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In this case it's an excerpt of a larger post that I was writing while I ran into this. I don't think there is a good single-sentence title that would encapsul
by BeeOnRope 7y ago
In this case it's an excerpt of a larger post that I was writing while I ran into this.
I don't think there is a good single-sentence title that would encapsulate the whole thing without being an already well-known fact, like say "Header include order matters".
Also, I wrote this one as a narrative, not revealing the conclusion at the start - basically a reconstructed version of how I encountered it myself. I don't write all my posts like that and it's not for everyone: but once I've decided on that, it makes no sense to reveal the conclusion in the title, I think?
The HN headline could be changed though if it places a priority on information-full titles.
- pvg 7y agoIt places priority on not-clickbait, above most things. You could have a title that isn't super descriptive, asks a question, maintains an air of mystery, whatever. But a title that deliberately elevates some near-irrelevant detail for attention is purposefully deceptive and, well, less than good (by HN's rules, that is).
- BeeOnRope 7y agoEh, sure - but you are arguing for non-clickbait titles, while I was replying to the OP who complained about not revealing more about the conclusion in the title. It seems we agree there that some mystery is allowed: the point of contention is on "click-baitiness". I don't have a similar principled defense of clickbait titles, either in general or mine specifically! I just thought it was a funny one and didn't expend more effort on coming up with a non-clickait one. That's an independent issue from revealing more info in the title.
- pvg 7y agoOh, I don't really have any argument about what titles you should put on your own writing. It's your writing, if you feel its narrative purpose is served by an intricate web of title feints, line noise, whatnot, more power to you. I'm just explaining the HN title rules, you can see them here (do a find title): https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html There's nothing in there about titles having to be 'information-full'. Lots of perfectly HN-good titles aren't.
- BeeOnRope 7y agoGot it, I didn't understand you were talking about HN titles, rather than the blog post title. I didn't submit it to HN so I can't comment on the title choice, other than say it at least reflects the literal title of the page which I guess would be the default when submitting. I tend to outsource my comments to HN, since my blog is a github pages static site and introducing comments without tracking and ads is a pain, but I definitely don't choose my post titles to satisfy HN rules.
- pvg 7y agoRight, technically, fixing the title in this case would have been on the poster. Then there'd probably be a long subthread about why the title was changed so drastically. Title-lawyering is a professional metasport around here, as has been amply demonstrated.