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Comment by Gagarin1917 | Hacker News Reader

Gagarin1917

They’re at this level because the editors have always had low standers.

I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like 50% of Ars headlines are completely misleading.

They’ve had this problem for years. They will publish anything that gets them clicks. They do not care if a writer makes things up. They do not care if their headlines are misleading - in fact, that’s the point. They clearly got into the job in order to influence and manipulate people.

They’re bad people, with terrible motivations, and unchecked power. They only walk back when something really really bad happens.

Never trust an Ars headline.

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> They’re at this level because the editors have always had low standers.

It's not just Ars Technica. I would go as far as saying the big majority. I work at the biggest alliance of public service media in EU, and my role required me to interact with editors. I often do not like painting with broad brush, but I am yet to meet a humble editor yet. They approach everything with a "I know better than anyone else" attitude. Probably the "public" aspect of the media, but I woupd argue it's editorial aspect too. The rest of the staff are often very nice and down to earth.

<< They approach everything with a "I know better than anyone else" attitude.

My charitable read is that if one has to interact with the public, one naturally develops an understanding of what is wrong with it.

> but I am yet to meet a humble editor yet. They approach everything with a "I know better than anyone else" attitude.

They're like "UX experts" in software. One does UX for software, the other does UX for text. Same attitude problems, from the way you describe it. If the expert in something so subjectively judged is seen to be conceding anything, that might undermine their perceived expertise. Any push back is interpreted as somebody challenging their career.

> Any push back is interpreted as somebody challenging their career.

I mean, yes, this happens quite a bit, especially with egotistical people.

But to play devils advocate they do have to deal with a massive fuckload of bullshit asymmetry where people dumber than rocks spew forth a never ending stream of stupid crap with the authority of an LLM.

Same for the Verge. Sometimes their headline or content contains factual errors. If you point it out in the comment, sometimes they do it properly and add a correction, other times they quietly fix it and delete your comment. So much for their free speech stance and editorial practice.

A few years ago I liked Ars Technica, but then somehow I think quality went down the drain. Did something happen to them a few years ago? If they get rid of the crazy reporters and go AI only - maybe the quality will improve again to a readable level.

> "always had low standards"

Always? Or since they were bought by Conde Nast in 2008?

It doesn't help that the background of most Ars' writers was some variant of "former IT pro", which is almost guaranteed to mean they're unqualified to write with nuance and depth about serious technical topics. So you have guys like Jon Brodkin pumping out total nonsense about the latest wireless communications breakthroughs (just one example I remember) while 99% of the audience has no clue and won't check them on it.

> I don’t know about you guys, but I feel like 50% of Ars headlines are completely misleading.

I believe they are doing A/B testing on these.

Ah yes, I remember correctly for once: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/why-do-front-page-arti...

TL;DR: They are doing mandatory A/B testing since 2015.

A/B headline testing is just scientific clickbait.

I didn't argue that it isn't?

I was agreeing; anyone who admits to using A/B headline testing is just admitting to be a clickbait factory.

You ever ask the question why they would want to be a clickbait factory?

Because it pays the bills, unfortunately. Google has sucked up all the advertising dollars that used to pay for media and the rest of the world is now doing card tricks to earn scraps to pay the bills.

I disagree. You could A/B test two good, accurate, well-written headlines and stay clear of clickbait altogether. Sure, you're still optimising for the most popular, but "clickbait" doesn't just mean "well performing", there's also an implication of duplicity.

I have a modicum of experience here. I write for another online media company and, although we produce our own headlines, we are 'strongly encouraged' to write clickbait headlines, to the extent where we are asked to remove instances of specific product names (etc.) in order to be mysterious and not give the game away too early. (Yes, in case it wasn't clear, I hate this!)

Sure, you can be above board (and perhaps they even try) but that recent “WiFi is broken wide open” headline that turned out to be something about device-to-device and not wargaming told me where their hearts lay (in being paid, understandably).

Example?

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