HN Explorer

Suggestion to improve HN quality: allow headlines to be editable by high-karma users

29 points by fuelfive ↗ HN
This will allow more clarity on the homepage, so that it's easier to see if an article merits a click. For example, the headline "25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You" (currently on the homepage) would become something like "Time Magazine reporter finds recent facebook meme annoying".

The initial headline could be preserved on the comments page as "Originally titled: ________".

11 comments

[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 57.6 ms ] thread
TrevorJ
Way too subjective in my opinion.
brm
Fark? Nah just kidding, the problem with this idea is that karma and quality do not have a 1:1 relationship on HN. Its close but not enough to predict opinion
moxy
I'm certainly not opposed to this, but wouldn't a "suggested revisions" option be more suitable? I could see users quarreling over appropriate article names, and perfectly valid ones being changed without need. For instance, a user could suggest a grammatical revision, and in a small space beneath the title, people could vote on whether or not the revision should supersede the original. A certain set threshold would allow for this. Of course, these changes would also be subject to moderation.
vaksel
There are 30 something moderators who already do that. Giving it to the general public just seems stupid, since it'll be ripe for abuse
unalone
So you want to change that title from the original one to one that has editorial bias? Not sure I agree with you.

The solution is flagging stuff like that. It's not really Hacker News to begin with.

migpwr
This HN improvement shit is getting out of hand.
kingkongrevenge
I'm pretty sure this "experiment" will prove that quality discussion and open enrollment are mutually exclusive. I don't think there's a secret karma/ranking solution. You gotta go invite only, pay for access, or have nazi admins liberally banning accounts. These have all worked elsewhere.
weegee
HN will never succeed as long as it is a closed system. In that I mean that I have 42 karma points and I still cannot vote any article or comment down. Only being able to vote up is pretty meaningless so I never vote. Reddit is far better in this regard.
weegee
and this is a very good example of why HN sucks, my comment gets voted down.