
Ask HN: Why 80 characters for titles? - DiabloD3
Title editorialism is considered a faux-paux on HN, however, articles optimize their titles to fit in 140 characters due to Twitter and other similar platforms.<p>However, there are many titles that I feel I have made worse by shortening them to fit on HN (both having made it to the front page, and also not having made it).<p>Is there any real reason why HN doesn&#x27;t switch to 140 as well?<p>Also, I feel shorter headlines leads towards more clickbait-like submissions making it to the front page.
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DrScump
All HN articles are archived by punching them into IBM cards, which have an
80-character maximum.

But seriously, even 140 is arbitrary. One could ask, why have any limit at
all? But given the ephemeral nature of individual postings, if you can't
summarize within 80 characters, ask yourself if it's appropriate for the
audience at all.

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dang
I never asked pg about this but knowing his taste for brevity, I assume that
the obvious explanation is the correct one.

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BtM909
On the other hand, it forces you to think about a catchy title instead of
copying and pasting it from other sites

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minimaxir
HN Rules is to use the original title verbatim when possible.

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DrScump
dang has stated recently (and I would expect a corresponding update to the
Guidelines page eventually) that terse or otherwise inadequate titles warrant
enhancement for clarity (not to clickbait or unnecessarily dupe). Dupe
recognition that doesn't rely purely on title is inevitable.

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dang
I wouldn't go that far. Some terse titles have a charm or mystique that
enhances the HN front page. And it's good for readers here to have to work a
little, so not everything should explain itself.

Probably what I said is that if one is going to expand on an overly terse
title, one should use representative language from the article. That's a
partial check against editorialism.

