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Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity https://arstechnica.com/scien

Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the paper? You're lucky if they read the article

cm2187 6y ago
Hence the way journalists love to misinform people: a headline and first paragraph that pushes their bias and narrative, while the facts that completely mitigate if not contradict the start of the article are buried somewhere in the middle. How to lie without lying, better than a legal footnote.
- gmac 6y ago
  This is exactly what I’ve noticed lately. Is it a known/named phenomenon? Do you have a reference?
  - martin_a 6y ago
    > Is it a known/named phenomenon? I think it's just called "journalism" these days. I find it hard to find publications without clickbaity stuff like this.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      I'd say it's marketing/business rather than journalism, the journalism takes something of a back seat - like the role of music in hit factories.
      - cm2187 6y ago
        It's not wrong, but I do not see it used only for clickbaits. It is also largely used to push political opinions. And these are editorial decisions.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    Dunno if there is a name for it. See https://www.quora.com/Why-are-newspaper-headlines-written-by-copy-editors-and-not-by-reporters-and-how-did-this-practice-begin-historically https://www.quora.com/Why-are-newspaper-headlines-written-by... (although this is incomplete; it omits the narrative pushing).
  - cptnapalm 6y ago
    "Burying the lede" - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede#:~:text=(idiomatic%2C%20US%2C%20journalism),reform%20until%20the%2019th%20paragraph https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede#:~:text=(idioma....
- 5etho 6y ago
  no, the journalists do not love misinform. If that was the case they wouldnt be journalists by definition. It may be 1:1 as 'no true scotsman' but this is what it is
- ThinkingGuy 6y ago
  Bear in mind that headlines, at least, are frequently composed by editor rather than by the author of the article.
Ansil849 6y ago
Ha, brilliant. Kind of the equivalent of how sometimes students put in random sentences in essays submitted for classes, to demonstrate that their teachers don't fully read their work. Or how surveys can have nonsense questions/answer options to weed out people not reading the questions.
- jagraff 6y ago
  In college I used to take psychological studies for extra beer money. The tests would have the standard scale (rate from 1-5 your agreement with statement x), except a random page of each test would have instructions to ignore the prompt, and just to mark all of the answers a certain way. Same concept, weed out the people who ignore the instructions and just fill in random answers. I always wondered what would happen if I incorrectly answered those questions - would they still pay me? But I prefer cash to the truth
- circlefavshape 6y ago
  I put swearwords in an assessment once, just to see if anyone noticed. I presume they didn't, because nobody commented - but maybe they did, and didn't care enough to comment.
ekianjo 6y ago
> Read the paper? You're lucky if they read the article This is natural if you follow the amount of effort required. Effort to comment ~ close to zero. Effort to go through an article worth several pages (or worse, a paper!) without dropping off is much, much higher.
- Cd00d 6y ago
  Even lower effort/risk - make a comment in response to a wrong-headed comment from another commenter that hasn't read the citation. All you have to know is that their comment is wrong, whether or not it has any relation to the new information.
- afarrell 6y ago
  Thats because an awful lot of people are chewing ice. (epistemic status: I am 100% projecting here. Maybe I'm broadly right though) A person with an iron deficiency, will often have an urge to chew ice [1]. Ice does not have iron or help you absorb iron -- but brains are weird. There are an awful lot of people who are lonely and want the sort of emotional and intellectual connection that they'd normally get comes from sitting by a fireside doing chores for hours. It takes effort and vulnerability to make friends with whom you can have 2-hours-long chats. It requires planning and intentionally-directing attention to maintain those relationships. Those who fail to plan and execute those actions will reach out in weird ways to try to meet that need. These will disproportionately be people who: A. Struggle to sustain attention long enough to plan and execute what they really intend. B. Fear that interactions with new people will end up with them assaulted, infected, or dead. C. Feel trapped in some situation and unable to plan a way out. D. Struggle to form an intellectual connection during opportunities for deep social interaction. E. Have been in a situation where A-D was true and are falling into old habits. I posit that the intellectual masturbation of people on twitter or other forums is a symptom of an unmet hunger for real intellectual connection with other humans. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficiency-anemia/expert-answers/chewing-ice/faq-20057982 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficien...
  - afarrell 6y ago
iliketosleep 6y ago
What it demonstrates is that people have already made up their mind on the topic and aren't genuinely interested in new perspectives. This helps explains the inflammatory nature of Internet debates in general.
- ayyy 6y ago
  Good information has a long tail. The first time anything is posted, the internet is going to shit on it, regardless of what it is. But good content is sticky, and people doing serious research will be able to dig it up.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  a third of the title is enough, never mind the aticle ;) depends on the topic, an article isn't going to convince a political party supporter to switch sides for example.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    >an article isn't going to convince a political party supporter to switch sides for example // Why not? Are you suggesting articles can't carry information that changes peoples opinions; that people are wedded too much to Party identity; or perhaps that only one article wouldn't do it?
    - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
      It should be able to change someone's mind if that person were rational, open minded and the article contained some very revealing information. It should. ...But it won't, not in today's American politics. There's no nuance left, it's us versus _them_, entrenched political warfare. If the article says something bad about my party it's either: _fake news!_ or a smear campaign by _them_! If it says something good about their party it's ____-wing propaganda.
- weego 6y ago
  I think it also possibly shows that in general we've not learned to be able to tune out or self filter the information overload that's thrown at us via the Internet.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
I'm certain that social networks have played a large role, if not the sole reason for this behaviour by encouraging limited attention, FOMO, OCD-scrolling etc. But, I guess we wouldn't able to prove that more people read the content before commenting before social networks without a proper control and besides many visitors of these sites are from social networks. All major News organisations know that only small fraction of their audience on social networks even click the link anymore and rest of them just make up what they wanted from the title and description. At least now I think, Facebook doesn't allow one to alter the title, description of the website they're sharing; for years someone who shares could change those as well!
- JimDabell 6y ago
  > I'm certain that social networks have played a large role, if not the sole reason for this behaviour I don’t think that’s correct, depending upon your definition of "social networks". People were complaining about people not RTFAing on Slashdot in the 90s.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    The sheep in Animal Farm (who repeat talking points independently of applicability or even consistency with the past) were probably a complaint about people not RTFAing in 1945. If one squints enough, Plato's Cave could be a complaint (circa -375) about opinions via pale shadows of secondary and tertiary sources. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D516c https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext... https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D516d https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
  - unixhero 6y ago
    Not to mention RTFM!
- numpad0 6y ago
  First 3 to come reads the title, skim read TFA, write corrections or complements. Next 30 reads the title, read comments, and write some pretend skepticism. Next 300 reads the title, view comments, upvote the strongest opinions, and share. Next 3000 reads the title and immediately decide whether to share. Somewhere from here and above, 3-4 people tries to plagiarize something in it just to get votes and/or because they have personal issues in forming opinions. Rest of the million people after this point just applaud and share what’s being thrown at their faces.
Max-q 6y ago
NRK Beta, the tech lab of the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, make you take a quiz about the article before you are allowed to comment. I really like that idea.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marvy 6y ago
  Can you still comment if you get all the quiz questions wrong?
  - theodorton 6y ago
    No
    - Scarblac 6y ago
      It would be funny if it still let you comment, but it showed your test results besides your comment.
      - nucleardog 6y ago
        It would be funny if so many didn't already wear their ignorance as a badge of pride. Imagine an article on vaccinations--many who would be posting exactly the sort of nonsense you'd be hoping to prevent would wear their "understood 0% of the facts in the article" as a badge of pride, and others who agreed with them would interpret it as such.
        jfengel 6y ago
        At least 0% would require more knowledge than guessing. You might even accidentally educate a few anti-vaxxers, who would be forced to learn what they were disagreeing with. (Yes, I know it still wouldn't help.)
      - Fnoord 6y ago
denzil_correa 6y ago
It’s a standard quality measurement tactic in Internet based surveys. In the list of survey questions, you post a few question which have clear black or white answers. The answers from the survey takers will let you know to further investigate the the survey response. You can then decide to take actions accordingly. Most of the times, you discard.
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  Google had a surveys program where you could earn credits for the google play store and every now and then you would get a trap question usually formatted something like "Have you used x product" or "how well do you know x" where x does not exist. Anyone who answers incorrectly will see limited surveys in the future.
  - feikname 6y ago
    Not sure if they stopped using the trick questions or not but they still have the program. You can Download it in your phone from Play Store, it's called Google Rewards.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > Google had a surveys program where you could earn credits for the google play store and every now and then you would get a trap question usually formatted something like "Have you used x product" or "how well do you know x" where x does not exist. Anyone who answers incorrectly will see limited surveys in the future. Google Rewards still exists, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago had a question in that format (though I am not sure if it was actually a nonexistent brand, and I don't recall enough about the question to look it up now).
chrismorgan 6y ago
