Click-bait titles like "All the best programmers know this..", "Breakthrough might make fusion a reality.." or any other type of title that does not give a hint of what the actual thing is are immediately discarded by me regardless of the creator. I actually wish there was a way of blocking these but they are usually the first items I see on YouTube or reddit.. sigh!
This title problem is even worse as an author where you get one-chance for people to notice/read your book, but if the blurb or the cover picture is even slightly misleading or sub-par to the readers expectation they are likely to review it poorly and then the algorithm kicks it down the listings. I seriously miscategorised my first book and it did not do it any favors.
> DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.
> SponsorBlock is an open-source crowdsourced browser extension and open API for skipping sponsor segments in YouTube videos. Users submit when a sponsor happens from the extension, and the extension automatically skips sponsors it knows about using a privacy preserving query system. It also supports skipping other categories, such as intros, outros and reminders to subscribe, and skipping to the point with highlight.
Better: title should capture some core aspect(s) of [thing]. But may do so in a playful manner.
Say eg. some building / construction / architecture article could be titled "square shapes considered harmful". And then discuss architects known for buildings with rounded corners everywhere.
Personally, I don't see "audience likes it" as #1 priority. I prefer to make audience think, learn something, provide a new angle on something, or put out something that didn't exist before. Kind of like a movie that may not have a happy end, but viewers remember for the story, atmosphere, instant classic-potential, etc.
My best engagement on Hacker News has come from submitting great discussion topics; content is secondary. You're trying to think of something that people would really enjoy talking about if they just got the chance. So if you can notice systemic issues and perhaps give them a name, you're halfway to the front page already. When they read your title, people think of all kinds of related ideas that they've been dying to discuss! Indeed, with a good enough title, you barely need an article at all...
Agreed, when it comes to writing for hackernews I have had the best results personally when being curious but incomplete.
If I try to actually educate someone or do my research fully, either someone will know more than me, and an expert will weigh in to invalidate some section of my posting- or people will pretend to be an expert- and you’ll spend a day trying to discuss why what they’re saying is incorrect. Both will cause the discussion for other people to die.
The best has been tangents that are tangentially related to the topic presented. There can be multiple of these subthreads and they always make for interesting reading.
> If I try to actually educate someone or do my research fully, either someone will know more than me, and an expert will weigh in to invalidate some section of my posting- or people will pretend to be an expert- and you’ll spend a day trying to discuss why what they’re saying is incorrect. Both will cause the discussion for other people to die.
Personally, I love the debates that stress-test my posts, they're the most interesting part for me. If I put effort into writing something, might as well defend it, and wouldn't want any punches pulled. Oftentimes people's attempts at debunking my message end up doing quite the opposite to what I'd expect — further validating what I wrote. Other times I need to clarify something in the post.
But it does sting a bit to do a month of research and then someone comes along in 10s and invalidates it.
I still welcome it, but it does sting.
The more annoying ones are the ones who don’t engage and act emotionally when presented with a conclusion they don’t like. The reason for me to write most often is because I found something I think is worthy of being discussed and that almost never aligns with peoples preconceived sensibilities.
Agree with that too. I like watching people debate, and oftentimes it feels like magic when someone can thoughtfully counter a hard hit. It stings being on the receiving end of it, but the confidence grows when you counter a few of those. It also teaches you to debate yourself, which makes future work easier to defend. I guess I'm just saying that after a while this can become a calm/enjoyable hobby. Like giving talks in front of an audience for some people (something I haven't been able to push myself into.)
Yeah, HN is an excitement factory. I come here when I want to talk about something I'm excited about, or read people talking about what they're excited about.
> You’d think that, by 2025, technology would have solved the problem of things getting to people. I think it’s the opposite. Social media is optimized to keep people engaged and does not want people leaving the walled garden. Openly prohibiting links would cause a revolt, so instead they go as close as people will tolerate. Which, it turns out, is pretty close.
