[My comment kind-of seems insanely long for this topic, but âwhat to call a postâ is a decision Iâll probably face hundreds of times in future, so it seems worth thinking about it more.]
I expect we disagree, though Iâm not sure how much, and Iâd be interested in trying to find the crux and seeing whether one of us will end up changing our minds.
First, Iâll gesture at my broader views on related topics by adapting a comment I wrote in a doc. Though this comment isnât specifically on numbered list titles, and Iâd say different things about numbered list titles specifically. (This comment was prompted by someone suggesting the doc be given a more âfunâ title.)
I agree that âfunâ titles get more readership, but I think that this is bad and should not be exploited, and I think that itâs good that the Forum already has more of a mild norm against exploiting this.
To expand: I think our goal should be for people to (1) read whatever is most useful to them, or perhaps whatever they can provide the most value to (via comments, contacting the author to share thoughts, etc.), and also for people to (2) spend the appropriate amount of time on reading vs other activities.
For that goal, it could help to be more attention-grabbing/âfun, if either (a) we have good reason to think our thing is whatâs best for them to read but that theyâll fail to appreciate that by default, or (b) people are reading things like Forum posts less than they should (e.g., they get bored and go play video games).
But I think we should be skeptical about (a), just as weâd be skeptical of other people saying it. And I donât think (b) is as big an issue as the choice of what to read (plus some people may read the Forum more than they should, though Iâd guess thatâs less common than reading it less than they should, even among EAs).
So I think we should aim for titles to basically just make the scope and purpose clear and not be especially boring or long.
If we can get more attention-grabbing-ness without sacrificing clarity of purpose and scope, that could sometimes be worthwhile, but Iâm wary even of that. E.g., for this reason, I called a post âSome history topics it might be very valuable to investigateâ rather than â10 history topics it might be very valuable to investigateâ, even though it literally did happen to be 10.
And if weâd have to sacrifice clarity, then I think thatâs very rarely worthwhile.
Relatedly, I think the Forumâs mild norm against exploiting attention-grabbing-ness is a good thing and should be maintained. Even if we believed (a) and it was true, probably a bunch of other people would believe similar things about themselves. And weâre all better off if we just make it as easy as possible for readers to work out what itâd make sense for them to read, rather than trying to entice them or grab their attention.
I think itâs sort-of like weâre in a community-level prisonerâs dilemma, and currently weâre cooperating, and we should stick with that.
(Here I partly have in mindScott Alexanderâs writing on asymmetric weapons:âLogical debate has one advantage over narrative, rhetoric, and violence: itâs an asymmetric weapon. That is, itâs a weapon which is stronger in the hands of the good guys than in the hands of the bad guys.â)
And in this case, I think [personâs] suggestion would indeed sacrifice clarity - [reason why the âfunâ title would make the scope and purpose of the post less immediately clear than other titles].
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So I guess there were really three key downsides I was pointing to in that comment:
Optimising partly for attention-grabbing-ness in titles might in expectation worsen readersâ choices about what to read and how long to spend reading things in a given venue, because it sometimes trades of against being clear about the purpose and scope of a piece
Optimising partly for attention-grabbing-ness in titles might in expectation worsen readersâ choices about what to read and how long to spend reading things in a given venue, because it introduces an âattractorâ that isnât necessarily at all correlated with how worth-reading something is for a given person
Optimising partly for attention-grabbing-ness is kind-of like defecting on a prisonerâs dilemma, and may lead other people to do the same, which could be bad even if it really is true that what âyouâ are writing is especially worthy of readersâ attention and âyourâ title choice would still be clear
When I wrote the above comment, it was in a situation where I think all 3 of those downsides applied. Just swapping âSome [blah]â for â10 [blah]â doesnât face downside 1, which makes it much better. So Iâm probably actually more ok with numbered list titles than some other types of âfunâ titles (e.g., off the top of my head, calling this post âHistory, the long-term, and youâ or âHistory! What is it good for?â).
But I think thereâs also a fourth possible downside:
4. Using a numbered list title for a post may also make you, or other people, more likely to write posts suited to numbered list formats, or squeeze other posts into that format (and maybe into neat or not-too-high numbers). This would happen if numbered list titles increased attention in expectation, and so people were incentivised to use them, and perhaps even would simply struggle to âcompeteâ for attention if they donât use them in an environment where everyone else is.