Alas, this time you haven’t read far enough! The author, on page four of the comments: https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity/?comments=1&post=21585174#comment-21585174 https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... > yak8998 wrote: >> Haha, bravo Mr. Timmer. If IE search is working right, then apparently I am the first. I think its well over 90%... >> "bananas" > That was added after publication, so the first few dozen commenters wouldn't have seen it. Idea credit goes to our editor in chief, Ken Fisher, and it was put in by our managing editor, Eric Bangeman. From that first comment mentioning bananas onwards, bananas are mentioned very regularly. A quick sample of a few pages suggests somewhere around 40% of the comments mention bananas.
- patates 6y ago
  I actually skimmed the comments but missed the one from the author among the massive number of others. Therefore, seeing the surge of bananas a few pages in, I thought once discovered, people kept looking for what those "bananas" were about and then discovered the sentence above themselves. The real explanation is also interesting.
  - jolmg 6y ago
    > I thought once discovered, people kept looking for what those "bananas" were about and then discovered the sentence above themselves. I suspect that's what really happened. Would have been better if they included that note since publication time. The first comment with "Banana" then would have been the real indicator. Most others would have simply noted the keyword from the comments before reading the article, like you said.
- pelliphant 6y ago
  That's one awesome PR-trick! From my own experience: when I comment on something that I haven't read it's usually because I'm more interested in the conversation around the subject than the subject itself. So, in that case, I have usually read the comments, and if half of them just randomly included the word "bananas" in them, I'm pretty sure that the convesation whould change to be: "wtf are ppl saying bananas all the time?"
liangx4 6y ago
I did a similar thing with recruiting ads, I added a line of "If you are interested in this role, please reach out to me starting with 'Heyyyyyy I am XXX', thanks!" in the middle of the JD. And I simply ignore 99% of the reach out because they didn't start with that line. It's just like the brown M&m thing Van Halen did. Works way better than I expected.
- pembrook 6y ago
  Job ads are universally filled with jargon-y HR copy-pasta bullshit, so I’m sure most people never read them on purpose. Instead of being clever, you’ve simply overestimated the importance of your ad in people’s lives while simultaneously optimizing for inexperienced people who’ve never read a job ad before and don’t know they are BS.
  - samat 6y ago
    I don’t put PR bullshit in my vacancies and I write a lot of them. I respect my potential hires and expect them to respect me and at least read the damn thing. Unbelievable, right?
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      It's fine not to, but .. it would be interesting to read an example of two to see how they differ.
    - pembrook 6y ago
      Sure, your ads might be the greatest ads ever written. But if you respected your potential hires you’d be mindful of the fact that it’s easy to get job ad fatigue since all the other company ads are filled with bullshit. Playing king-in-the-castle with people’s lives by rejecting them over some bizarre game where you assume bad intent doesn’t sound like “respect” to me.
  - liangx4 6y ago
    The job ad is around 200 words. If someone is serious about a job that they will be working on for 5 days a week, do you think it's too much to ask if I expect them to read through these words?
neiman 6y ago
To be fair, I'd make it a point to comment and not mention bananas if I saw such a request. Why? don't look for reason while analyzing the behaviour of the average internet user:-)
- sobani 6y ago
  I guess that would make you one of the 4% to whom the lizardman's constant applies. https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
  - neiman 6y ago
    No. What he described is not a poll.
teekert 6y ago
You can make some nice histograms when you change the fruit throughout the article although you will influence the results ;)
Akronymus 6y ago
> Read the paper? You're lucky if they read the article I WANT to read the paper. Most of the time the article gives no link to it though.
- jpindar 6y ago
  Same with articles about legislation. They rarely give the actual name or number of a bill or law.
  - ThinkingGuy 6y ago
    Clay Johnson, author of "The Information Diet," wrote about this 10 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20120205012403/http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/why-wont-journalists-link-to-bills https://web.archive.org/web/20120205012403/http://www.inform... It really made me much more conscious about seeking out and reading original sources, rather than relying on interpretations and summaries from journalists, bloggers, etc.
rgrau 6y ago
I had something like "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in title of your Message" in the middle of my linkedIn profile to know which recruiters would read through the whole profile. Good times when I got 'bananas' in my mailbox.
nabla9 6y ago
I have done several experiments in Reddit. I post a link with a plausible title and credible looking 404 to credible domain with made up url. In a big subreddit you easily get 30 top level comments before first comment says that link does not work or is fake. Discussion goes on and on without pause. People treat the title as a writing prompt. One of the best writing prompts is pseudo-philosophical techno-bro life or business advice. Anything with quantum physics in the title works too.
- akg_67 6y ago
  Readers think of Reddit title as discussion prompts. The combination of subreddit theme and post title can easily start a discussion on “close enough” topic. One of the suggestion for increasing engagement is to disable link posts and only allow text posts.
  - levosmetalo 6y ago
    I see HN in the same way. It happens so often that HN discussion is much better that article itself that I go there first, and RTFA only if the discussion makes me want to read it. For this article, I tried to read it after reading a few comments, but got bored.
