Impoveing Thread Titles with Details

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Unfortunately without explicitly writing a rule about it (added value?) I don't know how the staff would enforce it.

I know I don't want to be editing thread titles all the time, plus the Author might have some hidden meaning or wittih joke behind their title which we don't get.

I also don't want to have to PM people all the time asking them to clarify their threads unless necessary.

I'm sure you guys don't want us sending PMs to you every other thread either.

[c172]

I don't like seeing a thread title like "Sigh...", but I can see how certain thread titles should be a bit broad, such as for a thread with multiple and disparate questions.

[Angrboda]

I agree that it would be nice, but people aren't intentionally vague most of the time. Not everybody is good at starting threads. The forum works because you don't have to be a whiz to start something interesting. So what sounds like a good suggestion ends up being more of a request that people be better people. I think it's a vain hope, and a suggestion which will have been completely forgotten in a month's time.

Alas, it is what it is.

(If you want to know how it could be worse, there's a forum that I used to frequent where the tradition was titles that were irreverent plays on words, often having little to do with the subject matter of the thread. Finding your way around such a forum can be a challenge if you haven't been there for a while, as everything familiar morphs in strange and unpredictable ways. Oddly enough though, this 'tradition' of goofy thread titles has done no harm to the popularity of the forum nor to thread participation. People manage.... somehow.)

[Rayaan]

In defense of the original proposal, I agree that thread titles should be generally clear and descriptive. But on the other hand, as Stimbo pointed out, sometimes a little creative ambiguity can be a bonus, too. I think it is likely to produce a sense of curiosity and maybe even a slight suspense for the readers. Basically, it's alright to me if some thread titles are short and less specific as long as they are not overly vague and don't have any spelling errors. I used to edit thread titles just to correct spelling mistakes (sometimes even to capitalize the first letter at least) when I was a staff, but aside from that I never felt a need to insert anything extra in the titles.

[bennyboy]

In defense of the original proposal, I agree that thread titles should be generally clear and descriptive. But on the other hand, as Stimbo pointed out, sometimes a little creative ambiguity can be a bonus, too.

Nah. I like surprises as much as the next guy, but I'm not a big fan of unwrapping a dozen boxes only to find that eleven of them are empty. One man's "creative ambiguity" is almost everyone else's waste of time.