Don't you just hate... (1 Viewer)

[Ruz-El]

Vague thread titles like this one has. You know, you click on it to see what's up, then you find it has little or nothing of any interest to you personally and you feel like you just wasted minutes you could be doing something else?

Yup, I sure hate that and wish people would have the actual topic in the thread title instead of trying to lure extra viewers to their thread.

 

[drobbins]

It is kinda like looking for some philosophical meaning to life when getting the last trash bag. That moment when you take the trash bag out of the box and then put the box into the trash bag. The box has out lived it’s usefulness.

 

[Holadem]

Actually, I think forum rules prohibits such thread titles, but it's seldom enforced (although I have seen it happen).

The relatively new preview function is very much welcome in that regard, but it doesn't help with the most extreme and annoying variant of this phenomenon: A vaguely titled thread whose initial post is only a link. I only bother clicking on those when the replies indicate something interesting.

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H

 

[Ruz-El]

this makes no sense to me.

I actually have the HTF on my feeds thing, and gmail (the browser) also feeds HTF threads as headlines. And I've been seeing a bunch of topics like this as of late:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...d.php?t=265718

the title is "Just need a little direction" and when you click on the link, the post is actually about the "Sony STRDG510 receiver" So why not just have that in the title as a courtesy so that the people who actually have knowledge of what your looking for can actually help you?

Some others:
"A couple dumb questions"

Actually 3 questions, 2 about racks and one about internet connectivity"1 more question"

About some type of speaker

"Why are we wasting our time with this?"

About energy legislation??? Anyways, all these show up on the feeds, it's just getting dead annoying. Maybe I'm just a fussy pants, I wouldn't think it that difficult to just have the actual topic in the header title rather then baiting. I find the feature handy so it would be nice if people actually followed the forum rules in regards to topic headers I guess.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Dont you wonder?



http://www.jobmachine.net/sourcer/subjectlines

 

[Ruz-El]

From the link:

"Stop Being an Internet Recruitment Failure" would make you stop and read the email. Then "Discover 10 Ways to Get Your Email Read" would get your email read. Its important you are clear about your subject. Don't write a subject that misleads or is unrelated to your email. If anyone feels like they are being tricked when they start reading your message and it doesn't match the subject they will instantly delete it and may even add you to their "SPAMMER list".

The bolded is the equivelant to "1 more question". You'll note that they are using positive and negative infection in the subject lines as a way to draw attention to the subject, also listed in the title. The "A funny thing..." type title is the trick one they are warning against.

 

[drobbins]

It wasn't really supposed to. Adding to your gripe about thread titles, I hate replies that have nothing to do with questions asked.

 

[Paul D G]

My pet peeve is when a thread is titled something like "Song of the South DVD Release" and you open it thinking there's some news, and all it says is "Does anyone have any info?" all they had to do was stick a question mark at the end of the thread title...

 

[TravisR]

That's one that always makes me mad (for lack of a better word) too.

Also ressurecting the thread to ask "Any news?". Whether it's a Superman II: SE or Blade Runner: SE or True Lies: SE or Song Of The South or a myriad of other titles throughout the years, I'm always tempted to say "Yeah, they've announced it as coming but after years of anticipation by so many people, no one is talking about it."

EDIT: BTW, your vague title also tricked me into looking at the thread, Russell.