Disagree. Article titles on the web are often very bad. Often this is for clickbait reasons, but also frequently just because the author was not writing for the HN front page as their audience. Almost always, I prefer the rewritten headlines on HN. However, this seems labor intensive to accomplish, and there is usually a delay before the edited title appears. What I wish is for article submitters to consider the use case, and rewrite the headline to conform to HN guidelines on submission.
Well, it's a balancing act. The original title may represent the article more accurately than the submitter's title, or it may be misleading clickbait and the submitter is trying to improve that. The policy here seems to be the best middle ground we can do, mostly go by the original title but also be ready to edit away from clickbait (which of course is subjective.)
There are some good reasons this isn't the case. Often the submission title itself has something wrong in it, or is click-bait-y, or just needs some pointless fat trimmed from it to get to the point.
It's definitely not black and white.
But if the source can't get the title right in a clean and objective sort or way, isn't that a signal for "there's got to be a better source"? For example, how many times have we've seen a click-bait-y title followed by content or narrative reflective of that mindset?
Click bait makes money. Unless some special magic is going on with a publication they'll all use click bait titles.
The actual articles are often not as clickbaity as the titles.
Also, sometimes there is no alternate source.
They are often updated to reflect the link title, in cases where the title by the submitter isn't great.
Relax, dang usually fixes them anyway
35% of the time at least
I have 35% confidence in this
35% of the time he fixes them 100% of the time
Some headlines are absurdly long and don’t fit in the HN title box.
It would be nice if they either did or didn't. The current system where submitters are encouraged to carefully choose a title and moderators are encouraged to stomp on it is the worst of both worlds.