Lenghty Thread Titles

[Guest]

It seems like a trend is developing to put most of your question in the title.  Feedback forum is an example, and photoshop fourm is getting more posts that way.  It results in fewer posts per page.  This would be less of a problem if the subject column size was larger (like how many times has that been asked for).

Perhaps the title block should be limited to a certain number of characters if the page window can't be expanded.

[the_wine_snob]

Curt,

We see this in the various Premiere fora, as well. It has not reached epidemic proportions yet, but there seem more every month. I see it in new posters, who just do not yet understand the problems. For the Premiere fora, I have a "tips & tricks" article on how to post, and the title aspect is included. Unfortunately, posting a link to it is too little, too late, but should help those posters next time.

I think that a limit on the characters would be good, so long as it allows for titles like, "[CS3] Problems with Audio in Timeline."

Hunt

[Guest]

Hey guys, I believe there is a character limit on thread titles.  Phos tested it early in the implementation of this new format, but I don't recall how many characters it is.

[the_wine_snob]

There could well be a limit, but I'd say that it was too large. I've seen several threads, where the title was about six full lines. In two, I actually had to truncate that original title in my reply, as it would not post otherwise. Obviously, those limits were being imposed on my reply, but had not been applied to the OP - different limits?

Hunt

[Jhabrix]

Well, long titles have a plus and a minus...

The plus:

If it's well written, you see the problem at a glance and know if you can contribute tothe thread or if it addresses a problem you yourself are facing.

The minus:

They're long

However, all these beat those ridiculous posts with titles such as:

1/ Help or HELP! or Hellllp! or variations thereof

2/ Newbie needs help! or variations thereof

3/ XX crashed. or variations thereof

4/ unsw... or variations thereof 

Meaningless titles that give you no indication what the problem is...

Anyway, not much we can do. The FAQs all mention this... but...

[the_wine_snob]

Anyway, not much we can do. The FAQs all mention this... but...

Yes, it's kinda' like post #1 - no one ever reads that one, let alone the FAQ's. We don't need no stinkin' FAQ's!

Now, I post a link to this ARTICLE, in hopes of helping the new posters get help most quickly. Some have taken offense, but many others have benefitted from it. Their second posts were much better and there were fewer instances of Twenty Questions.

So long as a few benefit, it's worth the effort.

Hunt

[Jochem van Dieten]

Jhabrix wrote on 9/5/2009 10:11 PM:

The plus:

If it's well written, you see the problem at a glance and know if you can contribute tothe thread or if it addresses a problem you yourself are facing.

The minus:

They're long

It is an issue that is further complicated by different expectations

from different types of user. One might say that it seems reasonable

that people should be able to put product + version number + 2 keywords

+ a verb + adjective in a title. Something like "DW8 Foobar plugin

activation error" or some 50 characters.

If on the other hand you are talking about these forums that would

become: "ClearSpace 2.5.7

CommunityService.getMessageCountByCommunityIDAndFilter() throws

NullPointerException" or some 100 characters. And with some of the

LiveCycle stuff we are talking about function names, keywords and errors

that are 50+ characters so we end up with 160 characters.

One persons too long won't even fit another persons keyword. But it is

on the radar to make it shorter, just not sure how much shorter.

[Jhabrix]

jochemd wrote:

But it is on the radar to make it shorter, just not sure how much shorter.

I figure, for a title (topic), 100 characters should be more than enough. At an average of five characters per word, that's 20 words... (We've evaluated this and the average works out to five / six characters per word in a para of about 200 words.) 100 charcaters should be more than enough for a topic header. After all, you don't want an essay up there!

[Jochem van Dieten]

Jhabrix wrote on 9/6/2009 9:52 PM:

I figure, for a title (topic), 100 characters should be more than enough. At an average of five characters per word, that's 20 words... (We've evaluated this and the average works out to five / six characters per word in a para of about 200 words.)

Programming languages are a bit different from normal text. People are

more likely to pick words from the language as keywords then other text.

The average length of those words is significantly longer then in

normal text. See for instance the class names from Actionscript 3 or

LiveCycle: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/all-classes.html

http://livedocs.adobe.com/livecycle/8.2/programLC/programmer/javadoc/all-classes.html

I can imagine a limit at 150 characters leaves a lot of room for end

users in the Reader forum, but in programming oriented forums it should

be possible to put several keywords from the language in a subject title.

[Guest]

than

[Kath-H]

Bugs me too. I can't think that 'than' and 'then' are the same word in Dutch.

[Guest]

John Joslin wrote:

than

XD

[Jhabrix]

dave milbut wrote:

XD

Did you mean D x 2?

[Guest]

Jhabrix wrote:

dave milbut wrote:

XD

Did you mean D x 2?

not as far as i can tell...

[Jhabrix]

dave milbut wrote:

Did you mean D x 2?

not as far as i can tell...

Oh... That smiley - the XD one - didn't come thru... so i thought maybe you meant Double Dutch...

[Guest]

Jhabrix wrote:

dave milbut wrote:

Did you mean D x 2?

not as far as i can tell...

Oh... That smiley - the XD one - didn't come thru... so i thought maybe you meant Double Dutch...

it wouldn't come through on the jive system

[Jhabrix]

dave milbut wrote:

it wouldn't come through on the jive system

Though, in the context, DD would have worked as well...

[Jochem van Dieten]

greenjumpyone wrote on 9/5/2009 8:58 PM:

Hey guys, I believe there is a character limit on thread titles. Phos tested it early in the implementation of this new format, but I don't recall how many characters it is.

255 characters.