I literally do this for a living. You fundamentally misunderstand the principle you're trying to apply.
This is HN, not StackOverflow. I encourage you to act in the spirit of intellectual curiosity instead of being self-satisfied with misguided attempts at language lawyering.
Is that supposed to impress me? Some people do feng shui for a living, or sell homeopathic remedies. Just because someone does something for a living doesn't mean it has any merit. The world is chock-full of wealthy charlatans.
Effective by what standard? The titular quip is very effective click bait, and if you make your living attracting clicks then I suppose that has merit. But it fails abysmally by the standard of transmitting information clearly (which is made all the more ironic by the fact that it doesn't even follow the guidelines described in the article).
Attracting clicks and communicating clearly are fundamentally at odds because the whole point of click bait is to withhold the relevant information so that you have to click to find it. So you really do have to choose a side.
> 1. Punch line: The facts; no adjectives, adverbs or modifiers.
> 2. Current status: How the punch-line statement affects the project.
The facts are: I crashed the car. The status is: I'm OK.
(The real lesson here is that this methodology is not always a good idea.)