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.
It’s possible you already agree with these points, so I will use them as assumptions and won’t defend them further here unless requested.
extent to which numbered list titles grab attention in a way that isn’t correlated with what’s 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 there’s 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 shouldn’t 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 it’s 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 don’t 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 wouldn’t 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 I’m 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 “tricked.”
^^ 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 don’t care about (broadly, it’s bad to include glamor pictures unnecessarily online to take advantage of physical attractiveness; narrowly, it’s prima facie bad to include unhelpful Latin phrases to signal erudition)
Hmm. It seems like we’ve indeed identified the two cruxes.
Regarding the benefits: I don’t 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/or the first paragraph (if that’s different), the word count / 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 isn’t correlated with what’s 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/anecdata.
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/or the first paragraph (if that’s different), the word count / scrolling to see how long it seems, and the karma and comments?
Maybe I’m 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/anecdata.
I agree that we have different intuitions and empirical data may help resolve this.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I feel like this is an always-general argument against all informative title names?
I don’t think so—I think it’s quite clear how it’s easier for a reader to make good choices about whether to read this post if it’s called “Some history topics it might be very valuable to investigate” than if it was called (for example) “Topics” or “History stuff” or “What you can do with history”. But I just don’t immediately see why changing it from the current title to “10 history topics it might be very valuable to investigate” would help the reader make good choices?
It seems like whether it’s about history and whether it’s research topics is useful info, but whether it’s 3 or 10 or 20 isn’t very useful, especially given that I probably could’ve included roughly the same content under 3 topics or split it up into 20.
And then the word count / scrolling is relevant because, if the consideration is “how long will this take me?”, then word count / 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 I’m missing; I wouldn’t be that surprised if you said one sentence and then I went “Oh yeah, fair point, I should’ve thought of that.”)
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.
It’s possible you already agree with these points, so I will use them as assumptions and won’t defend them further here unless requested.
I think this is a large difference between us, but not by itself the ultimate crux. I think there’s another consideration:
I agree that if the costs of numbered list titles is high enough, we probably shouldn’t 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 it’s 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 don’t 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 wouldn’t 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 I’m 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 “tricked.”
^^ 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 don’t care about (broadly, it’s bad to include glamor pictures unnecessarily online to take advantage of physical attractiveness; narrowly, it’s prima facie bad to include unhelpful Latin phrases to signal erudition)
Hmm. It seems like we’ve indeed identified the two cruxes.
Regarding the benefits: I don’t 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/or the first paragraph (if that’s different), the word count / 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 isn’t correlated with what’s 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/anecdata.
Maybe I’m 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 don’t think so—I think it’s quite clear how it’s easier for a reader to make good choices about whether to read this post if it’s called “Some history topics it might be very valuable to investigate” than if it was called (for example) “Topics” or “History stuff” or “What you can do with history”. But I just don’t immediately see why changing it from the current title to “10 history topics it might be very valuable to investigate” would help the reader make good choices?
It seems like whether it’s about history and whether it’s research topics is useful info, but whether it’s 3 or 10 or 20 isn’t very useful, especially given that I probably could’ve included roughly the same content under 3 topics or split it up into 20.
And then the word count / scrolling is relevant because, if the consideration is “how long will this take me?”, then word count / 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 I’m missing; I wouldn’t be that surprised if you said one sentence and then I went “Oh yeah, fair point, I should’ve thought of that.”)