I'm not at all sure it would cause a revolt. Most people probably wouldn't notice at this point.
It did cause a small uproar, but not as big of one as I expected. Musk admitted that posts with links that people clicked on would get de-prioritized by the algorithm.
"If you want something done it, do it wrong first" is a personal favourite of mine from his videos. Think it was the video about wind tunnel testing of a scale model of his speed racer
If there is one area I feel being expert, this is titles. I’ve been running a community website for over 15 years and it’s been 10 years since my only moderation activity there is fixing titles while other people moderate comments for hate speech and obscenities.
When I first started moderating titles, users took it personally, so I had to back off manual post-moderation and built a dozen pre-moderation filters that forced people to write proper titles. I blocked long sequences of uppercase letters, obscenities, too short and too long titles, duplicate postings, greetings, improper use of punctuation, series of exclamation and question marks and god knows what. It worked, but it drove away some users.
A few years later, I relaxed the pre-moderation filters and reintroduced post-moderation. This time, I sent automatic notifications to users as titles of their posts changed. I kept receiving complaints, I so I developed a few tricks that would reduce the number of complaints. Instead of rewriting a title, I took user text that represented the essence of the post and put it as the title, keeping the original spelling and even case, so that the user clearly sees that the titles comes from his own post.
Later on, I joined a media company and observed editors rewriting titles of journalists, detecting patterns in the changes. I followed Huffington Post’s research on A/B testing of titles and read blogs of their admirers. I even did some A/B testing on titles myself.
At some point, I even shook the dust off my machine learning skills and searched for correlations between titles and the votes on comments below.
It’s been a few years since I adopted a new approach to title moderation.
I removed titles. Entirely.
Users are presented with a generously sized textarea to write their post or comment, and the title is generated from the first few words of it. There was a bit of magic first, like skipping the greeting, but I ended up removing almost all of it. New users are confused by the apparent lack of title, but this only forces them to think through the text. Oldtimers know exactly what to expect in the title and adapt accordingly.
I suppose it depends; if you're trying to showcase the work, then for sure, I'm more interested in what you made than the fact that you made it. Hopefully the work speaks for itself. But while "I made a foo" is not particularly enticing, "I made a foo and here's what I learned about bar in the process" can be a good thing. In that case, the shift in framing works because the focus is less on the product and more about sharing knowledge that the creator gained along the way that they hope might be entertaining or valuable to someone else.
Just have to say, the title of the actual blog post is gold. I would not have read the article if it didn't have the "or whatever." But follow point 6 people—don't just add "or whatever" to your posts.
I disagree about negative attention being bad. People who dislike your content but still share it out of spite to "tell the world how wrong you are", can lead to more traffic and readers from spillover effects.
If you don't care about SEO, why not just lie blatantly? Title "How I made 5 million dollars in a week working from home" then talk about your vacation to a local beach or something.
Click-bait titles like "All the best programmers know this..", "Breakthrough might make fusion a reality.." or any other type of title that does not give a hint of what the actual thing is are immediately discarded by me regardless of the creator. I actually wish there was a way of blocking these but they are usually the first items I see on YouTube or reddit.. sigh!
This title problem is even worse as an author where you get one-chance for people to notice/read your book, but if the blurb or the cover picture is even slightly misleading or sub-par to the readers expectation they are likely to review it poorly and then the algorithm kicks it down the listings. I seriously miscategorised my first book and it did not do it any favors.
There’s an open source crowdsourced solution for clickbait titles and thumbnails for YouTube, at least.
https://dearrow.ajay.app/
> DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.
I see a use case for Ai here. Scrape the audio and return a title that better summarises the video.
You might like SponsorBlock, from the same dev as DeArrow.
https://sponsor.ajay.app/
> SponsorBlock is an open-source crowdsourced browser extension and open API for skipping sponsor segments in YouTube videos. Users submit when a sponsor happens from the extension, and the extension automatically skips sponsors it knows about using a privacy preserving query system. It also supports skipping other categories, such as intros, outros and reminders to subscribe, and skipping to the point with highlight.
