How to title your blog post or whatever
7 comments
·May 12, 2025boznz
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 doubly-bad 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.
billyp-rva
> You’d think that, by 2025, technology would have solved the problem of things getting to people. I think it’s the opposite. Social media is optimized to keep people engaged and does not want people leaving the walled garden. Openly prohibiting links would cause a revolt, so instead they go as close as people will tolerate. Which, it turns out, is pretty close.
I'm not at all sure it would cause a revolt. Most people probably wouldn't notice at this point.
lylejantzi3rd
It did cause a small uproar, but not as big of one as I expected. Musk admitted that posts with links that people clicked on would get de-prioritized by the algorithm.
croisillon
oh i thought the greatest brain in America had been removed from the government in order to focus on his failing truck business, but apparently he's "optimizing user-seconds" on his conspiracy forum instead?
amw-zero
Eh. I like to wing it and call it whatever I like. If the content is good, people will find it.
mac-attack
Good read, I'm going to subscribe to your blog via RSS now.
My best engagement on Hacker News has come from submitting great discussion topics; content is secondary. You're trying to think of something that people would really enjoy talking about if they just got the chance. So if you can notice systemic issues and perhaps give them a name, you're halfway to the front page already. When they read your title, people think of all kinds of related ideas that they've been dying to discuss! Indeed, with a good enough title, you barely need an article at all...