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Ask HN: are headline fails getting on your nerves?
It's starting to bother me that twisted or outright misleading headlines are becoming more pervasive, even on the NY Times. It's irritating because I can't trust an article's headline anymore to click it and read it. I now read the top commenter's summary and typically do away with the article as standard practice for most items.
- pg 17y agoI've noticed that even legitimate news outlets are starting to use linkbait titles. We often rewrite titles on HN as a defense against this.
- raimondious 17y agoThere's a parallel between the headlines of articles on the internet and advertisements for products: the currency of the internet is attention/page views. It was unethical for people to advertise products as something they weren't, just as it's unethical to advertise a piece of content as something it's not: you're benefitting from deceiving the public. We got Truth in Advertising when they did it with physical products… maybe the same idea should be applied here.
- adrianwaj 17y agoGot an idea: The Punisher 1 - article has bad headline 2 - submitted to site with author's email and your email, and customizable note with dropdown of issues with headline, or something within article 3 - you get email with reply-to of author's email and attached note 4 - you reply to it, sending note to author 5 - submission has a dedicated page on site making it easy for others to send the note 6 - author has opportunity to reply to note, as will be listed on the site's page for that article -- a - when author replies, all users who sent the note get a point b - authors that reply get a point if majority of senders approve the author's explanation note -- the email that is sent to each person can have ads at top