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> It's a really unfortunate strategy the Atlantic has taken. The Atlantic's title is "Killer Tulips Hiding in Plain Sight." Or did they change it?
by freyir 8y ago
> It's a really unfortunate strategy the Atlantic has taken.
The Atlantic's title is "Killer Tulips Hiding in Plain Sight."
Or did they change it?
- xoa 8y agoThe mods here gave it a better title which I appreciate, I didn't want to violate the HN guidelines though and editorialize the title myself. As far as the Atlantic (and lots of other publications) yes, look at the title in the URL. "Clickbait" isn't just a derogatory term, it's literally an algorithm driven technique now. Many publishers these days do automated A/B title testing, where they make an A and B (and could C/D/whatever if they wanted), serve it to a random slice of visitors for a brief time period, then pick the one that got the most clicks. Sometimes though you can still see hints because even if the B is selected the A lingers in the CMS somewhere. On Ars Technica for another example that appears on HN with some frequency, if you go directly to the old style original forum for the front page ( https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=2 https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewforum.php?f=2 ) you can see a lot of titles won't match what you'll see on the front page itself.