by tomhow | 2025-12-07 08:23:22+00:00
There is plenty of grey area and room for flexibility in the way we apply the guidelines, and we take many factors into account, including all the considerations you've raised. But ultimately we have to be accountable for the decisions that are made, and our approach has to be stable and defensible over the long term.

To (some of) your points:

> 1. Even though a comment about the title may have instigated that 212 reply discussion, the meta discussion about the title was not the focus of those replies.

Of course. A >200-comment subthread always goes off in all kinds of different directions. But that subthread accounted for 40% of all comments in the thread, so, it's clear that that comment about the title set the tone for the whole thread and heavily influenced how it played out. That top comment pointing out the inaccuracy of the title was one of the very first comments submitted, and received over 300 upvotes, so many people agreed that the title was inaccurate. We can't ignore that signal.

> 4. An imperfectly descriptive, though neutral, title is clearly better for the community than the opaque original one to which you have reverted it.

A title that gives people an incorrect understanding of the finding of the study is not "neutral". And if the authors/publishers of the paper felt that their title was adequately representative of their own work – given they are the most motivated to maximise its exposure – it's not for us to decide their own title was too "opaque".

> 6. The title which I gave it was a weaker version of the conclusion of the paper, so the opposite of clickbait.

We always find that numbers make titles more attention-grabbing. That doesn't mean they should never be used, but they should be used with great caution.

> 7. Your assertion about the popularity of the submission begs the question of whether it would have been as popular with the reverted title.

We're sympathetic with this perspective, and we do see some merit in allowing a more descriptive/catchy title to remain in place for a period of time, while the submission is still fighting for upvotes and the discussion is building momentum.

But every HN thread lives on for posterity, and after it's had enough time to get noticed and establish itself on the front page, it's proper for us to revert the title to the one that the publishers chose, so it ends up being consistent with the original work in perpetuity. This is the respectful thing to do, both for the publishers and for the community. By that time, the fact that it has hundreds of upvotes and comments should be enough to signal to HN visitors that it's worth a look.

And this brings us to the main issue here. I can see the merit in what you tried to do, and I don't altogether disagree with what you did or the reasoning for it, and we didn't initiate any criticism against you for doing it. We just quietly changed the title to the original one when we saw it, which is bog standard HN moderation. It's only become an issue because of the snarky, accusatory way you complained about what we did, and this is becoming a pattern in the way you engage with us. Our moderation policies and practices have to be stable and defensible over time and you need to take that into account when finding fault in what we do.

The right thing to do in future cases like this would be to email us when you submit the post and share your thoughts about the title. We can then manage it in a way that takes into account all the relevant considerations and consequences.