It does take a little thought to come up with effective thread titles - but I'd prefer thought rather than rules. One way is to start a thread with a general title (but not TOO general), and use a more specific title in the individual messages.

Some people think we should have rules for everything in the FAQ, and others complain that the FAQ is already too long to read. Generally, I think it's best if we give general guidelines in the FAQ, and let people figure the rest out themselves. I think it's best for most people to learn by exploration, rather than being told what to do.

Yeah, we could have room for longer thread titles, but maybe brevity is a virtue. If our thread titles were longer, it would wreak havoc on services like WEBTV that don't allow for high-resolution screen displays.

If the thread titles are really bad, Pene and I add to them to make them more clear. We used to try to nag people into making decent thread titles, but that never seemed to work. Then Max set it up so Pene and I could rename threads, and that seems to work pretty well. We would rather not receive requests for thread renaming. We monitor the Forum and make changes when we see a need. We don't really have time to follow up on requests.

-Joe Offer-