4 ms·
My guess would be it's an application of: >If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.
by GeneralMayhem 12y ago
My guess would be it's an application of:
>If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- titanomachy 12y agoThese guidelines are really strict, but I have to say I like the results in general. I can usually tell by the title if something is likely to contain information that's interesting to me, unlike with many news sites.
- jashkenas 12y ago> Exception: when the number is meaningful As it is in this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins If a (some might say, literary) allusion has no place on Hacker News, just because it happens to have a number in it, then the small-minded literalists have really taken over this joint.
- forthefuture 12y agoYou don't need to know the seven deadly sins to know anything about types. They could have had 5 or 8 sins having to do with types and the content wouldn't have changed. That's pretty much the definition of unnecessary.
- tome 12y agoIt should have been "The sins of talking about types" then.
- GeneralMayhem 12y agoBut the content doesn't really relate to the allusion in any way. It's not like the seven sins listed are analogues to gluttony, lust, sloth, etc. There just happen to be seven of them.