Editing thread titles..

[PaddyG]

..to be "more informative" in some instances can be helpful, but mostly it just dumbs it down and makes it less attractive to reply. Often the title is partially humourous, not misleading and reflects the sense of humour of the OP. Dumbing it down just removes all semblance of "personality" from the forum.

[olygirl]

I don't understand what you mean. Could you put that into more simple wording?

On a more serious level, the mods are doing their best and although I understand your complaint, there are lots of people who don't understand the humour (humer) implied.

[PaddyG]

grynch's thread on the 3 kisses was initially titled "What is"hello"?", which I though was pefectly adequate and interesting, making you want to have a look. The some idiot extraordinarily wise and respected individual comes along and changes it into some long-winded, boring diatribe of a title. Totally unnecessary.

[grynch]

	Quote:	PaddyG
	grynch's thread on the 3 kisses was initially titled "What is"hello"?", which I though was pefectly adequate and interesting, making you want to have a look. The some idiot comes along and changes it into some long-winded, boring diatribe of a title. Totally unnecessary.

doesnt matter who.. but in discussion with that person I was told they changed it because it didn't make sense and he/she personally was not motivated to click on it.

I further edited the title , for reasons of clarity, to add ", or same sex, or strangers"

cheerio

[MathNut]

Generally speaking, humorous thread titles are appropriate for General Off Topic. If you want to have a serious on-topic discussion, the thread title should indicate as clearly as possible what it's about.

This isn't a stealth-beigification tactic, I promise, and we routinely edit nonhumorous titles too. (You can tell we do because the forum isn't totally clogged up with "2nd pillar", "Visa question", "Help please I am desparate!!!1!" and so on.)

[grynch]

	Quote:	MathNut
	.... the thread title should indicate as clearly as possible what it's about.

hopefully I won't get in trouble for talking about mod's actions but as this was my thread and I'm talking to a mod................
.
"indicate as clearly as possible" ... as I already indicated to the person responsible for the change I felt it did clearly indicate and the 40+ posts and 400+ views the thread had achieved by the time it was changed some others felt it to be fairly clear also.

math nut.. maybe you could work out the number of unique posters for us?

anyway... end of discussion for me.

cheerio pip pip and all that.

[grynch]

ahhhh heck.... one more...

funny that the thread has had only one more post since the title change.

just run it's course I suppose.

[Longbyt]

This time I'm innocent but I often enough change Titles -spelling mistakes, add locations etc. and also, like here, to clarify the meaning. In Off-Topic I don't bother as much but in Daily Life one should have some idea of the content when reading the title.

The original may appear funny (and clever) to the writer and folk who know what to expect from him but to other members, and to me, it's a "It seemed like a good idea at the time".

After spending a couple of hours moving, merging, deleting and answering PM's from folk who really need help and answering discourteous PM's from irate Users who cannot see why rules are not bent to allow them to post unlimited PMs, put in their Ad, bump it every second day, ask without searching etc. my tolerance level for 'amusing' titles seems to drop a little.

[MathNut]

I didn't think it did... maybe because I'm overdue for another cuppa... but I had to click on it to see what it was about. I don't think the number of views/responses is a reliable indicator of title clarity, as all the responses are (hopefully) from people who read the actual thread as well as the title. So they figured out what it was about, but did they figure it out from the title or from reading the thread?

Either way it's not a big deal while the thread is ongoing, but it does make searching for the information afterward more difficult... and that's what we're always after newbies to do, right? Might as well not make it hard for them.


If it had been me I probably would have left the title and moved the whole thread to General Off Topic (in light of the direction it's taken) but it wasn't, so count your blessings.

[grynch]

	Quote:	MathNut
	but it wasn't, so count your blessings. [/SIZE]

I'm not very good at math.. could you do that for me'`?


(( *this post is off'topic and due for deletion* ))

[adrianlondon]

[Mods] Editing thread [subject] titles [to add clarity] [or fix typos]

	Quote:	grynch
	run it's course I suppose

Attaching a pic would probably give it another shot in the arm.

An attachment, that is, not a hotlinked IMG. The thumbnail would then appear on the front page.

Maybe a bit of girl-on-girl action. That usually brings the punters in.

Someone was asking the other day for more porn. I think it was Treverus.

[grynch]

	Quote:	Editor Bob
	Attaching a pic would probably give it another shot in the arm. An attachment, that is, not a hotlinked IMG. The thumbnail would then appear on the front page. Maybe a bit of girl-on-girl action. That usually brings the punters in. Someone was asking the other day for more porn. I think it was Treverus.

please be my guest... my post would probably get edited by someone.

[PaddyG]

	Quote:	grynch
	please be my guest... my post would probably get edited by someone.

Tempted, sorely tempted...

[grynch]

ahhh co'mon... you got the blessing of mr. Bob.

what could go wrong?

[Uncle Max]

	Quote:	PaddyG
	grynch's thread on the 3 kisses was initially titled "What is"hello"?", which I though was pefectly adequate and interesting, making you want to have a look. The some idiot extraordinarily wise and respected individual comes along and changes it into some long-winded, boring diatribe of a title. Totally unnecessary.

"What is 'Hello'?" is a dreadful thread title. It wouldn't make me want to "have a look". Thanks for addressing Mods as idiots, though. It's nice to know our work is appreciated. TBH, your complaint is totally unnecessary. Take up grudges with the Mod involved rather than ranting in a long winded, boring diatribe of a thread which contributes nothing to life in Switzerland.

[Phil_MCR]

	Quote:	Uncle Max
	"What is 'Hello'?" is a dreadful thread title. It wouldn't make me want to "have a look". Thanks for addressing Mods as idiots, though. It's nice to know our work is appreciated. TBH, your complaint is totally unnecessary. Take up grudges with the Mod involved rather than ranting in a long winded, boring diatribe of a thread which contributes nothing to life in Switzerland.

actually, i thought it was a good title. but i guess if you want to SEO all thread topics to the max you could change it.

also, i asked what the original title was in the same thread. which was also deleted. i'm not sure why it's necessary to obliterate all evidence that it wasn't the original title.

[grynch]

	Quote:	Uncle Max
	"What is 'Hello'?" is a dreadful thread title.

In your own humble opinion.

	Quote:	Uncle Max
	Take up grudges with the Mod involved....

The starter of this thread couldn't take up the matter with the mod as he didn't start the thread this was concerned about and so didn't know who the mod was.

just for the record is wasn't a mod at all really.

.

	Quote:	Uncle Max
	a long winded, boring diatribe of a thread which contributes nothing to life in Switzerland.

I find conversation itself contributes to life.

now can someone direct me to speakers corner?

[PaddyG]

	Quote:	Uncle Max
	"What is 'Hello'?" is a dreadful thread title. It wouldn't make me want to "have a look". Thanks for addressing Mods as idiots, though. It's nice to know our work is appreciated. TBH, your complaint is totally unnecessary. Take up grudges with the Mod involved rather than ranting in a long winded, boring diatribe of a thread which contributes nothing to life in Switzerland.

I actually know exactly which "Mod" it was (and it wasn't one of the "good" mods), which is why I specifically used that term.
I actually think it's a great thread title, made me think, "Oo, what's all this about then? could be anything".
Maybe we have different ideas about whether a thread title should be informative (and boring) or a little bit "off the cuff" (and interesting).

[grynch]

	Quote:	Uncle Max
	"What is 'Hello'?" is a dreadful thread title. It wouldn't make me want to "have a look".

	Quote:	grynch
	40+ posts and 400+ views the thread had achieved by the time it was changed.

thank you for sharing your own personal view Max