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Re: undefined

#101

Post by darkstar999 »

conductor wrote: post #82

My 5 cents: today I've submitted this [0] post, its title was "Valve is planning to use Blender as a game modding tool in Steam". Then it was renamed by somebody to "Steam-powered Blender" which resulted a bunch of title related comments like: > You know, with a link title like that, I was really hoping to see a food processor powered by a steam engine. >> That's HN for you. You're never quite sure whether it's progr…

Wow. That's a bad title. The rule doesn't make sense when the submitted title is accurate and nonsensational.

Re: undefined

#102

Post by Avenger42 »

Gertig wrote: post #78
aaron695 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's not really putting words in the submitters mouth since A. We all know it happens. B. It's replacing it with the actual title written by the author. It can't be confused with words written by the OP. Personally no rule is perfect and simple things like just changing it can work. We all know or quickly learn the rule. It could be worst like reddit style where the titles have collapsed and are consistently…

I agree with the premise but not the justification you use. I see the opposite at work, where the submitter is changing the intent of the author. Sidenote: Why would someone down vote this parent comment?

> Why would someone down vote this parent comment?

I didn't (I can't downvote) but I would guess it's because it's wrong. See sker's comment above:

Right now there's a good example of this problem on the front page. The article about the Android/PRNG security flaw is aptly editorialized as "Google confirms Java and OpenSSL crypto PRNG on Android are broken," but the original article is titled "Some SecureRandom Thoughts," which is meaningless and I would never have clicked it under any circumstances. Thankfully the mods left this one alone.

And quadhome's response shows that he's the one who edited the title, so edits can be made that could be seen as putting words in the OP's mouth:

I revised the title for that link several times. My final edit lifted the style of the Ars Technica[1] headline, but specifically added the more technical "Java and OpenSSL crypto PRNG" that I worried would be incomprehensible to the layman...

Re: undefined

#103

Post by ynniv »

gbaygon wrote: post #94
swanson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are waaaay overthinking it. Probably was just flagged to death because people are getting overloaded with NSA stories, especially when there is no new additions. I would probably have flagged it if I saw it, doesn't really advance the discussion and frankly, I don't come to HN for politics.

Be careful when flagging articles you are tired of seeing, apparently if your tastes are different to that of the watchmen the ability to flag gets removed from you.

Well that sounds down right democratic.

Re: undefined

#104

Post by ynniv »

zeckalpha wrote: post #72
mpclark wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it seems that the problem here is one field trying to do two jobs. It would take a change to the way things are presented, but what about having a title that is the same as the original article, and then another line -- a subtitle, if you will -- that (optionally) can contain the poster's rationale for contributing the link. In this case it could be: Civil Disobedience David Byrne on Aaron Swartz

In cases like these "David Byrne: Civil Disobedience" might get past the mods.

And yet that's still useless.

Re: undefined

#105

Post by bhauer »

flatline wrote: post #79

As I've commented before: it provides a perverse incentive to editorialize a title until it gets upvoted to the front page and gets enough attention from a mod to be corrected. It makes the game of titling a submission even more complex. When I see something with Title A in the morning and re-click the link with Title B later in the day, and to my surprise they are not only the same article but the very same HN submi…

My chief misgiving with the title policy is partly of my own making. Not being a graphic designer, I created a style for my personal blog that uses a large font for titles. I think the design looks best when the title is short and only a single line. So I recently titled a blog entry "Unfair comparisons" and when I submitted it to HN, I added parenthetical clarification to the title that this was about comparing across disparate attributes when benchmarking web development frameworks. That clarification was later edited out of the HN submission, leaving just "Unfair comparisons."

Fine. It's just my blog, so be it. Like I said, it's my own fault for making a design that limits my title length, and I should correct that if I had a serious problem with the policy. But since I was asked at submission time to provide a title, I preferred giving the potential reader here at HN some added clarity about the subject matter before they clicked. I know as an HN reader, I don't like vague, short submission titles. I probably would have never clicked "Unfair comparisons" myself because I'd quickly think, "about what?" and move on.

Re: undefined

#106

Post by freyr »

conductor wrote: post #82

My 5 cents: today I've submitted this [0] post, its title was "Valve is planning to use Blender as a game modding tool in Steam". Then it was renamed by somebody to "Steam-powered Blender" which resulted a bunch of title related comments like: > You know, with a link title like that, I was really hoping to see a food processor powered by a steam engine. >> That's HN for you. You're never quite sure whether it's progr…

My eyes flicked across the word "Steam." I assumed it referred to Valve's Steam, and my interest was piqued.

Then my eyes settled on the word "Blender," and my interest grew stronger as I thought about 3D modeling.

Then my brain ingested the complete phrase, "Steam-powered Blender," I figured it was steam-punk related, and I moved on, slightly disappointed.

Awful title.

Re: undefined

#107

Post by [deleted] »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #96
conductor wrote: post #82

My 5 cents: today I've submitted this [0] post, its title was "Valve is planning to use Blender as a game modding tool in Steam". Then it was renamed by somebody to "Steam-powered Blender" which resulted a bunch of title related comments like: > You know, with a link title like that, I was really hoping to see a food processor powered by a steam engine. >> That's HN for you. You're never quite sure whether it's progr…

Haha... I clicked on that "Steam-powered Blender" link thinking the same thing. If I'd known it was about Valve's Steam (which I have no interest in) and about Blender (which I have no idea what it is) I never would have clicked.

[deleted]

Re: undefined

#108

Post by Steko »

I've speculated before that it's algorithmically updated in most cases.

If 5 people submit a link to the same url and 3 of them use the title "ABC" but the first submitted used "XYZ" then at some point the algo changes it from "XYZ" to "ABC".

Other than that, active moderation because of excessive editorializing by submitter.

Re: undefined

#109

Post by nonchalance »

mcphilip wrote: post #98

The most egregious case of title manipulation that I recall was when the submission of a blog post that broke the airbnb scandal [1] was renamed. The title of the blog post was too generic to attract interest and gave no indication that it was related to airbnb [2]. The submission's title was originally something like "Airbnb user's home wrecked". The title of the HN submission was changed to the blog post's vague ti…

The cynic would say that AirBnB is a YC company and HN doesn't want to draw attention to negative news, which makes sense (if you were the operator of this or any site, you wouldn't want bad news to surface)

Re: undefined

#110

Post by Helianthus »

nekopa wrote: post #51
noarchy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People create threads to discuss hellbans (or shadowbans, or whatever others might prefer) from time to time, too. Hellbanning is a practice that I find almost embarrassing. Browse this site with "show dead" enabled, and you'll find perfectly good comments showing up as dead. You'll also see legit problem posters showing why they should simply be banned, rather than allowed to post dead comments all day.

If the problem posters were banned, I think the technical nature of most members here would mean that they would quickly and easily set up a new account to troll from again, leading to playing whack-a-mole with the banhammer. That was, IIRC, one of the reasons for shadow ban creation.

>I think the technical nature of most members here would mean that they would quickly and easily set up a new account to troll from again,

Shadow bans are so much different!

Source: I have a shadowbanned account.

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