This (title editing) is by far the worst aspect of how HN moderates. I don’t think they’ve especially misrepresented the article here, but they routinely remove “how” or “why” or numbers to produce titles that wildly misrepresent what’s behind the link. I understand the reasoning behind the rules but it’s long overdue for some adjustment.
They’re intended to make titles less clickbaity, I think in the spirit of leveling the “curious discussion” playing field.
But the heuristics aren’t great, it’s like the world stopped at listicles and Clickhole is the oracle. I’m not necessarily opposed to the notion of curating link titles, but I honestly think it’s too high volume and produces the opposite of what’s intended.