Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

#1

Post by zachallaun » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 8:07 PM UTC

Something I've noticed: Articles are submitted with informative titles, only to be switched to their (sometimes non-informative, sometimes link-bait) original titles.

I believe that editorialized or misleading titles should be changed, but a descriptive title helps me decide what to read.

Perhaps I'm completely off on this one, but I was curious what others thought about this.

*small edit for accuracy.

Re: Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

#2

Post by pg » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 8:11 PM UTC

It's not a trend; we've always done it.

Re: Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

#3

Post by mooism2 » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 9:26 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #2

It's not a trend; we've always done it.

What's the rationale for it?

Re: Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

#4

Post by pg » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 9:43 PM UTC

mooism2 wrote: post #3

pg wrote: post #2

It's not a trend; we've always done it.

What's the rationale for it?

http://reddit.com

Re: Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

#5

Post by mooism2 » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 8:18 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #4

mooism2 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the rationale for it?

http://reddit.com

Reddit suffers from editorialising, yes. But this question was not about editorialising. It was about using a more descriptive title on HN, that makes more sense in the context of HN, instead of the link-baity/misleading original title from the article. Why is this a bad thing?

Re: Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

#6

Post by Caspian » Fri, Oct 28, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html advises making certain changes to titles, and says you can make up your own titles, and said "Please don't do things to make titles stand out". There was a warning that a submitted editorialising title may be edited.

I generalised that to changing any link-bait (or otherwise unsuitable) title to something that better fits the intent of this site, which I think is a good guideline.