Gruber’s rule on linking to bullshit →
A followup to my post by John Gruber:
My rule of thumb is to ignore anything that is stupid and languishing in obscurity. But if it’s stupid and published on a high-traffic site, or it’s an expression of a widely-held misconception, it’s often worth addressing, bullshit or not.
Hilton Lipschitz had a similar rule:
But if the article is being read by a lot of people and is intentionally misinforming them, I think we should call them out and correct it. Otherwise the spin and lies will propagate.
Makes sense: high-profile misinformation deserves to be corrected by other high-profile sites.
Maybe a better rule would be: if many of my readers are likely to have read the bullshit, and it hasn’t already been well-refuted by other sites they’re also likely to read (like Daring Fireball), it might be worth refuting publicly.