Don’t automatically truncate text like the Express does
The Express's home page template truncates the introductory copy of each featured story if it's too long. I'd been hoping that this would lead to a hilariously rude half-sentence one day. This has never happened. So I'm reduced to using this example from today.
The billion has been sliced off automatically
Yes, 'Revealed, the staggering truth about Britain's National Debt'. And what is revealed? That 'Public sector borrowing reached £16.1'. I've probably got that down the back of the sofa.
The billion has been removed because the template / CMS / whatever only publishes the first however-many letters. It might help if they added a ... at the end, but even that would look a bit stupid.
There's a simple rule - never agree to a template where content is automatically truncated. Dull though it is, make the content creator write a snippet of the right length.
[...] other day I advised not to truncate text automatically when describing pages on your navigation pages, after the Express reported public sector borrowing [...]