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Personal view: While it may not feel ideal, and initially the thought of it happening did feel off, I feel that the title changes are actually very helpful as i

Personal view: While it may not feel ideal, and initially the thought of it happening did feel off, I feel that the title changes are actually very helpful as it often results in clearer titles, which sometimes aren't very to-the-point or are unnecessarily sensationalized.

bookofjoe 7y ago
But, but — the original titles were created by either authors and/or editors who surely must be respected for their professionalism.
- rajnathani 7y ago
  My reply may seem a bit off-topic: Whenever I think of titles of news articles (not research papers though), I often think of how some news organizations have pretty ad-hoc processes of coming up with headlines (titles), for instance this process outlined by Ars Technica [0]: > Staffers have various methods for coming up with headlines. I prefer to think of my headlines first after researching but before writing the piece—not only does this mean I’m attacking the headline with my creative batteries fully charged, but the act of figuring out the headline helps also give the piece some shape in my head. > Other folks have other methods, and we keep a #headlines Slack channel running for staffers to help workshop ideas. If you’re having trouble with a headline—or you can’t quite think of the right approach—everyone available lends a hand. > The overall objective is to whittle the choices down to a pair of punchy but informative headlines that give readers a reason to click without being clickbait. The two headlines then both run on the front page in an A/B test, which shows different headlines to different visitors. The software uses statistical math to pick a headline "winner" based on which headline is selected more often by the visitors who see it in the first few minutes. A/B testing headlines gives us some idea of what types of headlines resonate best with different kinds of pieces; we use what the A/B test tells us along with a number of other data points to help us write better headlines. This is not to imply that the headlines which are picked are non-optimal, but that there is a drive to not only experiment with headlines but also to get help from their peers on a dedicated Slack channel for it, as picking a good headline is not easy. While you're correct in stating that there needs to be respect for the authors and ideally thus not to change their headlines on HN, it very much seems that picking a headline in general is inherently tough as it involves condensing an article's overall point into less than 80-100 characters, which could result in non-optimal titles at times, and in some cases possibly lead to poor titles. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/no-office-no-problem-how-ars-technicas-remote-workers-work/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/no-of...

bookofjoe 7y ago

But, but — the original titles were created by either authors and/or editors who surely must be respected for their professionalism.

rajnathani 7y ago
My reply may seem a bit off-topic: Whenever I think of titles of news articles (not research papers though), I often think of how some news organizations have pretty ad-hoc processes of coming up with headlines (titles), for instance this process outlined by Ars Technica [0]: > Staffers have various methods for coming up with headlines. I prefer to think of my headlines first after researching but before writing the piece—not only does this mean I’m attacking the headline with my creative batteries fully charged, but the act of figuring out the headline helps also give the piece some shape in my head. > Other folks have other methods, and we keep a #headlines Slack channel running for staffers to help workshop ideas. If you’re having trouble with a headline—or you can’t quite think of the right approach—everyone available lends a hand. > The overall objective is to whittle the choices down to a pair of punchy but informative headlines that give readers a reason to click without being clickbait. The two headlines then both run on the front page in an A/B test, which shows different headlines to different visitors. The software uses statistical math to pick a headline "winner" based on which headline is selected more often by the visitors who see it in the first few minutes. A/B testing headlines gives us some idea of what types of headlines resonate best with different kinds of pieces; we use what the A/B test tells us along with a number of other data points to help us write better headlines. This is not to imply that the headlines which are picked are non-optimal, but that there is a drive to not only experiment with headlines but also to get help from their peers on a dedicated Slack channel for it, as picking a good headline is not easy. While you're correct in stating that there needs to be respect for the authors and ideally thus not to change their headlines on HN, it very much seems that picking a headline in general is inherently tough as it involves condensing an article's overall point into less than 80-100 characters, which could result in non-optimal titles at times, and in some cases possibly lead to poor titles. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/no-office-no-problem-how-ars-technicas-remote-workers-work/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/no-of...