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Enough of the "Make X Y Again" please, it does nothing but refer to negative connotations.
by andrethegiant 9y ago
Enough of the "Make X Y Again" please, it does nothing but refer to negative connotations.
- isseu 9y agoBut this is actually a solution...
- andrethegiant 9y agoI don't doubt that it is. Why someone would want to associate their app/tool/product with a controversial political slogan is beyond me.
- DennisAleynikov 9y agoMaybe remove the controvesial from your sentence? Its a nearly universally heard campaign slogan and has been riffed on all sides of the political spectrum. Including many democratic institutions trying to ride the popularity of the phrase.
- Retra 9y agoWhy would would someone want to censor themselves just because people they don't like want a monopoly on language? Is acting in a milquetoast manner attempting the broadest appeal more important than having common sense and integrity?
- geofft 9y ago> Why would would someone want to censor themselves just because people they don't like want a monopoly on language? All effective communication is "censoring yourself". When I say that I'm a software engineer, I'm refusing to say that I'm a kazoo player, because I intend to convey the idea that people get when they hear "I'm a software engineer" and not the idea that people get when they hear "I'm a kazoo player." No matter how much I dislike (or like) kazoo players, I'm not going to attempt to reclaim the term from them. And the English language is descriptive, not prescriptive. When a phrase has a well-established meaning - whether that meaning was first by commoners 400 years ago, or commoners today, or (for some languages) a bunch of academics in an ivory tower today - people are going to think I mean that meaning when I use the phrase. If I want my communication to be effective, it's on me to pick words that I expect people will understand, not on my audience to figure out what I really meant. When I communicate, I intend to communicate the most accurate thing I can to, yes, the broadest audience I can.
- Retra 9y agoI'm not saying self-censorship is bad, I'm saying that if you do it because someone else misappropriated some language, then you're on a clear path to only saying what other people permit. And this is especially wrong when those 'other people' are actively trying to undermine your ability to communicate.
- OrganicMSG 9y agoTo avoid the risk of this entirely predictable meta-discussion regarding a headline format, that has little to do with the readability of Medium, but was probably chosen to try and increase clickthrough rates?
- geofft 9y agoWell, yes, and the people who use "Make America Great Again" generally believe that their proposals are actually a solution to an actual problem of America being no longer great. It seems to me that if you want to convey that you disagree with those people or their assumptions, using their snowclone to describe a tool that actually solves a problem that arose recently is counterproductive. If I wanted to convey disagreement, I might release a tool called, say, "Make HN Readable Again" that added a bunch of slow JavaScript and popups. (And if I wanted to convey neither agreement or disagreement, I'd pick a different name.)
- tachyoff 9y agoI refuse to let a simple phrase like that become verboten just because a certain configuration of it was used by someone that our circles of friends dislike. Personally, I think it’s a funny reappropriation. But either way, this isn’t particularly germane to the conversation, and you could even argue that it wasn’t done intentionally considering that Medium used to be readable. Anyway, Medium is annoyingly hard to read now, and I’m glad someone’s done something to fix it.
- iamdave 9y ago>just because a certain configuration of it was used by someone that our circles of friends dislike. I'm going to stand on the side of this issue and argue it's more than that the configuration of "Make X Y Again" was used by people circles of my friends dislike, it was a rallying call, a point of campaigning, to cause a deliberate division of people at the expense of individuals whose mere presence makes America less than great according to some-on deeply superficial grounds. But yes, not really relevant to the discussion. I will ask this though: In what ways is Medium difficult to read? Personally speaking it's one of the easiest sites to read, just curious what that experience is like for other people, clearly it's pronounced enough for someone to make a browser extension. Just wondering. Edit: I do hate the amount of clicking that has to go on just to read "Network" responses, however.
- adamrezich 9y agoAre you sure this sentiment is universal?
- ziikutv 9y agoI like this title as it’s short and sweet. Actually, most threads in HN have negative messages such as this on. Every single thread. Some new kid makes a small little app and it gets crushed with someone pointing out - usually obvious - short comings or how unnecessary it is. Let’s all be supportive for once. Not saying OP is not supportive; OP is just communicating their frustration. Just using OP as a conduit to explain the pattern I usually see.
- PKop 9y agoThat's your opinion. Some would say it doesn't.
- OrganicMSG 9y agoOTOH, I quite like; "Make Tragedy Farce Again".