Mods, please replace the linkbait title ("Biggest-Ever" "Scandal") that's nowhere on the linked page. The proper title for HN would be the title of the article, "The Empire of Edge."
Other sources about the event covered by the article also don't use "the biggest":
"Mr. Martoma was found guilty in February of making illegal trades in what prosecutors have called one of the most lucrative insider-trading schemes in history."
Note "one of the most lucrative."
Note that the amount involved is just $276 million:
From the article: 'The Department of Justice announced...that Cohen had presided over insider trading "on a scale without known precedent in the hedge-fund industry."'
"use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait."
The current title here "Inside the Biggest-Ever Hedge-Fund Scandal" is not the original content title (even if it is inside of the title tag in the HTML, as karkarlawawa noted) and is as linkbait as linkbait can be.
The HTML doc title is a legit option for "original title" and gets used all the time on HN. This title also isn't the worst linkbait we've seen (or even seen today). But you're right that it is hyperbolic and—uncharacteristically for the New Yorker—a bit breathy,
and also not something whose accuracy we're in position to verify, so we'll adopt your suggestion. Hopefully that will not lead to another big off-topic discussion the other way.
Obviously the < title > on the page was used exactly as the meta tags even more than a decade ago: as a SEO content. The title of the article is different and appropriate to the New Yorker.
The OP used the <title> tag of a widely-read publication, regardless of the intent of The New Yorker. Madoff didn't run a hedge fund, and though I haven't done the research this may be the largest insider trading conviction related to a hedge fund.
Let's make it clear: do you really claim that what's inside of the < title > there is not a linkbait and SEO?
And that the words appear anywhere else except in the < title > tag there?
Note that the policy of HN is otherwise to even not use the title even when it appears in the real content of the page if it is a linkbait and I, personally and subjectively, like and support that approach. The current title doesn't follow it.
I'm not trying to diminish the topic itself, it's obvious that the S.A.C. Capital Advisors, L.P. used insider info for their trading often, and that it was probably the major way they had an "edge."
The summary -> no charges against the head of this insider trader, but an agreement with the government to only invest Cohen's personal assets of nine billion dollars.
Other sources about the event covered by the article also don't use "the biggest":
http://online.wsj.com/articles/judge-allows-sac-capital-insi...
"Mr. Martoma was found guilty in February of making illegal trades in what prosecutors have called one of the most lucrative insider-trading schemes in history."
Note "one of the most lucrative."
Note that the amount involved is just $276 million:
http://www.rediff.com/money/report/indian-origin-fund-manage...
Orders of magnitude less than what Bernie Madoff did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madoff_investment_scandal
"$64.8 billion"