zlacker

I am sorry to say this contributes to the feeling that the HN rule about titles is entirely arbitrary.

It isn't, really. Editorialized titles tilt the balance in an opinionated way.

Most of the time the rule seems stupidly rigid and inflexible.

For more detail, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877460.

Or, you can write a blog post commenting on that story, and post the blog entry to HN.

>>wglb+(OP)
You don't understand what you are talking about. HN doesn't have a rule against blog posts with editorialized titles, instead, HN has a rule saying that the people who submit articles to HN can not editorialize the titles. Basically, the rule is that the title on HN should be exactly the same as the title of the blog post. Except here, Dang is breaking that rule. The initial title of this submission on HN was exactly the same as the blog post. But Dang is objecting to the title of the blog post. That is why Dang's actions seem arbitrary: Dang has decided to break HN's normal rules. And why? Because of a feeling that the blog post had a title that was "over the top".

Have you read the comment that Dang makes at the URL that you just posted? Dang says "Please don't editorialize the titles of stories you submit here." And yet, here Dang is editorializing the title of the story submitted here.

>>lkrubn+A7
> You don't understand what you are talking about.

Please don't address a fellow user this way.

> Basically, the rule is that the title on HN should be exactly the same as the title of the blog post.

That's mistaken. The actual rule is to use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Had you known that, you'd have known that we were upholding the rule, not breaking it. It's standard practice, when a title breaks the HN guidelines, to replace it with neutral, representative language from the article.

Does that mean we get every edit right? Of course not, but if you're going to object, please do so on the basis of what the guidelines actually say.