So I think, when it comes to numbered list titles for posts that do fit that mould, the possible downsides are 2, 3, and 4, and how strong those downsides are depends to a significant extent (though not entirely) on the extent to which numbered list titles grab attention in a way that isnât correlated with whatâs useful for the reader or where the reader can provide value.
So, if you basically agree with the above framings in theory, maybe the crux between you and I is just the empirical question of the extent to which numbered list titles do that. (Related to your statement â(3) I donât find it very plausible that a straightforward declaration of the size of a list tricks people into reading things they otherwise ought not to have (while I agree for phrases like âNumber 5 will SHOCK you,â or outrage bait)â. Though Iâm not sure I like the word âtricksâ.)
Do you think thatâs the crux? If so, maybe google could quickly reveal answers to that empirical question?
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Also, do you think you agree with my views when it comes to âfunâ titles that are unclear as to purpose and scope (e.g., âHistory, the long-term future, and youâ), separate from the question of numbered list titles?
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(Also, I should note that all of this is specifically in the context of the EA ForumâIâm more open to âattention-grabbingâ strategies in other contexts. I could elaborate if readers are interested, but Linch and I already discussed that separately.)
Hmm, I have two somewhat different claims first, before engaging with the structure of your argument.
The numbered list format is actually just a great communicative technology, both in general and especially well-adapted to the internet age.
In a nonadversarial context, honest signaling of traits is all-else-equal very good.
Itâs possible you already agree with these points, so I will use them as assumptions and wonât defend them further here unless requested.
extent to which numbered list titles grab attention in a way that isnât correlated with whatâs useful for the reader or where the reader can provide value
I think this is a large difference between us, but not by itself the ultimate crux. I think thereâs another consideration:
extent to which numbered list titles are superior to other titles in their ability to provide value to the user.
I agree that if the costs of numbered list titles is high enough, we probably shouldnât do them. However, I think between us we diverge on the differences in our evaluation of the benefits of numbered list titles as well.
Broadly, I think numbered list titles are useful honest signaling^ to quickly tell readers whether to engage with a post (and also helpfully whether to stop reading a post, after they read the first point in a list).
For another example:
Using a numbered list title for a post may also make you, or other people, more likely to write posts suited to numbered list formats, or squeeze other posts into that format
To me (to the extent that your observation is correct), this is evidence that the marketplace of ideas desire more articles well-suited to numbered list formats, so itâs all-else-equal evidence that people ought to write more numbered lists. (Analogously, if it turns out a lot of EA people like listening to podcasts, I think this is evidence that more EAs should make podcasts, even if I personally hate podcasts). So something that to you is a cost I mostly think of as a benefit. (I donât think the EA marketplace of ideas is always accurate, for example it rewards culture war posts more than I perhaps think is fair).
Ultimately, if it turns out that numbered list titles attract people more to reading posts that they otherwise wouldnât have, and this is a bad choice of their time, I agree that this is usually a bad idea.
I think my main heuristic for preferring to title numbered lists when the article is essentially a numbered list to begin with is that honest signaling is usually good, both in general and specific to the question of EA articles . There are exceptions of course^^, however Iâm not convinced that one of the core exceptions applies here.
^The honest part here is relevant to me, which is why I originally contrasted with the phrase âtricked.â
^^ for example if the signaling is very costly (broadly, getting a PhD or becoming a chess grandmaster just to signal intelligence and conscientiousness, narrowly, spending a bajillion hours to make a post look closer to an academic preprint even when academia is not your target audience), when the signaling causes fixation on a trait we donât care about (broadly, itâs bad to include glamor pictures unnecessarily online to take advantage of physical attractiveness; narrowly, itâs prima facie bad to include unhelpful Latin phrases to signal erudition)
Hmm. It seems like weâve indeed identified the two cruxes.
Regarding the benefits: I donât see why numbered list titles would help a reader make good decisions about whether to engage with a post? In particular, given that they could in any case use the title (whatever its form), the summary-type thing (which ideally there would be) and/âor the first paragraph (if thatâs different), the word count /â scrolling to see how long it seems, and the karma and comments?
Regarding the extent to which numbered list titles grab attention in a way that isnât correlated with whatâs useful for the reader or where the reader can provide value: Maybe at some point I should look for empirical evidence, or at least better theorising, regarding this. Currently I think we just have different intuitions/âanecdata.
In particular, given that they could in any case use the title (whatever its form), the summary-type thing (which ideally there would be) and/âor the first paragraph (if thatâs different), the word count /â scrolling to see how long it seems, and the karma and comments?
Maybe Iâm missing something, but I feel like this is an always-general argument against all informative title names?
Maybe at some point I should look for empirical evidence, or at least better theorising, regarding this. Currently I think we just have different intuitions/âanecdata.
I agree that we have different intuitions and empirical data may help resolve this.
Maybe Iâm missing something, but I feel like this is an always-general argument against all informative title names?
I donât think soâI think itâs quite clear how itâs easier for a reader to make good choices about whether to read this post if itâs called âSome history topics it might be very valuable to investigateâ than if it was called (for example) âTopicsâ or âHistory stuffâ or âWhat you can do with historyâ. But I just donât immediately see why changing it from the current title to â10 history topics it might be very valuable to investigateâ would help the reader make good choices?
It seems like whether itâs about history and whether itâs research topics is useful info, but whether itâs 3 or 10 or 20 isnât very useful, especially given that I probably couldâve included roughly the same content under 3 topics or split it up into 20.
And then the word count /â scrolling is relevant because, if the consideration is âhow long will this take me?â, then word count /â scrolling seems to address that better than reading one topic and multiplying by the stated number of topics. (The latter requires reading a topic before deciding, and the topics may actually differ in length.)
(Of course, there may be a reason Iâm missing; I wouldnât be that surprised if you said one sentence and then I went âOh yeah, fair point, I shouldâve thought of that.â)
[My comment kind-of seems insanely long for this topic, but âwhat to call a postâ is a decision Iâll probably face hundreds of times in future, so it seems worth thinking about it more.]
I expect we disagree, though Iâm not sure how much, and Iâd be interested in trying to find the crux and seeing whether one of us will end up changing our minds.
First, Iâll gesture at my broader views on related topics by adapting a comment I wrote in a doc. Though this comment isnât specifically on numbered list titles, and Iâd say different things about numbered list titles specifically. (This comment was prompted by someone suggesting the doc be given a more âfunâ title.)
---
So I guess there were really three key downsides I was pointing to in that comment:
Optimising partly for attention-grabbing-ness in titles might in expectation worsen readersâ choices about what to read and how long to spend reading things in a given venue, because it sometimes trades of against being clear about the purpose and scope of a piece
Optimising partly for attention-grabbing-ness in titles might in expectation worsen readersâ choices about what to read and how long to spend reading things in a given venue, because it introduces an âattractorâ that isnât necessarily at all correlated with how worth-reading something is for a given person
Optimising partly for attention-grabbing-ness is kind-of like defecting on a prisonerâs dilemma, and may lead other people to do the same, which could be bad even if it really is true that what âyouâ are writing is especially worthy of readersâ attention and âyourâ title choice would still be clear
When I wrote the above comment, it was in a situation where I think all 3 of those downsides applied. Just swapping âSome [blah]â for â10 [blah]â doesnât face downside 1, which makes it much better. So Iâm probably actually more ok with numbered list titles than some other types of âfunâ titles (e.g., off the top of my head, calling this post âHistory, the long-term, and youâ or âHistory! What is it good for?â).
But I think thereâs also a fourth possible downside:
4. Using a numbered list title for a post may also make you, or other people, more likely to write posts suited to numbered list formats, or squeeze other posts into that format (and maybe into neat or not-too-high numbers). This would happen if numbered list titles increased attention in expectation, and so people were incentivised to use them, and perhaps even would simply struggle to âcompeteâ for attention if they donât use them in an environment where everyone else is.
So I think, when it comes to numbered list titles for posts that do fit that mould, the possible downsides are 2, 3, and 4, and how strong those downsides are depends to a significant extent (though not entirely) on the extent to which numbered list titles grab attention in a way that isnât correlated with whatâs useful for the reader or where the reader can provide value.
So, if you basically agree with the above framings in theory, maybe the crux between you and I is just the empirical question of the extent to which numbered list titles do that. (Related to your statement â(3) I donât find it very plausible that a straightforward declaration of the size of a list tricks people into reading things they otherwise ought not to have (while I agree for phrases like âNumber 5 will SHOCK you,â or outrage bait)â. Though Iâm not sure I like the word âtricksâ.)
Do you think thatâs the crux? If so, maybe google could quickly reveal answers to that empirical question?
