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The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

theatlantic.com

21–30 of 71 posts

Re: The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

#22
post #4

Clickbait title. Actual title should be: [Orcas] Can Make Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

The question the title raises is answered in the first paragraph, which consists of two sentences.

I really wish we could get past this phase of referring to every title that tries to gather interest by using a little bit of mystery as clickbait in a pejorative way. There's a middle ground between writing being manipulative and misleading and writing being fact based and dry.

Re: The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

#23
post #22
post #4

Clickbait title. Actual title should be: [Orcas] Can Make Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

The question the title raises is answered in the first paragraph, which consists of two sentences. I really wish we could get past this phase of referring to every title that tries to gather interest by using a little bit of mystery as clickbait in a pejorative way. There's a middle ground between writing being manipulative and misleading and writing being fact based and dry.

I do not. Calling bullshit out is exactly what I want to see. There's like 20 links on one page of HN for me, I don't need "a little bit of mystery" when I want to scan what I may be interested in

EDIT: It's 30 links...

Re: The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

#24
post #21

Make sure to read the last sentence. I did not expect that.

Someone's going to read that in the archives in 10 years and they'll either be scratching their heads wondering what it is - or singing along.

I’m sure 2030’s kids will watch dad memes or something to get educated on internet history.

Re: The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

#25
post #23
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question the title raises is answered in the first paragraph, which consists of two sentences. I really wish we could get past this phase of referring to every title that tries to gather interest by using a little bit of mystery as clickbait in a pejorative way. There's a middle ground between writing being manipulative and misleading and writing being fact based and dry.

I do not. Calling bullshit out is exactly what I want to see. There's like 20 links on one page of HN for me, I don't need "a little bit of mystery" when I want to scan what I may be interested in EDIT: It's 30 links...

What about this title wouldn't give you the information you needed to decide if this is something you may be interested in?

Re: The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

#29
post #16
post #4

Clickbait title. Actual title should be: [Orcas] Can Make Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

Seems innocuous to me. It doesn't give false impressions in the way so many article titles do these days, just a hook for finding out what the predator is.

It gives the impression that something new has been discovered. So in this case is a clickbait, you have to click and find out something that is known, maybe not well known but I wouldn't say a secret. I personally knew about Orcas attacking sharks.

Re: The Predator That Makes Great White Sharks Flee in Fear

#30
post #23
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question the title raises is answered in the first paragraph, which consists of two sentences. I really wish we could get past this phase of referring to every title that tries to gather interest by using a little bit of mystery as clickbait in a pejorative way. There's a middle ground between writing being manipulative and misleading and writing being fact based and dry.

I do not. Calling bullshit out is exactly what I want to see. There's like 20 links on one page of HN for me, I don't need "a little bit of mystery" when I want to scan what I may be interested in EDIT: It's 30 links...

Have you considered that the way the title is written can act as another channel for information about the article?

Is the informational content the only reason to read something here? I've read plenty of entertaining things here that I have no utilitatlrion use of the information (if there exists one) afterwards.

Do I really care that great white sharks are scared of orcas? Will that likely ever be useful to me beyond an anecdote in conversation? No, likely on both counts. But I enjoyed it, and in a way I likely wouldn't have had it been a dry listing of events.

Could the title have been "a recounting of select cases of great white shark and orca interactions"? Yes. But while that would have accurately described the content, it would not have accurately described the article, which is presented in the specicifc style the author chose.

Asking for all artistic liberty to be removed from titles is like asking for some machine learning algorithm to succinctly distill factual information as a title. That isn't always making things clearer, often it's just reducing the content of one channel of information in order to increase the content of another. Sometimes that can be useful but since each channel excels at communicating a different thing (facts vs emotion and tone), I think there is a decrease in how useful adding more of one typeof information is when there's little present of the other. I think this is a net loss in utility.

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