5 ms·

that headline though ?, online journalism at its worst, the chase for clicks, there really needs to be some solution to this problem journalism is dying and cli

that headline though ?, online journalism at its worst, the chase for clicks, there really needs to be some solution to this problem journalism is dying and clickbait is where is at.

sago 10y ago
I think a big part of the answer is not to care. Or rather to just silently auto-discount. Imagine the 60s-90s and advertising just overwhelm with sexualised figures. We don't notice, because we just silently pass by. I don't see any way of turning back the tide of hyperbolic titles on articles. Better to just ignore them and move on. Buzzfeed headlines worked on me the first few times, now I know not to go there.
- kfrz 10y ago
  Yeah, this is what I do to a tee. I just say "well, can't credit them as a reliable source of quality journalism." Then I move on and find some coherent research on what I need to know.
digitalengineer 10y ago
FB is working on this. If misleading title > lower ranking score.
noiv 10y ago
I hope one day title bashing turns into a global no-ads movement.
- nine_k 10y ago
  A global "we pay for the content" movement? Would be interesting.
civilian 10y ago
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and this is the weirdest star we've seen. Your claims of clickbait are out of line, because we really don't know and alien megastructures is a reasonable theory. And 'alien megastructures' isn't even the most ridiculous idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/comments/4w7qfi/ben_montetjoshua_simon_paper/d65t063 https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/comments/4w7qfi/ben_mont...
- jimmytidey 10y ago
  This is an amazing theory. What could possibly be more out there than alien life? Alien life in a gigantic spaceship accidentally coming between you and a star.
  - echelon 10y ago
    Would it be "accidental" if they were traveling in a direct vector approaching us? Incredibly implausible idea for the sheer improbability, but fun to imagine nevertheless.
    - erelde 10y ago
      I would think that by the time they actually move some meaningful distance, their sun would not be 'behind' them anymore, they'd still be moving toward ours, but as the whole thing is constantly moving, their sun would have moved relative to ours.
  - api 10y ago
    Would it actually be a straight line? Going from e.g. Earth to Mars does not consist of aiming for Mars and firing your rockets. It consists of hitting a parabolic transfer orbit and then doing another burn to place yourself in Mars' orbit -- or just heading right in if you've got the heat shields and retropropulsion for that. Basically you do orbital mechanics like Wayne Gretzky: you don't go to where the planet is, but where it's going to be. Would interstellar flight be that different? Wouldn't you be executing a "transfer orbit" about the galactic center? Or is the effect of galactic-scale gravitational pull negligible there and you just end up basically going straight from A to B? Edit: turns out this came from an actual subreddit dedicated to this star! https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/ Subscribed!
    - bitJericho 10y ago
      The galactic center is 100,000 lightyears away. Going from a location to another 1000 lightyears away via the galactic center would make the trip 200 times longer. A 10,000 year journey would thus take 2 million years. It's probably better to jump from point A to B, then.
olympusmons 10y ago
Lets brainstorm. Perhaps one mathematical solution to the problem is to score pages based on the average time spent for each article. My hypothesis is that clickbait articles will score very low because the article will attract a lot of clicks from people who are not interested in the actual content but only the headline. In theory, you could do this by deploying a tracker across the web similar to a Google analytics that performs the measurement. But in practice, of course, this isn't possible. You might be able to approximate the score by building a browser extension that makes the measurement. A browser extension might also a good way to output results. It could, for instance, colour-code links (on mouseover) to help you spot click-bait before you click it!
- brownbat 10y ago
  There's a plugin for Wikipedia where if you hover over a linked term, it will show the first paragraph from that article, usually all you need. We just need something like that for the web.
  - olympusmons 10y ago
    I like your solution because it doesn't (necessarily) require a backend and would therefore be much simpler to implement. There are several libraries that extract article text reasonably well. I believe browser extensions are written mainly in HTML/JS/CSS. Would the following node library suffice? https://github.com/ageitgey/node-unfluff https://github.com/ageitgey/node-unfluff There's just the question of retrieval speed. I suspect simple HTML retrieval is an order of magnitude faster than normal page rendering due to ads, javascript, etc. So the client-only solution you've proposed might indeed be sufficient!
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    I use QuickLook in Safari on OS X and iOS like that (OS X: triple-finger-tap to get a link preview, iOS: Force touch). It only gets ruined by those "subscribe!" full screen popups.

