That level of indignation seems a tad overwrought.<p>The article title is obvious linkbait, so changing it was called for by the HN guidelines. People sometimes mistakenly think that the guidelines ask for the original title to always be used, but that&#x27;s not so: see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>.<p>In this case the procedure we followed is almost a technical one. First, take out the obvious linkbait: &quot;no&quot; and &quot;your&quot;. That leaves &quot;I don&#x27;t want to configure app[s]&quot;, and that&#x27;s misleading, since the article is not about a personal desire but rather a critique in general of applications that require configuration. &quot;Don&#x27;t configure applications&quot; seemed as close to that as one could get without being either misleading or linkbait. Think of it as dropping a perpendicular from the point of the original title to the HN guideline.<p>But that&#x27;s not to say we got it right in this case, let alone always get it right.  When we do a bad job of a title, a good way to show that is by suggesting a better one, i.e. one that is more accurate and neutral. If you read HN often enough to be mad about title changes, you should be aware of how happily we accept better suggestions from users. Just please don&#x27;t suggest a title that goes back to breaking the HN guidelines, since that&#x27;s always the reason why we change them in the first place.<p>By the way, if you think we suck at editing titles, that is likely because you notice the cases you dislike while the others blend into the background. Everyone bats zero if you only count the strikes. I&#x27;m going to mark this subthread off topic now.<p>Edit: ok, let&#x27;s try &quot;A rant about application configuration&quot; instead of &quot;Don&#x27;t configure applications&quot;.