6 ms·

I find the editorialization of my title hilarious. I did not put a ? at the end. The answer to any headline with a ? at the end is “no.” Whoever at HN edited it

by dmazin 3y ago

I find the editorialization of my title hilarious. I did not put a ? at the end. The answer to any headline with a ? at the end is “no.” Whoever at HN edited it — this is not alright. Feel free to argue against the piece on its merits.

codetrotter 3y ago
Dunno if dang will see your comment but if not, consider sending an email to HN. They have contact email in a link in the footer.
ftxbro 3y ago
they were just helping to boost your metrics by increasing engagement
jacamera 3y ago
I really don't understand the policy of altering headlines here. It's such petty, obnoxious behavior! I really wish they would stop doing it and I would be really annoyed if it happened to an article that I wrote and submitted myself. Thank you for calling it out.
- dang 3y ago
  People get upset about title editing on HN because they only notice the cases they dislike. Any practice will seem obnoxious if you only count the things it gets wrong. I can tell you after over a decade doing this job that the title moderation on HN is probably the single most beneficial thing we do. Without that, the front page would consist of linkbait, sensationalism, and rage. In other words, HN wouldn't exist.
  - jacamera 3y ago
    > People get upset about title editing on HN because they only notice the cases they dislike. Any practice will seem obnoxious if you only count the things it gets wrong. I don't like or dislike any particular title or headline. I dislike the policy of selectively altering an author or publisher's chosen headline in general. > I can tell you after over a decade doing this job that the title moderation on HN is probably the single most beneficial thing we do. Without that, the front page would consist of linkbait, sensationalism, and rage. I appreciate the insight. Is the plan to keep this policy in place indefinitely in order to protect us from ourselves? I find it very depressing that a community like HN cannot be trusted to look at an unedited list of headlines. Do you think there is any hope of eventually developing something like a collective immunity (or even resistance) to clickbait? If it can't happen here, what does that say about the prospects for media literacy more broadly?
    - dang 3y ago
      The benefits of having a neutral, bookish (to use pg's old word) front page are so priced-in to everyone's experience of HN that people assume it just happens. Au contraire! It is laboriously maintained with daily effort. The default of homo internetus, especially at scale, is clickbait and outrage. That's what the arrow of entropy points to, so if we stopped putting energy into maintaining order here, it would quickly revert. HN's quality, such as it is, very much includes "selectively altering an author or publisher's chosen headline" - publishers and authors (and headline specialists, at media sites) are incentivized to take advantage of the default dynamics to get attention. It's their job to sex up their titles and our job to knock them down to size, if we can. That takes sustained moderator attention. That's not to criticize the community. HN's system consists of community, software, and moderation, and the community is by far the most valuable of the three. But all three must be active in order to keep HN from deteriorating (or at least to stave it off - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=stave%20off%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Moderation's job isn't to determine discussion, it's to serve the community by jiggling the system out of its failure modes when it gets stuck in one of them.
dang 3y ago
We sometimes put question marks on titles when a claim in a title is controversial. This is a longstanding practice: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22question%20mark%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... > The answer to any headline with a ? at the end is “no.” There's a popular meme that says that, but it's not true. Edit: after reading everyone's objections I think the easiest thing to do is just reverse all of this. Sorry for the trouble!
- dmazin 3y ago
  This sort of editorializing — especially considering that the article pertains to people that you are incentivized to please — is utterly unacceptable. At the least it should be clearly indicated as an edit by you. In the strongest terms, this is unacceptable.
  - dang 3y ago
    I promise you that no one here is incentivized to please Reddit. Have you seen HN lately? Same point if you mean OpenAI. Titles on HN aren't the property of the submitter nor of the author of an article (though the author's opinion carries more weight). They're shared pointers and we edit them to be as neutral as possible. Mods do this all the time and have been doing it since HN began 16 years ago. It's primarily because of that practice that HN's front page looks completely different from Reddit's or any other similar forum's, and that's a crucial factor in the identity of the site. If we didn't have this rule, people could (and would) use the title field to get away with anything. I'm not saying that's what you were up to, just that this is an important rule and bog-standard HN moderation.
    - dmazin 3y ago
      Look, I just don’t think you should editorialize without making it clear. Why is the claim controversial, for example? Edit: I guess we went too deep in the thread, so we're resorting to edits. that was a rhetorical question. It's sort of like the Twitter community notes feature: making the edit, and its reason clear, builds trust. Otherwise, you just look like you're doing something shady (given that, again, the people in the article literally own HN). In terms of YOUR opinion about the quality of my article – that is what upvotes are for. I guess you have a much heavier hand into what we're allowed to read than I realized! Again, given your incentives, that's worrying.
DrammBA 3y ago
IMO the new title with a question mark is better.

