5 ms·

Not directly relevant, however the way that HN removes specific words from titles has become a tad obnoxious and patronising. In this specific case, the title

by slau 3y ago

Not directly relevant, however the way that HN removes specific words from titles has become a tad obnoxious and patronising. In this specific case, the title is accurate, and HN’s title modification is wrong. I guess the removal of “how” was meant to combat titles like “how I made my code 500x faster”. HN guidelines tell us to not editorialise titles or headlines, and to be accurate. Why does HN then get to modify titles with glorified and inaccurate regexes? Edit: I understand “it’s their website”, however rules-for-thee-not-for-me creates inconsistency, and makes it harder for contributors how to behave up front. It will lead to more editorialising, and doesn’t appear in-line with the posture HN has had over the years.

vasco 3y ago
> Why does HN then get to modify titles with glorified and inaccurate regexes? Because it's their site? Someone doesn't like the word how, and this doesn't matter that much.
- implements 3y ago
  Aviation site avherald.com does the same with “Air” - for example “Iran Air” becomes “Iran” and “Air Lingus” just “Lingus”. The site still refers to itself as “The Aviation Herald”, somewhat ironically.
  - smcl 3y ago
    Aer Lingus would be unchanged, unless they also added a case to handle that.
    - implements 3y ago
      Good catch! - I think I’ll have to hand back my Irish passport in shame!
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
jeroenhd 3y ago
Is this any different? This article comes down to "there was lead in tumeric, the government was warned and goods were tested". I can't think of any other (effective) way a country could ban a toxic substance.
kazinator 3y ago
An article about "X was done", if it is in any way HN-worthy, can reasonably be expected to go into the "how". That's assumed.
- TylerE 3y ago
  The lack of “How” strongly implies recency.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    If it's not recent, it needs a year in square brackets.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      In theory. In practice that doesn't always happen, and when it does it's often HOURS after a post goes up. Not a reliable marker.
      - kazinator 3y ago
        I agree that if "How " is removed from a the title of a dated article, but "[year]" is not inserted in the same edit, that's a bug. Either fix the title completely, or don't bother.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sml156 3y ago
What title should they have used. If you look at the URL it should be "bangladesh-tumeric-lead-poisoning-contamination-public-health" https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/20/23881981/bangladesh-tumeric-lead-poisoning-contamination-public-health https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/20/23881981/bangla... If you look at the bold text at the beginning of the article it should be "Lead poisoning kills millions annually. One country is showing the way forward." Underneath the bold text is smaller text "How Bangladesh removed lead from turmeric spice — and saved lives."
- foota 3y ago
  The submitter can suggest a title, but hn will change the title on submission in many cases.
- kergonath 3y ago
  > If you look at the URL it should be "bangladesh-tumeric-lead-poisoning-contamination-public-health" The URL is not the title and should not be used as such. It’s just a convenient way of accessing the article later. There are several reasons why URLs can (and often do) differ from the titles, it would be a terrible policy to base the HN story titles on them.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Did we all forget title tags exist or something? > How Bangladesh saved lives by getting lead out of tumeric spice That's the title of the article and it's pretty close to the submission.
defanor 3y ago
"H0w [...]" titles would be somewhat amusing and appropriate as a hacky way to bash those in, albeit inappropriate as being rather silly and circumventing this sort of policy. The HN website editorializing titles automatically indeed seems wrong though: if those are bad or clickbaity titles, they probably could just not be upvoted much, maybe flagged, and otherwise dealt with using generic mechanisms, but attempting to automatically improve them does not seem to do much good. On a more optimistic note, at least those are predictable substitutions for now, and not any of the ML business.
- notahacker 3y ago
  Yeah. Similarly, the HN convention of removing the number from a listicle doesn't stop them from being listicles, it just means users are more likely to click on them in the mistaken belief that they're a reasoned piece written by a subject matter expert. And the idea that the worst thing an author can do to grab your attention is stick a number in the title seems quaint in the context of the modern internet. Meanwhile, most of the actual ragebait makes it through unscathed...
- distcs 3y ago
  > if those are bad or clickbaity titles, they probably could just not be upvoted much I am an active /new page lurker. You'd be surprised by the number of times I've seen clickbaity titles getting upvoted and making it to the front page. Sure the clickbaity titles had good content too, otherwise they wouldn't get upvoted again and again. But when there are two posts with equally good content, the one with clickbaity title gets the needed votes soon enough to get into the front page and the other one keeps languishing at /new. It's sad but that's what I see happening again and again at /new. I try to offset the unfairness by voting for the non-clickbaity interesting posts but adding one vote to a post that nobody else is voting for does not make any meaningful difference.
indigodaddy 3y ago
You’re free to modify the title again to combat HN’s title filter within a certain time limit from submission.
rpigab 3y ago
The problem arises when the "how" is linked to a past thing. It can get wierd. "How MJ has died" -> "MJ has died" "How the US nuked Japan" -> "The US nuked Japan"
crossroadsguy 3y ago
> Why does HN then get to modify titles with glorified and inaccurate regexes? In the same way HN doesn’t give you an option to delete your comments and accounts at all. Oh yeah, there’d something like “why not email <someone at HN>”.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  It doesn't need an option as in a button (HN doesn't seem to have developers on it), but it's required to comply with a deletion of your account under GDPR. Emailing someone is fine, after all, "do things that don't scale" is one of the known adages in this space.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - crossroadsguy 3y ago
    Fair point. That option is out there - but it is not clear. I have gone through the FAQ entry and the linked comment which talks of “shared ownership” of a thread — which, this is my guess, is implying every comment is shared. I find that troubling. I don’t think it would be too much to clearly add a sentence or few in that FAQ entry about how a person can get an account and its history erased from hn, even if its via an email (though such a button would be nice — which maybe just sends an email mentioning the hn username?) But I also acknowledge that matters of account and data deletions aren’t straightforward.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    How does GDPR apply to HN or Y combinator? They have no EU legal presence whatsoever last time I checked.
    - sebastiennight 3y ago
      But they have (a lot of) EU users, and they gather PII from those users (such as email, or in some cases username == first name or full name ; and profile description can contain PII ; they probably also get our IP) so they still must abide by GDPR. If you have EU users you can't hide behind "well *my* country says you can take PII and not charge VAT and not provide refunds, and I don't care about 3D Secure or DSP2 when I charge EU credit cards etc etc." You have to either comply with the law to get those users and customers, or withdraw from there. It seems logical that as a citizen of [insert country] I should be able to rely on my own country's protections against [insert risk] whether the third party is from my own land or not.
threatofrain 3y ago
What I hate about this one is that the headlines which were trendy before aren’t trendy now but we’re still left with these rules, and secondly that the modified titles can become a more dramatic title.
fomine3 3y ago
I argue removing "How" doesn't even reduce clickbait score much

