6 ms·
Looks like the headline got changed. It was, "Shakespeare’s Genius Is Nonsense" which I thought was both more correct (by HN rules) and more entertaining. The
by bronson 12y ago
Looks like the headline got changed. It was, "Shakespeare’s Genius Is Nonsense" which I thought was both more correct (by HN rules) and more entertaining.
The headline is currently "What Shakespeare can teach about language and the limits of the human mind."
- dang 12y agoOk, we put it back. The HN rule, by the way, is to not use misleading or linkbait titles. This one is obviously the latter. But if it's that descriptive of the content, we can let it go. (Edit: I'm moving this subthread to the root level so we can mark it off topic without penalizing the parent.)
- hammock 12y agoSince when did legitimately clever headlines, once a source of pride for any editor, become "obviously linkbait"?
- taeric 12y agoProbably better to call it "intentionally inflammatory." I feel, and I think this is shared by others, that these are typically not on high quality stories.
- KC8ZKF 12y agoIn that case changing the headline is intentionally deceptive.
- squidfood 12y agoHeadlines are the original linkbait.
- worklogin 12y agoIt's clever in context; that is, once you know what the article is about. On the face of it, someone is saying "it's nonsense that Shakespeare is considered a genius", and is thus more linkbait than the average, descriptive title.
- hammock 12y agoShakespeare's penchant for making up words and wordplay is well-known; there is enough context for an educated reader to figure it out before clicking on the link.
- tjradcliffe 12y agoIn a world where the most banal and boring article gets tortured into clickbait, this educated reader wondered, "Is that something interesting do to with Shakespeare's use of language, or something dull and stupid that has been given a ridiculous headline to attract the gullible?" So no, there is not enough context for "an educated reader" to figure it out.
- tejon 12y agoYou conflate "educated" with "superficially cynical."
- tjradcliffe 12y agoThe difficulty today with a headline that looks like linkebait--even if its descriptive of the content--is that some of us won't click on it because we find linkbait repellant and habitually avoid it. So rather than inform the reader and allow them to judge whether the article is interesting, you have created a situation where people who are repulsed by linkbait (I hope I'm not alone in this) are required to do more work to find out of the article is worth checking out, which is pretty much the opposite of what a headline ought to do. There's likely some objective measure of the balance between people who click on the linkbait and learn something interesting about Shakespeare vs people who are repulsed and fail to do so, and it may well be that the former outweigh the latter, but I figured I'd make sure the latter's view is mentioned here.
- mhartl 12y agomisleading or linkbait titles. This one is obviously the latter. It's not obvious to me. The title is a play on words; to the extent that it misleads, it does so for effect. And not all cleverness is tantamount to linkbait. (For what it's worth, I immediately understood the title to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Shakespeare's well-known love of linguistic innovation.)
- sliverstorm 12y agoIMO what it was previously titled here (What Shakespeare can teach...) just sounded pompous and overly grandiose- coincidentally, another common sin of the BuzzFeed era. I prefer the actual albeit clickbaity headline
- Scuds 12y agoMaybe a better title would be 'Shakespeare's Nonsense is Genius' :-D