4 ms·

Because it's a click bait title and many, myself included hate them

by primax 3y ago

junon 3y ago
Elephants died. Title is clickbait how?
- uoaei 3y ago
  Clickbait is not the same as sensationalism, though sometimes they overlap. "Clickbait" is literally correct here since they are withholding precisely "why dozens of endangered elephants dropped dead" in the title itself, so you are baited into clicking through.
- samplatt 3y ago
  By presenting a mystery without any reason why else you might be interested other than the fact that it _might_ be a mystery. Many people prefer titles to be an accurate and concise summary of the article, rather than relying on emotional tricks to get you to visit an external website find out what it's actually about. On a news aggregator site like HN, an accurate title is nicer because it respects your time and lets you choose your content. Mysteries are interesting, so humans want to solve them. If the article turns out to be something uninteresting or something not to do with the headline, then the reader has wasted their time and the author and the website is being dishonest and being rewarded for it by clicks.
  - wredue 3y ago
    Clickbait usually has titles like: A dozen endangered elephants died. The reason will shock you!
    - samplatt 3y ago
      That's the same thing, but presented even more bluntly as an open appeal to your baser desire for a mystery, but it's still clickbait nonetheless - it's presenting itself as a mystery without any further reason information other than "elephants died". "Endangered" is emotional content without any further information; all elephants are endangered (or at the very least vulnerable) so this is another hint that the title is emotional (clickbait) driven rather than a useful summary. The Guardian aims itself at people who like to consider themselves more intelligent than the average bear. The clickbait will therefore be toned down a little. Some people still prefer it to not exist at all, if possible.
      - jrflowers 3y ago
        I cannot stand these clickbait titles that explain the content of the article. I only read news where the article is zalgo text renderings of Bukowski quotes. Real news should have titles so off putting and repulsive that only geniuses in the throws of lunacy might dare click. What kind of baby society has conditioned us to expect “short summaries” as the title to an article? The only appropriate title for this article is a word-for-word copy-and-paste of the entire text of the book 1984.
  - jancsika 3y ago
    > By presenting a mystery without any reason why else you might be interested other than the fact that it _might_ be a mystery. In the article, they claim it was a mystery and have a link to a previous story they published in September about said mystery. > If the article turns out to be something uninteresting or something not to do with the headline, then the reader has wasted their time and the author and the website is being dishonest and being rewarded for it by clicks. That's about the nicest concise definition of clickbait I've ever read! It's also exactly the reason why this article does not qualify as click bait: 1. The answer is interesting to anyone who cares about elephants (and if you clicked the headline link I assume you care about elephants) 2. The answer in the article is literally the answer to the headline. Please consider the distinction between a) annoying headline links that require you to click to get the answer, and b) clickbait-- by your own definition-- which leaves you with uninteresting/non-relevant content to what was claimed in the link If you overload clickbait to mean both things, you might erroneously reply with a buffer too large for the type of definition you meant and accidentally pad with private key material
- myself248 3y ago
  Yes. "Dozens of endangered elephants killed by septacemia, scientists find" would be the non-clickbait title.
  - DonHopkins 3y ago
    So you want a complete summary of the article in the title so you can discuss it without actually clicking on the link and bothering to read it? You're not even discussing the article, just its title. Shallow, boring, and formulaic. It would be more interesting if you were whining about the article's html formatting. Edit: How am I attacking the character of the poster? I described his post, not his personality or belief system. And now you're doing worse than what he's doing, posting uninteresting off topic personal attacks that aren't even true. If you don't have anything to say about elephants, then don't say anything. Your time would be better spend looking up and learning what the term "strawman" means.
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - happytoexplain 3y ago
        I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you about the parent's tone (though I think "attack the character" is not really accurate). However: > Please do better. This specific phrase, especially as a standalone sentence, comes off as highly superior/patronizing. It's almost exclusively something you would say to a child, or as a humble resolution about yourself.
        zmgsabst 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - serf 3y ago
      >So you want a complete summary of the article in the title that's literally the point of an articles' title, the idea that you think it's somehow strange makes it seem as if clickbait strategies have become so ingrained as to appear invisible. Titles aren't meant to be gamified and reduced into the shortest possible quip that will produce hits, they're supposed to aid in summary of the content. They're supposed to be shallow and formulaic; they're a tool for indexing and summarization, not a tool for generative publicity. "Septicemia - possibly exacerbated by climate change - kills dozens of elephants." vs. "Scientists discover elephants TRUE KILLER, CLICK HERE NOW!" 'Shallow, boring, formulaic' is a good thing and it keeps with thousands of years of academic tradition and good sense.
happytoexplain 3y ago
That seems unnecessarily presumptuous/hostile. I hate click bait too, this just didn't strike me as having that tone. Sometimes I think we jump a little too quick to negativity about every little thing. E.g. in my opinion, "not summarizing the conclusion" is only one trait of click bait, not the definition.
DonHopkins 3y ago
I hate coming here to discuss the article and learn about elephants, but only finding low quality irrelevant uninteresting bitchy posts like yours instead of relevant thoughtful comments and fascinating elephant facts. If there's not already a subreddit about whining about clickbait, then you should start one and go there. Edit: Then take your own advice, downvote my comment, delete your own comment, and move on, to serve as an example.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wffurr 3y ago
  Just downvote and/or flag and move on. Posting in the thread (like this, which I almost never do) doesn’t help.
jancsika 3y ago
I just read the Wikipedia entry for "Clickbait." While one could technically derive a stark, bizarrely restrictive definition to be a link that requires one to click through to satisfy one's curiosity, any good faith reading would note that the whole point of the term is to characterize links which are also sensationalized and deceptive (upon reading click-through content). The 2nd paragraph makes this explicit, comparing click-bait to pre-digital "bait-and-switch," which is-- again-- a deceptive practice. Being annoyed at having to click a link isn't the same as being deceived into clicking one.

