I think the central point of the story is that github is more like a social network than many of us realize. It's interesting, and could indicate some useful future direction for the service.
if the story were titled "Github - a major social network" or "Github - more of a social network than you may think", would that change your opinion of the story?
It's surprising to me how much of the criticism here on hacker news ignores the central point of the article, and instead focuses in on individual phrases or semantics.
I agree with you that they could have chosen a better title. But I found the article interesting and thought provoking.
I don't think the criticism you're refering to is frequently directly at the articles; They're reactions to link-bait. Link-bait depends on sensationalism, which I think is opposite the goals of HN, so people don't respond to it well. Nevermind that its inherently misleading, which isn't a way to endear readers. It hurts credibility, etc..
Your criticism of the title would be more credible if you also acknowledged the point he was making. As it stands you came across as dismissing the entire article as stupid.
And I wonder if the hyperbole in the title is really link bait, or just the opposite, troll bait. I'm not sure the title helped the article's ranking on HN.
if the story were titled "Github - a major social network" or "Github - more of a social network than you may think", would that change your opinion of the story?
It's surprising to me how much of the criticism here on hacker news ignores the central point of the article, and instead focuses in on individual phrases or semantics.
I agree with you that they could have chosen a better title. But I found the article interesting and thought provoking.