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Comment by geerlingguy | Hacker News Reader

FYI this was not posted by 'the Woz', but rather by the unrelated Geoff Wozniak. I imagine many others may have clicked through owing to the domain.

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Someone else is being downvoted into oblivion for using the term "link bait" so I'll tread carefully here, but this is the second time I've ended up on Geoff Wozniak's blog as a result of a headline that, on its own, is just as uninteresting as "some guy decides he doesn't like latest version of OS X", yet coming from Steve Wozniak it would definitely be worth reading.

It's not link-baity in the sense that there's really anything wrong with using your own name for your blog (although try telling that to Mike Rowe), but it's link-baity in the context of HN where the domain shows up with equal importance to the headline and where the name "Wozniak" is very clearly associated with one and only one person.

I think the "flag" link is unfit for purpose and should be moved & changed. Firstly, it should appear on the comments page as well as the listing pages. Secondly, there should be multiple reasons for flagging (or a free-text, one-line reason field), so that it's at least possible to flag a misleading headline for alteration, without the possibility that the entire submission could be flag-killed.

I even agree with the poster about certain issues with OS X. It's particularly annoying as someone that recently switched away from Windows, after finally losing patience with Microsoft's similarly erosive programme of needless tinkering and randomly breaking stuff in lieu of tangible improvements. However, I don't come to HN to read opinions that agree with my existing world-view and pat myself on the back for being right (or at least, that's not my main reason).

I am however interested in opinions that are not just from "some guy" but which represent the defection of a key figure, such as "DHH: why I've finally given up on Ruby" or "RMS: why closed-source is better after all". I would definitely read those and would be equally disappointed if the author turned out to be an unrelated namesake.

It would be nice if a moderator would update the title to, "Why Geoff Wozniak Quit OS X."

Thanks for the suggestion. We updated the title to remove the ambiguity.

Yes and I chuckled at the mental image of woz using the term "shitshow". Only to be disappointed when I got the bottom of the page and saw it was written by a Geoff. Good article, though.

Exactly where I chuckled thinking of woz.

Thanks for pointing this out. I had no clue.

Yes, I didn't either.

Wozniak is a very common Polish surname and is in the top 10 of most popular surnames there. I didn't think it was The Woz especially since it has a Canadian tld.

Anyway that might be my Polish bias talking, but I don't see how many could have made that mistake.

Op wrote a good piece. It stands on its own unrelated to his surname.

that would be woz.org

Part of me thinks this is a bit sleazy. He knows how recognizable the name "Wozniak" is, and doubly so if he's going to be running a tech blog and posting about Aplle related things. Would gregwozniak.ca or gwozniak.ca been that much worse? It would be infinitely less confusing and link-baity.

If his last name is in fact Wozniak, I'm not sure I see a problem.

I definitely clicked and read the entire article only because I thought it was written by Woz. I agree, it is link-baity and misleading.

EDIT: Holy down votes. Don't know what to say. I thought it was Woz, sosume. All I did was agree with the less-downvoted parent.

EDIT 2: Hive mind crit axotty for 9999.

You thought Woz was Canadian?

It's the guys name. Using ones own name cannot be linkbaity or misleading.

It is when your name is identical to the co-Founder's name. It's link-baity by the fact that many people were baited into clicking that link under false pretenses.

I'm not accusing this Wozniak of malice, however.

I didn't look at the TLD I just clicked. I thought Woz was ditching OS X, I got excited. I was baited.

If it means anything, amidst all of the downvotes I completely agree with you.

Many people interpret 'ca' as 'California'. The same way 'it' it not always Italy, and 'mx' is not always Mexico.

About 50 pixels to the left of the title is "Geoff Wozniak"...furthermore, I don't think it's fair to disparage people with names that happen to be shared by celebrities.

I was on Safari on iOS, it didn't appear until the end of the article.

I'm going to commit the cardinal sin of meta-commenting twice on the same submission and rhetorically ask why anyone would be downvoting the parent?

To clarify the stated fact: the name appears in the left margin on an iPad, just like on a desktop browser at normal width. However on an iPhone, it appears at the bottom of the page. It does the same thing if your browser window is set to less than 768px wide.

It's not hard to see how in those circumstances, someone could be misled into thinking that the article's author was Woz, especially if they didn't read all the way to the end.

Why would the Woz have a .ca domain? That tipped me off that this might not be him.

I don't see why happening to have a famous person with your last name means you can't use your last name for a domain. If a) Ira Remsen was still alive and b) I was a food blogger instead of a tech enthusiast, I wouldn't hesitate to buy remsen.com or remsen.food (if i wanted it) just because Ira happened to invent artificial sweeteners.

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