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by eduction 208 days ago
I can’t stand the way he rewrites headlines, mostly because he’s bad at it. They are so painfully long and complicated.

I don’t philosophically oppose rewriting headlines, god knows there are manipulative or just plain bad ones out there. But keep it simple and short!

Otherwise it’s a nice free resource that doesn’t spy on you or shake you down for money, and that’s nice. Yay open web.
1 comments
Terretta 207 days ago
> I can’t stand the way he rewrites headlines, mostly because he’s bad at it. They are so painfully long and complicated.

Is some form of "click to find out" preferable?

I'm thrilled with how Techmeme headlines are rewritten since by now even major papers clickbait their headlines, removing the actual subject and outcome:

"This woman did a thing, then the incredible happened" -- NY Times (AYKM?)

Techmeme is one of the few sites you can read the headlines and decide correctly whether to click in to read or not.

// HN may need to revise its "don't editorialize headlines" guidance given how standard this headline badness has become.

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eduction 206 days ago
>AWS announces a commitment to invest up to $50B to build AI and HPC infrastructure for the US government, starting in 2026 and adding nearly 1.3 GW of capacity

could be simplified to

>AWS will invest up to $50B in AI and HPC infrastructure for the US government

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>OpenAI unveils a free shopping research feature in ChatGPT that delivers a personalized buyer's guide, powered by a custom version of GPT-5 mini

could be simplified to

>New ChatGPT feature: A personalized buyer's guide powered by GPT-5 mini

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The main issues are too much info crammed into the headline and too many meaningless words as well. If he wants to add more info pre-click he could put it in a subhead/summary sentence while simplifying the headline. But some of this is basic editing, you don't need to say "AWS announced a commitment to" when you can just say "AWS will". "Shopping research feature" is just a different way of saying "personalized buyer's guide", you don't need both. Etc etc.

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