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It's better for HN to let the reader dig for information. It attracts the curious. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little%22&sort=byDate&

It's better for HN to let the reader dig for information. It attracts the curious. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little%22&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little...

mikeash 9y ago
I respectfully disagree. The only reason I didn't use the word "clickbait" is because it's apparently the actual title of a scholarly paper. A lot of the titles that turn up in your search are what I'd call clickbait.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  It's part of HN's cultural fabric. It'd be a shame to lose it. A useful exercise: What's the difference between answering the title and writing a tl;dr? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028168
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I've been posting here for years and this is the first I've heard of it. It doesn't seem like a very important part of the site's culture. Or maybe I'm just oblivious, it's possible. The difference between answering the title and writing a tl;dr is that the former doesn't use the character sequence "tl;dr." Apparently this is important. From your first link: > PeterWhittaker's comment is fine without the "tl;dr". The concern is the symbol—symbols matter. I'm a bit confused as to what happened in the second link. Going up the comment chain, apparently the original title spelled out what happened but was editorialized, so it got changed, and "There's a downside to spelling things out completely" was part of the explanation of why it was OK to switch to a less editorialized title with much less information in it. Yet the title of the post is the one they said they changed. Did they change it back later?
    - sillysaurus3 9y ago
      My intent wasn't to call you out, but rather to persuade you. If you're interested, have a look at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20bookish&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20bookish&sort=byD... to get a sense of the reasoning. It seems worthwhile to preserve the bookishness of HN. One of the best ways to do this is to make HN seem boring. Reading, writing, and good conversation take time and effort. "For anyone coming straight to the comments looking for an answer to the question:" seems like a macroexpansion of "tl;dr:".
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Of those four results, the first one is explaining why they don't want author names in titles, the second one explains why they like minimal design, the third one was a false positive on "attention-grabbing Unicode glyphs," and finally the fourth one actually talks about the topic at hand. Why not just link to that one? The fourth one places a lot of emphasis on the specific implications of "tl;dr" as opposed to other terms like "summary." Given such precision, I'd say the macroexpansion of "tl;dr" would be "too long; didn't read" since that's what it actually stands for. I'm persuaded that "tl;dr" is best avoided. I'm not persuaded that my comment would or should fall under this guideline.
pc86 9y ago
Yeah with all due respect to dang sometimes I don't have the time or inclination to do so. "It attracts the curious" is (apologies) bullshit.

mikeash 9y ago

I respectfully disagree. The only reason I didn't use the word "clickbait" is because it's apparently the actual title of a scholarly paper. A lot of the titles that turn up in your search are what I'd call clickbait.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
It's part of HN's cultural fabric. It'd be a shame to lose it. A useful exercise: What's the difference between answering the title and writing a tl;dr? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13028168
- mikeash 9y ago
  I've been posting here for years and this is the first I've heard of it. It doesn't seem like a very important part of the site's culture. Or maybe I'm just oblivious, it's possible. The difference between answering the title and writing a tl;dr is that the former doesn't use the character sequence "tl;dr." Apparently this is important. From your first link: > PeterWhittaker's comment is fine without the "tl;dr". The concern is the symbol—symbols matter. I'm a bit confused as to what happened in the second link. Going up the comment chain, apparently the original title spelled out what happened but was editorialized, so it got changed, and "There's a downside to spelling things out completely" was part of the explanation of why it was OK to switch to a less editorialized title with much less information in it. Yet the title of the post is the one they said they changed. Did they change it back later?
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    My intent wasn't to call you out, but rather to persuade you. If you're interested, have a look at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20bookish&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20bookish&sort=byD... to get a sense of the reasoning. It seems worthwhile to preserve the bookishness of HN. One of the best ways to do this is to make HN seem boring. Reading, writing, and good conversation take time and effort. "For anyone coming straight to the comments looking for an answer to the question:" seems like a macroexpansion of "tl;dr:".
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Of those four results, the first one is explaining why they don't want author names in titles, the second one explains why they like minimal design, the third one was a false positive on "attention-grabbing Unicode glyphs," and finally the fourth one actually talks about the topic at hand. Why not just link to that one? The fourth one places a lot of emphasis on the specific implications of "tl;dr" as opposed to other terms like "summary." Given such precision, I'd say the macroexpansion of "tl;dr" would be "too long; didn't read" since that's what it actually stands for. I'm persuaded that "tl;dr" is best avoided. I'm not persuaded that my comment would or should fall under this guideline.

pc86 9y ago

Yeah with all due respect to dang sometimes I don't have the time or inclination to do so. "It attracts the curious" is (apologies) bullshit.