Indeed; I submitted an article that had a title that I felt was clickbaity and a subtitle that was more straightforward. I submitted it under the subtitle, but it was eventually changed to the main title. So even if you aren't making the title up yourself, it apparently has to be the text in on the article, not .
Untitled topic
61–70 of 150 posts
Re: undefined
#62The original title should be kept somewhere on the comments page if possible, to show that the title was edited. Example: Vulnerability in ICMPv6 could allow Denial of Service (was: Ping of Death Reloaded)
This is a really good idea.
And for this fatal flaw it will never be implemented.
Re: undefined
#63It's a shitty policy.
Re: undefined
#64> Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com.
Re: undefined
#65There's a guideline that you're not supposed to editorialise titles. When an editorialised title is detected, it is usually corrected. I happen to disagree with this policy and I think it's a somewhat overly rigid application of the guidelines. However, this is why it's happening, and it makes some sense from at least one perspective. And, after all, this is entirely pg's call to make.
I think it is a fair guideline. It is so easy to spin and editorialize issues just by playing a bit around with a few words.
It also avoids click baiting as most users probably can tell already by the url in how far a certain medium (...) uses sensationalist headlines.
If somebody thinks that there is a different view or a overlooked aspect in a linked submission that is not reflected by the headline it would probably be best to blog about it and resubmit the link to the blog.
The policy is public, it is consistently applied to any submission, even if you don't follow it the problem is fixed by an admin. I don't see any issue here that demands that kind of public outrage, let alone some kind of weird formal public letters.
Re: undefined
#66> Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something (e.g. to ask us questions about Y Combinator, or to ask or complain about moderation). If you want to say something to us, please send it to info@ycombinator.com. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[deleted]
Re: undefined
#67I will just quote what I said a few days ago: It's worse than that. Since you can't editorialize titles and some authors like to give their articles poetic, meaningless names like "A butterfly in the sky," when the actual article talks about a security exploit in Bitcoin, coded in Go and released by Wikileaks. I often find myself ignoring interesting articles on HN only to go read them later on reddit with a much mor…
It's kind of funny, I find myself doing the opposite--when I see a completely meaningless title on the HN front page, I assume it's actually something much more interesting and a mod de-editorialized it into meaninglessness, so I click through to see what it is.
I didn't realize it until just now, but I ignore the meaningless titles. I come to HN to catch up on the news first, and save the fluff later.
It would be nice if every title accurately described what it was about so I could make better decisions about what to read now, what to read later, and what to pass over.
Re: undefined
#68Re: undefined
#69First of all, the quotes you included to show user confusion were all about Windows vulnerabilities when your title didn't mention Windows either, so the complaints don't help your case.
Secondly, I expect a certain quality and professionalism level from HN. The administrators have every right to improve those things through editing of titles, marking some threads as dead, banning trolls, and setting up some basic guidelines for online behavior.
The Internet is such a big place. There are so many news aggregators, sources for the original news, places to discuss the news, why would you frequent/support a site that has a basic policy of quality maintenance that you find oppressive?
Re: undefined
#70The real purpose of HN for PG to hawk his investments while not being too brazen about it. Anything that takes too much attention that he has algos he tweaks every day to take care of that peskiness.