If it's used all the time, it must be easy for you to provide a few examples. I've seen a few cases where a post title used profanity in a way that's arguably unnecessary, but I can't think of any examples of outright linkbaiting.
No, I mean the specific examples that prompted you to make the comment I was responding to. You wouldn't make such a broad claim without at least one or two examples, would you?
Suffice it to say that any of the examples you find in those search results are examples of "fuck" being used as link bait.
Even the submissions with "fuck you money" in the title since that is a linkbait-y term unto itself. I am of the opinion that unless you're discussing the word 'fuck' there is almost no possible reason to use it in a title unless it's to attract clicks and votes by eliciting an emotional response.
I think that's debatable. I don't see anything blatantly wrong with any of those, but I could see how someone might find titles like that inappropriate. I personally don't have a problem with it.
On the contrary, it's unreasonable to make a broad claim based on one or two examples. When people say "I keep seeing people do this," it's based on a memory of repeatedly seeing similar things, not any one specific example they have in mind. Similarly, I noticed today that a lot of people around here have silver cars, but I couldn't name for you any specific silver car I saw on my commute today.
Well sure. But at the same time, it would be setting a bit too high a standard for me to expect people to do a scientific study for every silly little comment they leave on HN, don't you think? If someone claims that something happens "all the time", don't you think it's reasonable to expect that person to have observed it at least once or twice recently? Or at least be able to provide a reason why they don't have one or two examples?
> I've seen a few cases where a post title used profanity in a way that's arguably unnecessary
I think that's pretty much what he means, but you can't blame the author since it seems to work. People here are passionate, especially when it comes to articles related to the human side of software development. Profanity can tap into that emotion fairly well.
Ahh, so you were. For some reason I got the impression that you were justifying the use of swearing because of the response it generates while not making the connection between that and outright baiting.
The way I understand it, ignorant of the psychology of swearing but having had to think about it since arriving here from the UK, is that if you're swearing, you're breaking a taboo that people assume you understand, so if you break it, they guess that you've lost your ability to keep your cool, and that because of that they fear you might punch them or shoot them. Which it seems, to me, most people, rightly or wrongly, believe happens quite often here in the US.