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Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

The Washington Post created a tool called Bandito so they could AB test headlines. Sounds like the opposite of what you described.

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> The Washington Post created a tool called Bandito so they could AB test headlines. Sounds like the opposite of what you described.

So that's what happened! I was wondering why the Post's headlines were so clickbait-y.

AB testing is not an evil act by itself. It's an effective technique to understand the user needs. But what you do with the gathered data could make you evil.

No business will want to be out of sync with its users. And no business will want to be in charity mode any more than it should. But doing this without hampering the credibility is the key.

It would be great if they would AB test articles. AB testing headlines is basically looking for ways to draw people into articles. So while it’s responsible and even good to test your product, the headline is not the product.

For a large part of the traffic being driven to wapo, the headline, and possibly picture, is the only thing that drives people to the site. When someone shares an article to social media, you don't get much more. Look right here at HN; how many times has a thread languished in obscurity just for a slightly differently worded headline to drive it to the front page? Headline quality is incredibly vital in this age.

Agreed, for all we know they might already be doing that as well.

The news should be whatever need to know, not what we wanna hear.

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