by dmazin 3y ago

codetrotter 3y ago

Dunno if dang will see your comment but if not, consider sending an email to HN. They have contact email in a link in the footer.

ftxbro 3y ago

they were just helping to boost your metrics by increasing engagement

jacamera 3y ago

I really don't understand the policy of altering headlines here. It's such petty, obnoxious behavior! I really wish they would stop doing it and I would be really annoyed if it happened to an article that I wrote and submitted myself. Thank you for calling it out.

dang 3y ago
People get upset about title editing on HN because they only notice the cases they dislike. Any practice will seem obnoxious if you only count the things it gets wrong. I can tell you after over a decade doing this job that the title moderation on HN is probably the single most beneficial thing we do. Without that, the front page would consist of linkbait, sensationalism, and rage. In other words, HN wouldn't exist.
- jacamera 3y ago
  > People get upset about title editing on HN because they only notice the cases they dislike. Any practice will seem obnoxious if you only count the things it gets wrong. I don't like or dislike any particular title or headline. I dislike the policy of selectively altering an author or publisher's chosen headline in general. > I can tell you after over a decade doing this job that the title moderation on HN is probably the single most beneficial thing we do. Without that, the front page would consist of linkbait, sensationalism, and rage. I appreciate the insight. Is the plan to keep this policy in place indefinitely in order to protect us from ourselves? I find it very depressing that a community like HN cannot be trusted to look at an unedited list of headlines. Do you think there is any hope of eventually developing something like a collective immunity (or even resistance) to clickbait? If it can't happen here, what does that say about the prospects for media literacy more broadly?
  - dang 3y ago
    The benefits of having a neutral, bookish (to use pg's old word) front page are so priced-in to everyone's experience of HN that people assume it just happens. Au contraire! It is laboriously maintained with daily effort. The default of homo internetus, especially at scale, is clickbait and outrage. That's what the arrow of entropy points to, so if we stopped putting energy into maintaining order here, it would quickly revert. HN's quality, such as it is, very much includes "selectively altering an author or publisher's chosen headline" - publishers and authors (and headline specialists, at media sites) are incentivized to take advantage of the default dynamics to get attention. It's their job to sex up their titles and our job to knock them down to size, if we can. That takes sustained moderator attention. That's not to criticize the community. HN's system consists of community, software, and moderation, and the community is by far the most valuable of the three. But all three must be active in order to keep HN from deteriorating (or at least to stave it off - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=stave%20off%20by%3Adang&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Moderation's job isn't to determine discussion, it's to serve the community by jiggling the system out of its failure modes when it gets stuck in one of them.

dang 3y ago

We sometimes put question marks on titles when a claim in a title is controversial. This is a longstanding practice: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22question%20mark%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... > The answer to any headline with a ? at the end is “no.” There's a popular meme that says that, but it's not true. Edit: after reading everyone's objections I think the easiest thing to do is just reverse all of this. Sorry for the trouble!

dmazin 3y ago
This sort of editorializing — especially considering that the article pertains to people that you are incentivized to please — is utterly unacceptable. At the least it should be clearly indicated as an edit by you. In the strongest terms, this is unacceptable.
- dang 3y ago
  I promise you that no one here is incentivized to please Reddit. Have you seen HN lately? Same point if you mean OpenAI. Titles on HN aren't the property of the submitter nor of the author of an article (though the author's opinion carries more weight). They're shared pointers and we edit them to be as neutral as possible. Mods do this all the time and have been doing it since HN began 16 years ago. It's primarily because of that practice that HN's front page looks completely different from Reddit's or any other similar forum's, and that's a crucial factor in the identity of the site. If we didn't have this rule, people could (and would) use the title field to get away with anything. I'm not saying that's what you were up to, just that this is an important rule and bog-standard HN moderation.
  - dmazin 3y ago
    Look, I just don’t think you should editorialize without making it clear. Why is the claim controversial, for example? Edit: I guess we went too deep in the thread, so we're resorting to edits. that was a rhetorical question. It's sort of like the Twitter community notes feature: making the edit, and its reason clear, builds trust. Otherwise, you just look like you're doing something shady (given that, again, the people in the article literally own HN). In terms of YOUR opinion about the quality of my article – that is what upvotes are for. I guess you have a much heavier hand into what we're allowed to read than I realized! Again, given your incentives, that's worrying.

DrammBA 3y ago

IMO the new title with a question mark is better.