this piece by way of a direct link, I have no idea of when it was published, diminishing its current credibility and relevance. Having to go hunt for that information is supremely annoying, and makes me wonder if they made some intentional decision along the lines of "well, if people know this article was from 5 years ago, they probably aren't going to read it because they will go searching for something more up to date", which would in fact be dishonest. To be clear - I'm not accusing them of that, but in an era of rampant fake news, why do anything to cause your readers to question your honesty? I'm sorry, but this publisher exists in 2016, a time in which they know articles (fake or not) are frequently passed around in ways meant to misrepresent science behind them. There is no excuse for not including a publish date. None.

CoryG89 10y ago

I would take it a step further. I want a date on any kind of article, scientific or not. Bonus points for having separate published and last modified dates.

Just1689 10y ago
Well that settles it. We have the Encrypt the Web folks. I'd like to see a Version The Web
teej 10y ago
Someone, I think it was Copyblogger and others, convinced people that to create "evergreen content" you should take dates off articles and blog posts. The web has been worse off for this advice.
- jbpetersen 10y ago
  That's what repos and wikis are for IMO.
- abandonliberty 10y ago
  Even while you're hunting for that date you're improving their metrics :( Having a date on the article is not an advantage here. Unfortunately I don't see this going away anytime soon. Something like a browser plugin that notified you of article date could be helpful, but would face challenges in mass adoption. Have you noticed the general reduction in usefulness/efficiency of web pages? I sure have. Pages turn a 100 word answer into a 10,000 word essay with 5 videos.
freehunter 10y ago
I see that so much on technical articles. It really does make a difference if the content was published in 2007 or 2016.
bobwaycott 10y ago
Also, footnotes citing sources.

arethuza 10y ago

Isn't that because they appear to have "Issues" and "Chapters" that are all published at different times - so in this case the parent page has the date.