Request: Please Title Threads Clearly

[Erin Rapacki]

Ok, so I’m not a person who’s known for standing up on soapboxes and making speeches… but I have a pet peeve here:

Every day, I take a look at the portal on CD to see if any interesting discussion is taking place. Now, my time is very limited (and I mean, very), so I only look at the threads that are applicable to my specific interests.

It gets very frustrating when I have to open up a thread to see what it’s about; that I have absolutely no clue what to expect, in regards to content, by looking at the only the title. Because of this, I would like to suggest some guidelines:

- Please refrain from titling threads with emotions, verbs, or demands (ex: Shocking!, Quick Question?, Take a look at this..., Help?, I’m looking for something, Please read, etc...).
- Nouns are your friends
- Please try to put in specifics (ex. Instead of ‘pneumatics help,’ title it as ‘I put lightening holes in my pneumatic pistons, why won’t they work?’)

I think the titles of threads should read more as a table of contents. It’s difficult to know what threads you’d want to take the time to respond to when you have to ‘read and weed.’

Thanks for listening.

ByE

erin

[Kid Cummings]

It's funny that this is the same thing with our teams website.
I login and the thread says "everybody" or "read this".
The times I post something it ends up taking on a whole new direction and not related to what I origionally posted. But what can you do?

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by Kid Cummings

It's funny that this is the same thing with our teams website.
I login and the thread says "everybody" or "read this".
The times I post something it ends up taking on a whole new direction and not related to what I origionally posted. But what can you do?

Exactly what Erin is doing. Calling everyone out. Whenever I post a new thread I spend more time on the title than I do what I right. Some people aren't use to a title being important. I put several personal standards on my titles including is it precise(right to the point), concise(short, it is a title), interesting(I want people to read), and descriptive(this allows people to weed out from the portal).

If everyone holds themselve to some sort of personal standard and refrains from using some of Erin's bad examples we will be better off.

[rosie6]

how do you post a thread

Originally Posted by Kid Cummings

It's funny that this is the same thing with our teams website.
I login and the thread says "everybody" or "read this".
The times I post something it ends up taking on a whole new direction and not related to what I origionally posted. But what can you do?

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by rosie6

how do you post a thread

You have to click into the actually forums and then into a category ie general, electronics, team organization. In the respective categories there will be a button that says new thread. Click this to create a new thread in that category.

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

- Please try to put in specifics (ex. Instead of ‘pneumatics help,’ title it as ‘I put lightening holes in my pneumatic pistons, why won’t they work?’)

if one were to put lightening holes in nu-matics...i'm pretty sure that the title of their thread is the least of their worries.

just kidding. I totally agree. This issue has the opportunity to flow deeper than talking about threads on a forum...but a whole debate in general..."How important is effective communication in engineering?" Very. When thinking of a topic title simply ask yourself W^3D (WWWD) (What Would Woody Do?) Effective communication is key.

[Greg McCoy]

Amen, Erin!

[Aaron Knight]

Amen to that!

Clarity is our friend - so that we can get back to the rest of our lives once we get off CD - time for things like building robots

[CrazyCarl461]

I agree, sometimes the less-than-obvious thread titles can be aggravating. Here is what I do: Instead of browsing new threads in the portal, I click on the "new posts" link on the orange bar at the top. If you mouse-over the titles here (or anywhere in the forums except the portal) the alt text that pops up in the yellow box will be all or most of the first post's main body text. This is just what I do. I'm sure we all have tricks for browsing CD.

-Carl

[Brandon Martus]

I usually try to change the obviously vague ones when I see them. I'm hoping that the other moderators read this and know that it's ok to change 'need help' and 'question..' titles to be a little more descriptive.

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Brandon Martus

I usually try to change the obviously vague ones when I see them. I'm hoping that the other moderators read this and know that it's ok to change 'need help' and 'question..' titles to be a little more descriptive.

I don't know other moderators, but when I see titles like "I got a question", I go into them and copy the question out as the title of the thread. You can usually see the thread titles are different from the starting post titles. I try to do them whenever I see them, but I just can't monitor the portal 24/7.

Sooo, do try to make the titles more specific so people when to read them and give you the appropriate help. Thanks!