3 ms·
The title is a click-bait. Please don't do this.
by eps 5y ago
The title is a click-bait. Please don't do this.
- cto_of_antifa 5y ago9/10 doctors do it, though
- BeeOnRope 5y agoDo you think that click-bait titles are ineffective, or effective but unethical, or something else?
- amelius 5y agoThey are unnecessarily vague/mysterious. Instead, the title should just state what is the case: "Intel CPU-update causes slowdown" or something like that.
- cperciva 5y agoI think the "on Wednesday" bit is also significant since it tells us that this was a recent change (and one we probably weren't aware of). On the whole I'd say that the original title is much better than most.
- huhtenberg 5y agoShould've said "... this Wednesday" then. The way it's phrased implies a periodic event, which is what makes the title clickbaity.
- BeeOnRope 5y agoI specifically tried to avoid implying that (periodic). I think it would have to say "on Wednesdays" (note the s) to have that meaning. The title originally said "last Wednesday" but I waited too long to publish it and was actually two Wednesdays ago...
- serf 5y agoyou didn't ask me, but I feel strongly about the question asked. Effective but unethical, but unethical in the sense that marketing psychology is unethical. Unethical because it uses well known human psychological weaknesses to help nudge a target towards an action that they themselves may not have chosen to perform without the nudge. If I was asked, i'd wager that most motivated persuasion is unethical to some degree.
- eps 5y agoThey are misleading. Imply one thing, deliver another and this leaves an aftertaste even the actual content is good (like in your case).
- shaklee3 5y agoIgnore them. Nice work as usual, Travis.
- chrismorgan 5y agoWikipedia on clickbait <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait>: > Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, with a defining characteristic of being deceptive, typically sensationalized or misleading. A "teaser" aims to exploit the "curiosity gap", providing just enough information to make readers of news websites curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content. Click-bait headlines add an element of dishonesty, using enticements that do not accurately reflect the content being delivered. I don’t feel this applies in this case because it fails to be deceptive, misleading or dishonest. (Parts of the definition certainly apply, but not enough.) Sure, you could have a title like “Intel just slowed down their CPUs with a microcode update” (and I do prefer explicit titles like this—you should see the titles I write myself, 70- and 80-character limits severely cramp my style), but the article’s title isn’t particularly bad.