4 ms·

The article is trying to paint NYT's A/B testing as nefarious, but unfortunately in the current social-media-oriented landscape, headlines are very, very import

The article is trying to paint NYT's A/B testing as nefarious, but unfortunately in the current social-media-oriented landscape, headlines are very, very important for clarity, and A/B testing headlines is something every media publisher with a sufficient tech infra does. As frequent Hacker News submitters know, headlines alone can determine whether a post gets upvoted.

bhupy 6y ago
I think the article attempts to demonstrate with its examples that some of the titles don't actually accurately represent what ought to be the core takeaways of a news story. Selected excerpts: "I actually watched this interview—all two hours of it—and I can tell you that the first two headlines are a much better summary of what went down. Yes, Meghan does reveal that she contemplated suicide, but it’s a five-minute interlude in an interview that has a lot more going on." "Trump starts off addressing conservatives and claiming leadership of G.O.P. but in the final headline Trump has a hit list and is firing a warning shot. And sure enough, the bombastic rhetoric propels this article onto the “most viewed” list." In other words, while you're correct that titles are important for clarity, the claim in the article is that "clarity" can be at odds with what gets clicks (or gets upvoted). I'm able to viscerally internalize this because, as a tech worker, I've typically used A/B testing as a tool to maximize engagement, but I've never in my career used it as a tool to maximize correctness or "clarity".
malandrew 6y ago
> headlines are very, very important for clarity I'm pretty sure engagement is more important than clarity. I don't see how A/B testing helps you optimize for clarity. What are they measuring to determine a clarity score? Sadly, most of the time engagement is highest when something is more outrage inducing.
chiefalchemist 6y ago
> but unfortunately in the current social-media-oriented landscape, headlines are very, very important for clarity, Clarity? Or click-thrus? It's definitely not the former. Which in turn discounts the NYT as a beacon for journalisms and associated standards. They're desperate for traffic. Clarity isn't a metric in the playbook. Witin the world of high volume publishing, this type of A/B testing was popularized BuzzFeed.

bhupy 6y ago

I think the article attempts to demonstrate with its examples that some of the titles don't actually accurately represent what ought to be the core takeaways of a news story. Selected excerpts: "I actually watched this interview—all two hours of it—and I can tell you that the first two headlines are a much better summary of what went down. Yes, Meghan does reveal that she contemplated suicide, but it’s a five-minute interlude in an interview that has a lot more going on." "Trump starts off addressing conservatives and claiming leadership of G.O.P. but in the final headline Trump has a hit list and is firing a warning shot. And sure enough, the bombastic rhetoric propels this article onto the “most viewed” list." In other words, while you're correct that titles are important for clarity, the claim in the article is that "clarity" can be at odds with what gets clicks (or gets upvoted). I'm able to viscerally internalize this because, as a tech worker, I've typically used A/B testing as a tool to maximize engagement, but I've never in my career used it as a tool to maximize correctness or "clarity".

malandrew 6y ago

> headlines are very, very important for clarity I'm pretty sure engagement is more important than clarity. I don't see how A/B testing helps you optimize for clarity. What are they measuring to determine a clarity score? Sadly, most of the time engagement is highest when something is more outrage inducing.

chiefalchemist 6y ago

> but unfortunately in the current social-media-oriented landscape, headlines are very, very important for clarity, Clarity? Or click-thrus? It's definitely not the former. Which in turn discounts the NYT as a beacon for journalisms and associated standards. They're desperate for traffic. Clarity isn't a metric in the playbook. Witin the world of high volume publishing, this type of A/B testing was popularized BuzzFeed.