Enforcing Useful Subjects in Threads

- Doing so would probably slightly decrease the bandwidth usage of VBForums. (I'd guess that less people would click on "Very Hard Question for you VB Experts" if it had the title "Subclassing a treeview to add custom checkboxes".)
- When searching through threads, it is easier to see what the thread might be about.
- It's polite.
- Makes us as a whole appear at least a little smarter?

I'm sure there are people here who would have no problem writing up some functions to test the most common useless titles such as "vb question", "Newbie asks a question...", "Pls Help me", "whats(sic) this mean", and one of my favorites, "vb gurus .... a tough one !!!!". Or perhaps there are some mods with some free time...

What do you think?

Click the How to Get Your Questions Answered link in my signature. It used to be a sticky thread. If you want to you could add a link to it in your signature.

I'm thinking more along the line of locking threads that don't have good titles...

Thanks for the suggestion but I don't think it's practical. It would also be a lot of work :)

Are you suggesting we make VBF into a Totalitarian empire? :p

It all depends on how efficient and useful you want it to be. There's always the chitchat forum...

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Originally posted by VictorB212
There's always the chitchat forum...

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huh? So people with bad subjects should post them in chit chat?

Yeah...that makes sense...:confused:

Totalitarian empires don't allow you freedom. The chitchat forum does.

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Originally posted by VictorB212
Totalitarian empires don't allow you freedom. The chitchat forum does.

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And that justifies turning Moderators into subject nazis?

I'd hardly call it "nazi." You seem to be throwing terms around pretty easily. I haven't heard any solid arguments against my proposal yet, except for it being a lot of work. There aren't a whole lot of bad thread subjects in Gen. VB. Q's right now, so I don't think they'd require *too* much work. Oh well, perhaps this is a hopeless battle to fight...

I think that its a bit absurd to think that a thread would be locked or moved to chit chat, simply because the title isn't as informative as it could be. If the question being asked is serious, and is relevent to the forum that its posted in, then you might just want to give a helpful suggestion to use better subject descriptions.

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Originally posted by The Hobo
And that justifies turning Moderators into subject nazis?

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What the hell are you talking about?

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Originally posted by VictorB212
I'd hardly call it "nazi." You seem to be throwing terms around pretty easily

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Nazi's were down with purifying the human race. A subject nazi would purify thread subjects. Seems like a cool term to me. Ever heard of the soup nazi?

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Originally posted by MartinLiss
What the hell are you talking about?

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Have you read the thread, Martin? :rolleyes:

And Martin, to clarify, he said if the boards were totalitarian, we'd still have freedom in Chit Chat, or some crazy thing like that. So I asked if he actually thought that justified turning moderators into subject nazis.

Follow yet? I can draw a diagram if needed.

Yes.

You're exaggerating. If need be, I can go back to all my posts and add text to ensure that they cannot be interpreted wrong by anyone who is reasonably sane. However, I had hoped that such measures were not necessary. Was I wrong?

A more polished reply to your totalitarian remark: There would be the simple restriction of describing your problem in the subject of your thread. You can still post about whatever you'd like (since the moderators don't seem to care about people saying, "I know this is VB.NET, but my questions only get answered here."), so that's not much of a restriction... If I remember correctly, totalitarian empires are much worse than this. I.e., people would get flogged or killed for improper subjects :eek:

Regarding Nazi's, I would think "subject nazi's" would not only change the subject (although I think the thread would be deleted instead), but they would ban those using bad subjects. Again, an exaggeration on your part.

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Originally posted by The Hobo
And that justifies turning Moderators into subject nazis?

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I hereby invoke Godwin's Law and request the thread be locked...

