I posted a thread late last night that I really thought would get some of the witty and creative responses I’ve seen in other threads. As I thought about it, I wondered if it was the thread title, so I came to ATMB to look up and see if there was anything I could learn. I came to this thread which really wasn’t the help I was looking for but did confirm (by Coldfire’s comments) that I might be right on about my thread not getting looked at because I’m a crummy thread title writer so far. I don’t want to be “weeded out” a la survival of the fittest. I want to write a better thread title. There’s the obvious trick we all learned in 6th grade speech class which I used above by starting off with a shocker like the word “sex”. Admittedly not a shocker here, but…
Oh wait! I’m drifting like a journal entry. Let me get back to my question. I know I shouldn’t “bump” the post. Nor should I start another thread here and link it. That’s cross posting, right?
Back to the point. What are some suggestions for better thread titles?
Not very fit yet, but I want to survive,
Abby
[sub]I did not run a well thought out search yet, but I have been poking around and looking or ideas in the different forums.[/sub]
I meant to ask, what are some suggestions for writing better thread titles.
Really feeling like I look like an idiot now,
Abby
We’ve all been there, Abby, if I may be so forward.
I’ve written some real clunkers in my time (most recently, I’m falling in love, which died a slow and painful death after only one other person replied to it). Eventually, you come to the realization that if your thread’s title doesn’t do a good job of accurately describing the OP and where you want it to go, you’ll (1) go unnoticed by those whose posts you hope to elicit, (2) annoy those who read your thread after being misled by the title, or (3) both.
But you learn.
Oh, and I think we’re all allowed one gratuitous bump per thread.
A few tips:[ul][li]Violence[/li][li]Drugs[/li][li]Guns[/li][li]“Why was XXXXXX banned?”[/li][*]“Mod XXXX is a camel humping choad!”[/ul]Those items will get more hits than a crack junkie who just won the lottery. 
Not forward at all, AbbySthrnAccent is way too long to bother with and I really do prefer Abby.
KneadToKnow and Coldfire thank you both for the tips. Coldfire will you please rename my thread from “Dearly Bewildered…” to “Violence, Drugs, Guns, Why was I banned? and Mod Coldy is a camel humping choad!”? Thanks in advance.
Abby
[sub]You know I’m kidding right?[/sub]
Hi Abby
I’m no expert but here are a few thoughts. They’re largely based on some good stuff that I found some time ago, that’s helped me. But I still don’t get it right, believe me. The thread itself is buried in the mists of time (ie over 90 days old), so I haven’t bothered trying to find it
First, a link to Abby’s thread Dearly bewildered or suggestions for funny wedding vows., which requested amusing ideas for a mock wedding.
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Not everybody is interested in everything. Sometimes what is fascinating to you just doesn’t work here on the day - no rhyme or reason. Even Fenris sometimes posts a thread which gets few responses.
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Maybe you weren’t, on that occasion, in the right forum. To me, Have you ever noticed? = MPSIMS, and What do you think? = IMHO. Perhaps your wedding thread might have worked better in IMHO.
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You don’t want to attract everybody, do you? Mostly just the people who may have an interest in what you’re talking about. So, what’s your hook? What is it that you’re asking that nobody else can ask? In this case perhaps “Can you create funny wedding vows for me?” might convey that information.
For example, I once wrote, in the Pit, what I considered a wonderfully nasty rant about someone who had done me wrong. I titled it “Blank, you are a jerk”, which is what I felt at the time. But it didn’t convey the complexity of what I had to say, and of course very few bothered to read it. Why should they? If I had said something like “How Blank done me wrong, and what I think of him and his mother” - it might have garnered more attention. Which is all I wanted.
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So maybe if your title is a very brief summary of what the thread contains, you’ll get the people who have something to contribute looking in there. The clever titles do work well sometimes, but it’s hit and miss. The title that provides useful information may get you what you want.
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And do you, like me get annoyed with the joke titles? You know, when the OP starts off by saying “Actually that was just to get you to look. This is really about …”. I roll my eyes and punch the “back” button.
Your natural wit is apparent, so you’ll have few difficulties, I imagine.
I’m also sure it’s like child-rearing. The first few you worry and fuss over in great detail, but after your tenth, you have a care-free “she’ll be right attitude” about the whole thing.
Redboss
**Redboss ** Hi and thanks! All excellent points I will not soon forget. Just in case I do, I’m saving this thread to favorite places so I can locate your tips quickly. I highly prefer your suggested thread title “Can you create funny wedding vows for me?” and you’re absolutely correct that it would have much better conveyed what I wanted to accomplish. I appreciate all your comments, including number 2, I wasn’t sure between IMHO and MPSIMS and can see now from the way you explained it I should have gone with IMHO. And yes, I have found the annoying joke titles are about as much fun as the mosquitos in south Texas after a flood.
Thank you all again,
Abby
This caught my eye. I have noticed that the time of day you are posting has a lot to do with how much attention you get. I haven’t figured out quite how it works yet. I’ve noticed that threads that get created “late at night” sometimes get few responses soon after the OP, then get buried by the more popular threads that get posted to during peak times. Maybe I’m just imagining the whole thing.
“What is felching, how many -gry words are there and isn’t Coldie a Nazi?” would probably get some hits.
It would end up in the pit, though 
— G. Raven
What Redboss said.
Also, I might add that it’s important not to take a lack of response to your thread personally. They aren’t rejecting you personally. It’s not, “oh, there’s that Abby again, let’s pretend like we didn’t see her.” If nobody posts to your thread, it’s because (a) your thread title didn’t spark their interest, or (b) they did look at the thread, but they just didn’t have anything to say, or possibly, like Lightning said, © they just didn’t see it. MPSIMS threads, especially, have an alarming tendency to slide off the front page within minutes. There’s really nothing you can do about that, pointless bumps being kinda discouraged.
But it is possible to improve your thread titles. Don’t try to go with a catchy “hook”, but rather go with “extremely informative, bordering on a summary of the OP”. You can fit an amazing amount of information into that skinny little Subject. And most of us are pressed for time when we’re on the boards. Sometimes we’re posting from work, with a boss liable to come back from lunch any minute, or we’re sharing a computer with other people, who are sitting at the dining room table fidgeting and complaining (“aren’t you done yet?”). So, when we’re scrolling down the Forum looking for something interesting, we tend to skim very quickly, and we don’t have time to waste opening threads with titles like “Please help!” or “Scrub my back!”
Start stuffing your thread titles full of descriptive info, and you’ll see more people coming into your threads.