dr bob

In our zeal, we sometimes start a thread with a non-specific thread title. This may seem fine when you post it, and it may be fine for an instant known audience. But later searching for information is hobbled when the thread title has nothing in common with the subject matter in the thread.

Further, having a thread title that relates to the contents will help guide responders to stay on-topic. Too many times do we see good threads with means-little titles start off well then get run into a dozen ditches on their way to oblivion.

In the 'New Visitors' thread stickied at the top, the third posting includes a great list of basic guidelines for posting. Here's part of that from Randy V:

So thread topics like "What's This?" or "Ever Seen One Of These Before?" could easily aide others later if they just had a clue or context included.


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M. Requin

I'll see your thread title and raise you a pic location. It is really disappointing to go to an older thread that promises to have the info you need, only to find references in the text to pics that have long disappeared from imagesink, piclost, holeinbucket or wherever. I think RL's archive is quite satisfactory, and using it prevents that kind of problem.

Mongo

I made the most useful thread title in the world. You can find it in OT with 10,000+ posts and thousands of scantly clad women.

hwyengr

Attack of the clickbait. "You'll never believe what I found in my engine!" or "One ridiculously simple trick to keep your fuel lines from leaking!"

Randy V

Right on, Doc.

dr bob

Yep, that's a piece of work I'd certainly hang my hat on! [not]

I honestly can't imagine where folks find the time to troll OT, even for that stuff. Folks really need to get a life away from the keyboard!

Andy, are you still married? How long would that last if you really did hit one or three of your image subjects? It's like walking into a bakery or a fine restaurant, savoring the aroma, but not being able to try anything.

dr bob

1) A lie.

2) Don't put fuel in the tank.

wpgshark

Makes going through the search results much easier as well.

Thanks for making the point.

dr bob

Very true!

IIRC, paid members have accesc to some photo archive space so this doesn't happen. I usually just upload the images directly to the post so they will always be there.

The Deputy

Just did a search for "make your thread title useful" and this topic came in third...mongo's topic came in fourteenth. I'm not going to lie...I went with the forteenth place choice.

Brian.

AO

Bitch, PLEASE!

Click image to find out what I mean...

Imo000

Not if you reached your picture limit while you were a paying member. If RL wants free content loaded up by members, having a limit on pictures is a terrible idea. Having threads with non functional offsite picture links takes away the content from RL and making the site worth just a little bit less. Advertising is the money maker so they should do everything possible to attract free content.

As for the titles, I agree, some lately are pretty bad.

dr bob

I don't post a ton of pictures, probably because I tend to be holding the tools more than I hold the camera. I haven't bothered to open a picture account because it's just so easy to insert pictures directly into a thread. The only downside to doing it this way is that you can't insert text descriptions between or after the pictures; it's all the text, then all the pictures.

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I notice lately that many folks are now posting HUGE images, be they linked or inserted. Modern smartphones and cameras have the capability to generate fabulously large images, so why not share them that way? Here's why-- most of us are sitting in front of displays capable of maybe 1920x1080 pixels. That's a one megapixel image at the screen's native resolition. A few are now using '4K' displays that will hold a four megapixel image at native resolution. At the same time, more and more users are using smaller personal devices such as tablets or smartphones. Some have high-density displays, most have lower pixel density. While all of them will 'adjust' image scaling to fit the available display resolution, the reality is that for technical description support there is usually no reason to post even a one megapixel image. Shrink them so they fit comfortably -within- ther text area of your message space. That saves immensely on storage space and upload times for you, and on screen real estate, storage space, download data volume (for those not on unlimited data plans) and of course download time.

Mobile users on the RL app can opt to not download images, but that wouldn't be as important if contributors could adjust their picture size before uploading.

dr bob

So here's a great example case. Andrew inserted a link to a custom avatar file hosted right here on a RL server. I deleted the image tags so you can see the linked URL that is supposedly hosting the picture. But the image is gone from there, and I'm left with a little box with "X Click Here to Open Image in Full Size". Click it and get nothing but a OS error message that the target file does not exist. So even images hosted here on RL need some care from originators to make sure they still exist. Otherwise users searching for a thread later will be presented with the same thing. Andrew's messsage text suggests the important part is in the picture, but there's no picture. This message is functionally useless to anyone looking later for info.

928 DesMoines

Um, Whats an OT?