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Maybe we could change the social norm on HN, rather than seek a technical solution. Users who think that the original title is a poor fit for Hacker News can c

by cbhl 13y ago

Maybe we could change the social norm on HN, rather than seek a technical solution. Users who think that the original title is a poor fit for Hacker News can create a post on (say) their own blog with the desired title, a brief summary, and a link to the original article and context -- similar to "reblogging" on Tumblr and such sites. Then, they submit their "reblog" page to Hacker News. If the new title is indeed more useful than the original title, the "reblogged" post should get more clicks, upvotes, and comments than the original submission, and because the "author's original title" on the reblogged post is the editorialized title, reverting to the "original title" does the right thing (in the eyes of the submitter). And if it isn't a helpful title, the link just falls off of newest like every other link that get submitted. Thoughts?

tptacek 13y ago
This is exactly the right approach, and has the added benefit of offering the submitter an opportunity to editorialize and summarize to their heart's content without taking something unfairly from the community.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  ...except for the HN guideline that specifically asks people to post the original article: Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. I personally wish this were more rigidly enforced, because there's an awful lot of filler material on the net which basically consists of little more than a link and a 50-100 word wrapper (as opposed to a more comprehensive article that cites some other links). To my mind HN is most effective when it allows readers to avoid the usual tides of blogspam that seem to make 80% of daily 'content' production.
  - cbhl 13y ago
    I agree that submitting the original source will, in 90% of cases, be the best option. But, in the other 10% of cases, between editorializing on HN and editorializing on a blogspam post, I'd prefer the latter as it would still allow someone else to submit the original source with the original title.
- huhtenberg 13y ago
  This is exactly the approach known as the blogspam :)
  - wglb 13y ago
    Disagree. I think at one point pg suggested it. The original source idea is about posting a link to slashdot or other aggregator that references a story. The blog post would be original content.
    - Dylan16807 13y ago
      Many times, the reasonable method of pointing out the part of a story relevant to HN is the exact kind of three sentence note you get on a slashdot story. It's very common to have something you want to show off without also having enough personal opinion to write a full content post yourself. Is it really original content if my post gives context, and links to the original, and does nothing else?
jack-r-abbit 13y ago
I believe people refer to this as blog spam, right? From the HN guidelines: Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter.
- cbhl 13y ago
  Right, but the guidelines are developed from people doing undesirable things to the detriment of HN. (Presumably, submitting blog spam and the front page being full of ten blog spam pages that have the same title and all point back to a single source.) If (as the critics suggest) the combination of "submit original source" and "use original title" are making HN worse, we can adjust our behaviour and change the guidelines. What I'm advocating is that people submit "blog spam" only when: 1. The submitter is absolutely certain that the original source has a title that makes no sense out of context, 2. The submitter wants to editorialize the title because of (1), and, 3. The submitter owns the blog that has the "blog spam" post (i.e. they don't submit blog spam from TechCrunch or Kotaku or what-have-you unless they actually write for TC/Kotaku/etc.) If a "blog spam" post makes it to the front page way more often than the original source because of editorialized titles, then that is the decision of the collective HN community. I suspect that it rarely will. As a bonus, if the new approach works well, maybe we can switch to an automated title-scraper. I agree that there may be a short-term increase in blogspam, but this approach lets the people who are upset about title-changing see for themselves which title was most useful to HN readers. I hypothesize that in the long run, people who write factually incorrect editorialized titles will learn the hard way (because their "blog spam" doesn't get upvoted) and eventually go back to submitting original sources (and maybe they'll stop complaining about title reverts to boot). And, in either case, this removes the need for mods to revert titles, which (hopefully) is win-win.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    I think that this proposal would ultimately be to the detriment of HN. I don't want to have to click through your blog to get to the article, even if you have the purest of intentions and aren't just looking for ad impressions, just because HN moderators cannot be arsed to exercise discretion when re-titling posts. I want to be able to read a link, get a reasonable impression of what content is behind it and why it was posted, click it once, and then read the content. Anything else is a sub-par user experience.

by cbhl 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

This is exactly the right approach, and has the added benefit of offering the submitter an opportunity to editorialize and summarize to their heart's content without taking something unfairly from the community.

anigbrowl 13y ago
...except for the HN guideline that specifically asks people to post the original article: Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter. I personally wish this were more rigidly enforced, because there's an awful lot of filler material on the net which basically consists of little more than a link and a 50-100 word wrapper (as opposed to a more comprehensive article that cites some other links). To my mind HN is most effective when it allows readers to avoid the usual tides of blogspam that seem to make 80% of daily 'content' production.
- cbhl 13y ago
  I agree that submitting the original source will, in 90% of cases, be the best option. But, in the other 10% of cases, between editorializing on HN and editorializing on a blogspam post, I'd prefer the latter as it would still allow someone else to submit the original source with the original title.
huhtenberg 13y ago
This is exactly the approach known as the blogspam :)
- wglb 13y ago
  Disagree. I think at one point pg suggested it. The original source idea is about posting a link to slashdot or other aggregator that references a story. The blog post would be original content.
  - Dylan16807 13y ago
    Many times, the reasonable method of pointing out the part of a story relevant to HN is the exact kind of three sentence note you get on a slashdot story. It's very common to have something you want to show off without also having enough personal opinion to write a full content post yourself. Is it really original content if my post gives context, and links to the original, and does nothing else?

jack-r-abbit 13y ago

I believe people refer to this as blog spam, right? From the HN guidelines: Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports on something they found on another site, submit the latter.

cbhl 13y ago
Right, but the guidelines are developed from people doing undesirable things to the detriment of HN. (Presumably, submitting blog spam and the front page being full of ten blog spam pages that have the same title and all point back to a single source.) If (as the critics suggest) the combination of "submit original source" and "use original title" are making HN worse, we can adjust our behaviour and change the guidelines. What I'm advocating is that people submit "blog spam" only when: 1. The submitter is absolutely certain that the original source has a title that makes no sense out of context, 2. The submitter wants to editorialize the title because of (1), and, 3. The submitter owns the blog that has the "blog spam" post (i.e. they don't submit blog spam from TechCrunch or Kotaku or what-have-you unless they actually write for TC/Kotaku/etc.) If a "blog spam" post makes it to the front page way more often than the original source because of editorialized titles, then that is the decision of the collective HN community. I suspect that it rarely will. As a bonus, if the new approach works well, maybe we can switch to an automated title-scraper. I agree that there may be a short-term increase in blogspam, but this approach lets the people who are upset about title-changing see for themselves which title was most useful to HN readers. I hypothesize that in the long run, people who write factually incorrect editorialized titles will learn the hard way (because their "blog spam" doesn't get upvoted) and eventually go back to submitting original sources (and maybe they'll stop complaining about title reverts to boot). And, in either case, this removes the need for mods to revert titles, which (hopefully) is win-win.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  I think that this proposal would ultimately be to the detriment of HN. I don't want to have to click through your blog to get to the article, even if you have the purest of intentions and aren't just looking for ad impressions, just because HN moderators cannot be arsed to exercise discretion when re-titling posts. I want to be able to read a link, get a reasonable impression of what content is behind it and why it was posted, click it once, and then read the content. Anything else is a sub-par user experience.