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We could present both the original title and the updated one within the comments thread, and allow people to vote on which title they like more.
by stephengillie 14y ago
We could present both the original title and the updated one within the comments thread, and allow people to vote on which title they like more.
- gnosis 14y agoThe thing is that the attention a submission gets is almost completely determined by the title. A crappy title will ruin the chances of most people even bothering to look at the comments. So I don't think this is a workable idea. Just leave the submitted title as is, and let the HN readers vote it up if they think it's worth it.
- niggler 14y agoI wonder whether a simple post-downvote would be more effective than the existing flagging mechanism
- absconditus 14y agoThis is not reddit. Stop worrying about such things.
- gojomo 14y agoI look forward to some social news site offering some version of this; it could help create more informative and time-saving titles. Alas, I don't expect it here, given the HN minimalism. Roughly how it might work: in addition to the 'comments' page, there'd be a 'headline' page. (Borrowing terminology from journalism, this might also be called the 'hed' page.) Posts here would be proposed alternate titles; the most upvoted would be the default on lists (like top stories). Perhaps, list views could show the top 2-3 titles (maybe as a user-specific option, or only when there's controversy). Each submission could also get a 'subhead' ('dek' in journalist lingo), for more exposition/teasing of content. It'd be voted on the same way. Perhaps, even, a similar approach could be used for competitive summaries, but I suspect that's likely to result in more controversy and less consensus/convergence.