Thread Titles and Category

This forum is vast – overwhelming sometimes ( certainly for the moderators ) – and we depend on thread titles to navigate and be able to clearly understand the discussions.

In general, over the long haul, original posters do an excellent job coming up with good titles and updating their titles, as things change.

For instance, thread discussions naturally evolve and so a title can sometimes change to follow along.

Situations change too, as for instance a company adds a module format to their product line, or adds the VST version.

And i have made changes, when someone has an idea to make the title better, or less confusing. ( As for instance i struggled with this thread title. ) Most often those title change suggestions get made, soon after a new thread is created. Thanks to everyone who has dropped a suggestion along the way.

It’s not always obvious to a thread creator, that the title is non-specific, or in some other way misses the mark.

Here’s a thread though were you can drop a post when you find an older title that really needs a touchup, is out of date, misleading, or otherwise could be improved, especially. Or you can drop suggestions in the thread themselves, if the OP, is still active. It’s not a large portion of the threads but we’ve got a lot of threads.

Perhaps this can also be a thread for general guidelines on good thread titling.

Please make posts here the helpful kind.

ADDED : A thread’s category is overall part of it’s name. Here’s a good place to find the threads misclassified. Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing as it were.

In the interest of giving those that are seeking to buy less, and find threads on stuff to acquire triggering, that have muted the Other Gear category to avoid it, here’s a place to find Other Gear threads labelled something else, like for instance General Discussion.

Here’s some ideas :

“New” in a title is good for about two weeks. How long is a product really new ?

As for instance :

NEW Behringer RS-9

A nice controller – on the market for over a year now.

There are other designations, that last a little longer, but eventually won’t remain relevant. “Kickstarter” is a good example of that :

[Kickstarter] MRCC (Midi Routing Control Center)

The MRCC is long now a regular on the shelf product, and Conductive Labs is on to another product launch, the Terrain. ( thread )

Another example is putting the year in the title. OK sometimes it applies, but other times it’s just a sell by date for a thread which does not go old.

3 Likes

What I wouldn’t give to have the ‘?’ removed from the iPad Music Apps? thread.

:stuck_out_tongue:

4 Likes

Good one !

1 Like

This brings up another common titling redundancy. Using “Thread” in the title of a thread.

It’s not always redundant, and is sometimes useful in a title ( like this one ), but in the example you give d4ydream, i see it already has been removed.

1 Like

A thread thread. Much meta.

2 Likes

I checked it before linking it. The ‘?’ was definitely there :slight_smile:

Happy it’s gone now though!

1 Like

Yeah, when i change a post, i like to leave a trace of the change in some way. But not with a title. Boom.

Titles for me should be : Short, and sweet, but complete.

So for instance, and this only my preference, on a new product, its the name, a thumb nail ( three word ? ) description, and the manufacturer.

That’s the kind of threads we Mods like.
Please keep dropping ^^

But yeah, in itself, attention seeking here is not necessary.

2 Likes

Got it. I’ll start using “House of,” “bazaar,” and “containment zone” in thread titles.

2 Likes

You know there’s really no rules per se.

Some thread titles, well, how can you explain it, are just right. Just as they should be. For example :

Miserable git’s general and non-specific (but very inclusive) whingeing thread - If you’ve got thoughts about stuff, I’m your guy

Rules are all made to be broken.

We will find more of the other sort though in our travels and can post about them.