'hacked' is very quickly becoming one of my least favourite words. Just call it what it is: it's not hacking, it's genetic modification.
I know it's the headline, that's why I complained about it. Nature should know better.
> Check the etymology of `hack` and you'll see it's a suitable word for gene editing.
I'm not making any statement based on the etymology of the word, though I don't see what in the etymology of the word 'hack' would make it an accurate description.
I stil approve of the new title, though. Please remove as much clickbaity bullshit from titles as possible.
This was a borderline case but I think they had a small point that 'hacked' was a bit baity. Also, the GP comment was heavily upvoted, indicating that a lot of users agreed.
But they don’t: the usage of “hack” in the title was squarely within the original definition of “to hack” (for instance, it’s covered by definition 6 in the Jargon File if we accept [as is generally done in hacker culture] that such hacks aren’t restricted to computer usage). In non-technical usage the term “hack” tends to mean something else but given that HN literally has “hacker” in its title, shouldn’t we accept correct usage of the word on this site, even if it doesn’t fall outside its non-technical mainstream definition?
Speaking as a biologist, the usage of “hack” in the title is completely idiomatic within the field (compare: “genome hacking”). The claim that this usage is bait is simply factually incorrect.
> Also, the GP comment was heavily upvoted
On the contrary, it was downvoted (greyed out) at the time the title was changed. It’s now back to black.
Re the GP comment, I was referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19299892, which was always upvoted and quickly reached a high positive score. When users are expressing an allergic reaction like that, we've learned that it's best to just yield. A modified title can be just as accurate and usually reduces inflammation.
That said, I think your argument is at least as persuasive. We did the standard moderation thing in this case because, as I said, it's proved to be globally optimal. But it doesn't seem to have been locally optimal here.