Because it's a click bait title and many, myself included hate them

by primax 3y ago

Because it's a click bait title and many, myself included hate them

junon 3y ago

Elephants died. Title is clickbait how?

uoaei 3y ago
Clickbait is not the same as sensationalism, though sometimes they overlap. "Clickbait" is literally correct here since they are withholding precisely "why dozens of endangered elephants dropped dead" in the title itself, so you are baited into clicking through.
samplatt 3y ago
By presenting a mystery without any reason why else you might be interested other than the fact that it _might_ be a mystery. Many people prefer titles to be an accurate and concise summary of the article, rather than relying on emotional tricks to get you to visit an external website find out what it's actually about. On a news aggregator site like HN, an accurate title is nicer because it respects your time and lets you choose your content. Mysteries are interesting, so humans want to solve them. If the article turns out to be something uninteresting or something not to do with the headline, then the reader has wasted their time and the author and the website is being dishonest and being rewarded for it by clicks.
- wredue 3y ago
  Clickbait usually has titles like: A dozen endangered elephants died. The reason will shock you!
  - samplatt 3y ago
    That's the same thing, but presented even more bluntly as an open appeal to your baser desire for a mystery, but it's still clickbait nonetheless - it's presenting itself as a mystery without any further reason information other than "elephants died". "Endangered" is emotional content without any further information; all elephants are endangered (or at the very least vulnerable) so this is another hint that the title is emotional (clickbait) driven rather than a useful summary. The Guardian aims itself at people who like to consider themselves more intelligent than the average bear. The clickbait will therefore be toned down a little. Some people still prefer it to not exist at all, if possible.
    - jrflowers 3y ago
      I cannot stand these clickbait titles that explain the content of the article. I only read news where the article is zalgo text renderings of Bukowski quotes. Real news should have titles so off putting and repulsive that only geniuses in the throws of lunacy might dare click. What kind of baby society has conditioned us to expect “short summaries” as the title to an article? The only appropriate title for this article is a word-for-word copy-and-paste of the entire text of the book 1984.
- jancsika 3y ago
  > By presenting a mystery without any reason why else you might be interested other than the fact that it _might_ be a mystery. In the article, they claim it was a mystery and have a link to a previous story they published in September about said mystery. > If the article turns out to be something uninteresting or something not to do with the headline, then the reader has wasted their time and the author and the website is being dishonest and being rewarded for it by clicks. That's about the nicest concise definition of clickbait I've ever read! It's also exactly the reason why this article does not qualify as click bait: 1. The answer is interesting to anyone who cares about elephants (and if you clicked the headline link I assume you care about elephants) 2. The answer in the article is literally the answer to the headline. Please consider the distinction between a) annoying headline links that require you to click to get the answer, and b) clickbait-- by your own definition-- which leaves you with uninteresting/non-relevant content to what was claimed in the link If you overload clickbait to mean both things, you might erroneously reply with a buffer too large for the type of definition you meant and accidentally pad with private key material
