5 ms·

I've noticed that a lot of headlines on HN are intentionally vague, to pique reader's interest. I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire artic

by tmuir 11y ago

I've noticed that a lot of headlines on HN are intentionally vague, to pique reader's interest. I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. What is it that is barely halfway done?

sdrothrock 11y ago
> I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. This isn't an article, though. It's someone's personal blog and the continuation of something else; the assumption is that you've read the other ones. He's talking about the process of saving a huge amount (25k?) of paper manuals from someone who was going to throw them out.
- azinman2 11y ago
  Which is no longer a useful assumption when pages can be independently displayed and linked, and then disseminated. I had to look at these comments to even understand that my guess was somewhat true.
Maxious 11y ago
Well also to comply with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  And this is a perfect example of a time when using the original title is stupid. There's absolutely no good reason to insist on original titles for their own sake, when the original title is meaningless, lacks context, or is otherwise inadequate - none of which are necessarily the same thing as "misleading or linkbait".
  - bosdev 11y ago
    The logic is to prevent sensational titles. By forcing the title to be the page's heading, it limits posters ability to target the hn audience with a snappy, BuzzFeed-like, heading.
    - mindcrime 11y ago
      The logic is to prevent sensational titles. I think we all understand that. I think we also all understand that there are times when blind adherence to that rule is bloody stupid.
    - scintill76 11y ago
      So instead, authors of the article can target any audience with snappy, BuzzFeed-like headings, and the HN poster can either copy it or rewrite it, and they'll get complaints either way...
    - moe 11y ago
      It also eliminates the posters ability to provide the hn audience with a useful title. I very much prefer a "snappy, BuzzFeed-like" heading that tells me what the article is about over a meaningless phrase without context.
  - wtbob 11y ago
    It'd be kinda cool to hack the (fairly stupid) rule with titles like '…' or 'An interesting result.'
    - peterburkimsher 11y ago
      Or Title'); DROP TABLE Articles;--
  - dang 11y ago
    The stupidity we want to avoid on HN is subsecond internet reflexiveness, which is what you get when putting pre-processed information directly into the reader like a mother bird dropping pre-chewed worms into baby birds' mouths. Here we want reflective reactions, not reflexive ones. For that, it's good if the reader has to work a little. We're not talking about anything hard—anybody willing to work the tiniest amount, such as clicking two links instead of one, or one instead of zero, could, for instance, trivially figure out the OP. It's good for the front page to have a mild timing-attack effect on the brain. The slight pause that induces is an opening for more reflective thought to enter. Maybe it won't, but if the door snaps shut in a second, it certainly won't. The anger that flares up when an internet thing doesn't immediately present itself for a sugar hit is, in my opinion, the reaction of an addict. We all have this. It's necessary to catch it and inhibit it in order for the subtler reactions, like curiosity, to emerge. If you don't want to do that, plenty of other places on the internet will oblige.
- Too 11y ago
  Isn't this title misleading? I thought it would be about real time operating systems.
  - dang 11y ago
    Ok, we'll take "In Realtime" out of the title here.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lnanek2 11y ago
Unfortunately, HN only allows the original title, which results in crappy titles that weren't designed for the context of a social news site so often leaves readers clueless.
- dang 11y ago
  > HN only allows the original title Read the HN guidelines and you'll see that that's not true.
bane 11y ago
The extra context comes from two places - the domain, textfiles.org is an incredibly well known domain, so things from there are likely to be interesting and not linkbait - clicking the link and reading the article, this is guaranteed to answer your question
- rconti 11y ago
  - the domain, textfiles.org, is for sale. To purchase, call BuyDomains.com. - clicking the link and reading the article did not help, so I went to the comments for context. I got lucky on this one. I've never heard of textfiles, so I was going to question whether or not it's really "well-known", and I got a good laugh when I went to the site you recommended and found a domain for sale :)

by tmuir 11y ago

sdrothrock 11y ago

> I'm not sure what being intentionally vague for an entire article is supposed to accomplish. This isn't an article, though. It's someone's personal blog and the continuation of something else; the assumption is that you've read the other ones. He's talking about the process of saving a huge amount (25k?) of paper manuals from someone who was going to throw them out.

azinman2 11y ago
Which is no longer a useful assumption when pages can be independently displayed and linked, and then disseminated. I had to look at these comments to even understand that my guess was somewhat true.

Maxious 11y ago

Well also to comply with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.

mindcrime 11y ago
And this is a perfect example of a time when using the original title is stupid. There's absolutely no good reason to insist on original titles for their own sake, when the original title is meaningless, lacks context, or is otherwise inadequate - none of which are necessarily the same thing as "misleading or linkbait".
- bosdev 11y ago
  The logic is to prevent sensational titles. By forcing the title to be the page's heading, it limits posters ability to target the hn audience with a snappy, BuzzFeed-like, heading.
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    The logic is to prevent sensational titles. I think we all understand that. I think we also all understand that there are times when blind adherence to that rule is bloody stupid.
  - scintill76 11y ago
    So instead, authors of the article can target any audience with snappy, BuzzFeed-like headings, and the HN poster can either copy it or rewrite it, and they'll get complaints either way...
  - moe 11y ago
    It also eliminates the posters ability to provide the hn audience with a useful title. I very much prefer a "snappy, BuzzFeed-like" heading that tells me what the article is about over a meaningless phrase without context.
- wtbob 11y ago
  It'd be kinda cool to hack the (fairly stupid) rule with titles like '…' or 'An interesting result.'
  - peterburkimsher 11y ago
    Or Title'); DROP TABLE Articles;--
- dang 11y ago
  The stupidity we want to avoid on HN is subsecond internet reflexiveness, which is what you get when putting pre-processed information directly into the reader like a mother bird dropping pre-chewed worms into baby birds' mouths. Here we want reflective reactions, not reflexive ones. For that, it's good if the reader has to work a little. We're not talking about anything hard—anybody willing to work the tiniest amount, such as clicking two links instead of one, or one instead of zero, could, for instance, trivially figure out the OP. It's good for the front page to have a mild timing-attack effect on the brain. The slight pause that induces is an opening for more reflective thought to enter. Maybe it won't, but if the door snaps shut in a second, it certainly won't. The anger that flares up when an internet thing doesn't immediately present itself for a sugar hit is, in my opinion, the reaction of an addict. We all have this. It's necessary to catch it and inhibit it in order for the subtler reactions, like curiosity, to emerge. If you don't want to do that, plenty of other places on the internet will oblige.
Too 11y ago
Isn't this title misleading? I thought it would be about real time operating systems.
- dang 11y ago
  Ok, we'll take "In Realtime" out of the title here.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

lnanek2 11y ago

Unfortunately, HN only allows the original title, which results in crappy titles that weren't designed for the context of a social news site so often leaves readers clueless.

dang 11y ago
> HN only allows the original title Read the HN guidelines and you'll see that that's not true.

bane 11y ago

The extra context comes from two places - the domain, textfiles.org is an incredibly well known domain, so things from there are likely to be interesting and not linkbait - clicking the link and reading the article, this is guaranteed to answer your question

rconti 11y ago
- the domain, textfiles.org, is for sale. To purchase, call BuyDomains.com. - clicking the link and reading the article did not help, so I went to the comments for context. I got lucky on this one. I've never heard of textfiles, so I was going to question whether or not it's really "well-known", and I got a good laugh when I went to the site you recommended and found a domain for sale :)