>I actually wish there was a way of blocking these but they are usually the first items I see on YouTube or reddit.. sigh!
It would be cool something like a llm based link title classifier that hide click-bait links or something like that.
Or it could read the article and rewrite the title to make the point clear.
And give a score based on how interesting it will likely be to you.
My belief has been that the title should describe exactly what it is you're writing about. no cleverness
Better: title should capture some core aspect(s) of [thing]. But may do so in a playful manner.
Say eg. some building / construction / architecture article could be titled "square shapes considered harmful". And then discuss architects known for buildings with rounded corners everywhere.
Personally, I don't see "audience likes it" as #1 priority. I prefer to make audience think, learn something, provide a new angle on something, or put out something that didn't exist before. Kind of like a movie that may not have a happy end, but viewers remember for the story, atmosphere, instant classic-potential, etc.
My best engagement on Hacker News has come from submitting great discussion topics; content is secondary. You're trying to think of something that people would really enjoy talking about if they just got the chance. So if you can notice systemic issues and perhaps give them a name, you're halfway to the front page already. When they read your title, people think of all kinds of related ideas that they've been dying to discuss! Indeed, with a good enough title, you barely need an article at all...
Agreed, when it comes to writing for hackernews I have had the best results personally when being curious but incomplete.
If I try to actually educate someone or do my research fully, either someone will know more than me, and an expert will weigh in to invalidate some section of my posting- or people will pretend to be an expert- and you’ll spend a day trying to discuss why what they’re saying is incorrect. Both will cause the discussion for other people to die.
The best has been tangents that are tangentially related to the topic presented. There can be multiple of these subthreads and they always make for interesting reading.
> If I try to actually educate someone or do my research fully, either someone will know more than me, and an expert will weigh in to invalidate some section of my posting- or people will pretend to be an expert- and you’ll spend a day trying to discuss why what they’re saying is incorrect. Both will cause the discussion for other people to die.
Personally, I love the debates that stress-test my posts, they're the most interesting part for me. If I put effort into writing something, might as well defend it, and wouldn't want any punches pulled. Oftentimes people's attempts at debunking my message end up doing quite the opposite to what I'd expect — further validating what I wrote. Other times I need to clarify something in the post.
Yeah, I agree.
But it does sting a bit to do a month of research and then someone comes along in 10s and invalidates it.
I still welcome it, but it does sting.
The more annoying ones are the ones who don’t engage and act emotionally when presented with a conclusion they don’t like. The reason for me to write most often is because I found something I think is worthy of being discussed and that almost never aligns with peoples preconceived sensibilities.
Agree with that too. I like watching people debate, and oftentimes it feels like magic when someone can thoughtfully counter a hard hit. It stings being on the receiving end of it, but the confidence grows when you counter a few of those. It also teaches you to debate yourself, which makes future work easier to defend. I guess I'm just saying that after a while this can become a calm/enjoyable hobby. Like giving talks in front of an audience for some people (something I haven't been able to push myself into.)
Are you talking about writing in the context of HN comment or submitting links?
I’m talking about writing blog posts and them being submitted to hackernews. :)
Yeah, HN is an excitement factory. I come here when I want to talk about something I'm excited about, or read people talking about what they're excited about.
> You’d think that, by 2025, technology would have solved the problem of things getting to people. I think it’s the opposite. Social media is optimized to keep people engaged and does not want people leaving the walled garden. Openly prohibiting links would cause a revolt, so instead they go as close as people will tolerate. Which, it turns out, is pretty close.
I'm not at all sure it would cause a revolt. Most people probably wouldn't notice at this point.
