I suspect people should spend nonzero effort on the title, quite possibly a lot (like for a blogpost that takes 5 hours to write, somewhere between 3 minutes and 30 for an appropriate title).
I think this is very unintuitive to people, myself included. From the perspective of a writer, a title is just one line to write (and often one of the least interesting lines, as it’s unlikely that you as a writer discover something novel in the process of creating a title). But from the perspective of a (potential) reader, titles are quite important, as:
It is probably one of the most critical pieces of information for readers to decide whether something is worth investing the time to read and engage with, particularly if linked elsewhere.
It helps set the tone for how readers should engage with the rest of your essay.
Short, to the point, and contextually useful (someone reading this title knows both where I’m coming from, as well as have some bounds on the limitations)
The old title was bad because it led readers to believe (falsely) that the post would give an argument for the statement in the title, rather than just assume that the title is a placeholder.
It also predictably led to people being confused about the intended purpose of the post, which is more “this thing would be cool, would love to find collaborators.”
imo the newer title Early-warning Forecasting Center: What it is, and why it’d be cool is comparatively much better, though still not ideal.
For low-information readers, a title helps them decide whether/how much to be angry at you.
This can either be desirable or undesirable, depending on your intended purpose.
As I personally don’t like it when randos are angry at me, I try to screen all my titles for a “will this title seriously offend low-information people who just randomly see this title on Twitter/Facebook/Hacker News?” check.
All else equal, your title is the substring of your text that is most likely to be taken out of context, so some prudence is warranted.
Related: Crossposting my reddit comment from this comment thread on r/rational (re: the question of how some particular web fiction author achieved rapid outsized success):
Apparently the advice for YouTube channels (as per Ali Abdaal) is to brainstorm video ideas, find a way to frame the idea with a great thumbnail and title, and only then to actually shoot the video.
I.e. if you can’t think of a way to present a piece of content such that people want to click on it, then they won’t click on it, and then all the work that went into making the high-quality content went down the drain.
Another similar advice I heard along this vein: people bounce off of videos in the first seconds, i.e. there’s lots of attrition early on. So if you’re going to put extra effort into polishing parts of your content (eg via some neat video editing), it’s much better to frontload that. Then more people see it, and are more likely to stick around. I guess the writing equivalent of this advice would be to polish book blurb & first chapter.
The perspective that a title has vastly outsized importance also helps explain other weird things, e.g. that newspaper writers often don’t write their own headlines.
Or, put differently in the parent comment, one can picture outsized success on social media with a swiss cheese model:
There are three gates to get from ‘a person willing to patronize authors’ to ‘one of my patrons’.
A. Do they ever click on your story, that is, advertising quality and prominence.
B. Once there, do they read or bounce, that is, story quality.
C. Once they’ve read and not bounced, do they pledge, call it reward quality.
Similarly, a bunch of things have to line up for an article to go viral: someone has to click on your content (A), then like it (B), and then finally follow a call to action like sharing it or donating (C). From this perspective, it’s important to put a significant fraction of one’s efforts on quality (B) into efforts on presentation / clickability (A).
(Side note: If this sounds like advocacy for clickbait, I think it isn’t. The de facto problem with a clickbaity title like “9 Easy Tips to Win At Life” is not the title per se, but that the corresponding content never delivers.)
Finally, re this part:
For low-information readers, a title helps them decide whether/how much to be angry at you.
Another somewhat related point here is managing expectations. My experience here is from Steam games, where the best-rated video games (i.e. those with a fraction of 98-99% of positive reviews) aren’t necessarily the “best” games (whatever that would mean), but rather very good games which make it crystal clear what they are or are not. (Via trailers, screenshots, descriptions, game demos, …) As a result, people who might otherwise buy the game, not enjoy themselves, and then leave a negative review, can instead discover in advance that the game is not for them. This selection effect increases the rate of positive reviews, and leaves everyone better off.
I suspect people should spend nonzero effort on the title, quite possibly a lot (like for a blogpost that takes 5 hours to write, somewhere between 3 minutes and 30 for an appropriate title).
I think this is very unintuitive to people, myself included. From the perspective of a writer, a title is just one line to write (and often one of the least interesting lines, as it’s unlikely that you as a writer discover something novel in the process of creating a title). But from the perspective of a (potential) reader, titles are quite important, as:
It is probably one of the most critical pieces of information for readers to decide whether something is worth investing the time to read and engage with, particularly if linked elsewhere.
It helps set the tone for how readers should engage with the rest of your essay.
Positive example: Some unfun lessons I learned as a junior grantmaker
Short, to the point, and contextually useful (someone reading this title knows both where I’m coming from, as well as have some bounds on the limitations)
Negative example: Why short-range forecasting can be useful for longtermism (old title)
The old title was bad because it led readers to believe (falsely) that the post would give an argument for the statement in the title, rather than just assume that the title is a placeholder.
It also predictably led to people being confused about the intended purpose of the post, which is more “this thing would be cool, would love to find collaborators.”
imo the newer title Early-warning Forecasting Center: What it is, and why it’d be cool is comparatively much better, though still not ideal.
For low-information readers, a title helps them decide whether/how much to be angry at you.
This can either be desirable or undesirable, depending on your intended purpose.
As I personally don’t like it when randos are angry at me, I try to screen all my titles for a “will this title seriously offend low-information people who just randomly see this title on Twitter/Facebook/Hacker News?” check.
All else equal, your title is the substring of your text that is most likely to be taken out of context, so some prudence is warranted.
Related: Crossposting my reddit comment from this comment thread on r/rational (re: the question of how some particular web fiction author achieved rapid outsized success):
The perspective that a title has vastly outsized importance also helps explain other weird things, e.g. that newspaper writers often don’t write their own headlines.
Or, put differently in the parent comment, one can picture outsized success on social media with a swiss cheese model:
Similarly, a bunch of things have to line up for an article to go viral: someone has to click on your content (A), then like it (B), and then finally follow a call to action like sharing it or donating (C). From this perspective, it’s important to put a significant fraction of one’s efforts on quality (B) into efforts on presentation / clickability (A).
(Side note: If this sounds like advocacy for clickbait, I think it isn’t. The de facto problem with a clickbaity title like “9 Easy Tips to Win At Life” is not the title per se, but that the corresponding content never delivers.)
Finally, re this part:
Another somewhat related point here is managing expectations. My experience here is from Steam games, where the best-rated video games (i.e. those with a fraction of 98-99% of positive reviews) aren’t necessarily the “best” games (whatever that would mean), but rather very good games which make it crystal clear what they are or are not. (Via trailers, screenshots, descriptions, game demos, …) As a result, people who might otherwise buy the game, not enjoy themselves, and then leave a negative review, can instead discover in advance that the game is not for them. This selection effect increases the rate of positive reviews, and leaves everyone better off.
Thanks, this is helpful.