2 ms·

Tangent: it drives me nuts how HN editorializes headlines and adds capitals to function names (it’s “strcmp” not “Strcmp”).

tiahura 4y ago
It’s in the title so it gets capitalized.
- smcl 4y ago
  It also un-capitalised "for the" but left "has" capitalised :-/
  - mananaysiempre 4y ago
    This follows the standard practice[1]: in titles, capitalize everything except articles, prepositions, particles, and conjunctions, as well as the first and the last word even if it’s one of those. Sometimes long prepositions etc. may also be capitalized. A linking “has” looks like one of those words that shouldn’t be capitalized, but it’s a verb so (as far as the rules go) it should. (There also publications that capitalize everything indiscriminately, I think.) [1] E.g. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitaliza...
dpifke 4y ago
The submitter can go back and correct this by clicking "edit". The software changes capitalization only on the initial submission, not subsequent edits. (Overall, I actually like this feature. You WOULDN'T BELIEVE the CRAZY Headlines We'd See Otherwise!)
- cornstalks 4y ago
  Even if they do that others usually change it back. Or at least that’s what I’ve observed on other threads.
- hackmiester 4y ago
  Thanks for the tip!
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  Do you have an example that involves adding capitals? Also I can't even remember the last time I saw a real article with all caps words in the title (on the original page), let alone one linked on HN.
  - dpifke 4y ago
    "Otherwise" was the operative word in my (slightly sarcastic) example. :) Avoiding all caps for emphasis means you sometimes have to change "Faa" back to "FAA" after submitting a story about the Federal Aviation Administration. And avoiding grammatically-incorrect or all-lowercase headlines means you sometimes have to change "Strcmp()" back to "strcmp()". HN's software is no longer open source, but at one time, this is how it processed titles on initial submission: https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc#L1539 https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc#L15... (This function does add capitals as well as remove them.)
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      > "Otherwise" was the operative word in my (slightly sarcastic) example. :) I know. I don't think you understood what I meant. I'm saying "What otherwise? If you removed that code, I still don't think those headlines would show up." But removing caps is easier to justify, so I'm also asking why, even if we decide we need caps-removing code, we would also need the code to add caps.
      - dpifke 4y ago
        > I'm saying "What otherwise? If you removed that code, I still don't think those headlines would show up." You have more faith in the average HN submitter than I do. :)
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Are we assuming these submitters are changing the headlines? Because I was focusing on articles that have headlines with all-caps words in them on the original site, and I can't think of any I've seen on HN.

tiahura 4y ago

It’s in the title so it gets capitalized.

smcl 4y ago
It also un-capitalised "for the" but left "has" capitalised :-/
- mananaysiempre 4y ago
  This follows the standard practice[1]: in titles, capitalize everything except articles, prepositions, particles, and conjunctions, as well as the first and the last word even if it’s one of those. Sometimes long prepositions etc. may also be capitalized. A linking “has” looks like one of those words that shouldn’t be capitalized, but it’s a verb so (as far as the rules go) it should. (There also publications that capitalize everything indiscriminately, I think.) [1] E.g. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitaliza...

dpifke 4y ago

The submitter can go back and correct this by clicking "edit". The software changes capitalization only on the initial submission, not subsequent edits. (Overall, I actually like this feature. You WOULDN'T BELIEVE the CRAZY Headlines We'd See Otherwise!)

cornstalks 4y ago
Even if they do that others usually change it back. Or at least that’s what I’ve observed on other threads.
hackmiester 4y ago
Thanks for the tip!
Dylan16807 4y ago
Do you have an example that involves adding capitals? Also I can't even remember the last time I saw a real article with all caps words in the title (on the original page), let alone one linked on HN.
- dpifke 4y ago
  "Otherwise" was the operative word in my (slightly sarcastic) example. :) Avoiding all caps for emphasis means you sometimes have to change "Faa" back to "FAA" after submitting a story about the Federal Aviation Administration. And avoiding grammatically-incorrect or all-lowercase headlines means you sometimes have to change "Strcmp()" back to "strcmp()". HN's software is no longer open source, but at one time, this is how it processed titles on initial submission: https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc#L1539 https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc#L15... (This function does add capitals as well as remove them.)
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    > "Otherwise" was the operative word in my (slightly sarcastic) example. :) I know. I don't think you understood what I meant. I'm saying "What otherwise? If you removed that code, I still don't think those headlines would show up." But removing caps is easier to justify, so I'm also asking why, even if we decide we need caps-removing code, we would also need the code to add caps.
    - dpifke 4y ago
      > I'm saying "What otherwise? If you removed that code, I still don't think those headlines would show up." You have more faith in the average HN submitter than I do. :)
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Are we assuming these submitters are changing the headlines? Because I was focusing on articles that have headlines with all-caps words in them on the original site, and I can't think of any I've seen on HN.