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Mods, please stop "improving" HN story titles to be less illuminating

Posted by miles on Friday July 11, 2025 @02:17PM
from the self-post dept.
Two recent examples:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44531569

Original submission title matched the article itself, "You should repaste your MacBook (but don't)". It has since been changed to the far less elucidatory title of "Repaste Your MacBook".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44482978

"A 17-year-old teen refutes a mathematical conjecture proposed 40 years ago" (matching the article title) changed to "Hannah Cairo has solved the Mizohata-Takeuchi conjecture".

No reason in cases like these to deviate from the site guidelines[1]: "[P]lease use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize".

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

( 3 comments | 4 points | on HN )
Re:Mods, please stop "improving" HN story titles to be less ... by ofalkaed on Friday July 11, 2025 @02:47PM (#44535655)
>Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Send it to [email protected].

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mods, please stop "improving" HN story titles to be less ... by p_ing on Friday July 11, 2025 @02:22PM (#44535426)
They're linkbait titles. Appropriate rewrites.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Mods, please stop "improving" HN story titles to be less ... by SeanAnderson on Friday July 11, 2025 @02:23PM (#44535434)
Eh, lightly disagree. Both the original post titles come across as slightly clickbait to me and I can see why there was a desire to rewrite them. I don't think the first rewrite is an improvement. I do think the second rewrite is an improvement.
[ Parent | on HN ]