I changed it from the article title to a shortened version of the URL slug (/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country). That's often a legit source title, along with the HTML doc title, and other places that articles tend to reveal what they're actually about (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have attacked journalists more than 110 times since May 28" is more baity. First you've got the aggressive verb "attacked". And then you've got the specific facts and figures (100 times, May 28). Why do these things make a title more baity? I don't know, but they are somehow active ingredients in the psychology of titles, which is why headline writers use them. I think of them as sharp edges. If you throw a spiky thing into a crowd, it gets more attention than a beach ball—but the quality of attention is not conducive to a reflective discussion on the internet (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). People react to the sharp bits.
It's in HN's interest to rewrite baity titles (indeed the site guidelines request it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) but this is 1000x more important on inflammatory topics of the moment, like this one. We want HN to discuss this, but we want to support the discussion to stay in the intended spirit of the site: thoughtful, respectful, curious conversation. The material is provocative enough, and a title doesn't need sharp edges to make readers here care about the topic.
To clear up a misconception that sometimes arises: I'm not saying the statement in the sharper title is false. Obviously it's legitimate to use an aggressive verb to describe an aggressive action, and if the facts and figures are true then it's obviously legitimate to make a factual statement with them. As a reader I have zero problem with that title. But the moderator perspective is different: the question for a moderator, on HN at least, is always: what is the prospective effect on forthcoming discussion? Or to put it pseudotechnically: given choice A vs. choice B, what is the diff between the probability distribution of threads that A is a prefix of, vs. threads that B is a prefix of? (This is just a metaphor, but it reflects how we think about this. See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for more.) In the case of these two alternative titles, experience has shown that there's a significant difference in probable outcomes, and titles are by far the biggest influence on threads, so it's potentially a big deal.
I would like you to please change the title back because the quantity and recency is salient to the topic, and that the new title diminishes the title in those two specific ways.
1. This is not just about police attacks against journalists across the U.S. in general, this is about attacks since a specific date. The date matters because it is recent, it delineates a specific span of time (a mere five days), which helps the reader place it into context. This is about the protests that have occurred since the murder of George Floyd.
2. This is not just about some rare occurrence of police attacks against journalists since a specific date, this is about how this happened many, many times, and as the article notes, in the majority of the cases the journalists were clearly identifiable as press. This places it in context again: this is not a one-off incident, but something that has happened with startling frequency.
With the original title, it is easy to identify a through-line from the start of protests against the murder of George Floyd to a startling factual statement: on average, each day since then, police have attacked journalists over 20 times a day. Or to put it another way, police have attacked a journalist almost once an hour since the protests have begun.
That context is vital to the discussion, if as you say the headline has such an enormous impact on the conversation that follows. If, as I see in your recent edit, the distribution function is changed because the headline specifically calls out that high rate of attacks on journalists in a small window of time, then I think it moves that function for the better.
That's a fair point about recency, so I've added the date back to the title above.
(Sorry for editing my comment on the fly like that - yours is long enough that I imagine I changed the carpet under you several times while you were writing. It's the most convenient way for me to craft responses, so I do it all the time, even though there are downsides.)
It's good that you emailed because I probably wouldn't have seen the question otherwise. That's one main reason the guidelines ask people to email us with questions instead of posting them on the site (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). There's far too much material here for us to see it all.