that headline though ?, online journalism at its worst, the chase for clicks, there really needs to be some solution to this problem journalism is dying and clickbait is where is at.

sago 10y ago

I think a big part of the answer is not to care. Or rather to just silently auto-discount. Imagine the 60s-90s and advertising just overwhelm with sexualised figures. We don't notice, because we just silently pass by. I don't see any way of turning back the tide of hyperbolic titles on articles. Better to just ignore them and move on. Buzzfeed headlines worked on me the first few times, now I know not to go there.

kfrz 10y ago
Yeah, this is what I do to a tee. I just say "well, can't credit them as a reliable source of quality journalism." Then I move on and find some coherent research on what I need to know.

digitalengineer 10y ago

FB is working on this. If misleading title > lower ranking score.

noiv 10y ago

I hope one day title bashing turns into a global no-ads movement.

nine_k 10y ago
A global "we pay for the content" movement? Would be interesting.

civilian 10y ago

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and this is the weirdest star we've seen. Your claims of clickbait are out of line, because we really don't know and alien megastructures is a reasonable theory. And 'alien megastructures' isn't even the most ridiculous idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/comments/4w7qfi/ben_montetjoshua_simon_paper/d65t063 https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/comments/4w7qfi/ben_mont...

jimmytidey 10y ago
This is an amazing theory. What could possibly be more out there than alien life? Alien life in a gigantic spaceship accidentally coming between you and a star.
- echelon 10y ago
  Would it be "accidental" if they were traveling in a direct vector approaching us? Incredibly implausible idea for the sheer improbability, but fun to imagine nevertheless.
  - erelde 10y ago
    I would think that by the time they actually move some meaningful distance, their sun would not be 'behind' them anymore, they'd still be moving toward ours, but as the whole thing is constantly moving, their sun would have moved relative to ours.
- api 10y ago
  Would it actually be a straight line? Going from e.g. Earth to Mars does not consist of aiming for Mars and firing your rockets. It consists of hitting a parabolic transfer orbit and then doing another burn to place yourself in Mars' orbit -- or just heading right in if you've got the heat shields and retropropulsion for that. Basically you do orbital mechanics like Wayne Gretzky: you don't go to where the planet is, but where it's going to be. Would interstellar flight be that different? Wouldn't you be executing a "transfer orbit" about the galactic center? Or is the effect of galactic-scale gravitational pull negligible there and you just end up basically going straight from A to B? Edit: turns out this came from an actual subreddit dedicated to this star! https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/ Subscribed!
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    The galactic center is 100,000 lightyears away. Going from a location to another 1000 lightyears away via the galactic center would make the trip 200 times longer. A 10,000 year journey would thus take 2 million years. It's probably better to jump from point A to B, then.

olympusmons 10y ago

Lets brainstorm. Perhaps one mathematical solution to the problem is to score pages based on the average time spent for each article. My hypothesis is that clickbait articles will score very low because the article will attract a lot of clicks from people who are not interested in the actual content but only the headline. In theory, you could do this by deploying a tracker across the web similar to a Google analytics that performs the measurement. But in practice, of course, this isn't possible. You might be able to approximate the score by building a browser extension that makes the measurement. A browser extension might also a good way to output results. It could, for instance, colour-code links (on mouseover) to help you spot click-bait before you click it!

brownbat 10y ago
There's a plugin for Wikipedia where if you hover over a linked term, it will show the first paragraph from that article, usually all you need. We just need something like that for the web.
- olympusmons 10y ago
  I like your solution because it doesn't (necessarily) require a backend and would therefore be much simpler to implement. There are several libraries that extract article text reasonably well. I believe browser extensions are written mainly in HTML/JS/CSS. Would the following node library suffice? https://github.com/ageitgey/node-unfluff https://github.com/ageitgey/node-unfluff There's just the question of retrieval speed. I suspect simple HTML retrieval is an order of magnitude faster than normal page rendering due to ads, javascript, etc. So the client-only solution you've proposed might indeed be sufficient!
- kalleboo 10y ago
  I use QuickLook in Safari on OS X and iOS like that (OS X: triple-finger-tap to get a link preview, iOS: Force touch). It only gets ruined by those "subscribe!" full screen popups.