Thread titles -- they' re getting too crazy

[pilla]

The title says everything!

I don' t know why (maybe it is to get more attention to their posts), but the titles we find in the threads many times have nothing (or not much) to do with the questions. Or they have, but are very subjective . Sometimes it may make people post in a new thread even when there is already one treating the same subject (but with a spurious title).

I urge for a movement for clear and simple titles!!! Don' t use your imagination in the titles, at least in the support forums!

[pjp]

Do you have any suggestions on how to implement this? I'm thinking I shouldn't have said to post it here

[pilla]

Well, it is still better than in the Hardware&Laptops forum

I think it is more a question of warning people (by FAQ, intervention of moderators) that they are not helping when they choose those strange titles.

Do you have any suggestions on how to implement this? I'm thinking I shouldn't have said to post it here

[rac]

5. Choose a good subject - Do not make your subject say just "Help gentoo newbie," nobody wants to hear this. Describe your problem briefly in your subject, then you can describe your problem in greater depth in the body of your article. Repeat the subject in the body if it will make things clearer. Avoid "subject says all" etc. A better subject might have been "X Windows crashes whenever I run program foo."

[pilla]

Yes, read the FAQs

Anyway, looks like people is not following that.

5. Choose a good subject - Do not make your subject say just "Help gentoo newbie," nobody wants to hear this. Describe your problem briefly in your subject, then you can describe your problem in greater depth in the body of your article. Repeat the subject in the body if it will make things clearer. Avoid "subject says all" etc. A better subject might have been "X Windows crashes whenever I run program foo."

[klieber]

Anyway, looks like people is not following that.

You're correct, of course, but the real question is how do we enforce good subject descriptors? Short of me running around with a lead pipe and kneecapping every idiot who posts "READ ME NOW, BEYATCH!" in the subject line, I'm not sure there's much we can do about it.

I'm open to (legal) suggestions...though I think the simple truth is there will always be folks in search of clue and those who simply don't care.

--kurt

[pilla]

I like the lead pipe and kneecapping approach, but it would be too expensive

One possible solution (but I don't think it would succeed) would be start moving threads by the title. If a thread stated "Gentoo sucks and makes my computer reboots" , it should then be moved to Gentoo Chat, for example. People really wanting help would start to post with decent titles, I guess. But I'm not sure it would work, and it would be a pain in the neck of all moderators.

Anyway, looks like people is not following that.

You're correct, of course, but the real question is how do we enforce good subject descriptors? Short of me running around with a lead pipe and kneecapping every idiot who posts "READ ME NOW, BEYATCH!" in the subject line, I'm not sure there's much we can do about it.

I'm open to (legal) suggestions...though I think the simple truth is there will always be folks in search of clue and those who simply don't care.

--kurt

[pjp]

I like the lead pipe and kneecapping approach, but it would be too expensive

I like this idea as well. To solve the expense problem, we'd need volunteer thugs. This is a volunteer project after all. I live in CO, so I can cover that state. Lead pipes themselves are fairly inexpensive, so load up (just don't buy the end caps, it'll be hard to eplain even without the explosives).

In lieu of this, I also considered renaming thread titles. For example: "Gentoo sucks and makes my computer reboots" could become "I'm an idiot for not reading the instructions or forum guidelines; help me anyway." or "READ ME NOW, BEYATCH!" could become "I"M AN IDIOT, don't waste your time reading my posts.".

Naturally the lead pipe should be reserved for a 'two strikes' rule. Unfortunately, both remedies may have a negative impact on spreading the adoption of Gentoo.

You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than you can with a kind word alone.
- Al Capone

[pilla]

Right now, I can get Pittsburgh I'll use an iron pipe filled with concrete, as they are lead-free.

It may have some impact on Gentoo adoption, but I don't think we need to be harsh with everybody -- just extreme cases, where the same guy keeps doing it again and again, even after we explain how he should name his threads. Then, the pipe!

Happiness is a warm gun.
-- The Beatles

I like the lead pipe and kneecapping approach, but it would be too expensive

I like this idea as well. To solve the expense problem, we'd need volunteer thugs. This is a volunteer project after all. I live in CO, so I can cover that state. Lead pipes themselves are fairly inexpensive, so load up (just don't buy the end caps, it'll be hard to eplain even without the explosives).

In lieu of this, I also considered renaming thread titles. For example: "Gentoo sucks and makes my computer reboots" could become "I'm an idiot for not reading the instructions or forum guidelines; help me anyway." or "READ ME NOW, BEYATCH!" could become "I"M AN IDIOT, don't waste your time reading my posts.".

Naturally the lead pipe should be reserved for a 'two strikes' rule. Unfortunately, both remedies may have a negative impact on spreading the adoption of Gentoo.

You can get more with a kind word and a gun, than you can with a kind word alone.
- Al Capone

[btg308]

Actually I think this approach can lead to a much wider adoption of Gentoo in the long run. Think about it:

-Hey Bill, there's a nice Windows server youwze got here. Would be a shame if anything were to happen to it, now wouldn't it? We offer a comprehensive protection package for all sorts of mishaps and it comes on a single CD. Take a look. We'll be back, Igor and me, just to see that you're alright, see?

