Misleading HN Titles

Users criticize Hacker News submission titles for being misleading, clickbaity, vague, or inaccurate, often suggesting changes or more descriptive alternatives.

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#7751
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Keywords

TOS BIOS HN JS IBM HackerNews TextMate salesforce.com TileMill DIY title misleading titled original title article hn titles submission blog article title

Sample Comments

trevcanhuman Aug 25, 2022 View on HN

@dang i'd recommend changing the title on this one. I think the title is somewhat misleading, since it doesn't really explain what is happening. See [0][1][0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32598458[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32598471

MProgrammer Sep 7, 2013 View on HN

That title here on HN is a little misleading.

TomAnthony Feb 7, 2018 View on HN

Yeah, as was pointed out in /r/programming, it is perhaps an imperfect title in hindsight!

BigFnTelly Aug 19, 2025 View on HN

hungmung's comment is alluding to the misleading syntax of the submission title

Mikeb85 Aug 11, 2014 View on HN

Maybe the title shouldn't propose a question that is controversial (and obviously click-bait), and then have the bulk of the article be about something completely different.You're right, I should have read more of the article to realize that it's basically about nothing (someone looking for, and fixing bugs in a library he uses, which everyone who cares does).

override Oct 15, 2012 View on HN

Its a title to move eyes on HN, nothing more.

galkk May 9, 2024 View on HN

even if this is technical article, the title is very clickbaity.

matthewowen Dec 11, 2011 View on HN

you assume that the author hasn't mindlessly used the title. this is techcrunch. i'm unconvinced.

tbarbugli Jul 23, 2025 View on HN

I agree, only reason I read the project readme was to see the drop-in explainer.Very misleading title

mtmail Dec 12, 2022 View on HN

Ah, the title is 'Guide to Cold Emails and DMs", so the confusing part was the HackerNews submission title.