    - akg_67 6y ago
      The readability of lot of web articles tend to be quite poor as they are written from viewpoint of SEO rather than readability. I rarely can read complete web article unless it was published in a paper magazine or newspaper. HN used to be good. Recently, I have seen groupthink taking hold, hostility toward dissension, and opinions are not that knowledgable and educated on controversial topics. The HN quality of discussion is not that different from themed serious subreddits. Give Reddit a chance, find subreddits in your area of interest.
      - chriszhang 6y ago
        I would have given Reddit a chance if they were not constantly screwing around with the UI. The new UI is sluggish and really affects the reading experience negatively. I love that HN has not made any changes to its UI for a long time and a fast and convenient reading experience remains top priority on HN. If there are more HN-like forums, that would be something I would be interested in.
rakoo 6y ago
Reminds me of this software that, like all softwares, had a miles long Terms of Use. Buried in the middle the developer said something to the effect of "Contact us at this address and receive USD XX,000". Most users clicked the "I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions" and only a handful actually contacted the developer. They did receive the money though.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Maybe people just didn't want to play their stupid game and didn't mention bananas even if they'd seen the message?
Unklejoe 6y ago
I've seen this done on dating profiles before too
mattm 6y ago
I did something similar once with an essay I wrote in high school to see if the teacher actually read the whole thing. It turns out that he did read it and I got docked a mark for that.
tjalfi 6y ago
This reminds me of a prank I tried in high school. There was a rumor that one teacher didn’t read submitted essays. I decided to test this by applying the jargon translator from Dilbert’s Desktop Games (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert%27s_Desktop_Games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert%27s_Desktop_Games) to my essay. The translator output was painful to read: for example, it replaces “mother” with “female parental unit”. I added a paragraph on the third page asking him to call me if he was still reading the essay. I never received a call but he later said that he had lost the essay so the results were inconclusive.
dspillett 6y ago
I've done similar with online groups like freecycle when selling or giving away things. Include "to prove you've actually read this post, mention the word elephant in your response" in the advert and have my mail agent delete everything to that address[1] which doesn't include the word. Massively reduces the number of messages you get from time wasters who just mash "can I have this?" or "is this still available?" to get in first, who will then ghost you because they've taken an extra half second to decide they don't want the item after all[2] so you spend time writing replies that achieve nothing. Probably means some genuinely interested people get redirected to trash too, but if the item is worth having there will be enough responders to make this not matter. If you see no responses after a time, maybe then check your trash to see if there are any there worth responding to. [1] those services attract much spam, always have a specific address for each that you can turn off once the junk starts flowing in [2] as it isn't the right colour, or the right size, or you can't deliver, or will deliver but can't conveniently offer collection, or they completely misread the subject line, ...
dtparr 6y ago
From that story's author, they added it after publication, so the first few dozen commenters wouldn't have seen it. Doesn't change your point for later ones. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity/?comments=1&post=21585174#comment-21585174 https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot...
grawprog 6y ago
We were given a test like this in school once. The first instruction was to not do anything until you'd read all the questions. The 'questions' were all stuff like poke holes in the corner of the paper, some math problems stuff like that. At the end of the test, the last question was, don't do questions 1-9, simply write your name in the corner and turn the test over. The test was supposed to be about your ability to read and follow instructions, few people in my class passed the test. As soon as the test started you could see people poking holes and writing things.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  I had something similar and failed and thought it was the dumbest thing ever. I'm not an automaton. You didn't tell me at the beginning that the point was to follow every single thing exactly to the letter. Of course I could play that game, but you spend my entire career as a student telling me to happily skip problems and go on the next and then you want to act as if it's a problem with me that I engaged in the test in good faith.
- compiler-guy 6y ago
  Although it's point is good, I hate this test because--at least in most versions I have seen--nothing tells you to skip questions 1-9. The directions say, "Read all the questions first." OK fine. Then question 10 says, "Just write your name on the paper and turn it over." But why should question 10 be the only one you follow? "Read all the questions" is the only direction you have. There is never a "skip 1-9", except in number 10, but why would you start with that one? It's a decent idea, but needs better execution.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    The instruction is very clear and precise. It says to read all the questions. Not to answer them (or answer them right away). Therefore, if you follow the instruction, you end up reading question #10 following the process, within the time it takes to read all the questions. Now, that instruction might seem controversial, but it really isn't. If you have the time, its a good idea to read content well, before dealing with it further.

