3 ms·
This is some real title gore, and I don't know who is to blame. As it appears: > Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage? T
by albedoa 6mo ago
This is some real title gore, and I don't know who is to blame. As it appears:
> Microsoft is employing dark patterns to goad users into paying for storage?
That Microsoft is employing dark patterns is neither surprising nor a question. Can you explain this gross departure from the actual title jpmitchell[1]? Here is the original for reference:
> How Microsoft abuses its users
This is much more interesting and accurate.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jpmitchell https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jpmitchell
- jpmitchell 6mo agoI have no idea what happened. I literally just copy and pasted my post title for the submission. I assume there's some form of active curation going on. I've only recently started posting my content to Hacker News so I'm not sure yet.
- albedoa 6mo ago[flagged]
- slater 6mo agoIt's well-known that HN mods will edit submission titles to reduce chances of flamewars/axe-grindiness in the discussions. Not saying that's what happened here, but not a new thing.
- albedoa 6mo agoI would love to hear the excuse that the mods have for this title change. Good luck to them!
- slater 6mo agoExcuse? They don't need an excuse, "How Microsoft abuses its users" isn't very descriptive. The edited title reduces the heat and gives more info.
- jpmitchell 6mo agoThat's a fair point. I enjoy being a _bit_ provocative, but that title might have been a bit much.
- dang 6mo agoYes, it's fairly straightforward - if a title is too baity, we edit it, in keeping with this guideline: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html However, when we do that, we always try to find a representative phrase within the article itself. We try not to make up our own wording but rather to let the article speak for itself. In this case, we found this sentence: > Microsoft is very obviously employing dark patterns in order to goad its users into paying for Onedrive storage However, since that's also a provocative claim, we added a question mark at the end. This is also a standard moderation edit; it's basically shorthand for "the article argues for controversial claim X, but whether that's true or not is something each reader can decide for themselves". In this way the title that appears on the frontpage becomes more neutral, which is what we're going for.
- albedoa 6mo ago[flagged]
- slater 6mo agoOkeydokey, then.
- Dylan16807 6mo agoThe question mark is pretty bad though.
- dang 6mo agoI've responded to the bit about the title here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47713835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47713835. Separately from that: can you please stop posting so aggressively to HN? You've repeatedly crossed into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that, and I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. We can't have users throwing elbows like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47526685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47526685 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47512697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47512697 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47512669 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47512669 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480879 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480879 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47434614 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47373748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47373748 (March 2026) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342398 (March 2026) All of those comments are in serious conflict with the intended spirit of HN, and unfortunately you've posted many more of those than I've listed here. In fact, it's been a problem for years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31393023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31393023 (May 2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17832778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17832778 (Aug 2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11781469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11781469 (May 2016) Not cool.