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So we have lots of questions that are titled like this:

c++ : Failing the template function lookup

Specifically, questions that have one of their tags in front of their title.

Thankfully, these silly users usually use a hyphen or a colon afterwards, which makes it really easy to isolate them.

Can we clear up this clutter? Perhaps with a filter that strips off the excess when posting?

EDIT:

As an added bonus, see this query for another style of question title that bugs the heck out of me.

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16
  • 6
    If you haven't noticed, I have a vendetta against bad titles
    – James
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 15:42
  • Also I screwed up linking my data explorer account, could a friendly mod get that for me?
    – James
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 15:44
  • Related: Automatically move bracketed tags in the title to the tags field
    – slhck
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 15:53
  • 4
    +1. I hope the -1s are because this is a multidupe. Tags in the title!!! Slowly I turned... step, by step... inch, by inch...
    – user1228
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 16:51
  • 1
    @Josh - this isn't a dupe of that one, as it shows as completed.
    – Dori Mod
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 17:00
  • James, I love the query. 52 results with C++. eek.
    – M. Tibbits
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 17:33
  • @M. Tibbits It is case sensitive, upper case is >300
    – James
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 17:57
  • @Tim Stone That one is about bracketed tags in question titles. This is about <Tag>[:,-] at the beginning of question titles. Similar, but not same.
    – James
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 19:24
  • Related (but not duplicate): Warn users before posting if they have a tag at the start of their title
    – Tim Stone
    Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 19:40
  • 5
    GIVE ME THIS I WANT IT NOW!
    – user1228
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 15:05
  • -1 What if the title starts with a tag like this: "Title usually has an unnecessary tag in them, can you fix?"
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 19:06
  • 2
    the bounty goes to the first person who draws a unicorn/narwhal spearing someone who is putting tags in title.
    – user1228
    Commented Apr 25, 2012 at 14:32
  • @TimStone warning and preventing is almost the same thing. In my eyes, this is a dupe
    – ajax333221
    Commented Aug 21, 2012 at 4:01
  • 2
    Is this even close to being implemented? I want it.
    – keyser
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 17:23
  • There has been almost no change to the view counter after I put a bounty on it...
    – user215114
    Commented Oct 25, 2013 at 17:01

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
46
+50

CAN WE PLEASE GET THIS? It is SO COMMON that the first word of a title is a tag. All you need to do is check the first word of the title and the tags on the question, and if there is a match, block posting with the comment "Hey, moron, remove tags from your title before we punch you through the intertubes."

CAN WE HAZ???

From just this morning (9/19suck it month first yeah), after I had already edited ten or so titles:

SOMEBODY KILL ME

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  • 38
    How to show support for a feature request
    – Michael Mrozek
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 14:58
  • See also this answer by Jeff to an almost-dupe.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 15:02
  • @MichaelMrozek: Done and done.
    – user1228
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 15:04
  • 2
    @HendrikVogt: I'll see that and raise you THIS answer!
    – user1228
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 15:10
  • @Won't: I give up, you win. (I had seen that answer before, but it's funny to see that both are Jeff's answers :-))
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented Sep 6, 2011 at 15:16
  • hmm... maybe I should convert my answer below to a feature request.
    – Lorem Ipsum
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 15:03
  • 5
    @yoda: Why even bother with tags. Everybody puts 'em in the title. Wait. Hold on. I think I had a brain movement. What if... the post tags were moved DIRECTLY BELOW the title? Or, hell, DIRECTLY ABOVE? Hmmm, I'm going to feature request THAT.
    – user1228
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 16:20
  • 1
    @Won't: I really need your help
    – abatishchev
    Commented May 8, 2013 at 4:52
  • There's real arguments against the unnecessary tag. They are not captured in your exaggerated picture.
    – djechlin
    Commented May 28, 2013 at 17:55
  • @djechlin On the contrary, I feel the picture is alarmingly subtle given how often tags currently precede the actual question title.
    – Yuck
    Commented Nov 8, 2013 at 4:03
  • @MichaelMrozek How to show support for a feature request
    – Donald Duck
    Commented Jul 6, 2018 at 0:30
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+250

I am torn on this one.

