Questions tagged [title]

This tag is for issues of what is allowable or desirable in question titles. For questions about window/tab titles of Stack Exchange pages, use the [window-title] tag instead.

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342 votes
6 answers
165k views

How do I write a good title?

A good title helps your question get the attention it deserves. What goes into a good title? Return to FAQ index
311 votes
2 answers
38k views

Should questions include "tags" in their titles?

I've seen questions edited to remove the language name from the title. Won't search engines - and folks using search engines - have an easier time finding them if these "tags" are kept as ...
188 votes
6 answers
4k views

Why can't we use the word "problem" in titles?

Recently this Mathematica question was posted, Mathematica can't DSolve two-body pro-ble​m? The reason for the odd split in the word pro-blem is there is a filter preventing its use in titles. For the ...
rcollyer's user avatar
  • 2,178
287 votes
4 answers
5k views

The title word filter is one of the worst ideas ever implemented on SO

There are numerous (1, 2, 3) questions concerning this problem. I realize this is a borderline duplicate, but I'll re-iterate the futility of this particular filter and why it should be outright ...
NullUserException  อ_อ's user avatar
79 votes
5 answers
2k views

Can we prevent titles with an unnecessary tag in them?

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 ...
James's user avatar
  • 2,649
36 votes
4 answers
750 views

Why is the first tag sometimes in the <title> tag of some questions?

I searched through both Gaming's Meta and here, and couldn't find an answer to this. I was reviewing my questions on gaming.stackexchange.com this morning and I noticed that in certain questions like ...
The Unhandled Exception's user avatar
200 votes
6 answers
3k views

Let users with sufficient reputation use "problem" in titles

This is partly related to: Using the word “problem” in titles – however this one here is an actual feature-request. Problem, Sir? I am trying to edit a question that contains a specific error ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 34.6k
47 votes
4 answers
2k views

The Efficacy Of Stack Overflow's Question Title Filter

I'm getting pretty sick of this meme that the title check being run on Stack Overflow (and Super User and Server Fault) is somehow ineffective, obviously broken, etc. etc. So, I'm going to drop the ...
Kevin Montrose's user avatar
21 votes
4 answers
1k views

Add title uniqueness to the heuristics for detecting low-quality questions

This feature request is a response to Anyone want to clean up some bad titles? Two days ago, Björn suggested that we warn users when they post a new question with an identical title to an existing ...
Chris Frederick's user avatar
48 votes
4 answers
1k views

Remove blacklist filter for `problem`

This is a feature request to remove the question title filter for problem. There are good reasons listed in this question, but mostly I'm sick of changing the word to issue. Why is problem ...
Lance Roberts's user avatar
27 votes
1 answer
356 views

Which tag is added to the page title?

Over at Why is the first tag sometimes in the <title> tag of some questions, Rebecca mentions To this end, the tag listed first on a question (sorted by popularity of the tag) So, what's the ...
Sathyajith Bhat's user avatar
55 votes
4 answers
11k views

Fix Markdown/SmartyPants in question titles

Consider this question: is x-- > 0 && array[x] well defined behavior in c++? Unfortunately, the question title is displayed on SO as: is `x— > 0 && array[x]` well defined ...
Konrad Rudolph's user avatar
53 votes
12 answers
3k views

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

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? ...
41 votes
3 answers
1k views

Zero-width non-joiner allows unclickable titles

Using only a zero-width non-joiner, and maybe other characters, allows unclickable titles. Now that Joel had to be the grown-up and spoil the fun, here's what the home page looked like:
balpha's user avatar
  • 153k
123 votes
3 answers
962 views

Can we make the title of duplicate questions say "duplicate"?

I love that posts closed as Off Topic and migrated to another site now say [migrated]. Can we do this for a [duplicate] as well? The distinction between a question closed as duplicate and one that ...
Nicole's user avatar
  • 9,934
51 votes
4 answers
1k views

Stop rewriting trailing exclamation marks as question marks

This question was originally titled Parsing irregular prototypes? Need an advice? Because I'm hilariously funny, I commented: "No, I don't need any advice. Cheers, though" But as it turns out, ...
Lightness Races in Orbit's user avatar
42 votes
13 answers
1k views

Would the Stack Exchange network be better if titles contained complete, grammatical questions?

We have had quite a few discussions here in the past of whether titles should be phrased as complete questions. For example: Should question titles be phrased as questions? (A straw poll) What's in a ...
Joel Spolsky's user avatar
  • 29.7k
20 votes
4 answers
547 views

What should I write in the question body if the title already explains everything?

