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[New Rule discussion] No Editorializing Article Titles. The original title of the article must be used. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by [M] to c/main@lemmy.ca
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Edit: This rule seems to be much more nuanced and requires more thought than we had put in, please continue to discuss below.

It is NOT in effect at this time but highly recommend for regional subreddits at least.

The above rule has been added to the instance and will be enforced instance wide. This rule is very common within most existing communities where news articles are shared and avoids sensationalizing the story or attempts at steering discussion by the user posting the article.

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[–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Want to preface this by saying I'm not trying to attack, I'm just looking for some clarification so I fully understand. I'm going to use two of my posts as an example because I've changed titles to make things more clear/relevant to the community.

Post Title: "Emerson the elephant seal has departed from Oak Bay Marina beach"

Original article title: "Roving elephant seal gone from Oak Bay Marina beach"

Post Title: "11 Island breweries (6 from Greater Victoria) pick up medals at 2023 Canadian Brewing Awards"

Original title: "Greater Victoria breweries bring home hardware from national beer awards"

As I understand it, neither of these would be allowed under the new rule, correct?

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 3 years ago* (1 child)

    As the rule was originally stated, yes. This is how I had enforced it and had always been enforced in regional communities I participated in.

    However the above examples "do not change the intention/message of the original title" so with more moderator discretion left available, those would probably be ok.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    I really like the idea behind "do not change the intention/message of the original title" instead of "the original title must be used". Gives a little bit of flexibility to the situation.

    I tried to combine the best of both works and added the following community rule to /c/Victoria:

    Avoid editorializing/sensationalizing news article titles, i.e. do not change the intention/message of the original title.

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