Should question titles be phrased as questions? (A straw poll)

Question

Should the titles of questions be phrased as questions?

For example, if I would like to learn good ways to "foo" a "bar", which is a better question title:

• How do I foo a bar?
• Fooing a bar

Let's assume that in both cases I explicitly spell out the question in the body.

Which version is preferable and why?

Answer 1

"How do I foo a bar?"

Advantages:

1. They're explicitly called questions so non-question phrasing is grammatically jarring.
2. Overall consistency of style across the site.
3. Someone finding the question via a Google search may have a better sense of what they're clicking on if the title is phrased as a question. I.e., they're reaching a question-and-answer site as opposed to a tutorial or essay on the given topic.
4. Although it's possible to clearly convey the point of the question with either format, enforcing the question phrasing is more likely to yield a self-explanatory title. Otherwise people might start using titles like "Styles for Question Titles", which is insufficiently specific. In other words, it helps avoid a slippery slope.

Exceptions may occasionally exist, but the default should be to put an explicit question in the title.

Answer 2

A good question is going to give the reader as much context in as short a space as possible. A good question is going to let the reader know what he is going to read, and in this case, let the answerers know what end-state you desire.

Let's take your first example, "Fooing a bar". Although short, it lacks context. There's nothing in the question that indicates what sort of answer that could be. Possible actual questions include:

• Philosophy: Is it wise to foo a bar?
• Advice: When should I foo a bar but baz a bar?
• Mechanics: How do I foo a bar?
• Possibility: Can I foo a bar?
• Comparison: How many different ways can I foo a bar?
• Survey: How do you foo a bar?

Those extra words aren't just sitting there doing nothing. Each one of those is a different question with a different answer and a potentially different audience. They are directing the answer and informing the reader. Choosing the right question is the key to getting the answer that you need.

---

@dreeves:

You coudln't leave well-enough alone, so it's full disclosure time. You've neglected to tell everyone that you are asking this because you and I are going back and forth on four of your questions, all of which you made community wikis but do not accept edits:

• 95492
• 236737
• 65865
• 206661

You don't really care what Stack Overflow does. You're building your case, without showing people the context, of something you are trying enforce. Indeed, you spoil the debate by "seeding" it with both sides before the community even had a chance to respond. You've intentionally biased the community to favor you. You're not interested in what the community should do, you're just pushing the community toward what you want. It's all very unethical and slimey.

1. None of my edited titles are excessively longer than original. If you are going for short, you don't achieve that since you could make your titles shorter without loss of information (although still missing needed context). "Short" is specious. You don't really want that, as evidenced by the long and convoluted titles of your other questions. You're using it as a justification to rationalize not accepting edits.

2. I don't know why you have trouble "visually grepping". That seems to be something you need to work out on your own. You're arguing about what you find easy, although what most people find easy are full questions because they are used to this from FAQs and customer service documents. You're thinking about yourself instead of the community, and the Google-indexing of the content here. You don't seem to optimize your other question titles for whatever "visually grepping" means.

3. You argued about your "mini-essay" idea in your second email to me, as you forget the counterpoint that I responded with (again, because you aren't being fair in this argument). You don't intend these to be mini essays. You're asking poll-style questions about beginner-level topics already covered in the Perl docs. Neither your "extended" explanation or any of the answers have been mini-essays. Although your intent may have been for them to be that, they haven't been. You mention in this question that one title form should be okay if you fully explain the question later, but you didn't do that previously. You've edited at least one question very recently to do that, but that hasn't been your style up to now. You're being dishonest here.

4. None of my edits have been convoluted. Your versions, however, have been, including the title to this question. Two people agreed that you need a better title for this question and one of them has a better title, but you dismiss them. Clearly, you just don't want people editing what you've done. Your other question titles are a mess. You don't really have the goal of making things short or explaining further in the extended question. You have the goal of making things the way you did first. That is, you choose the "community wiki" flag, but don't really want it to be a wiki or belong to the community. Your real goal is ownership, and that's what you told me in email. However, you don't address that in your arguments, do you?

5. If you're sure about something, why are you posing a question? This gets back to your mini-essay idea, but you don't follow through on it. You don't provide the mini-essay. Your answers to your own questions don't explore the subject in any depth, and your answers often show that you don't know the depth of the subject. So, if you aren't asking a question, why are you wasting people's time trying to get answers? That time could go to someone else who really has a question.

