4 ms·

Can someone fix the title? it's click bait. There's no way to tell what the article is about without clicking on it. At least mention the company. (Good article

Can someone fix the title? it's click bait. There's no way to tell what the article is about without clicking on it. At least mention the company. (Good article though.)

a13n 9y ago
It's the title of the article though, seems fine to me.
- yoodenvranx 9y ago
  No, it is not fine. I know it is standard practice on HN but I really don't like it at all. Just imagine every submitted article had a title like this: the HN frontpage would be full of links like "so close", "a look back", "introducing our most important features yet", "a statement regarding the events last weeks"... HN would completely unusable like this because you would have to click on every single link to figure out what it is about.
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    Luckily, most writers pick better titles than this guy. If what you describe actually happened, the rules would change.
    - yoodenvranx 9y ago
      The problem is that this guy did not select the title for HN but for his own personal/company blog. If you visit his blog then his title makes completely sense in this context but it loses its meaning in all other contexts.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Quite. Often our reasons for being interested in something are quite different from those of the audience it was written for.
- dirkdk 9y ago
  can't we namespace it? like Otto: So Close ?
nkkollaw 9y ago
Originally it did, I guess it got moderated to the actual title of the article, as per rules?
- vkdelta 9y ago
  Yes, I edited it but got changed either by bots or mods.
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    Was better when it mentioned the name of the company :-)
bdcravens 9y ago
Guidelines say to not editorialize titles, and stick with original, but I agree. Putting short summary in parentheses would help (like "So Close (Otto postmortem)")
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  That guideline needs to go. HN submitters often summarize the content of an article more appropriately for other readers than the original writer does. Often the newsworthiness of an article isn't apparent for one reason or another. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out that this was a story of a promising hardware startup that ran out of operating cash during acquisition negotiations.
  - bdcravens 9y ago
    I think it just shouldn't be so strictly enforced, and allow for an objective summary, while still enforcing rules against clickbait/editorializing. On Reddit a headline that says "USD losing steam" would be changed to "Fiat crashing hard - Bitcoin is the salvation!" which is what the HN rule wants to prevent.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    I've never seen dang or other editors take action against any title expansion/clarification that was intellectually honest in its nature. When authors or site editors choose titles for their presumed audience, they aren't necessarily considering clarity for deep-linking external sites like HN.

Can someone fix the title? it's click bait. There's no way to tell what the article is about without clicking on it. At least mention the company. (Good article though.)

a13n 9y ago

It's the title of the article though, seems fine to me.

yoodenvranx 9y ago
No, it is not fine. I know it is standard practice on HN but I really don't like it at all. Just imagine every submitted article had a title like this: the HN frontpage would be full of links like "so close", "a look back", "introducing our most important features yet", "a statement regarding the events last weeks"... HN would completely unusable like this because you would have to click on every single link to figure out what it is about.
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  Luckily, most writers pick better titles than this guy. If what you describe actually happened, the rules would change.
  - yoodenvranx 9y ago
    The problem is that this guy did not select the title for HN but for his own personal/company blog. If you visit his blog then his title makes completely sense in this context but it loses its meaning in all other contexts.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Quite. Often our reasons for being interested in something are quite different from those of the audience it was written for.
dirkdk 9y ago
can't we namespace it? like Otto: So Close ?

nkkollaw 9y ago

Originally it did, I guess it got moderated to the actual title of the article, as per rules?

vkdelta 9y ago
Yes, I edited it but got changed either by bots or mods.
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  Was better when it mentioned the name of the company :-)

bdcravens 9y ago

Guidelines say to not editorialize titles, and stick with original, but I agree. Putting short summary in parentheses would help (like "So Close (Otto postmortem)")

anigbrowl 9y ago
That guideline needs to go. HN submitters often summarize the content of an article more appropriately for other readers than the original writer does. Often the newsworthiness of an article isn't apparent for one reason or another. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out that this was a story of a promising hardware startup that ran out of operating cash during acquisition negotiations.
- bdcravens 9y ago
  I think it just shouldn't be so strictly enforced, and allow for an objective summary, while still enforcing rules against clickbait/editorializing. On Reddit a headline that says "USD losing steam" would be changed to "Fiat crashing hard - Bitcoin is the salvation!" which is what the HN rule wants to prevent.
- DrScump 9y ago
  I've never seen dang or other editors take action against any title expansion/clarification that was intellectually honest in its nature. When authors or site editors choose titles for their presumed audience, they aren't necessarily considering clarity for deep-linking external sites like HN.