37signals Signal vs. Noise weblog has been featuring entries recently on how to boost productivity, how to simplify your life, and generally how to GTD and be more organized professionally. Usually the tips are worthwhile, but one of the most recent ones hit me as strange, and I wasn’t really sure how it would boost my productivity. Here’s a link.
Normally I would just leave a snarky comment and be on my way, but this time, I ran into something a little out of the ordinary. After I clicked through from Bloglines, I wrote my comment and tried to submit it when MovableType threw me an error that said effectively that “The Entry Does Not Exist.” I’m used to strange web errors (hey, I’m a designer, weird things happen) so I went back to the SVN homepage so I could reload the entry, and maybe it would work this time.
When I went back to the SVN homepage, the entry had disappeared. Gone. Not linked anymore. Just in case the link is taken down completely by the time you read this, I managed to screengrab the entry and the negative comments that were posted before it was pulled. AdSense has been removed from the screenshot, and the design/content is ©37signals:
So What Really Happened?
You can see from the comments that other SVN readers thought the entry wasn’t very good either. So why was it pulled from the homepage and effectively hidden from SVN readers? It could be because it was pushed live by accident and wasn’t totally finished yet (even though it has a nice little conclusion) but maybe it was because the reaction to the entry was so negative and the 37signals crew wanted to stifle reader comments lest they reflect poorly on their company and products.
Conspiracy theory or the truth? What’s your take?
Updated 9am Tuesday: Jason weighed in on the conspiracy theory in the comments, and it proved Occam’s Razor to be true — the simplest answer is usually the best. The simple answer is that the entry wasn’t meant to go live that early, and Jason wanted to keep it for posting today instead. No conspiracy theory. No cover-up. Just call us the lone gunman.