

What is going on with the editing of submission titles? - dpapathanasiou

Twice now, I've seen my submission titles edited by someone else (probably Graham or his admins, if he has any for this site).<p>Both times, the edits were innocuous (the first one improved the title ever so slightly) but unnecessary.<p>It's not a huge problem, but it is a bit annoying.
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pg
Editors edit submission titles for two reasons:

1\. To keep the site clean (no spelling mistakes, gratuitously long titles,
SHOUTING!!!, etc.)

2\. To keep titles fairly neutral. People have a right to say what they want
in comments, but because a story can only be submitted once, if we didn't edit
submission titles, the first submitter could put whatever spin on the story,
and all readers would have to read it as that.

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budu3
I think we're quickly approaching a slippery slope here. Seeing as a username
is attached to every post, isn't the user somewhat responsible for every link
(s)he posts? It now constitutes part of their reputation. Now, if an editor
modifies the post but the username is still attached to the post and their is
no indication that it's been edited , is the original poster still responsible
for the post? (S)he can turn around and say, "That's not what I posted. I
don't want that attached to my submission history. I don't want any karma
that's associated with that altered post, whether good or bad."

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pg
We may be on a slippery slope, but we're not quickly approaching one. Editors
have fixed titles from day 1.

I think the best plan is just to make it policy that submission titles have a
different status from comments. They have to, because all the users have to
share the same title for each link.

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dpapathanasiou
I'm not sure I understand that explanation.

So we share the same title for each link (yes, we do), but we see different
comments?

No, we don't: if there's a ridiculous/obnoxious/puerile/etc. comment posted,
we all share that, too.

Why should the editing policy for titles be different from comments?

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palish
He may have meant that different users should give a specific submission the
same title, one without spelling mistakes and bias. So if a user titles a
submission with spelling mistakes or bias then it would be reasonable to edit
the title to the correct form.

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staunch
I think it'd be nice if there were some simple page displaying what
instructions the admins are operating under. They're white knights not
gestapo, right? :-)

~~~
palish
Why's it matter? They have our interests in mind. This works because we're
small and Paul's visible.

I'm sure there are no specific 'instructions'. They're trying to keep the site
nice because it's a reflection of YCombinator.

~~~
staunch
Doesn't need to be very formal. Just a little friendly transparency to avoid
theses kinds of threads being repeated frequently.

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mangodrunk
We're wasting a lot of time, time is money! We are trying to start our own
companies, and come here for meeting people and learning. This doesn't fall in
either category. We don't have a lot of time in starting our companies, but I
guess this is good because while you guys are being distracted by all this,
I'll have read the important links and maybe make some breakthrough in my
"killer app".

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epi0Bauqu
What were the changes?

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dpapathanasiou
They were minor edits for brevity, just the removal of one or two adjectives
and conjunctions.

I.e., they were the types of things that if I were writing a paper and a draft
reviewer suggested removing them, I would have said "ok".

But that's not the point.

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epi0Bauqu
Agreed. I was just wondering out of interest.

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michaelneale
I think its fine - anyone who things otherwise will find plenty of non editor
places to hang out on the net.

