5 ms·

Kudos for not using the same clickbait title The Guardian did. Journalistic integrity is dead.

by nickysielicki 11y ago

matthewmacleod 11y ago
It's a pun, not clickbait. This is not the death of "journalistic integrity".
- teddyh 11y ago
  No, the original title is clearly clickbait – meant to be misinterpreted as something other than what the article is about. Here is what a real pun in a newspaper headline looks like: http://threepanelsoul.com/2010/03/22/on-astronomy-minors/ http://threepanelsoul.com/2010/03/22/on-astronomy-minors/
  - bbcbasic 11y ago
    It's a pun PUN: Attack on the pentagon results in discovery of new mathematical tile CB: Breaking News: Pentagon attack
    - nickysielicki 11y ago
      Yeah, it's a pun. So what? The title being a pun doesn't make it any less misleading. Puns and clickbait are not mutually exclusive. My real gripe is that there's a time and place for everything and a newspaper ought to know and respect that line. You don't mislead someone skimming your headlines into thinking the pentagon has been attacked for the sake of a joke. I like clever headlines as much as the next guy, and I understand that for the sake of a joke you might leave some ambiguity in the air and mislead your reader slightly, but this goes far past that. I think his editor should have caught this.
      - bbcbasic 11y ago
        I think using the word 'mathematical tile' indicates that it is a maths/geek article rather than serious news, and takes this into the safe zone. Just. It's a fine line though.
  - hanoz 11y ago
    The title, being a pun, is only meant to be misinterpreted for the first half of the sentence. It can hardly be clickbait if the reveal is made by the end of the anchor text.
  - teddyh 11y ago
    The address changed: http://threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-astronomy-minors/ http://threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-astronomy-minors/
- nickysielicki 11y ago
  You put 'journalistic integrity' in quotes. FWIW, SPJ uses this exact term in their ethics code. I'm not trying to be pretentious. https://www.spj.org/pdf/ethicscode.pdf https://www.spj.org/pdf/ethicscode.pdf
sklogic 11y ago
The method was apparently a brute force attack, so the title is accurate.
- nickysielicki 11y ago
  Something can be accurate and still be misleading.
  - sklogic 11y ago
    It would only have been misleading with a capitalised "Pentagon".
    - nickysielicki 11y ago
      Well now we're arguing semantics. But okay. I think that in the context of a newspaper when you read, "Attack on the pentagon" the first thought that most people have is that there has been an attack on The Pentagon. That's the whole reason it's a pun, right? Because you're lead to believe it refers to The Pentagon when it really refers to a 5 sided polygon? That's an inappropriate thing for a newspaper to do. Go ahead and make puns, just not about attacks on government buildings. The SPJ ethics code clearly states, > "make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context." At the very least you must admit that it's pushing the envelope, no? The fact that the HN mods changed the title from what OP submitted is evidence enough that I'm not alone in thinking it's a misleading headline.
      - sklogic 11y ago
        > most people have is that there has been an attack on The Pentagon Most people on this planet do not give a crap about some tasteless Northern American building. It is unlikely the first association with the word "pentagon" for anyone outside of the US.
        11y ago
tokenadult 11y ago
For the record, I submitted the article with the original article title, as I always attempt to do. (Some articles have more than one "original" title. In doubtful cases, I read the source code of an article, to distinguish top-level headings from sharing titles from HTML titles, and choose the title that I think is most informative for a Hacker News readership.) In this case, I submitted the title from The Guardian with the "Attack on pentagon" title, and some member of the moderation team here changed it after a while. I'm gratified that this submission has received so many thoughtful comments both from mathematically trained onlookers and from amateurs at this level of mathematics like me. (The author of the original article has deep training and experience in mathematics, and is a regular mathematics columnist for The Guardian who likes word play in his column titles.)
- nickysielicki 11y ago
  I just read your HN bio. You're a very interesting guy! I'm an undergraduate student and one of my favorite conversation starters when I meet new friends majoring in STEM-fields is how they would change primary and secondary math education. Because we're just 18-22 year olds, the concepts that we struggled with and the methods we liked are still fresh in our mind... Though as each year goes by and I learn more advanced maths I find myself going back on how I felt before. I hope that this bickering over his choice of a title and whether or not it's a pun doesn't rub you the wrong way. I think it's a great article otherwise and it's an incredibly interesting problem that made me think. Thank you for posting it! For what it's worth, I don't really fault the author for coming up with this title. Ultimately the responsibility falls on his editor and I think his editor should have stopped it. Others are free to disagree with me (and by the downvotes, I'd say most are.)

