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Looks like the original title was something like "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" but was then changed to the page's official title, "Prepare for changes..."

Looks like the original title was something like "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" but was then changed to the page's official title, "Prepare for changes..." This is a case where I'd argue deviating from the "official" article title is warranted, as it more clearly explains the aim behind the submission, or to what specifically the submitter wishes to draw our attention.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
In general, I find the way Hacker News titles change over time just really creepy and feels like approved censorship.
- root_axis 8y ago
  IMO the term "censorship" gets thrown around way too much.
  - drb91 8y ago
    Compared to what? It’s an accurate term. Not all forms of censorship are equivalent to a big brother government.
    - root_axis 8y ago
      > It’s an accurate term. A term cannot be accurate. I understand you're trying to suggest that "censorship" is an accurate way to describe this particular scenario, but that's your own subjective opinion, which IMO, is incorrect. Censorship necessarily implies an intentional effort to squelch a particular person or idea.
      - drb91 8y ago
        If changing the title doesn’t result in actively squelching the old title, I’m not sure how to interpret this. There’s fundamentally a silent middleman choosing the content on the site. Is this bad? No. This is the whole positive and negative to active moderation.
        root_axis 8y ago
        > If changing the title doesn’t result in actively squelching the old title, I’m not sure how to interpret this. "Changing a title" is not inherently an act of censorship because there are many reasons why a title could be changed. Changing a title might be censorship, but not always. In this case, it is NOT censorship because the title was modified based on a pre-established submission rule (i.e. from the HN guidelines "use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."), NOT due to any particular prejudice against the ideas expressed in the title. It also seems a little strange to me that changing a title to reflect the author's actual title can somehow be construed as censorship. It seems to me that the person editorializing the title is more aptly described as a censor than the mechanism that restores the title to the original form and cadence intended by the author.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  Hmm, moderators changing titles to meet the visible policy against editorialising is hardly censorship, or creepy, nor anything like them. In this particular case there's a good argument GP makes against the supplied Apple headline as it's spin.
- mikeash 8y ago
  HN makes no effort to hide the fact that it has active moderation and curation.
- AceJohnny2 8y ago
  You're looking for https://www.voat.co/ https://www.voat.co/
simias 8y ago
I agree that at times it might be slightly counterproductive but then again if you start making exceptions it's going to be a mess every time as we always argue back and forth whether a particular submission is acceptable or not. I would also argue that hiding "the aim behind the submission" is soft of the point, submissions should be able to stand on their own. If more context is required then a better link should be found IMO, a HN submission title is not the place for an opinion piece. Worst case scenario add a comment in your submission explaining your rationale.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
  >I would also argue that hiding "the aim behind the submission" is soft of the point, submissions should be able to stand on their own. If more context is required then a better link should be found IMO, a HN submission title is not the place for an opinion piece. Worst case scenario add a comment in your submission explaining your rationale. I feel like that then runs afoul of HN's other guideline to prefer primary sources. Consider the following scenario: PopularSoftware v.6.2 sneaks in a one-line mention in its changelog that the software will now proactively scan the contents of your computer. This would obviously be newsworthy and would make for a popular point of discussion for HN. How best should that be communicated in the submission? If we follow HN guidelines, the submission title should be copied from the main page, "PopularSoftware v.6.2 is released!" That doesn't really make it clear to the HN user casually scanning the front page that the submission is really trying to draw your attention to that particular, controversial bullet point. An alternative would be promoting someone's blogpost or analysis of PopularSoftware 6.2 and its disclosure of hard-disk scanning. But as I mentioned earlier, you'd be promoting a secondary source over a primary source simply for the sake of clarity in the submission title.
  - simias 8y ago
    That's a fair point but in my experience in these situations the controversial bullet point would be pointed out by the top upvoted submission when you open the comments so it's only one click away anyway. I hope that people on HN don't upvote/downvote stories based solely on their titles, and if I see an upvoted story whose title is "PopularSoftware v.6.2 is released!" I'm definitely going to check what the people have to say in the comments. I mean you've been here for quite a while judging by your profile, do you really find this to be a practical problem while browsing HN? Personally it's really a non-issue and the potential slippery slope of letting people come up with custom submission titles is not really worth it IMO.
gouggoug 8y ago
> This is a case where I'd argue deviating from the "official" article title is warranted Not really. "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" is a purely subjective opinion and there's no reason this personal opinion should override the actual article's title. I personally have never used macOS server and from that context, the actual title ("Prepare for changes to macOS Server 5.7.1") makes a lot more sense.
- ash_gti 8y ago
  An alternative could be something like "Apple deprecates additional services in macOS Server 5.7.1". That's different than the linked page but I think it gets across the changes that are coming.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

