Hacker News Reader

Comment by boznz | Hacker News Reader

Click-bait titles like "All the best programmers know this..", "Breakthrough might make fusion a reality.." or any other type of title that does not give a hint of what the actual thing is are immediately discarded by me regardless of the creator. I actually wish there was a way of blocking these but they are usually the first items I see on YouTube or reddit.. sigh!

This title problem is even worse as an author where you get one-chance for people to notice/read your book, but if the blurb or the cover picture is even slightly misleading or sub-par to the readers expectation they are likely to review it poorly and then the algorithm kicks it down the listings. I seriously miscategorised my first book and it did not do it any favors.

View on HN

There’s an open source crowdsourced solution for clickbait titles and thumbnails for YouTube, at least.

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

> DeArrow is an open source browser extension for crowdsourcing better titles and thumbnails on YouTube. The goal is to make titles accurate and reduce sensationalism. No more arrows, ridiculous faces, and no more clickbait.

I see a use case for Ai here. Scrape the audio and return a title that better summarises the video.

You might like SponsorBlock, from the same dev as DeArrow.

https://sponsor.ajay.app/

> SponsorBlock is an open-source crowdsourced browser extension and open API for skipping sponsor segments in YouTube videos. Users submit when a sponsor happens from the extension, and the extension automatically skips sponsors it knows about using a privacy preserving query system. It also supports skipping other categories, such as intros, outros and reminders to subscribe, and skipping to the point with highlight.

>I actually wish there was a way of blocking these but they are usually the first items I see on YouTube or reddit.. sigh!

It would be cool something like a llm based link title classifier that hide click-bait links or something like that.

Or it could read the article and rewrite the title to make the point clear.

And give a score based on how interesting it will likely be to you.

My belief has been that the title should describe exactly what it is you're writing about. no cleverness

Better: title should capture some core aspect(s) of [thing]. But may do so in a playful manner.

Say eg. some building / construction / architecture article could be titled "square shapes considered harmful". And then discuss architects known for buildings with rounded corners everywhere.

Personally, I don't see "audience likes it" as #1 priority. I prefer to make audience think, learn something, provide a new angle on something, or put out something that didn't exist before. Kind of like a movie that may not have a happy end, but viewers remember for the story, atmosphere, instant classic-potential, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com