Kudos for not using the same clickbait title The Guardian did. Journalistic integrity is dead.

matthewmacleod 11y ago

It's a pun, not clickbait. This is not the death of "journalistic integrity".

teddyh 11y ago
No, the original title is clearly clickbait – meant to be misinterpreted as something other than what the article is about. Here is what a real pun in a newspaper headline looks like: http://threepanelsoul.com/2010/03/22/on-astronomy-minors/ http://threepanelsoul.com/2010/03/22/on-astronomy-minors/
- bbcbasic 11y ago
  It's a pun PUN: Attack on the pentagon results in discovery of new mathematical tile CB: Breaking News: Pentagon attack
  - nickysielicki 11y ago
    Yeah, it's a pun. So what? The title being a pun doesn't make it any less misleading. Puns and clickbait are not mutually exclusive. My real gripe is that there's a time and place for everything and a newspaper ought to know and respect that line. You don't mislead someone skimming your headlines into thinking the pentagon has been attacked for the sake of a joke. I like clever headlines as much as the next guy, and I understand that for the sake of a joke you might leave some ambiguity in the air and mislead your reader slightly, but this goes far past that. I think his editor should have caught this.
    - bbcbasic 11y ago
      I think using the word 'mathematical tile' indicates that it is a maths/geek article rather than serious news, and takes this into the safe zone. Just. It's a fine line though.
- hanoz 11y ago
  The title, being a pun, is only meant to be misinterpreted for the first half of the sentence. It can hardly be clickbait if the reveal is made by the end of the anchor text.
- teddyh 11y ago
  The address changed: http://threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-astronomy-minors/ http://threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-astronomy-minors/
nickysielicki 11y ago
You put 'journalistic integrity' in quotes. FWIW, SPJ uses this exact term in their ethics code. I'm not trying to be pretentious. https://www.spj.org/pdf/ethicscode.pdf https://www.spj.org/pdf/ethicscode.pdf

sklogic 11y ago

The method was apparently a brute force attack, so the title is accurate.

nickysielicki 11y ago
Something can be accurate and still be misleading.
- sklogic 11y ago
  It would only have been misleading with a capitalised "Pentagon".
  - nickysielicki 11y ago
    Well now we're arguing semantics. But okay. I think that in the context of a newspaper when you read, "Attack on the pentagon" the first thought that most people have is that there has been an attack on The Pentagon. That's the whole reason it's a pun, right? Because you're lead to believe it refers to The Pentagon when it really refers to a 5 sided polygon? That's an inappropriate thing for a newspaper to do. Go ahead and make puns, just not about attacks on government buildings. The SPJ ethics code clearly states, > "make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context." At the very least you must admit that it's pushing the envelope, no? The fact that the HN mods changed the title from what OP submitted is evidence enough that I'm not alone in thinking it's a misleading headline.
    - sklogic 11y ago
      > most people have is that there has been an attack on The Pentagon Most people on this planet do not give a crap about some tasteless Northern American building. It is unlikely the first association with the word "pentagon" for anyone outside of the US.
      - 11y ago

tokenadult 11y ago

For the record, I submitted the article with the original article title, as I always attempt to do. (Some articles have more than one "original" title. In doubtful cases, I read the source code of an article, to distinguish top-level headings from sharing titles from HTML titles, and choose the title that I think is most informative for a Hacker News readership.) In this case, I submitted the title from The Guardian with the "Attack on pentagon" title, and some member of the moderation team here changed it after a while. I'm gratified that this submission has received so many thoughtful comments both from mathematically trained onlookers and from amateurs at this level of mathematics like me. (The author of the original article has deep training and experience in mathematics, and is a regular mathematics columnist for The Guardian who likes word play in his column titles.)

nickysielicki 11y ago
I just read your HN bio. You're a very interesting guy! I'm an undergraduate student and one of my favorite conversation starters when I meet new friends majoring in STEM-fields is how they would change primary and secondary math education. Because we're just 18-22 year olds, the concepts that we struggled with and the methods we liked are still fresh in our mind... Though as each year goes by and I learn more advanced maths I find myself going back on how I felt before. I hope that this bickering over his choice of a title and whether or not it's a pun doesn't rub you the wrong way. I think it's a great article otherwise and it's an incredibly interesting problem that made me think. Thank you for posting it! For what it's worth, I don't really fault the author for coming up with this title. Ultimately the responsibility falls on his editor and I think his editor should have stopped it. Others are free to disagree with me (and by the downvotes, I'd say most are.)