"How we X'd a Y" is a linkbait trope. We edited that in accordance with the site guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks for clarifying. Interestingly, in the guidelines, there's an example of where you _add_ "How" instead of removing it: "E.g. translate '10 Ways To Do X' to 'How To Do X'". That tripped me.

We don't remove "how" from "how to". There are a bunch of exceptions like that. It's all pretty simplistic though.

Dropping the How is part of Hackernews guidelines

There’s no such guideline. It’s just part of the default title normalization. The submitter can adjust it afterwards.

Altering headlines automatically is really irresponsible.

It is if you only count the cases it gets wrong.

Couldn't find it in the guidelines. Can you quote the relevant part?