
A Pottery Barn rule for scientific journals - taylorbuley
https://hardsci.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/a-pottery-barn-rule-for-scientific-journals/
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apathy
Great, take your own advice and point out that the "Pottery Barn rule" is
misleading. They don't have such a rule and in most states it would be illegal
to enforce if they did.

You are promulgating misleading information with your click bait title. "Take
my advice, I'm not using it!"

Or is the point that journals should mislead readers about their policies on
misleading readers? I'm so confused!

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jones1618
Sanjay was very clear that the "Pottery Barn Rule" is convenient and commonly
understood shorthand for "You break it, you buy it" even though it isn't
actually based on a policy of the store. So what? How possibly does using this
coined term invalidate the rest of his good argument? It is a fantastic idea.

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apathy
Where does he say this? I read the post again and did not see it. As far as
why it deflates the thrust of the post, I like to think I was excruciatingly
explicit.

~~~
jones1618
You're right, he didn't say it in the article. He may have said as much in
reddit comments, though. I'm not sure. However, his first mention did link to
Pottery Barn Rule @ Wkikpedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery_Barn_rule))
which says why the term shouldn't be taken literally true in the 2nd
paragraph.

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apathy
Right, when a simple footnote in the piece would have clarified the matter
rather than derailing the whole piece.

If only there were some way to rectify such things on the Internet, where
words are not physically committed to paper. We might call it "editing". It
need not even require a professional editor. Some people might even do it in
trivial forms such as message board comments.

Do you see where I am going here? For less effort than you and I and the
author expended discussing the flaw, it could have been corrected _in situ_
and the piece itself can become stronger. This is why good writers revise so
often. It is astonishingly rare for the first version of a piece to
communicate exactly what you intend to exactly whom you intended, and even
then it may turn out that your opinions have evolved or your audience has
broadened or shifted.

It is more efficient to incorporate constructive criticism than to rebut it,
in some situations. Given the mutability of words on the Internet, the only
two real explanations are "I meant to do that" or "I don't care enough to edit
it".

