PSA: How To Write A Topic Title

[Ornery]

Personally, I only read about 20% of the topics posted. There is no way I will ever click a topic titled, "Look At This!", "OMG!", or "This Sucks!" Here's a few links that go over the basics of creating a decent title

• How to write a title
  
  • ...In these forums the audience often skims through a listing of several different articles and chooses what to read based solely on the titles and a brief summary.
  Back to Basics: Developing an Article from the Ground Up
  
  • Before you even begin to write, develop a working headline or title for your piece. Like a compass, it will give you a touchstone to return to if you start to drift.
  Headline Writing Basics: What Every Headline Should Do and 9 Proven Ways to Do It
  
  • Ideally, a headline delivers a complete message.
  How to write a Press Release
  
  • The heading of the press release should capture the journalist. The title of the press release should be short and snappy, and hopefully grabbing the attention of the journalist and impressing them enough to read on.

Whether you care if anybody reads your blather or not, the only way to avoid reposts, is if the topic title is at least halfway descriptive of what the thread contains, so make some kind of effort to include descriptive keywords. You might accidently create a decent title in the process, anyway!

 

[Yossarian]

 

[Howard]

Tomorrow we'll probably be seeing "PSA: How To Write A Topic Reply".

 

[TitanDiddly]

The name makes sense now.

 

[deftron]

When is someone going to write a

PSA: How to write a PSA

?

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: Ornery
Personally, I only read about 20% of the topics posted...

20%
OMG, that's a lot of threads.
I am the same way in FS/T. If the item isn't in the title, I don't look.

 

[Ornery]

From the current crop of topics I've read over the last few months, I'd say the quality has improved TREMENDOUSLY! There are far fewer stupid Nef type topic titles than there used to be, but I noticed a couple this evening, which prompted the post.

The other thing that prompted it, is the fact that I can no longer search full texts of the archive. This REALLY sucks! Not only can I not check thoroughly before chancing a repost, I can't even find topics that may have covered a subject I currently need info about. It's frustrating knowing the info is buried there somewhere, but no easy way to find it. A descriptive topic title is the only hope of alleviating this, unless we get the ability to search full text in the future.

 

[kranky]

I agree! Descriptive thread titles are much needed, especially since we can't currently do full-text searches.

I get PMs from people asking why I didn't reply to a particular thread when it's something I typically can help with, and inevitably the thread was called something like "OMG! Not again!"

Well, that's why! I had no idea what the thread was about, so I skipped it!

 

[HappyLife]

Originally posted by: Howard
Tomorrow we'll probably be seeing "PSA: How To Write A Topic Reply".

remember : we'll see "how to register" before

 

[bootymac]

Okay. I'm gonna go make a thread about this car I saw now!

Title: "Today, on my way home from school, I saw this Honda Civic parked on E22nd Ave. It had a 2 foot spoiler, spinning hubcaps, and pink tinted windows. It also had a body kid made out of parts of wood and cardboard!!"

Text field: "Read title."

 

[ndee]

what does PSA mean? Seriously. I always wondered.

 

[HappyLife]

Originally posted by: bootymac
Okay. I'm gonna go make a thread about this car I saw now!

Title: "Today, on my way home from school, I saw this Honda Civic parked on E22nd Ave. It had a 2 foot spoiler, spinning hubcaps, and pink tinted windows. It also had a body kid made out of parts of wood and cardboard!!"

Text field: "Read title."

uh, pink ... horrible ! aint ur eyes injured ?

 

[RossMAN]

PSA = Public Service Announcement

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
PSA = Public Service Announcement

Thanks, i was just about to make another topic to research psa

 

[Kalvin00]

Originally posted by: ndee
what does PSA mean? Seriously. I always wondered.

Packaged Synchronized Anorexics

 

[conjur]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1192838&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=arc

 

[Ornery]

Originally posted by: bootymac
Okay. I'm gonna go make a thread about this car I saw now!

Title: "Today, on my way home from school, I saw this Honda Civic parked on E22nd Ave. It had a 2 foot spoiler, spinning hubcaps, and pink tinted windows. It also had a body kid made out of parts of wood and cardboard!!"

Text field: "Read title."

I don't know why anybody who's posted in this topic would be offended. Most topic titles have been really good. There's just a few lately, that are lame, like "Isn't it ironic?", "would you get pissed ?", and "So Close". Hah, two of those were by the same mofo!

I'd title your new topic, "Sweet, Pink Tinted, Ricemobile!", but you better have pics!

Originally posted by: conjur
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1192838&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=arc

Damn, that topic REALLY needs to be revived and bumped... DAILY!

 

[dethman]

Originally posted by: ndee
what does PSA mean? Seriously. I always wondered.

Pole Stuck up Ass.

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
PSA = Public Service Announcement

ah ok, thanks

 

[Ornery]

Bump for MAME:

• LOL! 10 Off Topic MAME 03/01/2004 12:01 PM
  
  HEHEHEHE! Scary!!!@ 21 Off Topic MAME 03/01/2004 11:47 AM
  
  HURRAY! 6 Off Topic MAME 02/29/2004 6:33 PM
  
  HAHAHAHA funny! 33 Off Topic MAME 02/26/2004 11:47 PM

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: Ornery
Bump for MAME:

• LOL! 10 Off Topic MAME 03/01/2004 12:01 PM
  
  HEHEHEHE! Scary!!!@ 21 Off Topic MAME 03/01/2004 11:47 AM
  
  HURRAY! 6 Off Topic MAME 02/29/2004 6:33 PM
  
  HAHAHAHA funny! 33 Off Topic MAME 02/26/2004 11:47 PM

:Q