Power ranking responses to NBA Power Rankings

3. Read article and do nothing else

Articles are meant to be read! This is good!

Honestly, if this is all an article gets, it’s enough. Information is written, information is shared, and information is taken in. That’s the medium of exchange at its most basic. Good job to all involved.

Writers are happy when you read their things. It takes time to put rankings together. There are internal debates about what aspect of which thing should take precedence, decisions to be made about relative placement, and the time it takes to even type words out into a document. It’s a process, and it can be a lot of work. Knowing that someone took their time to recognize that effort is just a lovely feeling.

And hopefully you’ll be happy reading the things. Reading takes work too. It’s a chunk of time out of your day that you’ve given to another person’s thoughts. You could be spending that time watching sports, or conversing with a loved one, or playing Peggle on your computer. There’s an opportunity cost to reading someone’s ranking. Ideally, you’ll be rewarded for making this investment.

Doing anything else may not seem necessary anyway. You’re not the author’s publicist. You’re not the author’s editor. Any action beyond giving the piece your attention is extra. That’s totally fine. If what you do at this point is nothing, then that’s your right.

This does deserve a bronze medal for power ranking reactions. A top three finish is something for this action to be proud of.

But we can do better.