Poll: Do you believe informative titles should be swapped for original titles?

by zachallaun on 10/27/2011, 8:07 PM with 5 comments

Something I've noticed: Articles are submitted with informative titles, only to be switched to their (sometimes non-informative, sometimes link-bait) original titles.

I believe that editorialized or misleading titles should be changed, but a descriptive title helps me decide what to read.

Perhaps I'm completely off on this one, but I was curious what others thought about this.

*small edit for accuracy.

  • by Caspian on 10/28/2011, 5:03 PM

    http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html advises making certain changes to titles, and says you can make up your own titles, and said "Please don't do things to make titles stand out". There was a warning that a submitted editorialising title may be edited.

    I generalised that to changing any link-bait (or otherwise unsuitable) title to something that better fits the intent of this site, which I think is a good guideline.

  • by pg on 10/27/2011, 8:11 PM

    It's not a trend; we've always done it.