I disagree. We’ve seen what happens when titles have max context: people don’t click the link and they polish their semi adjacent hobby horses in the comments as they would a tweet.
HN goes for a middle ground that promotes intellectual curiosity and link clicking. If you refuse to click the link for obscure titles at least you’re stuck replying to those who did click the link and that’s still better than what we have on the rest of the internet.
Submissions that don’t have the payoff to justify more obscure, whimsical titles fall off the first page unlike this one.
HN goes for a middle ground that promotes intellectual curiosity and link clicking. If you refuse to click the link for obscure titles at least you’re stuck replying to those who did click the link and that’s still better than what we have on the rest of the internet.
Submissions that don’t have the payoff to justify more obscure, whimsical titles fall off the first page unlike this one.