[junon]

I was about to respond with something like "please don't edit titles" or something of the sort when I realized to whom I was responding.

Seems like a weird position; it's repeated so much because it's a massive problem that needs all of the attention it can get. I don't see why "repeating" anything is a reason to edit titles.

[dang]

It will seem less weird if you understand the purpose of HN [1] and how it is optimized [2]. The idea here is to gratify intellectual curiosity. That's not the same as repeating the things that need the most attention; to some extent it's the opposite, because curiosity withers under repetition [3]. What curiosity likes is to encounter things it hasn't heard before; it's fine if there is an overlap with a familiar topic, as long as there's some interesting diff. Diffs are what make submissions intellectually interesting [4].

People sometimes feel that if a story doesn't make HN's front page or gets downweighted or flagged from HN's front page, that's because moderators or the community are saying it is unimportant. This is not true at all. Many topics are far more important than anything on HN. An odd, obscure topic is more likely to be on topic than a world crisis. There was just a thread about John Cage's mushroom hobby [5], of all things.

This leads to a somewhat complex dynamic because having an interesting site attracts a high-quality audience, and people then want to use the site to get stories they care about in front of that audience. Sometimes their motives are merely commercial, but sometimes it's because the story is big and important and they're passionate about it. It's easy to declare the commercials off topic, but when it comes to the important stories, that's when we need to remember what HN is. Maintaining an odd sort of site that goes against the default forces of the internet takes a lot of focus and you have to say 'no' a lot. If we start breaking the intended purpose, HN would quickly cease to be the kind of forum it is today—it would become a site for the same few important and/or most controversial stories, repeated over and over. Not only would that make HN totally different, it would probably kill it, because such a situation would be unstable: the current audience would largely leave, because HN would no longer have the quality that attracted them here in the first place. No one is claiming that intellectual curiosity is the most important quality or motive—but it's uniquely what this place is for, and one has to know what one is trying to achieve and what one is not trying to achieve.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

[4] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27481830

[InspiredIdiot]

Would you consider updating the site guidelines to explain this "just the diff" principle? It sounds like an important enough concept to be captured there. And it seems in some cases to supersede the "please use the original title" guideline so it's probably worth calling that out.

[Edit]

I wish I didn't have to continually edit myself but originally I used the term "editorialize" and I thought it had a more broad meaning of "exercise editorial discretion". While there is still an opinion involved in the edit. Something along the lines of "users of this site will already know X so it isn't part of the diff" I don't think it meets the stricter definition of editorializing. "Not part of the diff" is still cited as a justification for editing the title that I don't see covered in the current site guidelines.

[dang]

I think this case is a bit weird and you shouldn't generalize too much from it. I wouldn't put that principle in the guidelines, for the same reason. These are heuristics, not formal rules, and my comments are just trying to help people understand the intended spirit of the site.

[rvzx]

Haha. Everything's changing drastically so "The World's Northernmost Town" is the only thing in this title intellectually interesting. That's an interesting take. A great way to satisfy the diffs guideline would be to add a fascinating hint about how the northernmost town is changing. Leaving out some words isn't it.

Arguing against including the whole title in this case makes me much more curious about how you make decisions and why than anything else.

[junon]

This is weird mental gymnastics if you ask me. But okay. It's your site, I'm not here to argue.

[dang]

I know that some aspects are counterintuitive but I don't think it's hard to understand that, without intervention, HN would trend to sensationalism, indignation, hotness, and other qualities which are not aligned with the intended spirit of the site.

[junon]

But the article is about how they're affected by climate change. Removing that part from the title completely changes the meaning of the article.

You're essentially saying "I'm removing this because I don't personally like it" when it has no other reason to be removed...

[dang]

Perhaps I didn't read the article closely enough.

[junon]

The subtitle states the intention of the article pretty clearly and is located directly below the main title:

> Climate change is bringing tourism and tension to Longyearbyen on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard

The article's first paragraph is how homeowners are noticing cracks in the foundation due to the terrain under their houses receding due to climate change warming the otherwise permafrosted ground.

The article's third paragraph pretty concretely discusses exactly what is happening to the temperatures there.

The entire article is about climate change. You've removed a very important part of the original title for (in my opinion) some philosophical nonsensical reason, ultimately changing the meaning the author intended.

[grecy]

It doesn't matter who you are replying to - if they're doing something wrong it's very important they are told as much, especially when that person is in an immense position of power.