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Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

It's kind of funny, I find myself doing the opposite--when I see a completely meaningless title on the HN front page, I assume it's actually something much more interesting and a mod de-editorialized it into meaninglessness, so I click through to see what it is.

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But that's not a road we want to walk down, imagine if every title was meaningless!

The point of titles should be to give an informing mini-summary about the topic.

It wouldn't be that bad--being on the front page is itself a prequalification, and being on the front page despite having a meaningless title means it's on the front page for reasons other than being linkbait. Removing titles altogether might make things more meritocratic, actually (if a little more painful for the people who only click things if they're about a certain topic.)

So, no titles but a tag cloud about contents?

Your comment, standing alone, sounds like a really interesting idea.

Further, including comments in that tag cloud (styled differently?) might also be interesting.

Let me know if you submit to YC, I might join!

I didn't realize it until just now, but I ignore the meaningless titles. I come to HN to catch up on the news first, and save the fluff later.

It would be nice if every title accurately described what it was about so I could make better decisions about what to read now, what to read later, and what to pass over.

It's trust. Over time you learn to trust the HN headlines for accuracy. Editorialization leads to overhyping junk articles for clicks.

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