< Do I need to write anything here? >
hkBattousai's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
156 views

How is the tag chosen to prefix the title?

Which tag is used in the title of a question? It does not seem to be the most popular It does not seem to be the first in the tagging order: This question Loopback connection via PHP's getimage ...
Alex's user avatar
  • 489
22 votes
1 answer
460 views

Are the questions with TeX markup in titles excluded from Hot Network Questions?

Over the years, users of non-MathJax-enabled sites complained about unparsed TeX markup in the titles of Hot Network Questions coming from Mathematics and other MathJax-enabled sites. For example: ...
user avatar
114 votes
1 answer
1k views

Detect edits to add [SOLVED] or [RESOLVED] to the title and direct the user to add an answer

Users often ask questions that they answer for themselves. Good for them. And good for us. Symptom The correct procedure seems to be: Write new answer to own question Wait two days Accept own ...
Wesley's user avatar
  • 1,249
73 votes
2 answers
368 views

Please show changed titles separately in edit diffs

In an edit diff (view "Inline"), when the revision changes the title, removed words are shown struck out in red and added words are shown with a green background. This is fine when there are ...
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil''s user avatar
69 votes
5 answers
1k views

How to save the world... One question title at a time

If you got here because you googled "How to save the world," I apologize. This post really has nothing to do with saving the world. I picked the title specifically to illustrate my point. This ...
user avatar
39 votes
2 answers
743 views

Capitalizing titles

This is a really trivial question, but I've seen different conventions and some edits regarding which is correct, so I'm curious: Should question titles be title-cased or sentence-cased?
user541686's user avatar
33 votes
4 answers
877 views

Please remove the s/!/?/ title filter from Metaǃ

If I write a post with a title ending in an exclamation mark, it gets replaced with a question mark. That makes sense for Stack Overflow, but less so for Meta sites, since posts there are not ...
user avatar
22 votes
1 answer
241 views

Show the title character limit when writing a title

I just ran into this while writing this question. [I originally wrote: you need a minimum of X reputation to comment on questions that are not your own, and on answers that are not to your own ...
Owen_AR's user avatar
  • 599
6 votes
1 answer
157 views

Title does not specify "On Hold"

Testing the app, I noticed the title does not specify if a question is "On Hold" ... I haven't checked specifically, but would assume it doesn't specify as "Duplicate" either ... Or am I missing it ...
Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2's user avatar
21 votes
4 answers
909 views

Length limit for question titles that have nothing to do with Unicorns (we don't really need that many characters just for the title, do we? Isn't that what the question body is for? Some lower length limit would help here. Seriously.)

See e.g. revision 1 here - 195 characters. I think the limit should be lowered. Points in case: see revision 1 see revision 1 Some data from the last dump - out of 590,635 question titles the ...
Georg Fritzsche's user avatar
8 votes
5 answers
377 views

[Titles] Should the most relevant tag be included in the title? [duplicate]

Suppose I have a fairly generic question (like about the use of global variables or something like that) but I'm looking for an answer related to PHP, should I include that requirement in the title? I ...
Matteo Riva's user avatar
38 votes
7 answers
889 views

I've found a particular set of "question"s with bad titles; how should I proceed?

I saw a question on the front page of Stack Overflow that had a title that intrigued me. If you search for a keyword: question you will find a set of what I would consider poorly titled. You see, ...
James's user avatar
  • 2,649
22 votes
5 answers
486 views

Please append the reason for closing to the title along with "Closed"

Came to mind when reading this question, but would be useful for more than just moved, off-topic questions (I'd especially like to see duplicate questions flagged as such in the title). Examples: ...
Shog9's user avatar
  • 440k
20 votes
1 answer
283 views

Display "migrated to meta" instead of "closed" in migrated questions' titles

When an SO question is clearly a candidate for Meta, I have to go read it to see if it was only closed, or migrated to where it belongs. Can't the text say [migrated to meta] instead of [closed] when ...
Vinko Vrsalovic's user avatar
  • 10.6k
78 votes
6 answers
2k views

Titles should be stand-alone summaries of questions *without* depending on tags

Titles should be completely independent of tags. A good title tells an expert whether they want to read the full question all by itself. I know this has come up multiple times before, before, but in ...
Jaydles's user avatar
  • 52.5k
20 votes
5 answers
447 views

Why does the question title link to itself on the answer page?

