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Was the title edited after the fact by mods? The original title has the word "rescue." The top comment is questioning the use of this word. It seems likely t
by natch 2y ago
Was the title edited after the fact by mods?
The original title has the word "rescue."
The top comment is questioning the use of this word.
It seems likely that when the story originally appeared on HN, it had the accurate title reflecting the title of the article. Thus the comment from dotnet00, which I'm neutral on. But then, it would appear, the title was altered, to dampen a controversy? Is this how things are done around here? Anyone know more?
- mlyle 2y agoThey regularly tamp down on sensationalist headlines.
- AdamN 2y agoI'd prefer they just block articles that use sensationalist headlines (when possible without blocking the entire topic).
- make3 2y agothey changed it to match the title of the article itself from AP, not to tamp it down necessarily. This is what they actually usually do.
- mlyle 2y ago> they changed it to match the title of the article itself from AP No-- AP: SpaceX launches rescue mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck in space until next year Original HN title: SpaceX launches rescue mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS Current HN title: SpaceX launches mission for 2 NASA astronauts who are stuck on the ISS
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- whimsicalism 2y agoi prefer the current approach especially when comments are already attached
- dang 2y agoMany good and substantive articles have sensationalist headlines, so that wouldn't work. Particularly at large publications, headlines are written by specialists in sensationalism (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22sex%20up%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
- afh1 2y agoIs that even possible to do in an unbiased way?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoI would think it’s not. I’ve also never once seen dang claim that the moderation team do their job without bias. Indeed, I suspect he’d even go as far as to say that the primary purpose of moderation is to promote a certain bias. That said, it’s also very easy to see what HN’s intended bias is since the publish it; it’s explained in the “on-topic” and “off-topic” paragraphs at the top of the guidelines page.
- criddell 2y agoI don’t think they’ve ever claimed to be unbiased. They want shorter headlines with less sensationalism. That’s a bias.
- gr3ml1n 2y agoIt was definitely changed.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dang 2y ago> Is this how things are done around here? Yes. Often I add a comment (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20title%20above&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but this time I didn't. When a single word starts sucking most of the thread's attention and leading to acrimonious nitpickery, it's an easy call to take that word out of the title. Striving for accurate and neutral titles is one of the best established principles of HN moderation (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20accurate%20neutral&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). It has a big influence on discussion quality. In the present case, for example, it behooves us all to learn about the real situation that is actually happening, rather than arguing about whether or not it deserves the term 'rescue', a semantic dispute which seems correlated with people's priors on the most divisive associations (e.g. the Elonian Dimension) and is therefore mostly a proxy for a repetitive and tedious argument.
- natch 2y agoThank you for explaining that! Seems a tough call doing that versus flagging the root comment of the acrimony, but maybe that alternate approach would have a bigger (too big) cost in disruption once there is such a small continent of comments built out under the top comment.
- dang 2y agoWe can do that too, or at least mark the low-quality subthreads offtopic (which downranks them). But if we don't take the provocation out of the title, it'll only generate more of the same.
- dredmorbius 2y agoThere's also your brilliant practice of collecting off-topic threads under a "sweep" comment, which strikes me as astoundingly effective at re-railing derailed discussions.
- deleted 2y ago