3 ms·

Maybe, but the identified harm was adding fluff in order to persuade. If you subtract mostly irrelevant if colorful anecdotes, you keep the point and the concis

• mquander 17y ago
  It's hard to persuade people if they don't even sit through what you have to say. The colorful anecdotes usually serve to expose many people to the point who wouldn't have otherwise bothered reading it. I don't need Google Analytics to tell me that a lot more people thought and spoke (and will continue to think and speak) about the original article than if the article had resembled this "remixed" version. Many of those people will at least observe the point behind the anecdote, even if they don't linger on it.
• gojomo 17y ago
  And yet, this version's cryptic title and bikeshed-cliche-intro only make sense when considered in contrast to the original. So while one message sent by this version is "look again at the part I thought I was important", another message is, "wow, that 'bikeshed' was a powerful distraction". That calls yet more attention to the 'bikeshed' itself -- both the specific instance and the general phenomenon -- and the author's own self-conscious rhetorical choices about how to influence readers. The many levels of semi-contradictory subtext are making my head spin!