Among several flawed assumptions here is the one that says that the meaning of a title is invariant through time. But of course it is not. “New pictures from Mars” several decades ago doesn’t mean the same thing as the same title yesterday. What I think you’re really trying to discourage is not really duplicate titles per se, but stupid titles that lack precision. Which is a totally different thing, and unfortunately cannot realistically be handled with AI. I certainly agree that annoying titles like “Something I just thought of” come up more often than we would like, but your algorithm doesn’t really address that.
It’s a game of inches, my friend. Make the wrong thing slightly more annoying to do than the … more right thing 
Gosh, it is so nice to have someone come along and explain to us what is right and wrong!
Except that the code often makes the right thing annoying. 
If someone wants to ask “Why does my eye twitch?”, they will have to work around the fact that on a Q/A forum this old, other people have taken the obvious titles.
~Max
Nothing wrong with duplicate titles. It’s a totally different issue from descriptive titles. There are dates on threads and posts, they get resurrected with new info at times, we work our way through it.
Sure, but that just means that different sites need different settings to fit their flavor. Which, to be fair, seems to be what you provide in most cases (but frustratingly not all).
However, I think @Do_Not_Taunt has provided an additional option you should consider adding, which is to allow a time limit on unique titles. It seems that there is little gained from not allowing the same title in 2021 as one from 1999. It is unlikely that we want the thread from 1999 to show up in, say, Google search results, and the thread is unlikely to be a repeat–even if it covers the same topic, it will likely include different people.
Granted, I will agree this isn’t a huge deal, since there are options to allow duplicates if you want. I get it not being a priority. But it seems like the sort of thing that other forums should discuss.
It’s the type of thing that most younger forums may not have really run into, but older ones like ours would be more likely to see diminishing returns as more and more good titles get used up. Having unique titles be time limited might give us the best of both worlds.
Or, simpler to implement, just an admin setting to allow or disallow duplicate titles.
Or we could just leave it like it is since apparently 99.9% of posters didn’t even know there was a duplicate titles “problem”. Why worry about some circumstance that may occur at some unknown future date? I’d like to think that Dopers, who often refer to themselves as the smartest people on the internets, won’t freak out and quit the board on the off chance that 10 years from now a duplicate thread title may message pop up.
As you are telling him what is right or wrong? He’s explained his position perfectly well. Just because you don’t agree with it doesn’t make it wrong. Somebody needs to make these decisions, why should it be you and not the people that created the platform?
That’s your read. My read is that he is telling the Straight Dope as a whole what our culture is supposed to be because he created the very-recently added new hosting software.
He said nothing about “our culture”. He explained his reasons for the design and you don’t like it. Good for you, maybe when you design a platform you can do it your way.
And, please use some more giant memes from tv shows to bolster your argument. I know that always tips the scales for me.
He said “Make the wrong thing slightly more annoying to do than the … more right thing”. That is like a long-term magazine going to a new print shop and the printer telling them you have to use different fonts because *your fonts are wrong."
“The platform” that is supposed to matter here is the SMDB, not Discord.
Is that sarcasm? I can’t tell without the sign.
The SDMB, not the SMDB, does matter. The platform is Discourse, not Discord, which was chosen by the SDMB, so they are apparently fine with it. This is a non-problem that you are choosing to get riled up about. It changes the Dope not one iota.
I’m not surprised.
Perhaps you could keep in mind that any change to Discourse doesn’t only affect the SDMB, it affects hundreds of other forums that use Discourse.
If you want a custom change for the SDMB only, that’s possible, but then you’d have to write it or pay for it, after getting the board admin to agree to it.
You certainly have no standing to demand anything from the developers of Discourse, or to get upset if they don’t obey you.
Why do you feel that you have a right to speak for the whole board?
Let me repeat that IMHO Discourse is perfectly right to prevent duplicate titles. I also think it’s an issue of very minor importance.
You are the one that seems to be very angry about this (and bending double to defend codinghorror).
(Also, what tiny resolution are you running at that a 300x300 pixel image is “giant”?)
Please do not post your imaginings about what I post. I told you the exact reasons I disagree with you and it has nothing to do with defending codinghorror or being angry. If you have trouble understanding something I post, it’s ok to ask for clarification. It’s not ok to make stuff up.
Exactly right. It’s just weird to demand a change for something that hasn’t happened yet.
Says the guy that has 10 posts in this thread demanding Discourse, or in your case Discord, change something that doesn’t matter across all versions of their platform just so you can be happy.
That’s a very good idea, sophisticated. Keep those excellent ideas coming! There’s lots of things we can improve around here, even if we don’t agree on this specific item, there are plenty of others where we might.
Also this!
Dude, you just did the same damn thing with me. Are you really so oblivious that you can’t see that?
Please quote a single example where I made that demand.
OK, no need to argue, I think we can all come to some form of agreement here.