Today under the guise of not working (on my brand new OMG notebook care of Toshiba and the free give away) I was looking at Andy Beard. Not in person, you understand – that would be just a bit disturb……

Michel I tend to agree (how could I not) though there were umpteen other submitted stories with very similar elements

Here are a whole load of other titles people have used. Some of these are actually more recent stories.

• Phony Prof Triggers Wikipedia Uproar
• Editor scandal rocks Wikipedia
• Fake Wikipedia prof defaced 20,000 entries, errors not fixed
• A Prominent Editor at the Popular Online Encyclopedia Is a Fraud
• Fake Wikipedia prof altered 20,000 entries
• Fake Professor Causes Wikipedia Controversy
• BBC NEWS | Americas | Fake professor in Wikipedia storm
• Wikipedia hit by identity crisis as student admits posing as professor
• A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side
• Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales fires lying ‘professor’
• Wikipedia reels under revelations of deliberate lying
• EssJay Resigns From Wikipedia
• Wikipedia SysOp (essjay) finally steps down.
• Wikipedia’s Wales Reverses Decision on Problem Admin
• Does The Mistaken Identity Of A Wikipedia Editor Reflect Worse On Wikipedia
• Bogus Wikipedia Prof. was blessed then promoted

I haven’t seen any prior story that received more than 15 Diggs in the last 7 days, though I didn’t check those that were buried.

@ Paula that is a different situation, because it is an original story, and despite how much I enjoy your writing, I think The Register might be looked on by Diggers as a more credible news source… most of the headlines above were also taken from international news sources.

… and then the question mark tells me that there’s more than one side of the story; so I want to read it.

Cool thoughts, thanks Andy and commenters.

I put a question mark at the end of my articles about getting banned from Digg and titled it:

Does Digg.com Hate Black People?

Funny, that puppy didn’t a lot of Diggs.

They like techie nerdy stuff and naked girls. And Apple.

Let me share with you probably the real key. My friend and top copywriter John Carlton talks about this when creating headlines, especially for magzines like National Enquirer, Globe, etc. Some people call it sensationalism. He calls it:

“The incongruent juxtaposition of seemingly irrelevant ideas, facts or events.”

For example, when it was revealed during the autopsy that Steve Irwin accelerated his own death by removing the stingray’s dart from his chest (causing him to bleed in the waters and lose more blood a lot faster that way), the headline on the National Enquirer was:

“Autopsy Shocker! What Really Killed Steve Irwin…” or “Steve Irwin Commited Suicide?”

The element of intrigue was used, here. But also, the incongruency here is “Steve Irwin” and “suicide.” (Especially after everyone knew it was a Stingray’s dart that killed him.)

Similarly, in your headline, your incongruent juxtaposition is:

“24 year old” and “professor.” In fact, you have two more: “fake” and “wikipedia,” and “forced to step down.”

Close it off with a nice little question mark, and you really have a very intriguing headline. Not sure what Brian Clark will say, but that’s my take. :)

Using questions is a great way to prompt an interaction with your readers and I now include one inside almost every post, if not in the header.