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Comment by xkcd-sucks | Hacker News Reader

Could we change the title to something a little less clickbaity/classist? Even though it's the title of the actual article, trailer parks have nothing to do do with the actual content.

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It's also misleading -- although he did grow up in a trailer park, he also attended an world-renown university of both undergraduate and doctoral studies prior to making the discovery. And he wasn't working alone in the middle of nowhere -- he as working with a team of other scientists.

It's a fantastic life story, but the title is definitely distracting click bait.

I disagree entirely. I didn't quite grow up quite in a trailer park, but close enough. I even served some time in a fundie "school" that was 30 people K-12. That this guy came from a disadvantaged background and went somewhere despite a lack of education mattered a lot to me.

I was lucky to get involved with computers, which at the time were something where you could pick up on your own and still end up with a good career. I don't know where I'd be without that; surely not with a doctorate doing research. Seeing this guy make it as far as a major scientific discovery warms my heart.

I hope his story inspires kids everywhere to persevere. And that gatekeepers everywhere think about the people they're excluding because they don't have the right pedigree. Without the University of Gottingen's willing to gamble, his talent could well have gone to waste.

I don't personally agree. The title is baity but in a more inspirational than manipulative way, and I don't see any gain in bringing in a word like 'classist'.

However, many here dislike the title and we're happy to oblige. So let's make a deal: we'll change the title to something more temperate, and you guys start talking about something more interesting than how bad the previous title was.

I disagree. This is not only a scientific story, it is also an inspirational story. The title shows that.

One doesn't need to lie over stories to make them inspirational.

Where is the lie? There isn't anything un-true about the title. More to the point, the inspirational aspect of the story is quite worthwhile. You might say the "trailer-park" inspiration is one aspect, the "we don't know everything we think we do, even 150 years later" angle is another aspect, and there is a third, possibly overlooked facet, which is that this opens up immense new opportunities for understanding life, as a whole, where and when we find it. You might consider it some sort of symbiotic, inspiration.

>There isn't anything un-true about the title.

That's true from a literal standpoint, however the title misleads many people into expecting that the subject isn't just from a trailer park as part of his past, but that he somehow made the breakthrough as a current, stereotypical, trailer park resident, i.e. not highly educated.

If there was an intention to mislead it is a lie.

If it's unintentional, it's just poor headline writing (ambiguous and easily misleading).

You really are missing the point of the headline, which purpose is to attract readers to a subject they wouldn't otherwise be interested in.. and the fact that "even a kid from a trailerpark can up-end cemented thinking in science" is very relevant. It does, in fact, change everything: the scientists' class and social background is not relevant to the science he or she performs, but the fact of extraordinary science being performed by extraordinary individuals is relevant. Maybe there was something in his trailerpark lifestyle that made him start to think differently about the things he'd learned about as a scientist; you, the reader, are invited to make your own conclusions before you walk away. The title is a part of that process.

I think we should leave click-baity titles the way they are, actually. On the general principle that the <mediasphere> -> HN mapping should be "information preserving" to whatever degree is reasonably feasible.

So if the authors of a story are being irresponsibly click-baity in their choice of title wording... it would not only be remiss of us not to convey this fact -- we would, in effect, be covering their asses -- which really now, are better left exposed in cases like these.

The problem with that argument is that the titles of HN submissions don't merely reflect an outside reality. They exert an influence on this site itself—one of the most powerful influences, in fact. So it's more like breathing polluted air, say, than watching a film.

A most colorful analogy. I agree that there's also an important counterpoint, in that sense.

Not going to touch on whether it is relevant to the rest of the article but acknowledging classism is the opposite of being classist.

Considering that the classism in question is considering it strange and amazing that someone who grew up poor (and in a gasp! trailer park) could go on to do science? There's no "acknowledging" classism in this article, there's just straight-out engaging in it and perpetuating it.

I disagree. It was classism and credentialism that almost kept him out of science. What's amazing is that through perseverance and luck he overcame that exclusion. The story contradicts the just-world implications of classism, and so I believe this article doesn't perpetuate it; it cuts against it.

Is the classism in question really about being poor?

From my perspective, it is about perpetuating the stereotype that rural people are 'slack jawed yokels'. If this guy was from a vertical trailer park (i.e. a high rise condo unit), we wouldn't think twice about it because, despite being potentially just as poor, he is an 'enlightened city dweller'.

There's a rural vs urban component, but yes, it's about being poor. If he were poor and urban, a similar article would have talked about him growing up in the "mean streets" of some poor neighborhood. It's the same reaction.

Perhaps it's a regional thing then, because where I come from, trailer parks are essentially cottages for the middle class. The poor connotation isn't there, but the lack of population density certainly is.

Try an experiment. Replace the adjective in question with a race that you feel is being maligned. Does the sentence now make you cringe? Then it is probably classist,

I think the people who point out this sort of thing are usually just trying to illustrate that there's all these gossipy judgements we make of each other and that it happens so often and so consistently that we end up doing it it thoughtlessly.

And then there are the people who think the rags to riches tale is just one of the tools of the rich and powerful. That the token success story keeps the rest of us from doing anything to change the status quo. And so rather than being inspired by them they just get grumpy.

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