Changed thread titles, what effect does it have?

I can see the point in a moderator correcting typos in titles but what effect does wholesale title rewriting have on thread subscriptions?

(called 'bookmarks' on this forum)

Regarding the recent Rip off thread started my Michael, I wonder why the title was changed, if its as a result of the thread going off topic or digressing into a different area then there does not seem to be much point. Lots of threads (probably most threads) go off topic anyway.

Ian P

It should not alter things as the bookmarks use a thread number, if you look at the url at the top of the page while reading this you will see "144833" which is this threads unique number.

Hovering over the URL of the items in your bookmark list will also show this number as the only thing that changes and no any of the text in the title is included

Neil must have changed that, from reading the thread it turns out the higher price was not a British supplier so "Rip of Britain" was not appropriate.

I do modify the odd one, not just for typos but sometimes to make the title more specifc. I don't like titles such as "help needed" or " what to get" as you don't know what the question is about without reading. If it said " help needed with Myford .............." or "What widget to get" you could ignor if it was not your specialist subject or read if you thought you could answer.

Edited By JasonB on 17/09/2019 14:31:44

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Just for info.

I have made a request to have the subtitle removed, as the new title makes it no longer relevant.

MichaelG.

We sometimes change the title of a thread if it is causing confusion or is misleading. Not in this case, but in others, there have been titles that appear critical of an individual, organisation or a supplier when the actual thread isn't, for example. This is unfair as these titles can appear in search results or lists of posts and mislead people who don't actually follow the link.

The thread was causing a degree of confusion, as most people missed the fact the only 'British' thing about the site linked to was it being priced in UK pounds and having 'UK.' at the start of its web address. There's also a 'US.' version that is priced in dollars by default.

Unfortunately this was generating unwarranted heat about supposed ripoff UK suppliers as some people were assuming the linked site was a British company.

I'll change the subtitle too as it is no longer meaningful.

Neil

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Thanks, Neil

And apologies if I caused any inconvenience ...

My original title was meant to imply the possibility of "Let's rip-off Britain" ... but it obviously backfired.

MichaelG.

Some things are just to subtle for the average model engineer, it seems

Good for you. Also anything with 'newbie' irritates me, and the mother of them all "newbie, please be gentle" makes me want to whack the idiot.

I try to think of the effect on search engines when starting a thread.

Any interesting lathe projects from beginners?

I wondered if anyone else found this recent thread title a bit misleading.

Technically (pedantly?) speaking, it seems that all the replies were off topic!

Ian P

Note to Moderator don't change in now

One must always remember that almost 50% are actually below that ‘average’ value, so if it is too subtle for the average, then it must be too subtle for more than 50%!