Consider the following question titles with the tag in the title.

  1. Python: How do I tell what OS I am running on?
  2. Python - How do I tell what OS I am running on?
  3. How do I tell what OS I am running on in Python?
  4. How do I tell what OS Python is running on?
  5. [Python] How do I tell what OS I am running on?

Only #5 is objectionable enough for us to automate its removal. #3 and #4 are explicitly encouraged. #1 and #2 are ... not really a problem so long as they are not happening "too often".

It is the ritual and systemic use of tags in this manner that I object to, not the mere presence of it at all.

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  • 42
    I despise #1 and #2 as much as #5. I don't see the difference between them.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Nov 21, 2011 at 0:22
  • 7
    "so long as they are not happening "too often".", they are now being used alotly
    – ajax333221
    Commented Aug 21, 2012 at 4:18
  • 3
    No need to be torn. 99.9999% of questions with a tag in the title does not need to have a tag in the title. But to solve it we could have a warning system instead of an all-out ban
    – keyser
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 17:19
  • 3
    too often is now, can you please reconsider this?
    – Gabriele Petronella
    Commented Oct 24, 2013 at 16:14
  • 6
    #1, #2, and #5 should be hunted down with extreme prejudice. Many of my edits are to fix the titles. I have better things to do. How hard would it be to build a filter so new users learn to use the site correctly???
    – user173448
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 0:11
  • 1
    Sorry to disagree with @keyser and many others, but since the "Linked Questions" and "Related Questions" list does not show question tags at all, I generally find it helpful to include some of the tags in the question title to make it obvious what the question relates to.
    – Simon East
    Commented Sep 23, 2015 at 2:42
6

I agree with the OP and would like to see them removed as well.

Some additional comments/ideas:

Even though it is not possible to remove all tag-related parts in the title of questions, it is perfectly possible to remove at least a major part as the OP shows. The left-over part should be removed by the community I am afraid.

In order to prevent new questions with tags added to their title, a filter (or something) should be added when a question is posted, to automatically remove the tagged part of the title, or to warn the (new) user about his/her mistake!

Maybe the FAQ should be updated as well? (So it could be used when warning the (new) user about the made mistake)

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  • 1
    Instead of automatically removing them (or otherwise editing/changing the title on askers) how about just detecting such patterns and adding a comment with link to the submission form that is either just informational or requires the asker to confirm what they are doing. (E.g. something like "Python" tag name detected in title, <link>this is usually not required and not recommend</link> right near the post button or title)
    – Dave C
    Commented Apr 10, 2015 at 19:13
3

I propose adding the following validation rule to titles:

/(^\(X\)\s*)|(^\[X\]\s*)|(^X\s*[:-—|]+)|([:-—|]+\s*X$)|(\s*\[X\]$)|(\s*\(X\)$)/i

...where X is any of the tags in the question.

Sometimes people use tag :: and {tag} and all sorts of other oddities, too but, well, we can't win it all.

It also won't solve anything when the OP didn't bother to even use the real tags system, but a lookup on the entire tags database is probably not tractible.

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  • 1
    +1. TAG :, TAG -, and friends should be filtered/blocked like other issues flagged when attempting to post a question.
    – user173448
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 0:13
-2

Till search engines like Google and Bing get the capability to parse Stackexchange tags, I think it is best to make the titles self explanatory. If the tag information is required in the title, so be it.

Today I was Googling for some How-do-I on Spring MVC and I got a ASP.NET question as a first hit

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  • 1
    The most popular tag already gets appended in the <title>, and the body itself already contain the data.
    – Braiam
    Commented Oct 20, 2016 at 21:25

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