Well said. There is also the other extreme, where articles of the kind you described don't "use a more-than-necessary general title" but one that is so specific

Well said. There is also the other extreme, where articles of the kind you described don't "use a more-than-necessary general title" but one that is so specific and narrow that it will never fly on HN, even if the content is otherwise a good fit for a valuable HN discussion. The dilemma with titles is that most of them fall into one of two categories: - titles where the author didn't put much effort into - titles where the author tried too hard The first category is often confusing because the article doesn't fit the title well. The second category often ends up as clickbait.