[TwoD]

Useless titles is a common problem on many forums, this one included.
I spend most of my time in the JavaScript forum where we constantly get flooded with titles like "I need help", "HEEEELP!", "What's wrong", "Can somebody fix this" etc.
This makes it hard to spot specific types of problems for those who look to aid, and it makes it harder for people to know if a question has been asked before before posting. The search-for-titles function is becoming obsolete...
Why not add a note somewhere reminding people to make the title represent the problem itself, not the person's need to get help?

...

I find it very annoying (and it looks like other people do too) when somebody posts something like this:
"I get an error at line XXX saying that myvriable is undefined" what does that mean, and how do I fix it?"
The standard reply is usually "I'd love to help but I need the (complete) source code to find out what is wrong!" instead of just "It's just a spelling error, it should be myvariable instead of myvriable" or something like that...


Most new people don't know about the [code ][/code] wrappers so they post their code as normal text, which makes it a pain to debug when smilies are inserted and all formatting is taken away.
Maybe this, and other similar problems, could be highlighted with a sticky-thread in each programming-language section which explains the general rules and function of the forum. Maybe new users should even be forced to read that thread before being allowed to start new threads in that section.

I think everyone would benefit from this, not just those who are trying to help, but also those who are seeking it.

[NeverMind]

you are absolutly right!
this problem is so annoying! but what can we do?! if you can see that I have posted 2 stickies so far and they are both ignored! the one in the Advertisment forum about not posting referral links and in the HTML forum about code protection! MEMBERS DO NOT READ THE STICKIES!! uhh.. just under the topic you'd find someone violating it!
or look at the PHP forum, a sticky with this title "NO script requests" yet I get to move tons of these request daily!
unfortunatly, it's no use!


P.S. your help in Javascript forum is much appreciated

[TwoD]

Hmm, could the forum be made to scan the title before somebody starts a new thread?
Preferrably, it would be done serverside but it could also be done clientside if constructed in such a way that it doesn't throw an error if scripting is disabled.

The scanner could look for things like "help!", "urgent", "could someone please help?"... and variations of them using regular expressions. If "bad" titles are found, a confirmation box tells the poster to use a more informative title.
I know it would be a huge job to do if it would be able to cover every possible combination, but something like that would perhaps be useful.

Forum users are usually very caring about their status, maybe that can be used somehow.
Users could get warnings for things like "bad titles" and this status would be displayed just like the post-count For each bad title (or similar things) you get negative points, but if you stay good, you keep (or improve) your current rating.
Everyone who replies to the thread gets to choose if the starting post was good/bad (default good), but only once so they can't push someone down just for the fun of it. If someone still tries to take advantage of the points system, a moderator can override the points system and take points away from the one doing the pushing for being an ***...

Anyway, good to hear that my contributions are not in vain