Hm, never knew Atlantic played that game too. I know Ars A/B tests titles, and that a few of the buzzfeed type publications put a social title (ie clickbait fes

Hm, never knew Atlantic played that game too. I know Ars A/B tests titles, and that a few of the buzzfeed type publications put a social title (ie clickbait fest) for the first day or two while a piece does the rounds of Facebook and Twitter, and replace with a sane "forever" search engine title later. At the other extreme there's the odd dry-as-dust titled technical article that really needs some editorialising or at least posting on sub-head to have any chance of interest.