I agree. It makes sense to use the original title so that people don't editorialize. However, it may be the case that the site uses a vague title for artistic reasons. What benefit do we get by using that cryptic title instead of a descriptive one (as long as it doesn't editorialize)?

Considering there is frequently space-related articles here, it is particularly misleading.

I have to concur. I clicked on this article wondering if there was some sort of new discovery in astronomy. Still an interesting read, but the old headline was much more appropriate.

It's also clear from the comments that the person submitting this is the actual author. Ridiculous.

Is that not allowed? People post their own articles and blog posts here all the time.

He means that out off all people, you would think the author of the article in question would know best what to title his submission.

Yeah, I thought what I titled it was clear and informative and as author of the article, the Orange Coast title was literary rather than descriptive.

FWIW, I originally titled this "The Crack Of A Twig" and we were rolling w/that title, but at the last minute, the editors at OC Mag asked if they could change it.

I'm not a pro writer by any means, and going through the process of editing a feature article w/a print mag was pretty interesting.

Yup.

Ironically, on HN, that kind of title will get people interested in cosmology to click and they'll start out irritated at the misleading title.

Seriously, why are admins doing this?

Might even be algorithmic...

Agreed. I saw the old title and liked it better.

Bah. Disappointing. No reason to change the title.

Does anybody keep a log of all the title changes HN makes?

I agree, but I think there was a reason.

The name of the linked article is "Center Of The Universe". Not sure why they want the two titles to match but they do now.

Yeah, the other title was WAY better.

Could it be that this is done by an automated script? :/