3 ms·

Current title is "Western Digital’s SMR disks won’t work for ZFS, but they’re okay for most NASes." That isn't the title of the article (it's the subtitle) and

Current title is "Western Digital’s SMR disks won’t work for ZFS, but they’re okay for most NASes." That isn't the title of the article (it's the subtitle) and doesn't match the conclusion: > Conclusions > We want to be very clear: we agree with Seagate's Greg Belloni, who stated on the company's behalf that they "do not recommend SMR for NAS applications." At absolute best, SMR disks underperform significantly in comparison to CMR disks; at their worst, they can fall flat on their face so badly that they may be mistakenly detected as failed hardware. That's definitely not saying it's "okay for most NASes." Could we get a rename? It looks like Ars Technica themselves might be going back and forth; the current URL contains the slug, "western-digitals-smr-disks-arent-great-but-theyre-not-garbage," indicating that may have been the old title.

oefrha 6y ago
Ars Technica publishes every article with two titles; there’s an A/B test in the first few minutes after an article is published, after which the one with better click-through rate becomes the permanent title. Obviously only one of the two titles can be the slug, so often the slug reflects the title that has lost. That does not indicate going back and forth. Source: it’s a well-known fact that editors have disclosed many times over. Also, as a subscriber I often see a different title in my RSS feed.
- fragmede 6y ago
  Here's a more detailed discussion from Ars on their A/B testing of headlines that I found: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/tfw-an-obituary-you-wrote-five-years-ago-goes-viral/?comments=1&post=32066759 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/tfw-a...
- zenexer 6y ago
  What's more important here is that the title doesn't match the conclusion. (That being said, it's kind of cool that they A/B test all their titles like that--thanks for the info!)

oefrha 6y ago

Ars Technica publishes every article with two titles; there’s an A/B test in the first few minutes after an article is published, after which the one with better click-through rate becomes the permanent title. Obviously only one of the two titles can be the slug, so often the slug reflects the title that has lost. That does not indicate going back and forth. Source: it’s a well-known fact that editors have disclosed many times over. Also, as a subscriber I often see a different title in my RSS feed.

fragmede 6y ago
Here's a more detailed discussion from Ars on their A/B testing of headlines that I found: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/tfw-an-obituary-you-wrote-five-years-ago-goes-viral/?comments=1&post=32066759 https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/tfw-a...
zenexer 6y ago
What's more important here is that the title doesn't match the conclusion. (That being said, it's kind of cool that they A/B test all their titles like that--thanks for the info!)