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Comment by therealdrag0 | Hacker News Reader

Or: Top 10 % drink 10 drinks a day :/

Actually, by strict adherence to HN rules the headline should be "Think you drink a lot? This chart will tell you." (Which IMO is a perfect illustration of why this is a stupid rule.)

That's not true. The rule calls for changing the headline when it is misleading or linkbait. "Think you drink a lot? This chart will tell you" is arguably bait because it uses the "you" trick and the "this" trick.

Yeah but shouldn't it be "top 10% of American people", not drinkers?

Seems a little misleading, as the population of drinkers is only 70% of the actual population.

Ah, good point. The article says "adults" not "drinkers". Thanks!

The rule is not followed well, then, since clear, descriptive headlines are often replaced with original headlines that make no sense out of context.

Often? I'd have to see examples.

We certainly don't claim to apply the rule correctly all the time. We are, however, happy to be corrected. The best way to complain about a title on HN is to suggest a better one.

I haven't been keeping a list, unfortunately. I mostly become aware of it when a poster mentions that their original title was changed from <something descriptive> to <something else>. Is there a way to direct that to someone who can do something about it without coming off as a pest?

The way to ask questions about HN moderation is to email hn@ycombinator.com.

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