cm2187 6y ago

Hence the way journalists love to misinform people: a headline and first paragraph that pushes their bias and narrative, while the facts that completely mitigate if not contradict the start of the article are buried somewhere in the middle. How to lie without lying, better than a legal footnote.

gmac 6y ago
This is exactly what I’ve noticed lately. Is it a known/named phenomenon? Do you have a reference?
- martin_a 6y ago
  > Is it a known/named phenomenon? I think it's just called "journalism" these days. I find it hard to find publications without clickbaity stuff like this.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    I'd say it's marketing/business rather than journalism, the journalism takes something of a back seat - like the role of music in hit factories.
    - cm2187 6y ago
      It's not wrong, but I do not see it used only for clickbaits. It is also largely used to push political opinions. And these are editorial decisions.
- dekhn 6y ago
  Dunno if there is a name for it. See https://www.quora.com/Why-are-newspaper-headlines-written-by-copy-editors-and-not-by-reporters-and-how-did-this-practice-begin-historically https://www.quora.com/Why-are-newspaper-headlines-written-by... (although this is incomplete; it omits the narrative pushing).
- cptnapalm 6y ago
  "Burying the lede" - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede#:~:text=(idiomatic%2C%20US%2C%20journalism),reform%20until%20the%2019th%20paragraph https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bury_the_lede#:~:text=(idioma....
5etho 6y ago
no, the journalists do not love misinform. If that was the case they wouldnt be journalists by definition. It may be 1:1 as 'no true scotsman' but this is what it is
ThinkingGuy 6y ago
Bear in mind that headlines, at least, are frequently composed by editor rather than by the author of the article.

Ansil849 6y ago

Ha, brilliant. Kind of the equivalent of how sometimes students put in random sentences in essays submitted for classes, to demonstrate that their teachers don't fully read their work. Or how surveys can have nonsense questions/answer options to weed out people not reading the questions.

jagraff 6y ago
In college I used to take psychological studies for extra beer money. The tests would have the standard scale (rate from 1-5 your agreement with statement x), except a random page of each test would have instructions to ignore the prompt, and just to mark all of the answers a certain way. Same concept, weed out the people who ignore the instructions and just fill in random answers. I always wondered what would happen if I incorrectly answered those questions - would they still pay me? But I prefer cash to the truth
circlefavshape 6y ago
I put swearwords in an assessment once, just to see if anyone noticed. I presume they didn't, because nobody commented - but maybe they did, and didn't care enough to comment.

ekianjo 6y ago

> Read the paper? You're lucky if they read the article This is natural if you follow the amount of effort required. Effort to comment ~ close to zero. Effort to go through an article worth several pages (or worse, a paper!) without dropping off is much, much higher.

Cd00d 6y ago
Even lower effort/risk - make a comment in response to a wrong-headed comment from another commenter that hasn't read the citation. All you have to know is that their comment is wrong, whether or not it has any relation to the new information.
afarrell 6y ago
Thats because an awful lot of people are chewing ice. (epistemic status: I am 100% projecting here. Maybe I'm broadly right though) A person with an iron deficiency, will often have an urge to chew ice [1]. Ice does not have iron or help you absorb iron -- but brains are weird. There are an awful lot of people who are lonely and want the sort of emotional and intellectual connection that they'd normally get comes from sitting by a fireside doing chores for hours. It takes effort and vulnerability to make friends with whom you can have 2-hours-long chats. It requires planning and intentionally-directing attention to maintain those relationships. Those who fail to plan and execute those actions will reach out in weird ways to try to meet that need. These will disproportionately be people who: A. Struggle to sustain attention long enough to plan and execute what they really intend. B. Fear that interactions with new people will end up with them assaulted, infected, or dead. C. Feel trapped in some situation and unable to plan a way out. D. Struggle to form an intellectual connection during opportunities for deep social interaction. E. Have been in a situation where A-D was true and are falling into old habits. I posit that the intellectual masturbation of people on twitter or other forums is a symptom of an unmet hunger for real intellectual connection with other humans. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficiency-anemia/expert-answers/chewing-ice/faq-20057982 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficien...
- afarrell 6y ago

iliketosleep 6y ago

What it demonstrates is that people have already made up their mind on the topic and aren't genuinely interested in new perspectives. This helps explains the inflammatory nature of Internet debates in general.

