4 ms·

HN will drop a number in a title by default. I have to edit the titles all the time for this. I'm not sure why HN has that logic but never asked dang.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago
It's presumably because of this item in the submission guidelines: > If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tough 3y ago
  The rules work 99% of the time but the automation of the rules some times make it so a little manual work is needed
  - ysavir 3y ago
    For what it's worth, I appreciate the rules. The experience is much better for me! But I don't typically submit articles, so I'm never impacted by the manual effort.
    - tough 3y ago
      Manual curation is what makes or breaks this site, I've had several interactions with dan and he's an excellent person. They even will try and surface good content that didn't make it to the home page with a second chance pool ymmv
  - version_five 3y ago
    In this case, I think the rule is still good. "3 Republicans" is a baity title imo. It would have been better reworded, possibly just to "California's magic mushroom bill", or not submitted if it's only about the 3 Republicans, the politics angle doesn't accomplish much.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  “Gratuitous” is a critical word in that guideline (“gratuitous” is not, itself, gratuitous); if removing the number substantiallly changes the connotation (or, a fortiori, denotation, but that's not an issue here) then the number isn't gratuitous.
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    Yes, in which case you're supposed to go back and manually edit the title. The automation doesn't always work but it nudges things in the right direction.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

It's presumably because of this item in the submission guidelines: > If the title contains a gratuitous number or number + adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tough 3y ago
The rules work 99% of the time but the automation of the rules some times make it so a little manual work is needed
- ysavir 3y ago
  For what it's worth, I appreciate the rules. The experience is much better for me! But I don't typically submit articles, so I'm never impacted by the manual effort.
  - tough 3y ago
    Manual curation is what makes or breaks this site, I've had several interactions with dan and he's an excellent person. They even will try and surface good content that didn't make it to the home page with a second chance pool ymmv
- version_five 3y ago
  In this case, I think the rule is still good. "3 Republicans" is a baity title imo. It would have been better reworded, possibly just to "California's magic mushroom bill", or not submitted if it's only about the 3 Republicans, the politics angle doesn't accomplish much.
dragonwriter 3y ago
“Gratuitous” is a critical word in that guideline (“gratuitous” is not, itself, gratuitous); if removing the number substantiallly changes the connotation (or, a fortiori, denotation, but that's not an issue here) then the number isn't gratuitous.
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  Yes, in which case you're supposed to go back and manually edit the title. The automation doesn't always work but it nudges things in the right direction.