---
Also, do you think you agree with my views when it comes to âfunâ titles that are unclear as to purpose and scope (e.g., âHistory, the long-term future, and youâ), separate from the question of numbered list titles?
---
(Also, I should note that all of this is specifically in the context of the EA ForumâIâm more open to âattention-grabbingâ strategies in other contexts. I could elaborate if readers are interested, but Linch and I already discussed that separately.)
Hmm, I have two somewhat different claims first, before engaging with the structure of your argument.
The numbered list format is actually just a great communicative technology, both in general and especially well-adapted to the internet age.
In a nonadversarial context, honest signaling of traits is all-else-equal very good.
Itâs possible you already agree with these points, so I will use them as assumptions and wonât defend them further here unless requested.
I think this is a large difference between us, but not by itself the ultimate crux. I think thereâs another consideration:
I agree that if the costs of numbered list titles is high enough, we probably shouldnât do them. However, I think between us we diverge on the differences in our evaluation of the benefits of numbered list titles as well.
Broadly, I think numbered list titles are useful honest signaling^ to quickly tell readers whether to engage with a post (and also helpfully whether to stop reading a post, after they read the first point in a list).
For another example:
To me (to the extent that your observation is correct), this is evidence that the marketplace of ideas desire more articles well-suited to numbered list formats, so itâs all-else-equal evidence that people ought to write more numbered lists. (Analogously, if it turns out a lot of EA people like listening to podcasts, I think this is evidence that more EAs should make podcasts, even if I personally hate podcasts). So something that to you is a cost I mostly think of as a benefit. (I donât think the EA marketplace of ideas is always accurate, for example it rewards culture war posts more than I perhaps think is fair).
Ultimately, if it turns out that numbered list titles attract people more to reading posts that they otherwise wouldnât have, and this is a bad choice of their time, I agree that this is usually a bad idea.
I think my main heuristic for preferring to title numbered lists when the article is essentially a numbered list to begin with is that honest signaling is usually good, both in general and specific to the question of EA articles . There are exceptions of course^^, however Iâm not convinced that one of the core exceptions applies here.
^The honest part here is relevant to me, which is why I originally contrasted with the phrase âtricked.â
^^ for example if the signaling is very costly (broadly, getting a PhD or becoming a chess grandmaster just to signal intelligence and conscientiousness, narrowly, spending a bajillion hours to make a post look closer to an academic preprint even when academia is not your target audience), when the signaling causes fixation on a trait we donât care about (broadly, itâs bad to include glamor pictures unnecessarily online to take advantage of physical attractiveness; narrowly, itâs prima facie bad to include unhelpful Latin phrases to signal erudition)
Hmm. It seems like weâve indeed identified the two cruxes.
Regarding the benefits: I donât see why numbered list titles would help a reader make good decisions about whether to engage with a post? In particular, given that they could in any case use the title (whatever its form), the summary-type thing (which ideally there would be) and/âor the first paragraph (if thatâs different), the word count /â scrolling to see how long it seems, and the karma and comments?
Regarding the extent to which numbered list titles grab attention in a way that isnât correlated with whatâs useful for the reader or where the reader can provide value: Maybe at some point I should look for empirical evidence, or at least better theorising, regarding this. Currently I think we just have different intuitions/âanecdata.
Maybe Iâm missing something, but I feel like this is an always-general argument against all informative title names?
I agree that we have different intuitions and empirical data may help resolve this.
I donât think soâI think itâs quite clear how itâs easier for a reader to make good choices about whether to read this post if itâs called âSome history topics it might be very valuable to investigateâ than if it was called (for example) âTopicsâ or âHistory stuffâ or âWhat you can do with historyâ. But I just donât immediately see why changing it from the current title to â10 history topics it might be very valuable to investigateâ would help the reader make good choices?
It seems like whether itâs about history and whether itâs research topics is useful info, but whether itâs 3 or 10 or 20 isnât very useful, especially given that I probably couldâve included roughly the same content under 3 topics or split it up into 20.
And then the word count /â scrolling is relevant because, if the consideration is âhow long will this take me?â, then word count /â scrolling seems to address that better than reading one topic and multiplying by the stated number of topics. (The latter requires reading a topic before deciding, and the topics may actually differ in length.)
(Of course, there may be a reason Iâm missing; I wouldnât be that surprised if you said one sentence and then I went âOh yeah, fair point, I shouldâve thought of that.â)