Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>I posted the official numbers and report from the BLS but it never caught traction. Same goes for other times I post from the proper source. However, it seems like HN has a bias for WSJ and NYT articles. [...] Is there a reason why official government reports never catch traction?

Just a theory but titles of threads do matter. I'm not claiming it's the reason in your case but it might be.

- Your previous title with no activity: "BLS Reports 14.7% Unemployment Rate"

- This title that attracted upvotes: "April Unemployment Rate Rose to a Record 14.7%"

Your title's matter-of-fact tone is clinical and missing the impact of the 14.7%? Hmmm... the 14.7%... so... is that a lot or a little?

The phrase "rose to a record" is immediate spoonfeeding of the impact to potential readers.

Good newspapers like WSJ, NYT, Buzzfeed, etc know how to craft titles to get readers to click on them. This is often abused and thus disparaged as SEO/clickbait. In this case, providing a little bit of a statistic's impact could be helpful.

Conincidentally I came across a relevant Twitter thread about creating headlines. NYT does A/B testing in the morning to determine which headline they should keep for the rest of the day. https://threader.app/thread/1258492772442681346

The last tweet reads:

For what it’s worth, nytimes senior editor mark bulik said, “we’ve learned a number of lessons from months of testing... clear, powerful words and a conversational tone make a big difference.”

> “we’ve learned a number of lessons from months of testing... clear, powerful words and a conversational tone make a big difference.”

Haha, 'clear, powerful words...'. That's an understatement.

This Bill Maher clip seems somewhat relevant:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcvIQJ-QurQ

Unfortunately, I can also see that this tactic is a tool for causing clickbait and stories to be written a certain way, because editors get tuned to what causes people to click the most.

"Guess what government figure just hit 14.7% today?"

"These 3 sectors hate the latest unemployment figures!"

Only if you allow click-bait to be a part of the A/B testing in the first place, which is where a sense of serious journalism comes into it.

Also, most people don't know what the BLS is, and as the first word in the title, most people would see that and not bother reading the rest.

It’s unfortunate that a neutral tone loses out to that with oomph.

Both titles are factual — but this one provides context to help evaluate the data. I don't think that's unfortunate, it just shows the impact & effectiveness of good writing.

It can be tough to separate useful context from editorialization. In a way it'd be nice to have a separate meta conversation thread for every post, on every platform.

The problem is when a submitter wants to follow the site guidelines, as OP did.

You can be correct, or you can get traction. I think a lot of technical people don't understand this. They get mad at people like say, Greta Thunberg, for not being purely clinical, accurate, scientific and dispassionate. But, meanwhile the people working to make the world believe climate change is fake are emotional, manipulative, and actually get traction against pure, reasoned, calm argument.

So do we want to be correct, or do we want to win?

This becomes especially complicated when some folks (such as myself) have, for better or worse, developed a gag reflex that is triggered by overly emotional or manipulative content. Even if we agree with the message it can be hard to willingly align yourself with people who are 'cheating' in this sense.

>So do we want to be correct, or do we want to win?

It's nice if you can do both. Unfortunately, most systems in the world are actively being gamed which means adding additional constraints to systems (like being correct, clear, forthcoming, honest, etc.) often put you at a disadvantage.

Is HN actually based on this premise of winning? I come here to escape that premise in media (social or otherwise).

Any site that tracks the "score" of your contributions and then makes your "score" visible on most pages is going to be about winnings whether that's the stated goal or not. That is a textbook way to gamify things.

Obviously this applies more to comments than to submissions but the comments are a large part of the user experience here so whether HN is "based on this premise of winning" boils down to a question of the importance of the comment section.

Dopamine feedback from imaginary points, and validation from mostly like minded peers makes users keep coming back to this website. Otherwise user retention would non-existent.

Interesting to present it as a binary tradeoff.

I want to win, but I want to make sure that the thesis has some modeling diligence =)

Is there a name for the phenomenon where your opponent always seems to be playing more dirty? Or where it's hard to see your own's side's emotional manipulation for what it is?

I know I've often fallen prey to this effect. You feel like your team has a disadvantage and then think the other team crazy when they claim the same. Almost like our brains are trying desperately to let us feel justified in relaxing our moral code.

Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling when one sees through the effect you are describing. Perhaps "illusory cognitive consonance"? It's a bit of a mouthful...

Of course, confirmation biases and other related phenomena help us construct and reinforce these perspectives.

The Frollo effect?

judge Claude Frollo longed to purge the world of vice and sin / and he saw corruption everywhere, except within.

What is it that you want to win exactly? Control? The right to tell people what to do?

I’d much rather be correct, and let people make their own decisions. Otherwise this thing you call “freedom” is just empty words on a bit of paper.

> What is it that you want to win exactly? Control? The right to tell people what to do?

No, not control - principal reduction of problems associated with climate crisis.

That’s not going to happen without a huge cutback in our standard of living. The other side knows this, that’s why they fight so hard.

Don't understand what you mean other than this: different reality. Climate crisis is going to be the cause of a huge cutback in our standard of living. Science.

Persuasion isn't control, though. And being coldly analytical is only feasible if everyone agrees.

It's more of last comment standing.

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