I am not linkbaiting. If you check the article's title, you will see that it is unchanged. The title comes from this part:

"Agarwal calls it Coke for short, and his fellow researchers are affectionately known as Cokeheads."

Also, I don't like editorializing and injecting my opinion and pg doesn't as well (I'm guessing he's the one who reverts headlines to their original state when they're editorialized). I've changed few headlines in the past but only when they were grossly misrepresentative of the article or just plain crappy and didn't convey the content of the article.

So, if you have a problem with the headline, complain to The Register please :).

I don't go to the Register for news, so their linkbait headlines aren't a problem for me until someone submits them here, even if it's unchanged. So I will complain here.

Changing a "curiosity" headline to make it clear what the article is about is not editorializing (except in the most literal sense, so let me preempt any pedants on that point) or injecting opinion.

Example: "Yahoo! Researchers develop algorithms to select stories for front page"

Is that less intriguing? Yes. Will it get less karma? Yes. Will the people who are genuinely interested in the topic covered still click on it? Yes.

pg has reduced the length of headlines few times now. It now stands at 90 chars. Also, pg has changed few of my headlines that I amended with some more info from the article and has reverted them back to the original. What do I think? I think pg is right on this issue. Rewriting headlines is a slippery slope since we all have our biases. I'd rather read the original headline and make up my own mind on the issue than to read what nickb or jraines thinks this article is about.

What you're asking for would be better served with a blog and not a link aggregation site.

Finally, I'm not getting paid for this work and I don't have much free time. Personally, I don't wanna waste my time trying to think up headlines since that's not my job.

Peace! Peace! All of us...

Let's stop here with a smile.

Anyway... Back to the topic. The news thing...

Just a couple of days back I read about SocialBrowse here. The idea was cool(it did sound to me like a live and interactive version of Hacker News). It would be interesting if Yahoo tries to deliver headlines that way... like a popup on my taskbar whenever a 'friend' of mine likes a news headline. I mentioned friend in quotes because I mean in terms of the 'followers', like in twitter. I can then follow the person if I like the news he/she reads.

I thought it was a pretty civil exchange. All of nickb's points are fair and valid. Just wanted to put in my 2 cents.

I guess 'linkbait' is kind of an inflammatory term, especially on a site with karma points, but it ought not to be.

Great jraines! You've got a point there. I would like to see headlines like the one you mentioned in the example. Straight-to-the point headlines. It makes reading easier. I think this point should be mentioned in the submission guidelines for Hacker News(and would better if its a rule). Simple headlines save time too. Example: I spend most my of my time with no access to a computer, away from home. I am browsing on a mobile phone with 8kBps internet speed. And simple headlines saves me page loading time. I usually avoid clicking on headlines that are confusing. (and thats why I use mobile lingo in most of my comments) :)

would like to see others' opinions on this matter(its a pretty serious one).