zlacker

>>mtlync+(OP)
"Stripe is Silently" - can I just say how much I detest clickbait with "silently" in the title? It is purposefully negative, meant to make Stripe look bad. What did you want? A foghorn?

Also:

`The Stripe library generates a new request like this every time a user views a new page in my app.`

In "your" app! How do you not know all the side effects you dependencies may have when before adding them? What else is going in that site, Michael?

>>voz_+c9
Ok, we've abandoned silence in the title above. I think that's redundant anyhow.

I also took out "your". That's a standard moderation trick since second-person pronouns in titles tend also to be clickbait: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

>>dang+Re
It's not redundant at all. Admit it you have updated the title because Stripe is HN's company. I don't remember anyone ever editing posts concerning Google's tracking / privacy issues, for example.

>>George+7k
We edit titles all the time, including sensational titles about Google or anything else. This is routine. You probably wouldn't remember such edits because you probably wouldn't notice them in the first place.

We particularly edit titles that users have started complaining about: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Experience has shown that to be the way to minimize off-topic title complaints (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...).

The meaning of the title in this case hasn't changed. Websites don't make noises when they record things.

Edit: out of curiosity, I looked for some other cases where we took out the word 'silently'. Here are some:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22678471 (changed from "~30% of Android apps silently inspect other apps installed on your smartphone")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20453115 (changed from "Apple is silently updating Macs * again* to remove Zoom's insecure software")

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16715835 (changed from "Giraffes Silently Slip onto the Endangered Species List")

People have made HN title trackers over the years. My favorite is https://hackernewstitles.netlify.app/ (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21617016). It's not perfect because it can't distinguish what submitters did from what moderators did, doesn't know what the software changed, etc. But it gives the basic picture.

>>dang+uk
I find https://hackernewstitles.netlify.app/ fascinating.

Perhaps we all have a natural unconscious bias against being "edited" ("you're not in control of me [or the OP]!!"). But seeing the edits over time in the open really makes one appreciate the moderation work. Maybe it's worth making this more official somehow (e.g., adding a footnote in the submission page or to the FAQ) - because like you say, it must surely minimize off-topic discussions as well.

Anyway, thanks for your work!