I'm not old enough to have watched it, but know it was a groundbreaking show. No doubt that's true of many readers here. I think it's good for HN to err on the side of assuming literacy.
Not every title should explain itself. It's good for curiosity if readers have to work a little (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Being on HN's front page, given the unusual topic, indicates something that might be worth clicking on.
By the way, the article is on the front page because moderators saw that it had been overlooked and put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380).
I don't think we changed this title because the submitted title was linkbaity. It was because we needed to squeeze in "(2017)". That requires 7 chars and the submitted title was already running up against the 80 char limit. I'll take another crack at it above.
Not every title should explain itself. It's good for curiosity if readers have to work a little (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Being on HN's front page, given the unusual topic, indicates something that might be worth clicking on. By the way, the article is on the front page because moderators saw that it had been overlooked and put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380).
I don't think we changed this title because the submitted title was linkbaity. It was because we needed to squeeze in "(2017)". That requires 7 chars and the submitted title was already running up against the 80 char limit. I'll take another crack at it above.