Poor Use of Thread Titles

[RestAssured]

It is unfortunate that in most electronics discussion areas of the forum that thread titles are not being used for their intended purpose. 90% of the titles simply list an amplifier model number, or a tube type, or a circuit design. There aren't any clues as to what the poster intends to do such as ask a question, present a new design, or comment on some aspect of the item. The thread titles should focus on some specific aspect or topic, instead of opening up an endless thread of general comments. Just a suggestion...

RestAssured

 

[Cal Weldon]

That's fine but as Moderators, we are here to enforce the rules as laid out by the owner. We are not here to edit titles and whatnot to our liking. In fact, we are forbidden to take such action without a request from the original poster. If this is a concern, please take it up with them.
Thank you.

 

[invaderzim]

I'm going to guess that everyone that needs to use better titles will skip this post and all those that share the opinion will read it and nod silently to themselves.

It reminds me of a car site I'm on that regularly gets posts titled "need help now!"

 

[Cal Weldon]

My favorites are in the Swap Meet when they forget to add 'WTB:'

 

[Ultima Thule]

Can only agree with OP, one could always try hold the mouse cursor over the thread title and a little info bubble will pop up and show the first few words inside the post and hopefully give a hint whether the post is worth opening.

Don't know if the letter count limitation inside the bubble is hard coded or changeable, but I think when DiyA change forum software to XenForo in near future the info bubble should increase, have seen it on other forums using XenForo.

Edit: The picture on the right is from a forum using XenForo

 

[Pano]

I like that info bubble! Maybe we can have that with the new software.
Better titles would be nice, but might require too much imagination on the part of thread starters.

 

[nigelwright7557]

I think it is just laziness.
Not everyone is Rick Wakeman on a keyboard.

Sometimes the content of the first post isnt much better either.

 

[kevinkr]

Well said..

 

[Jason]

I agree with the OP. Having discussed this with the moderators, it appears there was some confusion about my intentions on this topic. However, let it be said that I am all for correction of thread titles if doing so will help the majority of users know what the thread is about.

Please expect more thread title editing / correction / nudging / etc to happen in the future.

XF, as you've seen above, has some thread previous options. Personally I find them annoying and gimmicky, but it's in the software already and can be turned on if it is desirable (whether that is a global default, or a user choosable option, I'm not sure yet).

Threads in XF can also be tagged, which will help with navigation (browsing by tags) and searching. We will likely assemble a "tagging team" of qualified taggers going through old images and threads tagging them, at that same time correction of thread titles could be done.

In general through, allowing suggestions for improved titles is something that could be done on the software side, suggestions for new titles could then be seen by mods. I'm all for empowering as much user driven editing/correction/upvote/downvote stuff as possible in the future. I'm definitely not saying that those edits, corrections or votes need to be seen by the public or to turn the forum into a post popularity contest. But there's plenty of scope for more interaction and assistance to the mods, and regular forums members, from all forum members.

Looking forward to migrating and getting some of this in motion. XF 2 is now at Beta 4, and I guess we're still looking at 2 months of dev and testing before we'd be at public beta for diyAudio 2.0. I'm thinking January 2018 is a good bet.