# Change to thread subject line **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [October 1, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934 "2020-10-01T02:48:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/1 "2020-10-01T02:48:29Z")
A while back I started a thread in CS with the subject line “xkcd thread”. Note that it’s in all lowercase, intentionally so, since the comic strip’s name is in all lowercase. I just noticed that the thread now starts with a capital X. That’s a recent change, so someone in charge here messed it up. Who do I castigate about the head and shoulders for this outrage? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/2 "2020-10-01T02:55:24Z")
**What\_Exit** was adding tags to a number of CS threads. Maybe an edit was done in the belief it was a typo. Or Skynet took English this past semester. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/3 "2020-10-01T03:27:43Z")
As a test, I started this thread with an all lowercase subject line and now it’s changed to an intial capital. But the xkcd thread didn’t change right away, just in the last day or so. So perhaps someone changed some parameter to Discourse and now it’s capitalizing everything. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/4 "2020-10-01T12:07:49Z")
I can try to change it back, and see if it stays that way. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/5 "2020-10-01T12:10:39Z")
I would guess that when I added the tag, Discourse did an autocorrect. That’s it, Discourse is auto-correcting. You created the thread in vBulletin. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/6 "2020-10-01T12:18:23Z")
I just explicitly edited it to be lower case, and it still appears as uppercase. I did it twice. Maybe there’s some other way to force it to be lower case. Or maybe I could in insert a leading space? But yeah, it’s an autocorrect error. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/7 "2020-10-01T12:19:29Z")
It’s a feature. 🙂 We could put it in single quotes, but not even a leading space works. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/8 "2020-10-01T12:48:12Z")
I hacked the system and decided to intentionally annoy you, but you were so fixated on your capital “X” that you didn’t even notice that I undotted every “i” and uncrossed every “t” in your posts. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/9 "2020-10-01T12:53:52Z")
​You could try a zero-width space in front of the thread title. It doesn’t show up, but it counts as an extra character. Hopefully it will work in titles too. Type ``` ​ ``` Quote this post to see the zero-width spaces in it. ​ ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/10 "2020-10-01T13:14:40Z")
Based on your suggestion, I added a leading Alt 0173 and that allows for the lowercase x. > [@­xkcd thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/t/xkcd-thread/854574): > > The xkcd forums have not been updated in so long that its certificate has expired. So you can’t even get to the page that says they’ve been taken offline. I don’t know if there’s anywhere else to discuss the comic, so I thought I’d make a thread here. [Today’s comic](https://xkcd.com/2312/) was a real keeper. If you like physics puns, that is. But if you don’t, xkcd is probably not the comic for you. But I know there’s lots of people here who appreciate the strip. Anyway, which did you do more at this one: laugh or gro… ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/11 "2020-10-01T18:20:06Z")
Any idea what someone changed that caused this autocorrect? As I said, it was only in the last couple days that this capitalization thing started happening. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/12 "2020-10-01T18:22:33Z")
I assume it happened when What\_Exit was tagging the threads. If you don’t know, What\_Exit has tagged most of the active threads in Cafe Society so you can quickly find all the food threads, or all the movie threads, or all the “this celebrity died” threads. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/13 "2020-10-01T19:31:36Z")
All the details on what caused this issue. > [@\*\*\*\* Forum Rules: PLEASE READ! \*\*\*\*](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forum-rules-please-read/329913/12): > > Tags in Café Society. Going forward, in Café Society if posters creating new threads could also choose a tag if appropriate it would be appreciated. I’ll add new tags if desired. Adding Tags for a new Thread (new Topic) should look like this: [[image] ](https://i.postimg.cc/SQZ5xtQw/Adding-Tags.jpg) Tags for Café Society #amazon-prime #books-writing-myths #celebrity-death #comic-books-manga #comic-strips #commercials #disney-hulu #documentary#food-drink-cooking #hbomax-wb-dc #middle-earth #movies #music #n… ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/14 "2020-10-01T22:11:16Z")
I really doubt that adding tags caused the change. After all, I made this thread here with an all lowercase subject. It got capitalized and there’s no tags on it. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/15 "2020-10-01T22:26:25Z")
_I think you lost me._ - The xkcd thread was first posted on the old vBulletin software. - It migrated over fine to Discourse. - When I added the tag to it [comic-strips] it required I edit the title. - After that is when you discovered the x went to X. - 2 moderators tried to change the X back to x but Discourse defaults a leading letter in a title to uppercase. - **GreenWyvern** suggested a zero-width space and I used the Alt 0173 character for that purpose and got you back the lowercase “x”. Discourse will not allow you to put up a new thread with a lowercase first letter, so remember the trick of doing the Alt 0173 or the one **GreenWyvern** suggested. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2020, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/16 "2020-10-01T22:43:00Z")
Apparently, then, Discourse auto-“corrects” a title whenever that title is created or edited. But the import from vBulletin did not involve anything that Discourse considers to be either of those things, so it wasn’t auto-“corrected” then. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/17 "2020-10-02T03:10:10Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I think you lost me. What I meant was this thread, the one titled “Change to thread subject line”. I did not type a capital-C when I created it, but it still ended up capitalized. Chronos’ explanation makes sense. And this is highly annoying, just like in Wikipedia, where it won’t let you have a lowercase username. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/change-to-thread-subject-line/921934/18 "2020-10-02T19:49:30Z")
Since thread titles are “titles” It Seems To Me They Should Be Written in Title Case Like This: [https://boards.straightdope.com/search?expanded=true&q=%40LSLGuy%20%20in%3Afirst%20after%3A2020-07-01](https://boards.straightdope.com/search?expanded=true&q=%40LSLGuy%20%20in%3Afirst%20after%3A2020-07-01)