When I saw this thread, closed because of the preexistance of this thread, it got me thinking about how something similar happened to me here (see last three posts). Now, while you COULD possibly get the gist of the thread from just the topic line in both cases, it’s fairly difficult to (especially in my case).
Now, I know part of the charm of the BBQ Pit is the thread entitled merely “FUCK!!!” and seeing what it is the gripe is about. I know that you could just open the thread and see fairly quickly what it’s about. But whenever a thread becomes redundant, whenever a disappointed OP sees his/her thread wither or get closed because the topic is already being discussed under some obscure topic line, I have to wonder… Would it kill things to ask more forums to hew to the GD “descriptive topic” rule?
My opinion is that there should not be any need for a new rule or a new sticky to remind people of an existing rule. Common sense and common courtesy should mean that all posters post threads with descriptive thread titles. Not being a big thread starter, I have less concern for the feelings of the starter of thread 2 or 3 which gets closed, but I get cranky when I open a thread because I’m not sure what its about and discover that I thought it was stupid or not appealling to me the first time I opened it.
It bugs the hell out of me when a thread has a worthless title, and I end up opening it multiple times even though it’s not about something I give a shit about. I often use the “Report this post” link to ask the mods to rename the thread, which they usually promptly do.
Couldn’t hurt to have sticky on every forum about it.
Well you’d think people would remember that vB codes don’t work in titles, but no. A sticky would be good. But then again, what do sticky’s do? How many threads in CCC and CSR get opened without a link to the column? And it’s the only sticky there most of the time!
The mouseover feature helps me to recognize particular threads- figure out which question about Lord of the Rings or whatever is being discussed in this thread or that one. But all too often people use the title to say things like “Something I was wondering about last night” and the first three lines of their OP to say things like " So when I couldn’t sleep last night despite my nice comfortable sheets . . . I wondered what would happen if . . . " and the part that should have been used as the title still doesn’t show up in the mouseover. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens more often than it should, and certainly much to often to call mouseover previews a solution to nondescriptive thread titles.
It’s my understanding that the rule applies to all forums, though it’s perhaps less important for MPSIMS or the Pit. I assume the only reason GQ has a sticky is because the problem was worse there than anywhere else. I don’t think we need it here, but it could be a little bit helpful, I guess.