Personally I prefer baseball bats - I have had great success in motivating programmers to write clear documentation that way. That, plus threatening to sit on them. :-)

[pilla]

You say, pipe-lead people to Gentoo ? Or lead-pipe?

Actually I think this approach can lead to a much wider adoption of Gentoo in the long run. Think about it:

[masseya]

Of course the easiest solution would be to send a PM to a poster who had a crazy title for their post... The only thing is that I'm far too lazy to do this.

Of course the easiest solution would be to send a PM to a poster who had a crazy title for their post... The only thing is that I'm far too lazy to do this.

[Curious]

we'd need volunteer thugs.

*knock knock*
Hired goons!

This is a volunteer project after all. I live in CO, so I can cover that state.

Well, I can cover Sydney. Perhaps you could add a button to the moderator console that renames the current post from "N" to "N ( -1: Offtopic )" and sends a form PM to the poster.

While I hope never to see slash style moderation here, hopefully the residual peer conditioning should hold over.

Lead pipes themselves are fairly inexpensive, so load up (just don't buy the end caps, it'll be hard to eplain even without the explosives).

Without the end caps, the mercury falls out. *cringe*

-- Curious

Seriously:

In lieu of this, I also considered renaming thread titles. For example: "Gentoo sucks and makes my computer reboots" could become "I'm an idiot for not reading the instructions or forum guidelines; help me anyway." or "READ ME NOW, BEYATCH!" could become "I"M AN IDIOT, don't waste your time reading my posts.".

I think this is a really good idea.

[scottro]

I wonder (I know nothing about phpbb) if when someone posts, they could get an annoying automatic popup for their first 3-5 posts, something like Have your read the faq, have you read Nitro's guidelines, etc.

It won't stop all newcomers from acting foolish, but it would make many of think. Yes, I know it's in various sigs and all over the place, still, having it pop up as you're about to post, how do I su to root....


Shucks it would have stopped me from making one or two ill-advised posts.

Again, I don't know anything about coding phpbb and have no idea if this would be a simple or complex solution

Scott

[progster]

I think the extra "bad title" button is the best solution posted here, but I think implementing it wouldn't be that easy.

And I prefer baseball bats ass well

~Progster

[alexlm78]

So many time we found topic like this:

emerge error

i can't compile something...

this kind of titles in the topic make so much dificult the search on forums,

in others forums ( for example the spansh forums) we use this form

[Type of topic] short problem description (status)

What do you think?

Bye.


P.D. Excuse me for my bad english but isn't my native language.

[ikaro]

there are also lots of people who post in the wrong forums - making it irrelevant and leading bogus searches.

.. exactly like you just did.

[curtis119]

there are also lots of people who post in the wrong forums - making it irrelevant and leading bogus searches.

.. exactly like you just did.

Moved from Portage & Programming.

[pjp]

Merged from http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-24 ... ml#2404221

[ikaro]

ive also noticed that searching the forums for specific error messages turns nada - search strings with / \ - * ' '"" and so on, reply nothing.
That + bad titles makes the forums searches 90% unusable.

for example, try searching for this:

Code: Select all

 -o root -g bin -m

[pjp]

ive also noticed that searching the forums for specific error messages turns nada - search strings with / \ - * ' '"" and so on, reply nothing.
That + bad titles makes the forums searches 90% unusable.

for example, try searching for this:

Code: Select all

 -o root -g bin -m

Thats because of that search, only "root" and "bin" would qualify, assuming they aren't in the stopwords list:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-48 ... earch.html
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-192983.html#192983

I'm also amazed when people claim search is "that" bad. I don't usually have too much trouble. "-o root -g bin -m" is really a poor search, since there is no significant information to reduce hits. Is it KDE, a kernel, evolution, etc.

[kbranch]

I'm also amazed when people claim search is "that" bad. I don't usually have too much trouble. "-o root -g bin -m" is really a poor search, since there is no significant information to reduce hits. Is it KDE, a kernel, evolution, etc.

The search isn't horrible, but it could use some serious improvements. I frequently end up getting pages and pages of unrelated threads when searching for a specific error message. "-o root -g bin -m" is, indeed, rather vague, but the exact text in an error message should turn up relevant results. Cutting the stop list down a bit would go a long way.

For the record, Google doesn't have any trouble coming up with relevant results for "-o root -g bin -m".

[ikaro]

well i didnt knew that searching for "-something" doesnt actually searches for it ... so why would i search for it ??
but usually, when searching for the error messages you get when something fails to compile, doest work.
makes it difficult to find if anyone else had the same problem and if anyone found a solution.

instead I would have to search for a more "global" word and sort a trillion results if anything is related to what i was looking for.

[pjp]

well i didnt knew that searching for "-something" doesnt actually searches for it

The - doesn't impact the search. Read the links I provided to understand what I was referring to.

[ikaro]

well i didnt knew that searching for "-something" doesnt actually searches for it

The - doesn't impact the search. Read the links I provided to understand what I was referring to.

oh right, my bad - sorry.