HN title moderation is more consistent than it may appear. It all follows from the guideline: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) Submissions should stick to the original title—submitting an article doesn't confer the right to change it to suit one's opinion. But we make exceptions for misleading titles and linkbait. Given how the internet and media work, we often have to change titles for one or both of those reasons.
When we do, we look for a representative phrase from the article itself that can work as an accurate and neutral title. We only ever make up our own titles as a last resort, which is rare, maybe once a week if that. Sticking to the article's language often ends up being truer to the article than its own headline, because those are often not the author's doing. For example the current NYT article does not say "loophole"; only the headline does. The word the article uses is "provision" and it uses it four times. Presumably the headline writer switched "provision" to "loophole" for obvious reasons: it makes the title more provocative and thus more attention-getting. Normally we'd switch it back, but in this case I ran into HN's 80 char limit, so I squeezed "rule" in instead.
When users start objecting to a title in the comments, we usually acknowledge the objection and apply it to the title: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... HN readers have an eagle eye for inaccuracy, so their objections are usually fair. More importantly though, if we don't do it, the thread will increasingly be about how irritating people find the title. By translating their objection into a concrete edit, we ground out that energy. People feel heard, and the thread can go back to discussing the article itself, which is always more interesting.
Never underestimate the passion users feel about titles. It is a force of nature—I call it 'title fever': https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... You cannot fight it, only yield: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17496011. When I started this job, I found that perplexing: why care so much about titles? How is this the most important thing? But I've come to understand it better. Titles are the one thing everybody reads, so they're the one thing we all have in common. It sounds trivial, but they're the most public, most shared space the community has, and so carry the strongest charge. Thousands of lasers are focused on them. They're also small enough that it's possible to understand them and to feel like one can get them right—at least in comparison to anything else. The community's passion for correctness, so frustrated in most other places, ends up pouring into this.
This creates a strongly reinforcing loop on HN's front page. The feeling of HN titles being accurate and neutral—"I want it to be bookish" was what PG originally told me—gets compounded and cements into an expectation that things must be that way. If they're not, strong frustration exerts pressure to make it that way. This is what I mean by force of nature. And when readers see that they actually have influence over this place, like when people object to a title and we change it, they bond with it more closely and the loop gets stronger.
It also gets stronger because of the contrast between HN and other places on the internet, which have to play games to get clicks that we are blessed with not having to play: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... The brain works in contrasts, and the contrast between the neutral HN style and most other places is so sharp that it creates an "ow my eyes" effect going one way and an "ahh" feeling of relief going the other. HN being text-based affects that too: no garish images, no flashing lights, no loud videos. The more often people come here, the more such small contrasts get registered—thousands of them. We're all conditioned now to expect HN's front page to be this way. Coming here should feel like walking into a library.
It's an interesting question what all this emotion that people feel about HN titles, the HN frontpage, and HN itself is really related to. It's far too strong to only be about HN, which is merely an internet forum and basically just an entertainment site.
Dang, I think you've summarised the difference between news and 'news' in three paragraphs wonderfully.
Everyone keeps saying that moderation is a thankless job and I thank you out for it.
But I'd like to take this chance to thank you for the insights that you post. They give me an amazing insight to this teeming mass called humanity and help me see the 'humane' part of it despite everything to the contrary.
Excellent points, and excellent work moderating, thanks for all you do.
I think the point about the headlines being the one thing everyone reads is especially important for everyone to realize, and I wish the people coming up with titles would realize and take seriously the huge responsibility they have, not just for the number of clicks they garner, but also the fact that very often people read that as the summary and internalize it as fact. Every time the writers stretch the truth to get more clicks, they’re doing slight harm to huge numbers of people.
Thanks for keeping this corner of the internet a bit cleaner of that.
The problem is systemic. Those tricks work in the short term, forcing everyone to use them. The long term costs are externalities.
HN is in a special position, maybe even a unique one. If it were a standalone business we'd have to optimize for traffic, not curiosity. It's only because HN is part of YC that it can be HN.
You’re right, I just hope they feel some shame as they do it. I’d hoped that trying to maintain their brand would have kept NYT from this, but it seems like no one is immune.
I'm sure they hate it. No one is immune. Even science journals have started doing it!
I wonder what it will take for the publishing industry to find a solution. Not long ago, articles about the death of the music industry were a staple of online forums. Eventually we got simple ways to pay for most music at a fair rate. I haven't seen one of those articles in a while.
Yeah, hoping there’s some business model that deemphasizes impressions in favor of engagement. My personal favorite idea is Spotify for news with share of subscription fee given out based on time on site or something less purely click based. Main problem I see there is convincing the big guys to give up some control over their customer base, and convincing them that they’ll make more overall, despite potentially making much less per reader than with their other subscribers. Big problems, to be sure.
When we do, we look for a representative phrase from the article itself that can work as an accurate and neutral title. We only ever make up our own titles as a last resort, which is rare, maybe once a week if that. Sticking to the article's language often ends up being truer to the article than its own headline, because those are often not the author's doing. For example the current NYT article does not say "loophole"; only the headline does. The word the article uses is "provision" and it uses it four times. Presumably the headline writer switched "provision" to "loophole" for obvious reasons: it makes the title more provocative and thus more attention-getting. Normally we'd switch it back, but in this case I ran into HN's 80 char limit, so I squeezed "rule" in instead.
When users start objecting to a title in the comments, we usually acknowledge the objection and apply it to the title: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... HN readers have an eagle eye for inaccuracy, so their objections are usually fair. More importantly though, if we don't do it, the thread will increasingly be about how irritating people find the title. By translating their objection into a concrete edit, we ground out that energy. People feel heard, and the thread can go back to discussing the article itself, which is always more interesting.
Never underestimate the passion users feel about titles. It is a force of nature—I call it 'title fever': https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... You cannot fight it, only yield: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17496011. When I started this job, I found that perplexing: why care so much about titles? How is this the most important thing? But I've come to understand it better. Titles are the one thing everybody reads, so they're the one thing we all have in common. It sounds trivial, but they're the most public, most shared space the community has, and so carry the strongest charge. Thousands of lasers are focused on them. They're also small enough that it's possible to understand them and to feel like one can get them right—at least in comparison to anything else. The community's passion for correctness, so frustrated in most other places, ends up pouring into this.
This creates a strongly reinforcing loop on HN's front page. The feeling of HN titles being accurate and neutral—"I want it to be bookish" was what PG originally told me—gets compounded and cements into an expectation that things must be that way. If they're not, strong frustration exerts pressure to make it that way. This is what I mean by force of nature. And when readers see that they actually have influence over this place, like when people object to a title and we change it, they bond with it more closely and the loop gets stronger.
It also gets stronger because of the contrast between HN and other places on the internet, which have to play games to get clicks that we are blessed with not having to play: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... The brain works in contrasts, and the contrast between the neutral HN style and most other places is so sharp that it creates an "ow my eyes" effect going one way and an "ahh" feeling of relief going the other. HN being text-based affects that too: no garish images, no flashing lights, no loud videos. The more often people come here, the more such small contrasts get registered—thousands of them. We're all conditioned now to expect HN's front page to be this way. Coming here should feel like walking into a library.
It's an interesting question what all this emotion that people feel about HN titles, the HN frontpage, and HN itself is really related to. It's far too strong to only be about HN, which is merely an internet forum and basically just an entertainment site.