I agree the greyed out hard-to-see "(ayende.com)" in parentheses can have the same effect but I assume that everybody's eyes scans the page differently[1]. I'm sure a lot of readers in a hurry would ignore the grey text and would assume it's an exact duplicate of yesterday's post. Having "Ayende" in the title seems like a minor expansion of words to counteract that effect.
From the back & forth comments, I'm getting the vibe that the submitter broke some hidden HN principle??? As if putting a person's name in the title is trying to manipulate the HN readers into hero worship?? Or trying to impress HN readers with Hollywood name dropping?? I read the "Ayende" using a perfectly neutral interpretation but it's obvious others are really turned off by it. I can't see any other reason for the bikeshedding about the title.
HN guidelines regarding titles are to include the article's original title if it's not clickbaity or misleading and to omit the website's name from the title because it appears on the domain name next to it. Both guidelines seems to not have been followed.
I agree that OP did it to differentiate this response article from the original one but this was the first time the article was posted on HN so we don't really know if it needed to be differentiated (i.e. if it had been posted without getting to the frontpage then it would've been safe to assume the necessity of a different title).
Either ways I think "A response to" instead of "Ayende on" would've done the same job without risking falling into any of the pitfalls you mentioned. But enough nitpicking, the article in itself is interesting.
>It was not the domain that was included in the title but the authors name, they happen to be the same.
Yes I understand that that was the intention but let's suppose the process of detecting domain name in the title had been automated. The post would've been flagged.
>on HN they are posted so infrequently
I take it you don't browse HN's newest page, it's full of garbage links.