ayyy 6y ago
Good information has a long tail. The first time anything is posted, the internet is going to shit on it, regardless of what it is. But good content is sticky, and people doing serious research will be able to dig it up.
onetimemanytime 6y ago
a third of the title is enough, never mind the aticle ;) depends on the topic, an article isn't going to convince a political party supporter to switch sides for example.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  >an article isn't going to convince a political party supporter to switch sides for example // Why not? Are you suggesting articles can't carry information that changes peoples opinions; that people are wedded too much to Party identity; or perhaps that only one article wouldn't do it?
  - Zenbit_UX 6y ago
    It should be able to change someone's mind if that person were rational, open minded and the article contained some very revealing information. It should. ...But it won't, not in today's American politics. There's no nuance left, it's us versus _them_, entrenched political warfare. If the article says something bad about my party it's either: _fake news!_ or a smear campaign by _them_! If it says something good about their party it's ____-wing propaganda.
weego 6y ago
I think it also possibly shows that in general we've not learned to be able to tune out or self filter the information overload that's thrown at us via the Internet.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

I'm certain that social networks have played a large role, if not the sole reason for this behaviour by encouraging limited attention, FOMO, OCD-scrolling etc. But, I guess we wouldn't able to prove that more people read the content before commenting before social networks without a proper control and besides many visitors of these sites are from social networks. All major News organisations know that only small fraction of their audience on social networks even click the link anymore and rest of them just make up what they wanted from the title and description. At least now I think, Facebook doesn't allow one to alter the title, description of the website they're sharing; for years someone who shares could change those as well!

JimDabell 6y ago
> I'm certain that social networks have played a large role, if not the sole reason for this behaviour I don’t think that’s correct, depending upon your definition of "social networks". People were complaining about people not RTFAing on Slashdot in the 90s.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  The sheep in Animal Farm (who repeat talking points independently of applicability or even consistency with the past) were probably a complaint about people not RTFAing in 1945. If one squints enough, Plato's Cave could be a complaint (circa -375) about opinions via pale shadows of secondary and tertiary sources. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D516c https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext... https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D516d https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
- unixhero 6y ago
  Not to mention RTFM!
numpad0 6y ago
First 3 to come reads the title, skim read TFA, write corrections or complements. Next 30 reads the title, read comments, and write some pretend skepticism. Next 300 reads the title, view comments, upvote the strongest opinions, and share. Next 3000 reads the title and immediately decide whether to share. Somewhere from here and above, 3-4 people tries to plagiarize something in it just to get votes and/or because they have personal issues in forming opinions. Rest of the million people after this point just applaud and share what’s being thrown at their faces.

Max-q 6y ago

NRK Beta, the tech lab of the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, make you take a quiz about the article before you are allowed to comment. I really like that idea.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marvy 6y ago
Can you still comment if you get all the quiz questions wrong?
- theodorton 6y ago
  No
  - Scarblac 6y ago
    It would be funny if it still let you comment, but it showed your test results besides your comment.
    - nucleardog 6y ago
      It would be funny if so many didn't already wear their ignorance as a badge of pride. Imagine an article on vaccinations--many who would be posting exactly the sort of nonsense you'd be hoping to prevent would wear their "understood 0% of the facts in the article" as a badge of pride, and others who agreed with them would interpret it as such.
      - jfengel 6y ago
        At least 0% would require more knowledge than guessing. You might even accidentally educate a few anti-vaxxers, who would be forced to learn what they were disagreeing with. (Yes, I know it still wouldn't help.)
    - Fnoord 6y ago

denzil_correa 6y ago

It’s a standard quality measurement tactic in Internet based surveys. In the list of survey questions, you post a few question which have clear black or white answers. The answers from the survey takers will let you know to further investigate the the survey response. You can then decide to take actions accordingly. Most of the times, you discard.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Google had a surveys program where you could earn credits for the google play store and every now and then you would get a trap question usually formatted something like "Have you used x product" or "how well do you know x" where x does not exist. Anyone who answers incorrectly will see limited surveys in the future.
- feikname 6y ago
  Not sure if they stopped using the trick questions or not but they still have the program. You can Download it in your phone from Play Store, it's called Google Rewards.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > Google had a surveys program where you could earn credits for the google play store and every now and then you would get a trap question usually formatted something like "Have you used x product" or "how well do you know x" where x does not exist. Anyone who answers incorrectly will see limited surveys in the future. Google Rewards still exists, and as recently as a couple of weeks ago had a question in that format (though I am not sure if it was actually a nonexistent brand, and I don't recall enough about the question to look it up now).