by slau 3y ago

vasco 3y ago

> Why does HN then get to modify titles with glorified and inaccurate regexes? Because it's their site? Someone doesn't like the word how, and this doesn't matter that much.

implements 3y ago
Aviation site avherald.com does the same with “Air” - for example “Iran Air” becomes “Iran” and “Air Lingus” just “Lingus”. The site still refers to itself as “The Aviation Herald”, somewhat ironically.
- smcl 3y ago
  Aer Lingus would be unchanged, unless they also added a case to handle that.
  - implements 3y ago
    Good catch! - I think I’ll have to hand back my Irish passport in shame!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

jeroenhd 3y ago

Is this any different? This article comes down to "there was lead in tumeric, the government was warned and goods were tested". I can't think of any other (effective) way a country could ban a toxic substance.

kazinator 3y ago

An article about "X was done", if it is in any way HN-worthy, can reasonably be expected to go into the "how". That's assumed.

TylerE 3y ago
The lack of “How” strongly implies recency.
- kazinator 3y ago
  If it's not recent, it needs a year in square brackets.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    In theory. In practice that doesn't always happen, and when it does it's often HOURS after a post goes up. Not a reliable marker.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      I agree that if "How " is removed from a the title of a dated article, but "[year]" is not inserted in the same edit, that's a bug. Either fix the title completely, or don't bother.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sml156 3y ago

What title should they have used. If you look at the URL it should be "bangladesh-tumeric-lead-poisoning-contamination-public-health" https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/20/23881981/bangladesh-tumeric-lead-poisoning-contamination-public-health https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/20/23881981/bangla... If you look at the bold text at the beginning of the article it should be "Lead poisoning kills millions annually. One country is showing the way forward." Underneath the bold text is smaller text "How Bangladesh removed lead from turmeric spice — and saved lives."