myself248 3y ago
Yes. "Dozens of endangered elephants killed by septacemia, scientists find" would be the non-clickbait title.
- DonHopkins 3y ago
  So you want a complete summary of the article in the title so you can discuss it without actually clicking on the link and bothering to read it? You're not even discussing the article, just its title. Shallow, boring, and formulaic. It would be more interesting if you were whining about the article's html formatting. Edit: How am I attacking the character of the poster? I described his post, not his personality or belief system. And now you're doing worse than what he's doing, posting uninteresting off topic personal attacks that aren't even true. If you don't have anything to say about elephants, then don't say anything. Your time would be better spend looking up and learning what the term "strawman" means.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - happytoexplain 3y ago
      I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you about the parent's tone (though I think "attack the character" is not really accurate). However: > Please do better. This specific phrase, especially as a standalone sentence, comes off as highly superior/patronizing. It's almost exclusively something you would say to a child, or as a humble resolution about yourself.
      - zmgsabst 3y ago
        [flagged]
  - serf 3y ago
    >So you want a complete summary of the article in the title that's literally the point of an articles' title, the idea that you think it's somehow strange makes it seem as if clickbait strategies have become so ingrained as to appear invisible. Titles aren't meant to be gamified and reduced into the shortest possible quip that will produce hits, they're supposed to aid in summary of the content. They're supposed to be shallow and formulaic; they're a tool for indexing and summarization, not a tool for generative publicity. "Septicemia - possibly exacerbated by climate change - kills dozens of elephants." vs. "Scientists discover elephants TRUE KILLER, CLICK HERE NOW!" 'Shallow, boring, formulaic' is a good thing and it keeps with thousands of years of academic tradition and good sense.

happytoexplain 3y ago

That seems unnecessarily presumptuous/hostile. I hate click bait too, this just didn't strike me as having that tone. Sometimes I think we jump a little too quick to negativity about every little thing. E.g. in my opinion, "not summarizing the conclusion" is only one trait of click bait, not the definition.

DonHopkins 3y ago

I hate coming here to discuss the article and learn about elephants, but only finding low quality irrelevant uninteresting bitchy posts like yours instead of relevant thoughtful comments and fascinating elephant facts. If there's not already a subreddit about whining about clickbait, then you should start one and go there. Edit: Then take your own advice, downvote my comment, delete your own comment, and move on, to serve as an example.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wffurr 3y ago
Just downvote and/or flag and move on. Posting in the thread (like this, which I almost never do) doesn’t help.

jancsika 3y ago

I just read the Wikipedia entry for "Clickbait." While one could technically derive a stark, bizarrely restrictive definition to be a link that requires one to click through to satisfy one's curiosity, any good faith reading would note that the whole point of the term is to characterize links which are also sensationalized and deceptive (upon reading click-through content). The 2nd paragraph makes this explicit, comparing click-bait to pre-digital "bait-and-switch," which is-- again-- a deceptive practice. Being annoyed at having to click a link isn't the same as being deceived into clicking one.