Why does this site edit head lines when it says it does not.

http://www.freerepublic.com/ ^ | 12/05/2003 | ME

[kerouacbal]

Free Republic expects users to follow a few simple posting guidelines (described below) and by posting to the forum you and others agree to abide by them. While Free Republic is not edited or censored, it does reserve the right to remove any postings that are considered inappropriate. Examples of inappropriate posts are those that are off-subject or contain advertising, pornography, obscene material, racist material, Nazi (or other hate group) material, materials promoting violence, threats or illegal acts, etc.

[kerouacbal]

The guildlines say they do not edit or censor but they change my post's title from
Is CNN trying to stop the economic growth
to
Officials concerned about holiday terror threat

[kerouacbal]

How long with this stay up I wonder

[JennysCool]

That's because your headline was not the original. Original headlines help people search for posts and avoid duplicate posts of the same story. Calm down.

[Fred Mertz]

What was the source title of the article you posted?

[kerouacbal]

Has this happened to anyone else.

[Mr. Bird]

Don't know the specific post, but you're supposed to use the actual headline if it's not an original post. Facilitates searches and helps eliminate duplicate posts. If you want to create your own headline, put it in parentheses next to the real one. Sometimes people just try to be too clever by half, and it muddles up the postings.

[kerouacbal]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1034469/posts?page=1

[sinkspur]

YOU cannot edit headlines. When you do, the mods will likely change it to the original, and true, headline in the publication or media source you are quoting.

For archival purposes, posting any headline you feel like is a nightmare.

[kerouacbal]

Thanks I could not find anything in the guild lines that said that. Thanks again for the heads up

[Judith Anne]

Sure, it's happened to other people WHO DON'T POST THE ORIGINAL HEADLINE. You can put your own title in parentheses, if you want, after the REAL title.

[kevao]

Don't look now, but they've changed your post's title again. Now it's:

"Why does this site edit head lines when it says it does not"

[TomServo]

Thanks I could not find anything in the guild lines that said that.

Read it again.

[carpio]

Have you tried logging in?

[BlueLancer]

"Thanks I could not find anything in the guild lines that said that."

We have a guild now?

Are we affiliated to the Masons?

[TomServo]

We, actually we do. But I think he meant "guide".

[JennysCool]

Shhh!!! Pretty soon we'll be stirring up that FReeper Illuminati business again! :-)

[HairOfTheDog]

Because it doesn't want ~you~ editing the headlines either.... That would make it edited from the original wouldn't it?

Use the original headline...

[Lead Moderator]

"Why does this site edit head lines"

Quite a number of years ago, I was watching the news, and there was a story about how Ted Turner had bought the rights to a whole bunch of classic movies from the days of black and white, and that he was going to colorize them and re-release them or broadcast them.

It caused a bit of a stir.

Now I do not like Ted Turner one bit. But the local news interviewed him about it, and asked him why he was doing this. His answer?

"Because I want to and I can."

We have a better reason though for why we changed your headline- namely that you changed the headline from what CNN had. This is discouraged for a few reasons. First, altered headlines result in duplicate posts. People generally search for an article before posting it (or in theory, they are supposed to do so), and if a title has been changed they won't find it. Then the discussion ends up fragmented between two or more threads. Second, it causes confusion because some come away with the mistaken impression that a site used that title to begin with.

So don't post with made up titles. If you really must editorialize in the headline, do it in parenthesis after the original title- but be aware if the parenthetical title is a grenade, we'll likely chop that off.

Thanks, LM

[TomServo]

You ever thought of being a diplomat?

[BureaucratusMaximus]

She didnt get her top secret FreeRepublic headline decoder ring. I got mine right here.