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But you didn't answer my question. What other evaluation metrics are you proposing? >The point is getting someone to read the article doesn't make a headline "

But you didn't answer my question. What other evaluation metrics are you proposing? >The point is getting someone to read the article doesn't make a headline "good", it just means someone read the article. It actually does. The headline did its job. >Which do you want to optimize for? That is a false choice. Why are these the only two options?

zepto 6y ago
Persuading someone to read an article which is irrelevant to them is likely a bad thing. Just because you don’t have a good metric for something doesn’t mean that what you can measure is better. A metric can simply lead to bad results, and thefore be a bad metric.
- passivate 6y ago
  >Persuading someone to read an article which is irrelevant to them is likely a bad thing. You're conflating content targeting with headline writing. Those are two separate points. >Just because you don’t have a good metric for something doesn’t mean that what you can measure is better. Certainly, if a metric is 'bad' in that it is not producing results, nobody wants to waste their time and keep using it. However, the engagement metric is producing results for many folks. Do you disagree with that? >A metric can simply lead to bad results, and thefore be a bad metric. Anything "can" lead to anything. That doesn't really make for much of a discussion without data to examine.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > You're conflating content targeting with headline writing. Those are two separate points. No. >Just because you don’t have a good metric for something doesn’t mean that what you can measure is better. Certainly, if a metric is 'bad' in that it is not producing results, nobody wants to waste their time and keep using it. However, the engagement metric is producing results for many folks. Do you disagree with that? This is meaningless to agree with or disagree with since the value of the results is what is in question. >A metric can simply lead to bad results, and thefore be a bad metric. > Anything "can" lead to anything. That doesn't really make for much of a discussion without data to examine. So you agree that the metric could be bad.
    - passivate 6y ago
      >This is meaningless to agree with or disagree with since the value of the results is what is in question. How are you judging the value of the results? I am not understanding your point here. Again, back to my original question, please propose alternate metrics, otherwise we're just arguing over minutia that misses the meat of the discussion.
      - zepto 6y ago
        > I am not understanding your point here. I know. > Again, back to my original question, please propose alternate metrics That’s not actually necessary in order to understand what I’m saying. In fact it would be a distraction.
        passivate 6y ago
        I much rather steer the conversation towards solutions rather than engage over abstract "good" and "bad" terms which you don't seem to want to define. In any event, we have reached a point of disagreement, which is fine with me, so lets leave it at that. Have a nice day.
        zepto 6y ago
        > I much rather steer the conversation towards solutions rather than engage over abstract "good" and "bad" terms which you don't seem to want to define. That’s not really how it looked earlier in the thread. You seemed to be strongly defending the idea that engagement is good, and not even accepting that there could be a problem. Perhaps that’s a misreading of your intention.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
I will make it simple: they are asserting 'popular=good'. They are not asserting if the headline is misleading, whether it's an accurate summary, etc. Just popular. Well, Hitler was popular too.

zepto 6y ago

Persuading someone to read an article which is irrelevant to them is likely a bad thing. Just because you don’t have a good metric for something doesn’t mean that what you can measure is better. A metric can simply lead to bad results, and thefore be a bad metric.

passivate 6y ago
>Persuading someone to read an article which is irrelevant to them is likely a bad thing. You're conflating content targeting with headline writing. Those are two separate points. >Just because you don’t have a good metric for something doesn’t mean that what you can measure is better. Certainly, if a metric is 'bad' in that it is not producing results, nobody wants to waste their time and keep using it. However, the engagement metric is producing results for many folks. Do you disagree with that? >A metric can simply lead to bad results, and thefore be a bad metric. Anything "can" lead to anything. That doesn't really make for much of a discussion without data to examine.
- zepto 6y ago
  > You're conflating content targeting with headline writing. Those are two separate points. No. >Just because you don’t have a good metric for something doesn’t mean that what you can measure is better. Certainly, if a metric is 'bad' in that it is not producing results, nobody wants to waste their time and keep using it. However, the engagement metric is producing results for many folks. Do you disagree with that? This is meaningless to agree with or disagree with since the value of the results is what is in question. >A metric can simply lead to bad results, and thefore be a bad metric. > Anything "can" lead to anything. That doesn't really make for much of a discussion without data to examine. So you agree that the metric could be bad.
  - passivate 6y ago
    >This is meaningless to agree with or disagree with since the value of the results is what is in question. How are you judging the value of the results? I am not understanding your point here. Again, back to my original question, please propose alternate metrics, otherwise we're just arguing over minutia that misses the meat of the discussion.
    - zepto 6y ago
      > I am not understanding your point here. I know. > Again, back to my original question, please propose alternate metrics That’s not actually necessary in order to understand what I’m saying. In fact it would be a distraction.
      - passivate 6y ago
        I much rather steer the conversation towards solutions rather than engage over abstract "good" and "bad" terms which you don't seem to want to define. In any event, we have reached a point of disagreement, which is fine with me, so lets leave it at that. Have a nice day.
        zepto 6y ago
        > I much rather steer the conversation towards solutions rather than engage over abstract "good" and "bad" terms which you don't seem to want to define. That’s not really how it looked earlier in the thread. You seemed to be strongly defending the idea that engagement is good, and not even accepting that there could be a problem. Perhaps that’s a misreading of your intention.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

I will make it simple: they are asserting 'popular=good'. They are not asserting if the headline is misleading, whether it's an accurate summary, etc. Just popular. Well, Hitler was popular too.