Annie-Xmas titled a thread about the death of former Senator Paul Simon “Paul Simon died” and the OP was a link to the story along with the word “GOTCHA!” The obvious intent was that people would think it was singer Paul Simon.
Leaving aside the tastelessness of the OP, the thread got closed for having a “misleading title.” Yet in the same forum we have a thread titled “The queen gets a boob job” (about QE2 having knee surgery) and here in the Pit we have a thread titled “Who will go to prison first, Clinton or Limbaugh?” as two recent examples. Now the former example was a joke on Britney Spears’ supposedly claiming to have knee surgery to cover for a breast implant job, but the latter is clearly meant to lead the reader to believe that the “Clinton” of the title is Bill or Hillary (it’s actually George, who got nicked for drugs in Florida). In other words, it transposes a political figure with a musical one for comedic effect, exactly what the Paul Simon thread did.
So why is one thread closed while the others remain open?
No links since the content of the threads isn’t necessarily relevant, unless it turns out that the Simon thread was really closed because it pissed off so many people and the “no misleading thread titles” rule was either trotted out of invented to provide cover.
I thought the title on the Simon thread got changed. Maybe not.
I hate the practice of misleading thread titles too. If the content is not interesting enough, don’t dress it up with a flashy title just to get people to click on it.
It’s better than the titles in this forum, where you have to click and wait the usual half hour to find out the substance of threads like “Suck my balls, moron!” or “Burn in hell, asshole!”
I thought the “misleading thread titles” prohibition was mainly enforced in GQ, and possibly GD. It seems a bit more accepted here in the pit and the other forums…
I had the same problem last night, Guin. Seriously. I give her treats and chew toys. Why does she feel the need to eat my bath mat and steal my son’s now headless rubber duck?
Re: the Sen. Paul Simon threads. The first thread, originally titled “Paul Simon died!” was changed by Cajun Man to add “(Former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon)”.
I’m glad he changed it, and that he reprimanded Annie -Xmas for thinking the reveal that it was the senator and not the singer-songwriter was a “Gotcha!”. As if Sen. Paul Simon was some nobody, and people should be relieved that it was him and not the other guy. Technically, and not speaking for Cajun Man, I think it was the title combined with the post consisting simply of the link and “Gotcha!” that was in poor taste.
But he locked the thread at the same time, so I couldn’t post a tribute. So I started my own thread, and, wanting to be more to the point, I titled it “Sen. Paul Simon was the first person I ever voted for”.
It got a few replies, but then Cajun Man e-mailed me asking if I was willing to change the title to “Former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon . . . RIP”. Again, not speaking for him, but he may have thought that people were mistaking it for a misplaced IMHO thread, like “Who was the first person you voted for?” I agreed to the title change, since that’s probably what I would have called it if I hadn’t been trying to counter Annie-Xmas’s “joke”.
So the point is that when a thread title is a misdirection for the purpose of setting up a crass joke, that’s not cool. My title was also somewhat of a misdirection (yeah, I voted for him, but I was mentioning it because he died, not because I wanted to share voting experiences), but I wasn’t trying to be funny with it, so I didn’t get reprimanded.