Answer 3

It depends.

Some questions lend themselves to the terse "Fooing a bar." format. Others are more clear as "How do I foo a bar?"

Priorities:

1. Be clear.
2. Be terse.

As an example of "Fooing a bar" which I think would not be improved by phrasing it as a question, "static ChannelFactory in Global.asax.cs throws CommunicationObjectFaultedException". It's a very specific topic with a necessarily long title which would have no advantage if phrased as a question.

Answer 4

"Fooing a bar."

Advantages:

1. Shorter. Fewer superfluous words means more room for keywords.
2. Easier to visually grep through and sort questions by title if they don't all start with "How do I".
3. The title of a question is just that, a title. The question itself can legitimately be in the body.
4. It's what you might choose for the title of a collection of mini-essays on a (perhaps highly esoteric) topic, which is consistent with Joel and Jeff's originally articulated vision for Stack Overflow.
5. Some questions (cf. this one [added: though the commenter below managed it nicely]) would just be too convoluted to try to phrase as questions. In any case, full consistency of style in this regard is not really an option anyway.
6. Lets you reserve literal questions for things you're actually uncertain about, such as "Is the C-preprocessor Turing-complete?".
7. The creators of Stack Overflow, at least sometimes, do it this way. For example, Parameterize an SQL IN clause and Diagnosing Deadlocks in SQL Server 2005.

As long as the title clearly conveys what the question is about, it need not be explicitly in the form of a question.

Answer 5

It totally depends. But the title must either be clear about the question, or be an invitation to read further.

I have seen some very bad titles (like "I Need Help!!!!", with several exclamation marks). But that is completely useless.

In my opinion, if you want somone else to take care to answer the question, you should take care to ask it.

Answer 6

I am pretty sure that nowhere in the FAQ does it say the TITLE of the question has to be in the form of a question. Edits that change it to be like that irritate me.

Answer 7

If it is posted on SO is it not a question? If you post a statement aren't you saying implicitly that you need help with [insert subject here]? Isn't it assumed that the person is asking a question they need help with?

So is it the clarity of the question or its form that are more important? Would you agree that it is the clarity of the question and not the form? Wouldn't you rather have a clearly stated statement that isn't in the form of a question than a poorly structured question? If the statement is clear isn't it nitpicking to change it into a question? Aren't you simply demanding that others go by your preferred style? Are you helping any by doing this?

And what if it isn't actually a question like the incorretly titled "Nokogiri oddness?" He's not asking if there is Nokogiri oddness is he? Isn't he actually making the statement "Here is some Nokogiri oddenss I've observed."? Doesn't it actually make it less clear to place a question mark at the end of a statement of fact? Wouldn't you think, "Are you asking or saying?"

Shouldn't we allow each writer to express some personal style and creativity? Isn't it more important to focus on the actual problem than forcing personal opinions about style on others? Doesn't that miss the entire point of these sites? Doesn't it in fact detract from helping and turn it into petty bickering over opinion?

So, does it make sense to force everything into the form of a question?

Answer 8

Whatever Google will find. Whatever the built-in search will find. If it can either one, then it doesn't matter.

Answer 9

The idea that the best possible title for a question will also be a question is, in short, completely off-the-mark. Titles are titles and have their own grammar.

Also, while you can no longer earn many points writing questions on Stack Overflow (new point system + tendency to not upvote questions), the best answers come to questions that have interesting titles/many upvotes/pageviews. Good titles entice the best answerers to read the question.

Answer 10

The rephrasing of titles also plays merry hell with the RSS feed. I find it particularly irritating when the OP had written a clear title phrased as a question, yet the sub-editor still feels compelled to tweak it, frequently adding nothing of real value.

Answer 11

The title just needs to be a short summary of the problem. I see no problem with titles like "I have a problem with multiple virtual inheritance". In addition, a lot of my questions just omit the WH words and question mark, since it's obvious it's a question. For example "Non-reentrant C# timer" instead of "how to write a non-reentrant C# timer?".

Answer 12

No. This isn't Jeopardy.

This is a technical forum and it should be dedicated to content - as long as there is meaning in the question users should not be bothered with petty details like this, which give no additional value to the forum such as. They have other things on their minds (like, solving a problem or looking for a solution).

However, if someone wants to go and edit question titles to fit the form of a question, I have no complains. Just don't ask it of everyone.