I don't think that locking a thread or banning a user simply because they had a bad subject line. That's a bit too extreme. No, that's way too extreme. There's no need for that. Unless you want to drive more people away. Many times I've seen subjects like that is because it came from some one who doesn't truly understand the problem. Heck, there's been a few time when I didn't undterstand what was up and had no idead how to sum it up in a couple of words for the subject line.
How about a less-labor intensive suggestion? Why not the next time YOU see a bad subject line, why just send the poster an email or a PM with a NICE note about the subject. There's no need to get all high-and-mighty about the subject. Who cares? I don't. As far as I am concerned, the subject line is a one sentance ad. It's got to get the attention of the right people. Sometime the poster only wants expert opinions. There have been times when that's all I want because the proble is beyond the experiences of many people here. If the subject makes you want to click on it, click it. If not, skip it. I learned how to not click on Dell Deals, you can learn how to not click on bad subjects.

This often does affect me though, when I am doing searches through previous threads. I waste a lot of time looking through threads that I wouldn't even needed to have opened if they had decent subjects...

Well, we're not asking for a complete description, that's what goes in the post itself. But a subject of "Please help" or "Hard VB problem Gurus only!" is fairly unhelpful. And for those of us with little time, we just ignore them.

Sometimes I can't afford to ignore them in searches, when I am having no luck finding a solution...

Can't the mods change the subject?

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Originally posted by James Stanich
Can't the mods change the subject?

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Yes we could. We could also add vbcode tags, correct spelling and punctuation, etc. but as I said it would be a lot of work and I'd rather have people do it themselves.

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Originally posted by VictorB212
A more polished reply to your totalitarian remark: There would be the simple restriction of describing your problem in the subject of your thread. You can still post about whatever you'd like (since the moderators don't seem to care about people saying, "I know this is VB.NET, but my questions only get answered here."), so that's not much of a restriction... If I remember correctly, totalitarian empires are much worse than this. I.e., people would get flogged or killed for improper subjects :eek:

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Hate to break it to you, bub, but I wasn't the one who whipped out the totalitarian remark.

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Originally posted by VictorB212
Regarding Nazi's, I would think "subject nazi's" would not only change the subject (although I think the thread would be deleted instead), but they would ban those using bad subjects. Again, an exaggeration on your part.

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Since I coined the phrase "subject nazi", I think I should be the one to define it, not you, mkay? Thanks. :)

By the way, I had another comment from you, but multiple PMs from Martin tell me that I cannot say that anymore. :(

And by the way, this isn't going to happen. So you might as well give up. The only way to make it any better would be to add something to your sig, and kindly make reference to it when you answer such a thread.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that you did not make the totalitarian remark. However, it seems you pretty much agreed with it...

The word "nazi" carries a lot of weight behind it. I don't think it's intellectually honest or respectful to change it all of a sudden...

Why can't you have a nice debate without resorting to insults/comments that are so bad that moderators stop you from using them? That last sentence sounds like a canned flame to me.

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Originally posted by VictorB212
The word "nazi" carries a lot of weight behind it. I don't think it's intellectually honest or respectful to change it all of a sudden...

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I didn't change the word nazi. I coined a term 'subject nazi' such as Jerry Seinfeld coined 'soup nazi.' Don't put words in my mouth.

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Originally posted by VictorB212
Why can't you have a nice debate without resorting to insults/comments that are so bad that moderators stop you from using them? That last sentence sounds like a canned flame to me.

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The moderators didn't stop me from debating because I was using them. I was just flat out using them.

And I can do a debate just fine without insulting, as long as the person I'm debating isn't an... :)

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Originally posted by The Hobo
Nazi's were down with purifying the human race. A subject nazi would purify thread subjects. Seems like a cool term to me. Ever heard of the soup nazi?
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Have you read the thread, Martin? :rolleyes:

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To reply to this nonsense, I can only quote yourself, Hobo:

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Originally posted by HOBO in this thread:http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...hreadid=247743If you don't want someone to post about your lack of intelligence, you might want to stop running around like an idiot on a public forum.

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You should follow your own "rules".

Has nobody watched Seinfeld? Give me valid reasons why that's nonsense.

Don't you all think this argument has become pointless?

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Originally posted by MartinLiss
Don't you all think this argument has become pointless?

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:confused: Wait...what argument?

Thread closed.