It did cause a small uproar, but not as big of one as I expected. Musk admitted that posts with links that people clicked on would get de-prioritized by the algorithm.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1915806794393457034
[flagged]
One of my favourite YouTubers, superfastmatt, uses a similar title pattern. Eg: “Insulate Your Camper Van. Or Just Watch Me Do It. Whatever”
"If you want something done it, do it wrong first" is a personal favourite of mine from his videos. Think it was the video about wind tunnel testing of a scale model of his speed racer
If there is one area I feel being expert, this is titles. I’ve been running a community website for over 15 years and it’s been 10 years since my only moderation activity there is fixing titles while other people moderate comments for hate speech and obscenities.
When I first started moderating titles, users took it personally, so I had to back off manual post-moderation and built a dozen pre-moderation filters that forced people to write proper titles. I blocked long sequences of uppercase letters, obscenities, too short and too long titles, duplicate postings, greetings, improper use of punctuation, series of exclamation and question marks and god knows what. It worked, but it drove away some users.
A few years later, I relaxed the pre-moderation filters and reintroduced post-moderation. This time, I sent automatic notifications to users as titles of their posts changed. I kept receiving complaints, I so I developed a few tricks that would reduce the number of complaints. Instead of rewriting a title, I took user text that represented the essence of the post and put it as the title, keeping the original spelling and even case, so that the user clearly sees that the titles comes from his own post.
Later on, I joined a media company and observed editors rewriting titles of journalists, detecting patterns in the changes. I followed Huffington Post’s research on A/B testing of titles and read blogs of their admirers. I even did some A/B testing on titles myself.
At some point, I even shook the dust off my machine learning skills and searched for correlations between titles and the votes on comments below.
It’s been a few years since I adopted a new approach to title moderation.
I removed titles. Entirely.
Users are presented with a generously sized textarea to write their post or comment, and the title is generated from the first few words of it. There was a bit of magic first, like skipping the greeting, but I ended up removing almost all of it. New users are confused by the apparent lack of title, but this only forces them to think through the text. Oldtimers know exactly what to expect in the title and adapt accordingly.
Personal pet peeve is the "I made a" prefix to titles. It adds nothing but an apparently selfish shift to the author/creator as opposed to their work.
That's so selfish of you to expect other people to provide neutral sounding content without claiming some participation in doing so.
I suppose it depends; if you're trying to showcase the work, then for sure, I'm more interested in what you made than the fact that you made it. Hopefully the work speaks for itself. But while "I made a foo" is not particularly enticing, "I made a foo and here's what I learned about bar in the process" can be a good thing. In that case, the shift in framing works because the focus is less on the product and more about sharing knowledge that the creator gained along the way that they hope might be entertaining or valuable to someone else.
> You should try to make a good thing, that many people would like
Personally, I would care (much) more about making a good thing over doing something many people likes.
I agree , but up to a point. If you want to get paid, get credit, recognition, improve career etc. it's necessary enough people also like it.
> Consider title-driven thing creation. That is, consider first choosing a title and then creating a thing that delivers on the title. I
For better or worse, my process is:
1. Write something
2. Create a title that is sometimes literal or sometimes a theme if the post covers multiple topics (I know, I know)
3. Rely on a one-sentence rss/html description to provide a clear preview of the content
Just have to say, the title of the actual blog post is gold. I would not have read the article if it didn't have the "or whatever." But follow point 6 people—don't just add "or whatever" to your posts.
Eh. I like to wing it and call it whatever I like. If the content is good, people will find it.
My favorite is Peter Norvig's contradictory clickbait url:
https://norvig.com/21-days.html
Entitled: "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years"!
People who just see then click on the URL must be really disappointed when they read the actual title.
Doesn't hurt that it's a great article, too!
I disagree about negative attention being bad. People who dislike your content but still share it out of spite to "tell the world how wrong you are", can lead to more traffic and readers from spillover effects.
Good read, I'm going to subscribe to your blog via RSS now.
If you don't care about SEO, why not just lie blatantly? Title "How I made 5 million dollars in a week working from home" then talk about your vacation to a local beach or something.