Does HN automatically change the title of post without human intervention?

2 pointsposted 8 hours ago
by busymom0

Item id: 45264396

8 Comments

toomuchtodo

8 hours ago

There is underlying code logic that makes changes to make the title more clear, concise, less baity, etc, and mods may also make changes based on their discretion. When mods make changes, they sometimes comment to document so in the thread.

If you believe an automatic title edit removed relevant context, you can edit the title to update it accordingly (with the caveat being mods may make changes at any time).

See https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented?tab=re... for more details

busymom0

8 hours ago

Is the underlying code logic using AI to rewrite it?

Bender

8 hours ago

No AI and FWIW one can edit their title and return it to unmodified state if the modified state breaks the title. The reason I doubt any AI is being used is this logic has been in place for a very long time and the results are predictable and near instantanious.

busymom0

8 hours ago

I feel like removal of "for the first time" using if/then/else statements in code would be pretty hard. Hence wondering if AI has been added to the mix.

Bender

8 hours ago

The original code is linked somewhere under here [1] I think. There appears to be something wrong with PG's server. The changes in the live version are mostly operational related. I will keep looking. Either way I am certain this logic is all in Arc. HN is very self contained and running on one active and one standby BSD server.

[Edit] My bookmarks are failing me but here [2] is an older thread.

[1] - https://www.paulgraham.com/arc.html

[2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28155134

toomuchtodo

8 hours ago

Not to my knowledge. Only the mod team can speak authoritatively to this though.

PaulHoule

7 hours ago

There are a number of things that to be based on dang's pet peeves, for instance

  How X -> X

rolph

8 hours ago

perennial problems are auto culled, new variations are manually, moderated