
The “Myths List” is a communication antipattern - gjstein
http://cachestocaches.com/2019/8/myths-list-antipattern/
======
mikekchar
I find it slightly ironic that an article about the evils of "Myths Lists"
uses the "X is an antipattern" form. Calling something an antipattern by
saying that it is bad is just a "myth list" comprising one entry :-)

The original meaning of antipattern is more than a common practice that's a
bad idea. It's something that appears to be very good in a certain situation,
but is actually bad. In order to document it as an antipattern, you have to
describe why people think it is a good idea in the context in which they use
it. Then you have to explain why those good ideas don't work out. This article
fails to do this, IMHO. It's just a rant about something the author doesn't
like (exactly the same as this post ;-) ).

------
Tomte
As the author of "Myths about /dev/urandom" ([https://www.2uo.de/myths-about-
urandom](https://www.2uo.de/myths-about-urandom)) I gingerly agree with the
thrust of this article (although it has not really swayed me, other articles
in that vein have).

The essay is still this way, because (a) the title is well-known in certain
circles (call it branding) and (b) it's real work to find a new structure.

~~~
jancsika
But your article is about cryptography. And like every article on cryptography
aimed at non-cryptographers it has this upshot: "You don't have a chance at
knowing what you're doing or talking about, so please just ask a cryptographer
for help and get on with your busy day."

If readers of your article come away more confused about dev/random vs.
dev/urandom and the veracity of manpages, that is a positive result which will
lead them to the aforementioned promised land. So I don't think your article
fits the (anti-)pattern.

------
caymanjim
Newsflash: listicles are garbage. It doesn't need to be a list of myths; any
article following the pattern "10 anythings about anything" is clickbait
trash.

~~~
lowdose
Titles with a number generate more clicks so everybody does it.

~~~
elliekelly
This is one of those things I try to google every once in a while but the
results are so clogged with junk that I still don't really know the answer.
Why are our brains drawn to click on headlines/titles with a number?

~~~
lowdose
I don't know exactly and I wasn't able to find a reference either but I
thought the increase was something like 30%. Maybe hubspot or buffer has a
blog on it.

------
gweinberg
It's generally much more helpful to say what's correct than what's wrong, if
only because there are so many more ways to be wrong. Often when I see lists
of "myths", the "myths" are true or close enough most of the time, and are
only harmfully wrong in rare circumstances. Getting rid of a flawed but
workable model without having a better one to replace it with is not an
improvement.

~~~
hwayne
Or posing the statements as questions. Like instead of

> Myth: People have unique names

You write

> Do people have unique names?

> No, because XYZ. This varies by region because ABC. And in this case, this
> assumption caused a major production outage: [link]

Turn it into a detailed discussion, as opposed to a debate. Also, you can
share things that people _can_ assume to be true, or can _usually_ assume in
specific contexts.

~~~
lonelappde
Asking a question whose answer is no is almost as bad as a myth. Just state
the true fact you want people to remember.

~~~
hwayne
Sometimes the answer is yes, though!

------
mcphage
Does the author include "Falsehoods Programers Believe about $FOO" style
articles? I generally find them to be clear about the fact that these are
lists of false statements, especially since there's generally no content to
each falsehood outside of stating it (sometimes they provide counterexamples).

~~~
ghaff
Or I was reading this just the other day from Mozilla:
[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/common-myths-about-
priv...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/common-myths-about-private-
browsing)

In the right context--where there is widespread misunderstanding (or
ignorance) around a number of points--it seems a reasonable format.

Lists and FAQs are arguably somewhat lazy writing but it imposes a structure
that's easy to follow for both the writer and the reader and that's not a bad
thing. And talking to editors I work with, it does seem to be a format that
readers like based on the data.

~~~
rebuilder
Maybe people like the listicle format because it promises to be quickly
digested.

Actually, I wonder if it even needs to be a list. I think a headline like
"Economics explained in 20 words" would be attractive in the same way. If it
was 100 words, I doubt it would work as well, even though both headlines would
be obviously absurd.

What's going on, there?

~~~
ghaff
Attention spans are definitely down. I know I read a lot more shorter format
myself. And there's actually a lot of data on it.

