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Dear HN: I see you have changed the title of this submission from the article's actual title, "'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' at 50: The Rise and Fall of a

Dear HN: I see you have changed the title of this submission from the article's actual title, "'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' at 50: The Rise and Fall of a Groundbreaking Variety Show." I would argue that this changes it for the worse. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour really was a groundbreaking show; it was a significant part of the revolution in comedy and culture that was happening in the late '60s. But if you aren't old enough to know that from experience, the name of the show itself won't tell you that; it'll just sound like one more old TV show. You won't have any idea why you should bother clicking through to read the article. I understand the desire to de-linkbaitify headlines, but the way that's done currently ends up doing lots of submissions a disservice. It completely removes any indication of why the submission is actually interesting.

dang 7y ago
I'm not old enough to have watched it, but know it was a groundbreaking show. No doubt that's true of many readers here. I think it's good for HN to err on the side of assuming literacy. Not every title should explain itself. It's good for curiosity if readers have to work a little (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22work%20a%20little%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Being on HN's front page, given the unusual topic, indicates something that might be worth clicking on. By the way, the article is on the front page because moderators saw that it had been overlooked and put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380). I don't think we changed this title because the submitted title was linkbaity. It was because we needed to squeeze in "(2017)". That requires 7 chars and the submitted title was already running up against the 80 char limit. I'll take another crack at it above.

dang 7y ago

I'm not old enough to have watched it, but know it was a groundbreaking show. No doubt that's true of many readers here. I think it's good for HN to err on the side of assuming literacy. Not every title should explain itself. It's good for curiosity if readers have to work a little (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22work%20a%20little%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Being on HN's front page, given the unusual topic, indicates something that might be worth clicking on. By the way, the article is on the front page because moderators saw that it had been overlooked and put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380). I don't think we changed this title because the submitted title was linkbaity. It was because we needed to squeeze in "(2017)". That requires 7 chars and the submitted title was already running up against the 80 char limit. I'll take another crack at it above.