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And that guideline often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads. Enforcing banal, insigificant titles diminishes meaningful discussion hinged on the

And that guideline often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads. Enforcing banal, insigificant titles diminishes meaningful discussion hinged on the actual point of the submission. Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are ones involving race, state actors, or corporations. What these moves feel like is censorship of story title that mention, for instance, Black people, the Chinese Communist Party, or multinationals like BlackRock.

dang 5y ago
> often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads It can, which is why I posted replies to the relevant comments in this thread. It's still usually a net win, though, to replace a secondary/derived source with the article it's derived from, especially when the secondary/derived source is adding sensational spin. > Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are I think you may be getting bit by what I call the notice-dislike bias [1]. You (i.e. all of us) are much more likely to see, and to put emphasis on, the changes that you dislike or disagree with, and to de-emphasize, or simply not notice in the first place, the ones that seem normal or ok. This leads to false feelings of generality [2]. Your comment is well above the median in quality because you at least said "anecdotally"; most users who post general claims about HN don't seem to consider that there may be any bias in such perceptions at all! From a moderation perspective I can tell you for sure that there's no singling out of any topics over others when it comes to applying the title guideline. Of course, titles on divisive topics are more likely to be inflammatory and therefore linkbaity, and thus 'hit' the guideline, but that's a skew in the data, not the moderators. As for "censorship", that word has gotten diluted to the point that it seems to just mean "change I disapprove of". You can use it to describe HN title edits if you like, but I think it's a bit of a stretch. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... - it would be great to find a less lame name for this, but it's the best I've found so far [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20false%20feelings%20of%20generality&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

dang 5y ago

> often results in confusing, disjointed comment threads It can, which is why I posted replies to the relevant comments in this thread. It's still usually a net win, though, to replace a secondary/derived source with the article it's derived from, especially when the secondary/derived source is adding sensational spin. > Strangely, but anecdotally, the titles that I see getting changed are I think you may be getting bit by what I call the notice-dislike bias [1]. You (i.e. all of us) are much more likely to see, and to put emphasis on, the changes that you dislike or disagree with, and to de-emphasize, or simply not notice in the first place, the ones that seem normal or ok. This leads to false feelings of generality [2]. Your comment is well above the median in quality because you at least said "anecdotally"; most users who post general claims about HN don't seem to consider that there may be any bias in such perceptions at all! From a moderation perspective I can tell you for sure that there's no singling out of any topics over others when it comes to applying the title guideline. Of course, titles on divisive topics are more likely to be inflammatory and therefore linkbaity, and thus 'hit' the guideline, but that's a skew in the data, not the moderators. As for "censorship", that word has gotten diluted to the point that it seems to just mean "change I disapprove of". You can use it to describe HN title edits if you like, but I think it's a bit of a stretch. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20dislike%20notice&sort=byDate&type=story&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... - it would be great to find a less lame name for this, but it's the best I've found so far [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20false%20feelings%20of%20generality&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...