Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> Then you use one of the many workarounds discussed.

There are two workarounds. Both are bad.

Making a blog post good enough to be a story requires a huge amount of effort, and is not a fair requirement as an alternative to simply submitting. (And a quick, simple blog post wouldn't be acceptable by HN standards.)

Making a submission with a URL that doesn't go the right place, with a comment that points out the thing, only works when the more generic URL is actually interesting enough on its own. And even then it might be worse off for bundling too much together.

"Halide 2.12: All The Latest iOS 17 Photography Features" is not very interesting on its own. "Support HDR images in your app" is not interesting on its own. With the way you're talking about keeping up standards, surely you don't want more bad URLs submitted.

> All these worlds are yours, except Makeupyourowntitleuropa.

I don't want to allow any more making up of titles than you normally get when the specific thing you're submitting doesn't have a title. Just a bit more flexibility on choosing the "specific thing". A rule that it has to be a direct quote would also be much better than the status quo. Anything to avoid a submission of one specific thing turning into a submission of a broader and 90% unrelated thing.

> at least some evidence

Jesus Christ. You keep acting like this never happens when there's an example right in front of us. That's at least "some" evidence, come on.

Even if you think the title was unacceptable, surely you'll agree that neither of these two URLs is good for submitting the thing that OP found and a good chunk of 50 people found interesting.




> Anything to avoid a submission of one specific thing turning into a submission of a broader and 90% unrelated thing.

Using a post title edit to focus a submission of a broader link — such as an Apple WWDC video about HDR still images support — onto just the piece that you find interesting — that Apple supports an ISO standard — is precisely what is unacceptable to do.

That is the exact editorial behavior that HN specifically prohibits in title edits when submitting. The reasons for this have already been explained at length by dang in hundreds of comments over the years, and the guidelines are written specifically to prohibit the behavior you’re arguing in favor of. Trying to argue against that guideline will get you nowhere in the comments on a low-quality title edit submission, and I won’t be rehashing those reasons with you. If you wish to continue participating in HN, you’ll need to get used to disappointment on title edits, or take your concerns to the site moderators in email: hn@ycombinator.com.

I stand by my original point. My top-level comment on this post is intended to show what could have been submitted, as a blog post about this issue, to HN. We could have had an informative post that provided the relevant news, the supporting context, and even the 2022 presentation about why the standard exists at all.

Instead, all we get was a title edit.


Pretend they didn't make up their own title. Pretend it was a direct quote. Does that help at all?

And this link was not going to be submitted otherwise, so focusing on that part didn't steal the spotlight from anyone else.

I really don't agree that the guideline was written to make certain kinds of post impossible. I think it was written to avoid people stealing the spotlight, and it's a little bit too broad for that goal.

> We could have had an informative post that provided the relevant news, the supporting context, and even the 2022 presentation about why the standard exists at all.

Cool. But you shouldn't have to do that. It would be interesting if every post had to be an informative user-written blog post, but as argued earlier HN is not that site.


You need to take your arguments to the site operators, not to me. Email them your view, highlight this thread, and ask them to reconsider. They may or may not agree, it might take a few days, but at least you’ll get a reply.

Or don’t: HN users and mods will continue flagging and reverting editorial title edits by whatever definition the mods are currently using that is unacceptable to you, and nothing will change.

Personally, I’d take the chance of persuading them by sending an email, over the certainty of having my opinion disregarded by not sending an email at all. Up to you, though.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: