Yes. Tons of titles are changed all the time.
Others still add or remove a word that don’t really do anything for the title except change the inflection slightly to one the author may not even want perceived from their writing.
Whom does that sort of edit serve? Merely curious.
It’s not just cars that make pollution. It’s the roads they drive on, too
↓
Study suggests that fresh asphalt is a significant source of air pollution
and
Atul Gawande on COVID and healthcare logistics
↓
We can solve the coronavirus-test mess now if we want to
and
The problem with C compatibility in C++
↓
The problem with C
---
(Sorry for formatting) Idk it seems a bit more than trying to de-editorialize.
20:30 A woman who gave the world antiviral drugs
↓
21:40 Gertrude Elion, a woman who gave the world antiviral drugs
↓
22:40 The woman who gave the world antiviral drugs
Like, at what point is well enough alone for a headline that was already succinct, descriptive and well formed and why keep coming back an hour later-after presumably more people have seen the article and may want to come back later-to change the title again?
@dang (if you come across this): is HN remotely interested, for the curiosity satiating edification of the community-if no other reason-in sharing the decision calculus for these kinds of title edits?
What you're seeing in that sequence is trial and error. Sometimes it takes a few tries before we find a solution that feels like it balances the different concerns. That's not particularly common, though, plus most of those exploratory edits are quickly overwritten by later edits, so Peter's app doesn't pick them up.
I'm happy in principle to satiate anyone's curiosity about this kind of thing—the only trouble is that it takes a surprising amount of time to write out such explanations in details, and unfortunately that time is just not often not available. What I can tell you is that (1) there is nearly always a specific reason for every title edit we do, and there are probably at least a hundred different considerations that come into it, based on 10+ years of experience at this point—this is a surprisingly complex subdomain!, and (2) we're highly responsive to user complaints about titles (or mod edits) in specific cases. Not just because we want users to be happy, but also because this has proven to be the only way to minimize the dreaded title fever (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...) —which, btw, has had an outbreak in this very thread.
I've written longer explanations in the past about how we approach title editing in general. One is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20429573. If there are questions I'd be happy to answer them—but again, the more general the question, the more time/energy it takes to answer, so I may not be able to.
Actually I enjoy engaging with users about HN title edits because, of all the things we do, it's by far the best worked out. It's far more consistent than people think it is. Why does something consistent appear so inconsistent? Because it's more complicated than it seems. Why is title editing so complicated? Because titles are the biggest single influence on the site, and users are astonishingly passionate about them.
Given that you’ve stated doing so presently would be an unwieldy and rather involved affair, opening the opportunity for such a transparent display of community engagement at a later date seems like a charitable ask of you?
I'm happy to answer questions and do it every day, but it's better to stick closer to where actual examples come up. What else do you still want to know?
I get that there are a lot of shitty 'click-bait' titles but that's just how it goes. Once you start changing those you're down the path of changing any title submission for who knows what reason(s). I've seen it over-and-over and I really don't get it. HN is so hands-off generally this behavior is truly puzzling.