chrismorgan 6y ago

Alas, this time you haven’t read far enough! The author, on page four of the comments: https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity/?comments=1&post=21585174#comment-21585174 https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... > yak8998 wrote: >> Haha, bravo Mr. Timmer. If IE search is working right, then apparently I am the first. I think its well over 90%... >> "bananas" > That was added after publication, so the first few dozen commenters wouldn't have seen it. Idea credit goes to our editor in chief, Ken Fisher, and it was put in by our managing editor, Eric Bangeman. From that first comment mentioning bananas onwards, bananas are mentioned very regularly. A quick sample of a few pages suggests somewhere around 40% of the comments mention bananas.

patates 6y ago
I actually skimmed the comments but missed the one from the author among the massive number of others. Therefore, seeing the surge of bananas a few pages in, I thought once discovered, people kept looking for what those "bananas" were about and then discovered the sentence above themselves. The real explanation is also interesting.
- jolmg 6y ago
  > I thought once discovered, people kept looking for what those "bananas" were about and then discovered the sentence above themselves. I suspect that's what really happened. Would have been better if they included that note since publication time. The first comment with "Banana" then would have been the real indicator. Most others would have simply noted the keyword from the comments before reading the article, like you said.
pelliphant 6y ago
That's one awesome PR-trick! From my own experience: when I comment on something that I haven't read it's usually because I'm more interested in the conversation around the subject than the subject itself. So, in that case, I have usually read the comments, and if half of them just randomly included the word "bananas" in them, I'm pretty sure that the convesation whould change to be: "wtf are ppl saying bananas all the time?"

liangx4 6y ago

I did a similar thing with recruiting ads, I added a line of "If you are interested in this role, please reach out to me starting with 'Heyyyyyy I am XXX', thanks!" in the middle of the JD. And I simply ignore 99% of the reach out because they didn't start with that line. It's just like the brown M&m thing Van Halen did. Works way better than I expected.

pembrook 6y ago
Job ads are universally filled with jargon-y HR copy-pasta bullshit, so I’m sure most people never read them on purpose. Instead of being clever, you’ve simply overestimated the importance of your ad in people’s lives while simultaneously optimizing for inexperienced people who’ve never read a job ad before and don’t know they are BS.
- samat 6y ago
  I don’t put PR bullshit in my vacancies and I write a lot of them. I respect my potential hires and expect them to respect me and at least read the damn thing. Unbelievable, right?
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    It's fine not to, but .. it would be interesting to read an example of two to see how they differ.
  - pembrook 6y ago
    Sure, your ads might be the greatest ads ever written. But if you respected your potential hires you’d be mindful of the fact that it’s easy to get job ad fatigue since all the other company ads are filled with bullshit. Playing king-in-the-castle with people’s lives by rejecting them over some bizarre game where you assume bad intent doesn’t sound like “respect” to me.
- liangx4 6y ago
  The job ad is around 200 words. If someone is serious about a job that they will be working on for 5 days a week, do you think it's too much to ask if I expect them to read through these words?

neiman 6y ago

To be fair, I'd make it a point to comment and not mention bananas if I saw such a request. Why? don't look for reason while analyzing the behaviour of the average internet user:-)

sobani 6y ago
I guess that would make you one of the 4% to whom the lizardman's constant applies. https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
- neiman 6y ago
  No. What he described is not a poll.

teekert 6y ago

You can make some nice histograms when you change the fruit throughout the article although you will influence the results ;)

Akronymus 6y ago

> Read the paper? You're lucky if they read the article I WANT to read the paper. Most of the time the article gives no link to it though.

jpindar 6y ago
Same with articles about legislation. They rarely give the actual name or number of a bill or law.
- ThinkingGuy 6y ago
  Clay Johnson, author of "The Information Diet," wrote about this 10 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20120205012403/http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/why-wont-journalists-link-to-bills https://web.archive.org/web/20120205012403/http://www.inform... It really made me much more conscious about seeking out and reading original sources, rather than relying on interpretations and summaries from journalists, bloggers, etc.

rgrau 6y ago

I had something like "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in title of your Message" in the middle of my linkedIn profile to know which recruiters would read through the whole profile. Good times when I got 'bananas' in my mailbox.

nabla9 6y ago

I have done several experiments in Reddit. I post a link with a plausible title and credible looking 404 to credible domain with made up url. In a big subreddit you easily get 30 top level comments before first comment says that link does not work or is fake. Discussion goes on and on without pause. People treat the title as a writing prompt. One of the best writing prompts is pseudo-philosophical techno-bro life or business advice. Anything with quantum physics in the title works too.

