Title: First of all, I apologize for using HN as a venting outlet, but I suspect that other people may be feeling somewhat like me on this topic.<p>Ever since Dustin Curtis produced his article (http://dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html) I've noticed that many people have been taking up his results and using his call to action verbatim. His article is an excellent piece on user behavior research, and his results quite interesting, but it really bugs me that lots of articles now close with the words "you should follow me on twitter here."<p>You may ask why I get upset over this. The reason is that it sheds some light on the intentions of the writers. Seeing the call to action tells me "this person will do anything to get followers." I may be naive, but I would like people to follow me due to my interesting insights, and not because of some cognitive hack.<p>Articles that are otherwise inspiring then come crumbling to pieces once I get to the bottom of the page and see this blatant attempt at getting followers. In fact, it produces the opposite reaction in me, I quickly close the tab and forget the contents of the article or why I thought it was insightful in the first place.<p>I'd much rather see people trying other approaches, or even better, not try to persuade me with anything else than the content they produced. If what they're saying is insightful, I'll crave for more and will bookmark them, follow them, and tell my friends about it.<p>Dustin did a great job at finding this hack, and I expect to see "follow me on twitter here" at the end of his articles. He earned it. Everyone else, please find your own hacks.
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