In general, I find the way Hacker News titles change over time just really creepy and feels like approved censorship.

root_axis 8y ago
IMO the term "censorship" gets thrown around way too much.
- drb91 8y ago
  Compared to what? It’s an accurate term. Not all forms of censorship are equivalent to a big brother government.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    > It’s an accurate term. A term cannot be accurate. I understand you're trying to suggest that "censorship" is an accurate way to describe this particular scenario, but that's your own subjective opinion, which IMO, is incorrect. Censorship necessarily implies an intentional effort to squelch a particular person or idea.
    - drb91 8y ago
      If changing the title doesn’t result in actively squelching the old title, I’m not sure how to interpret this. There’s fundamentally a silent middleman choosing the content on the site. Is this bad? No. This is the whole positive and negative to active moderation.
      - root_axis 8y ago
        > If changing the title doesn’t result in actively squelching the old title, I’m not sure how to interpret this. "Changing a title" is not inherently an act of censorship because there are many reasons why a title could be changed. Changing a title might be censorship, but not always. In this case, it is NOT censorship because the title was modified based on a pre-established submission rule (i.e. from the HN guidelines "use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."), NOT due to any particular prejudice against the ideas expressed in the title. It also seems a little strange to me that changing a title to reflect the author's actual title can somehow be construed as censorship. It seems to me that the person editorializing the title is more aptly described as a censor than the mechanism that restores the title to the original form and cadence intended by the author.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Hmm, moderators changing titles to meet the visible policy against editorialising is hardly censorship, or creepy, nor anything like them. In this particular case there's a good argument GP makes against the supplied Apple headline as it's spin.
mikeash 8y ago
HN makes no effort to hide the fact that it has active moderation and curation.
AceJohnny2 8y ago
You're looking for https://www.voat.co/ https://www.voat.co/

simias 8y ago

I agree that at times it might be slightly counterproductive but then again if you start making exceptions it's going to be a mess every time as we always argue back and forth whether a particular submission is acceptable or not. I would also argue that hiding "the aim behind the submission" is soft of the point, submissions should be able to stand on their own. If more context is required then a better link should be found IMO, a HN submission title is not the place for an opinion piece. Worst case scenario add a comment in your submission explaining your rationale.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
>I would also argue that hiding "the aim behind the submission" is soft of the point, submissions should be able to stand on their own. If more context is required then a better link should be found IMO, a HN submission title is not the place for an opinion piece. Worst case scenario add a comment in your submission explaining your rationale. I feel like that then runs afoul of HN's other guideline to prefer primary sources. Consider the following scenario: PopularSoftware v.6.2 sneaks in a one-line mention in its changelog that the software will now proactively scan the contents of your computer. This would obviously be newsworthy and would make for a popular point of discussion for HN. How best should that be communicated in the submission? If we follow HN guidelines, the submission title should be copied from the main page, "PopularSoftware v.6.2 is released!" That doesn't really make it clear to the HN user casually scanning the front page that the submission is really trying to draw your attention to that particular, controversial bullet point. An alternative would be promoting someone's blogpost or analysis of PopularSoftware 6.2 and its disclosure of hard-disk scanning. But as I mentioned earlier, you'd be promoting a secondary source over a primary source simply for the sake of clarity in the submission title.
- simias 8y ago
  That's a fair point but in my experience in these situations the controversial bullet point would be pointed out by the top upvoted submission when you open the comments so it's only one click away anyway. I hope that people on HN don't upvote/downvote stories based solely on their titles, and if I see an upvoted story whose title is "PopularSoftware v.6.2 is released!" I'm definitely going to check what the people have to say in the comments. I mean you've been here for quite a while judging by your profile, do you really find this to be a practical problem while browsing HN? Personally it's really a non-issue and the potential slippery slope of letting people come up with custom submission titles is not really worth it IMO.

gouggoug 8y ago

> This is a case where I'd argue deviating from the "official" article title is warranted Not really. "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" is a purely subjective opinion and there's no reason this personal opinion should override the actual article's title. I personally have never used macOS server and from that context, the actual title ("Prepare for changes to macOS Server 5.7.1") makes a lot more sense.

ash_gti 8y ago
An alternative could be something like "Apple deprecates additional services in macOS Server 5.7.1". That's different than the linked page but I think it gets across the changes that are coming.