I thought I agreed with the initial posting, until I came to the sample bad title "middlewich ff". I would have thought the vast majority of Mudcatters would realise that this would be likely to be about a folk festival,in Middlewich, and if they wished to know more they'd have a peep. To the few who didnt guess that ff stood for "folk festival" a quick peep would clue them in, and in future they would be able to guess the meaning of ff quicker. What's wrong with that, I think it's quite a good thread title. They could have written "Middlewich Folk Festival, Cheshire, England, UK, anybody going there?" but would that have really helped? Also, ambiguous or silly titles can have a positive effect: you might read them and pick up something useful/interesting/funny; wheras a laboriously spelled out in full detailed title might just make you think "Oh I'm not interested in buying back numbers of The Wasp-Fanciers Gazette". And then you might miss a wonderful digression on early settings of "Where the bee sucks".