Ask HN: are headline fails getting on your nerves?

8 points·adrianwaj··3 comments

It's starting to bother me that twisted or outright misleading headlines are becoming more pervasive, even on the NY Times. It's irritating because I can't trust an article's headline anymore to click it and read it. I now read the top commenter's summary and typically do away with the article as standard practice for most items.

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There's a parallel between the headlines of articles on the internet and advertisements for products: the currency of the internet is attention/page views. It was unethical for people to advertise products as something they weren't, just as it's unethical to advertise a piece of content as something it's not: you're benefitting from deceiving the public. We got Truth in Advertising when they did it with physical products… maybe the same idea should be applied here.

I've noticed that even legitimate news outlets are starting to use linkbait titles. We often rewrite titles on HN as a defense against this.

Got an idea:

The Punisher

1 - article has bad headline

2 - submitted to site with author's email and your email, and customizable note with dropdown of issues with headline, or something within article

3 - you get email with reply-to of author's email and attached note

4 - you reply to it, sending note to author

5 - submission has a dedicated page on site making it easy for others to send the note

6 - author has opportunity to reply to note, as will be listed on the site's page for that article

a - when author replies, all users who sent the note get a point

b - authors that reply get a point if majority of senders approve the author's explanation note

the email that is sent to each person can have ads at top

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