foota 3y ago
The submitter can suggest a title, but hn will change the title on submission in many cases.
kergonath 3y ago
> If you look at the URL it should be "bangladesh-tumeric-lead-poisoning-contamination-public-health" The URL is not the title and should not be used as such. It’s just a convenient way of accessing the article later. There are several reasons why URLs can (and often do) differ from the titles, it would be a terrible policy to base the HN story titles on them.
hnbad 3y ago
Did we all forget title tags exist or something? > How Bangladesh saved lives by getting lead out of tumeric spice That's the title of the article and it's pretty close to the submission.

defanor 3y ago

"H0w [...]" titles would be somewhat amusing and appropriate as a hacky way to bash those in, albeit inappropriate as being rather silly and circumventing this sort of policy. The HN website editorializing titles automatically indeed seems wrong though: if those are bad or clickbaity titles, they probably could just not be upvoted much, maybe flagged, and otherwise dealt with using generic mechanisms, but attempting to automatically improve them does not seem to do much good. On a more optimistic note, at least those are predictable substitutions for now, and not any of the ML business.

notahacker 3y ago
Yeah. Similarly, the HN convention of removing the number from a listicle doesn't stop them from being listicles, it just means users are more likely to click on them in the mistaken belief that they're a reasoned piece written by a subject matter expert. And the idea that the worst thing an author can do to grab your attention is stick a number in the title seems quaint in the context of the modern internet. Meanwhile, most of the actual ragebait makes it through unscathed...
distcs 3y ago
> if those are bad or clickbaity titles, they probably could just not be upvoted much I am an active /new page lurker. You'd be surprised by the number of times I've seen clickbaity titles getting upvoted and making it to the front page. Sure the clickbaity titles had good content too, otherwise they wouldn't get upvoted again and again. But when there are two posts with equally good content, the one with clickbaity title gets the needed votes soon enough to get into the front page and the other one keeps languishing at /new. It's sad but that's what I see happening again and again at /new. I try to offset the unfairness by voting for the non-clickbaity interesting posts but adding one vote to a post that nobody else is voting for does not make any meaningful difference.

indigodaddy 3y ago

You’re free to modify the title again to combat HN’s title filter within a certain time limit from submission.

rpigab 3y ago

The problem arises when the "how" is linked to a past thing. It can get wierd. "How MJ has died" -> "MJ has died" "How the US nuked Japan" -> "The US nuked Japan"

crossroadsguy 3y ago

> Why does HN then get to modify titles with glorified and inaccurate regexes? In the same way HN doesn’t give you an option to delete your comments and accounts at all. Oh yeah, there’d something like “why not email <someone at HN>”.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
It doesn't need an option as in a button (HN doesn't seem to have developers on it), but it's required to comply with a deletion of your account under GDPR. Emailing someone is fine, after all, "do things that don't scale" is one of the known adages in this space.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- crossroadsguy 3y ago
  Fair point. That option is out there - but it is not clear. I have gone through the FAQ entry and the linked comment which talks of “shared ownership” of a thread — which, this is my guess, is implying every comment is shared. I find that troubling. I don’t think it would be too much to clearly add a sentence or few in that FAQ entry about how a person can get an account and its history erased from hn, even if its via an email (though such a button would be nice — which maybe just sends an email mentioning the hn username?) But I also acknowledge that matters of account and data deletions aren’t straightforward.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  How does GDPR apply to HN or Y combinator? They have no EU legal presence whatsoever last time I checked.
  - sebastiennight 3y ago
    But they have (a lot of) EU users, and they gather PII from those users (such as email, or in some cases username == first name or full name ; and profile description can contain PII ; they probably also get our IP) so they still must abide by GDPR. If you have EU users you can't hide behind "well *my* country says you can take PII and not charge VAT and not provide refunds, and I don't care about 3D Secure or DSP2 when I charge EU credit cards etc etc." You have to either comply with the law to get those users and customers, or withdraw from there. It seems logical that as a citizen of [insert country] I should be able to rely on my own country's protections against [insert risk] whether the third party is from my own land or not.

threatofrain 3y ago

What I hate about this one is that the headlines which were trendy before aren’t trendy now but we’re still left with these rules, and secondly that the modified titles can become a more dramatic title.

fomine3 3y ago

I argue removing "How" doesn't even reduce clickbait score much