Five days ago I posted in reaction to an article at CNN.com about, among other things, using your mobile phone as a modem. I was upset that they didn't mention the potential for data overages or service interruptions. They didn't even advise consulting your carrier before trying it. I felt that the article, while well-meaning, was also a little misleading. Not intentionally, but misleading still.
Skip ahead to today, when I was reading a really neat article about Benjamin Heckendorn. He modifies video games, doing things like taking apart an Atari 2600 and refashioning it into a handheld unit. Although not linked to, Heckendorn's personal site is given in the article. As soon as I finished the article I decided to check out his site. This is a pretty standard procedure for me. If a website is mentioned in an article I'll usually check it out. As soon as I tried to navigate to the site my virus monitoring software went crazy. So crazy, in fact, that when I tried to close the warning window so I could kill the site the warning would repopulate in about...instantly. Luckily, a reboot was all I needed and there was no harm done, except for our IT guy (at the day job, of course) probably thinking I'm a colossal douchebag. What upset me so much is that it never should have happened. I would have to imagine that Reuters has some sort of anti-virus software running. I can't imagine that if the author had visited the site, at least on their work computer, that there wouldn't have been some sort of notification that a virus was detected. It seems pretty clear to me that the author didn't visit the site before including it in their article, and that's terrible. Even if, as the author, you couldn't care less about your readers being overwhelmed by a virus you should at least be visiting the sites you mention to see if they work. Had the author done this, they (or the IT folks at Reuters) would have identified the site as harboring a virus and never have included it in the article.
I could go on and on, but I'd just be saying the same thing over and over with a decrease in coherency and an increase in profanity.
My bottom line is that, barring some sort of disclaimer, when you mention or link to a website your readers are going to assume that it's safe to visit. There's a certain level of trust between an author and a reader and it is an astounding breach of that trust when an author's lack of follow-through endangers the reader.
Here is a link to the article, in which the virus-y site is mentioned. The article, as far as I can tell is safe to view - I've never had any problems with the Retuers site. it was only when I loaded the subject's personal page (mentioned on page 2 of the article) that I had problems.
IF YOU VISIT THE SUBJECT'S PERSONAL SITE, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK.
I WOULD ADVISE NOT VISITING IT AT ALL.
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