It is possible to click on this question title above ↑, which would cause the page to refresh. I'm wondering why the question title is a link to itself and the same page? Why isn't it just written ...
Nick's user avatar
  • 611
18 votes
5 answers
339 views

Should we stop adding the most popular tag to the HTML title on every SE site?

Stack Exchange started a while ago to add the most-used tag at the front of the HTML title to prevent scrapers from being ranked higher on Google than the SE site itself. This makes a lot of sense ...
Mad Scientist's user avatar
52 votes
5 answers
630 views

Warn users before posting if they have a tag at the start of their title

Users, who most likely come from web forums, who are not familiar with StackOverflow's tagging system, will often include tags in their title, which: as there is a tagging system, it's a little ...
user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
181 views

Cannot edit question without also changing the title

I tried editing this question. It has "problem" in its title, so when I try to save it, I get a warning box telling me I should avoid using this word in a title. And I can't save my edit unless I ...
greg0ire's user avatar
  • 269
9 votes
1 answer
244 views

Warn about identical question titles

I just realized that there are several questions on Stack Overflow with very similar titles, such as Generics in Java and Java Generics (capitalization may differ). Today, Can I add to a generic ...
Björn Pollex's user avatar
68 votes
0 answers
889 views

Houston, we have a porblem [closed]

Since it's forbidden to use the word "problem" in titles, and there's not even a way for experienced users to add it (or mods) we all know users just get around that filter by typing various ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 34.6k
27 votes
1 answer
359 views

Trailing characters stripped from titles bypass length minimum

Test to see if the title length requirement can be circumvented by appending lots of dots. How did a new question with a title shorter than 15 characters come to exist?
Rob W's user avatar
  • 10.4k
26 votes
2 answers
3k views

Smart quotes in parentheses point the wrong way ("example") ["tst"] {"tst"}

I noticed that when quote marks are converted to smart quotes in titles, the opening quote points the wrong way if it is preceded by an open parenthesis. See the title to this question. http://img264....
Kip's user avatar
  • 31k
16 votes
2 answers
349 views

Endless nights of redirect loops for questions with titles where "closed" is in brackets

While reading through a question here on Meta, I saw this question listed under the Related section. Gritting my teeth and clicking the link resulted in a whirlwind of redirects and an error in Google ...
Bart's user avatar
  • 60.4k
10 votes
0 answers
145 views

Don't change double-hyphens in titles into dashes. At least not on Stack Overflow [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Fix Markdown/SmartyPants in question titles This question: Why is `x-- > 0` not undefined behaviour, while `x = x--` is? Actually, the -- in the title of the question is an ...
user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
2k views

What's in a Title (line)?

We get some really bad subject lines on SO, and also in some of the other forums I use. Examples: Connection Databinding Consuming web service Weird WebService behavior Soap header WCF help Now, ...
John Saunders's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
284 views

Title and question body are the same

Look at this question. The title and question body are the same. I think this is not a good practice. Is it possible to create a mechanism to force a user to give a brief description which is ...
4b0's user avatar
  • 4,776
22 votes
3 answers
409 views

Reject user-entered titles with the string "[ closed ]" at the end

Once in a while, some well-meaning user appends the string " [closed]" to a question title after receiving a good answer. This is, of course, confusing to people who, for example, visit the question ...
Pops's user avatar
  • 68.8k
44 votes
2 answers
4k views

Is it OK to add [Solved] to the title of a question?

I was confused when I saw this Question with [Solved] in its title where I couldn't find a solution: My Propertgrid Repeats on every controls click present on to the form. Then I found out that the "[...
Stefan Paul Noack's user avatar
36 votes
2 answers
462 views

Encourage active users to edit Hot Questions, especially titles

Questions on the "Hot Network" list are like travel billboards: they advertise sites to users elsewhere, to maybe get those users interested in participating. But I have noticed that those questions ...
jscs's user avatar
  • 22.9k
25 votes
0 answers
195 views

Please keep title edits display consistent with content edits

Currently if the user edits the title of an answer as well as the content, the title changes are viewed in place (on the left) and the content changes are separate, on the right. As a result you have ...
George Duckett's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
337 views

Question titles collapse "-​- " (double minus signs) to "— " (mdash) [duplicate]

-- in a title is collapsed to —. This probably isn't so great if the title contains <!-- --> or x--. Is this intended behavior? Running this query on data.stackexchange (I don't claim to be ...
Eric's user avatar
  • 2,448

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