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Comment by demallien | Hacker News Reader

No, the mods have definitely become heavier recently. I saw one the other day which was a letter from Richard Feynman to an ex-student, explaining to him, amongst other things, how to choose problems to work on. The original title mentioned that it was from Richard Feynman, the modded title was just something like "How to choose problems to work on", with no mention of Feynman, which is so generic and boring that I would never have clicked on the link.

Dear mods, modding is something to use when there is a clear threat to community values. The default position, if you are in doubt, should be to do nothing.

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The rules around titles are to always use the title from the article. If people could make up their own titles we could end up with a tonne of click-bait. There are clearly situations like the one you mention where the title doesn't do the article justice but I'd rather miss the occasional article that see a tonne of click-bait and waste my time viewing dozens of shitty articles.

The rules around titles are to always use the title from the article.

In general, that is the rule.

The cynic in me couldn't help but notice that an article with the original title "One of a Kind: What do you do if your child has a condition that is new to science?" has been on HN's front page for a day now with an alternate title.

For some reason, the same mods who removed "Feynman" as "click-bait" that is "not the title from the article" don't seem to have a problem sticking with the alternate title "Thanks, HN: You helped discover a disease and save lives" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8050106].

I noted that on the article. Hopefully they will correct it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8057767

...or just downvote me for even mentioning it :(

The submitter here is Matt Might, whose family was the subject of the article. His first comment in the thread makes it obvious why this is an exceptional case.

With all due respect, you've only been on HN for a couple of months.

Why would there be an "exception" to the policy of discouraging submitters from editorializing headlines? Even if the submitter had a personal connection to the material (which isn't unusual), the guidelines should be respected.

Because the purpose of the guidelines is to make the site better, and changing that headline would not make the site better.

Also, the headline modifications in that case were not made with the same intentions that other (harmful) headline modifications are made.

So the Feynman article's title did change! I thought my eyes were playing tricks.

Dear moderators: please don't do that. And when someone reposts the classic "You and Your Reseach" again, don't strip out Hamming's name from that title, either.

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