I certainly don't feel compelled to write for SEO or eyeballs. But easy and
quick doesn't need to mean bad and is often OK for day-to-day stuff.

Most things I publish are in the 800-1000 word range. These days I'll tend to
go multi-part rather than the 3K-5K stuff I used to do fairly routinely.

------
balfirevic
Here is one of my favourite "myth list" articles:
[https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/the-food-lab-7-old-
wives...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/06/the-food-lab-7-old-wives-tales-
about-cooking-steak.html)

I think the form fits great with the content. So it can work, but the myths
listed have to actually be widely held and promulgated false beliefs.

------
duxup
Humans being humans love to make the myths easy to knock down so they end up
being very general, and often absurd.

The answer then ends up being just as general ("nuh uh!") and so simplistic
that it is useless.

So I guess what I'm saying is that it turns into... Twitter.

------
sampleinajar
This is very context driven. I find that myth lists with regards to health
topics are helpful. They usually have links to studies and generally aim to
dispel common misperceptions. They usually spur me to read more into each
myth, especially if it is something I am new to. They aren't always concretely
correct, but they spur investigation. However, as this article is clearly
labeled "general computing" on the site, I agree that almost all articles in
that category use myth lists as poorly executed opinion argument. It comes
across as very juvenile. Myth: Rust is difficult to learn. Truth: Actually,
Rust is quite easy to learn. Ugh...

------
lfowles
Would you go so far as to say Myths Lists Considered Harmful? :)

------
domnomnom
It's interesting to see the difference in complexity between an application in
theory and examples of the actual engineering requirements. It's no different
than reading Glamour magazine for makeup tips or Men's Fitness for health
advice, etc. Not everyone is going to be into the same level of depth and
complexity here.

In the potential failure to recognize the intended audience of these lists, I
wonder if the antipattern accusation is really an antipattern (hehe). But I
honestly don't know - Were these lists intended to be used as programming
guides?

------
nlawalker
I agree with this, but I think the bigger problem with "myths lists" is that
they're condescending. Even when written dispassionately, they implicitly leap
out of the gate with "everyone is wrong, including you, reader, and I am going
to drop my wisdom on you."

I can't find it now, but there was a great comment on a previous "falsehoods"
post about how the only compelling reason to frame content this way is to get
clicks and drive engagement through contention and disagreement, and that the
world would simply be a better place if the tone was more in line with "here
are some super interesting cases you may not have thought of when you do X".
See [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/) for a similar sentiment.

------
jfengel
Seems to me that "myths lists" are most useful for, ya know, actual
"myths"[1]. If somebody is likely to google for X, they'll find your page, and
read your refutation. As a matter of SEO, the closer you get to repeating the
commonly-repeated story, the more likely they'll get to your page.

If the myth isn't something common enough to be googled for, then you're just
confusing people. Just state the facts, in as concise and clear a fashion as
you can.

I think people are drawn to the "myths" structure because it breaks up the
page visually. It tells people, "Here is a small unit of information. You
don't have to read the whole page to get a story". There are lots of other
ways to indicate that: headers, lists, images. It's a correct intuition that a
flat page full of paragraphs is intimidating, but there are other ways.

[1] in the sense of "myth" as "commonly-repeated falsehood". Most falsehoods
aren't myths, and a better use of "myth" means a fiction that resonates deeply
and universally. Fictions aren't mere falsehoods, either.

------
robbrown451
I use Quora a lot, which has some good stuff but at this point I admit the
good stuff is far outnumbered by the bad these days.

One of the most annoying things people do is to write posts (technically
answers) that attempt to "surprise" people by telling them something they
thought was true, but is in fact, not true.

And so many of them are really convoluted and depend on weird non-standard
definitions of things. Something like "technically red things are blue" or the
like. (because they absorb blue light maybe? So you are defining things by
what they absorb rather than what they reflect? Whuuu?) So, so many answers
are like that, but maybe not to that extreme.

Yes it is a clickbaity technique. They are always wanting to blow people's
minds.

------
kdeldycke
These myths lists are definitely falsehoods programmers believe in.

------
wfbarks
but will they click?

