Item — HN Reader

OP here. I submitted this with what I felt was a good headline and it lived with this for a while (less than an hour, I reckon):

  "99 phones in handcart make Google Maps traffic jam, turn green street red (2020)"

Then someone changed it to the IMO vague and less informative:

  "Google Maps Hacks (2020)"

6 comments

Title moderation on HN is very misleading, implemented as is. I don't have an issue with changing title, but the problem is that the name of the original submitter still stays next to the modified title, without any sign that title has been changed by someone else. Feels a bit like impersonation :)

If the title is changed, there should be a visible remark saying "title redacted by dang" or something similar. Or include the original title below the new one.

Moderators should include a TL;DR to provide value

Title moderation is the one thing that really irks me on HN. I really wish it would go away. The main problem is that there's no reference to the original title, which is usually much more informative.

I've been complaining about it for about ten years now (!), to no avail. So yes the shruggie's in order... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I didn't even know there was title moderators ... why does it even exist! Are they suggesting a new title or forcing their title over yours? (which I found unacceptable if it's the case)

They just write a new title and it erases the previous one. The idea is to prevent "clickbait" titles. In practice it mostly destroys information.

It would be kind of acceptable if it was done immediately after posting, or if there was some kind of time limit. But it can happen at anytime, and sometimes links that have been upvoted for half a day suddenly change titles, which is infuriating.

Oh that sucks, there should be some sort or immutability after x amount of view/time/likes.

If moderation will just change the title to whatever is in the original article, why not just automate it? I'd hope that moderators would be able to decide whether or not the original title was better. In this case it clearly wasn't.

  >OP here. I submitted this with what I felt was a good headline...

  >I didn't even know there was title moderators...

I didn't know there was title moderation either. My instinct is to be against it and just go with the original article title. BUT... this case is a weird one. If OP is to be believed, he actually changed the original title to make it LESS click-baity, but the mods changed it back to the original, which WAS click-baity.

Hmmm... That's a tough one!

It's just the rules: "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

The original title (on the page linked) is "Google Maps Hacks".

i was not aware that this happens. too bad for the hate you might have gotten in this thread, but this taught me something today.

dang!