

Ask HN: are headline fails getting on your nerves? - adrianwaj

It's starting to bother me that twisted or outright misleading headlines are becoming more pervasive, even on the NY Times. It's irritating because I can't trust an article's headline anymore to click it and read it. I now read the top commenter's summary and typically do away with the article as standard practice for most items.
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raimondious
There's a parallel between the headlines of articles on the internet and
advertisements for products: the currency of the internet is attention/page
views. It was unethical for people to advertise products as something they
weren't, just as it's unethical to advertise a piece of content as something
it's not: you're benefitting from deceiving the public. We got Truth in
Advertising when they did it with physical products… maybe the same idea
should be applied here.

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pg
I've noticed that even legitimate news outlets are starting to use linkbait
titles. We often rewrite titles on HN as a defense against this.

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adrianwaj
Got an idea:

The Punisher

1 - article has bad headline

2 - submitted to site with author's email and your email, and customizable
note with dropdown of issues with headline, or something within article

3 - you get email with reply-to of author's email and attached note

4 - you reply to it, sending note to author

5 - submission has a dedicated page on site making it easy for others to send
the note

6 - author has opportunity to reply to note, as will be listed on the site's
page for that article

\--

a - when author replies, all users who sent the note get a point

b - authors that reply get a point if majority of senders approve the author's
explanation note

\--

the email that is sent to each person can have ads at top

