Re:My simple GitHub project went viral
by themulticaster on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @10:07AM
(#26807246)
Well, the original title policy really is an official HN rule. On the other hand, I totally agree that titles consisting only of ObscureName are not very informative. From the current front page:
1. "Bernie Madoff Dies in Prison" - who's Bernie Madoff?
2. "Deno 1.9" - what's Deno? Is it edible?
3. "Yamauchi No.10 Family Office" - I have absolutely no idea what to expect
Instead, why not write:
1. "Bernard Madoff, Mastermind of Giant Ponzi Scheme, Dies at 82" (original Bloomberg title, explains who Madoff is)
2. "Deno 1.9 (A secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript)" (short description taken from the official homepage)
3. I still have no idea what this is, maybe someone can enlighten me
What's a runtime? What's JavaScript? I'm being facetious because "of course I can google that", but then I could google Deno too.
Let's talk about how people use HN in practice on titles they don't understand. They open the thread and piece together context from the top few comments. And that's fine, it works.
Re:My simple GitHub project went viral
by eyelidlessness on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @09:41PM
(#26815288)
The contravening point is my pet peeve on this site. Any title that starts with “How” gets that word edited out, presumably to mitigate clickbaitness, but it changes the way an article might be perceived in a way that makes it less interesting for familiar subject matter. “I did x with y” doesn’t much register to someone who knows y. But how they did it might.
Similarly here, it tells me every little about what the post is going to be. There's a bit of what happened, but also it's a writeup of what it is and how it's made. A better title might be "How I made an Open Source Clones List go Viral on GitHub" - just off the top of my head, you can probably do better, but it would already help you figure out whether you're interested in what it has to offer before having to click.