akg_67 6y ago
Readers think of Reddit title as discussion prompts. The combination of subreddit theme and post title can easily start a discussion on “close enough” topic. One of the suggestion for increasing engagement is to disable link posts and only allow text posts.
- levosmetalo 6y ago
  I see HN in the same way. It happens so often that HN discussion is much better that article itself that I go there first, and RTFA only if the discussion makes me want to read it. For this article, I tried to read it after reading a few comments, but got bored.
  - akg_67 6y ago
    The readability of lot of web articles tend to be quite poor as they are written from viewpoint of SEO rather than readability. I rarely can read complete web article unless it was published in a paper magazine or newspaper. HN used to be good. Recently, I have seen groupthink taking hold, hostility toward dissension, and opinions are not that knowledgable and educated on controversial topics. The HN quality of discussion is not that different from themed serious subreddits. Give Reddit a chance, find subreddits in your area of interest.
    - chriszhang 6y ago
      I would have given Reddit a chance if they were not constantly screwing around with the UI. The new UI is sluggish and really affects the reading experience negatively. I love that HN has not made any changes to its UI for a long time and a fast and convenient reading experience remains top priority on HN. If there are more HN-like forums, that would be something I would be interested in.

rakoo 6y ago

Reminds me of this software that, like all softwares, had a miles long Terms of Use. Buried in the middle the developer said something to the effect of "Contact us at this address and receive USD XX,000". Most users clicked the "I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions" and only a handful actually contacted the developer. They did receive the money though.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Maybe people just didn't want to play their stupid game and didn't mention bananas even if they'd seen the message?

Unklejoe 6y ago

I've seen this done on dating profiles before too

mattm 6y ago

I did something similar once with an essay I wrote in high school to see if the teacher actually read the whole thing. It turns out that he did read it and I got docked a mark for that.

tjalfi 6y ago

This reminds me of a prank I tried in high school. There was a rumor that one teacher didn’t read submitted essays. I decided to test this by applying the jargon translator from Dilbert’s Desktop Games (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert%27s_Desktop_Games https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert%27s_Desktop_Games) to my essay. The translator output was painful to read: for example, it replaces “mother” with “female parental unit”. I added a paragraph on the third page asking him to call me if he was still reading the essay. I never received a call but he later said that he had lost the essay so the results were inconclusive.

dspillett 6y ago

I've done similar with online groups like freecycle when selling or giving away things. Include "to prove you've actually read this post, mention the word elephant in your response" in the advert and have my mail agent delete everything to that address[1] which doesn't include the word. Massively reduces the number of messages you get from time wasters who just mash "can I have this?" or "is this still available?" to get in first, who will then ghost you because they've taken an extra half second to decide they don't want the item after all[2] so you spend time writing replies that achieve nothing. Probably means some genuinely interested people get redirected to trash too, but if the item is worth having there will be enough responders to make this not matter. If you see no responses after a time, maybe then check your trash to see if there are any there worth responding to. [1] those services attract much spam, always have a specific address for each that you can turn off once the junk starts flowing in [2] as it isn't the right colour, or the right size, or you can't deliver, or will deliver but can't conveniently offer collection, or they completely misread the subject line, ...

dtparr 6y ago

From that story's author, they added it after publication, so the first few dozen commenters wouldn't have seen it. Doesn't change your point for later ones. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lots-of-risk-ambiguity/?comments=1&post=21585174#comment-21585174 https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot...

grawprog 6y ago

We were given a test like this in school once. The first instruction was to not do anything until you'd read all the questions. The 'questions' were all stuff like poke holes in the corner of the paper, some math problems stuff like that. At the end of the test, the last question was, don't do questions 1-9, simply write your name in the corner and turn the test over. The test was supposed to be about your ability to read and follow instructions, few people in my class passed the test. As soon as the test started you could see people poking holes and writing things.

RandoHolmes 6y ago
I had something similar and failed and thought it was the dumbest thing ever. I'm not an automaton. You didn't tell me at the beginning that the point was to follow every single thing exactly to the letter. Of course I could play that game, but you spend my entire career as a student telling me to happily skip problems and go on the next and then you want to act as if it's a problem with me that I engaged in the test in good faith.
compiler-guy 6y ago
Although it's point is good, I hate this test because--at least in most versions I have seen--nothing tells you to skip questions 1-9. The directions say, "Read all the questions first." OK fine. Then question 10 says, "Just write your name on the paper and turn it over." But why should question 10 be the only one you follow? "Read all the questions" is the only direction you have. There is never a "skip 1-9", except in number 10, but why would you start with that one? It's a decent idea, but needs better execution.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  The instruction is very clear and precise. It says to read all the questions. Not to answer them (or answer them right away). Therefore, if you follow the instruction, you end up reading question #10 following the process, within the time it takes to read all the questions. Now, that instruction might seem controversial, but it really isn't. If you have the time, its a good idea to read content well, before dealing with it further.