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IamJacksUsername

Bad thread subjects.
Thursday, January 13, 2005

Writing a good and honest thread subject may take you a few seconds more, but saves lots of time for all the flans who read this site. Also, it'll saves Haken bandwidth (money).

All I'm asking for is some common sense and decency , see http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980906.html for Nielsen's " Microcontent: how to write headlines, page titles, and subject lines ".

Looking thru the current top 100 discussions I noticed some things I'm asking that you please avoid:

ALL CAPS. E.g.:
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=8300 NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE embers,
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=8285 ZOID PLEASE STOP THE TROLLING MynameisJonas,
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=7&t=8495 TEST SCREENING REACTIONS Browncoat84...

Overuse of exclamation marks. The first threads about the show being cancelled, the movie's announcement, and it being delayed - these justify one (1) exclamation mark, more only belong on a Barbie doll site. E.g.:
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=7837 Stem-Cells, Gay rights, Abortion, Janet Jackson's boob..what's the problem ?? JaynezTown (question marks),
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=8421 WonderCon in SF 2/19 -- help!! miyu,
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=6043 Isn't Firefly the best ? Vote for Firefly !! JaynezTown...

Combining these, sweet zombie Jesus mother of Gor. E.g.:
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=8517 all the CAPTION TIGHTPANTS # !!! threads by TenthCrewMember,
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=8487 MAD COW DISEASE!! piratejenny...

Deceptive subjects. If we want to be lied to we'll go read ads, talk to mindless yesmen or someone in marketing. E.g.:
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=8&t=8367 JMS writing FF (comic) Misguided By Voices,
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=8524 A New Firefly! kirkarama...

Nondescriptice subjects. E.g.:
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=8395 Is it such a bad thing? AngusThermopyle,
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=8516 And yet another phony crisis SignyM...

Vaguenessishly. E.g.:
http://fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=8&t=8518 Doctor Who : Corncobb...

Unclear subjects, where punctuation would help. Again, it only takes you a few seconds to proofread it, but it wastes lots of people's time if they have to decipher it.

Subjects that'll cause confusion if it's brought to the frontpage long after it was written. "New Joss interview" may be very old and already read when someone bumps it by posting a new message to it. There are several places you can vote for Firefly and Serenity, so "Vote for Firefly" doesn't differentiate between all the ones you may have already visited.


I get so much spam that I delete anything that doesn't have a descriptive subject; but I don't want to wade thru all this type of stuff on a Firefly fan site. This is not a "reality show", soap, wraslin', or sports site people.


Unrelated to subjects (there's a bug in the software that doesn't change the subject on the frontpage after editing), please edit your posts if you made a mistake that makes the post useless or unclear.

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