Why is the Subject Title so stingy? I always run out of wor

by **Sosabba** » Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:57 pm

Hoping the title says it all! :tongue:

I always struggle to come up with a decent meaningful title when the amount of words/characters available is so tight...

Ta

by **CS70** » Sun Jan 28, 2018 11:59 pm

Li-rocchi wrote:Hoping the title says it all!

I always struggle to come up with a decent meaningful title when the amount of words/characters available is so tight...

Ta

You could have stopped at "why the subject title is so stingy"

by **Sosabba** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:04 am

But then the emoji with the tongue out on the next line would not have worked so well 8-)

by **desmond** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 12:12 am

Just do what other people do and just use "Help!", or if you are really worried about getting responses, "Help! Urgent!", with bonus extra points for every extra exclamation mark you add on...

They are the most useful of all thread titles... :headbang:

by **zenguitar** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 1:14 am

I refer the Honourable Member to the subject above

Andy

by **Sosabba** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:07 am

I cud use txt spk LOL

by **Hugh Robjohns** » Mon Jan 29, 2018 9:39 am

Pls dnt!

by **ConcertinaChap** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:06 am

It is my earnest and distinct intention to convey my approbation and clear support for the sentiment expressed so elegantly and with such precision by the previous correspondent in response to the originator of this thread in his (so far) latest communication.

In other words: what he said!

CC

by **The Korff** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:10 am

by **ef37a** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:50 am

Ooo? I find the challenge of coming up with a pithy, compact yet moot title part of the pleasure of posting on forums!

Not often I succeed!

Dave.

by **Forum Admin** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 12:30 pm

Actually, topic subject titles like "Help!!" don't help others who search the Forums, as your posts show up in Google and in the site's own Search. More meaningful Subjects that include lots of relevant (to this site) keywords help boost Google page ranking.

And since I got irritated by it yesterday when posting a topic, and gave up, I will go consult the oracle and see if there is a way to give us a larger character count on Subject field than at present.

by **Agharta** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 12:37 pm

It's a common problem I've encountered on various forums over the years and seems unhelpful.
It needs to be larger but not too large.
Time for a 'referendum' maybe? :yawn:

by **ConcertinaChap** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 12:45 pm

Ah, so it's 64 chars long. That sounds as if it might be a problem lengthening it since the next power of 2 is 128. Although back in my coding days I (and a lot of other programmers to my knowledge) would set string lengths to powers of 2 not because they needed to be but because they looked as if they needed to be, and hence should not be tampered with.

CC

by **ManFromGlass** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:19 pm

I like that - "the POWER of 2"
What do the other numbers think?

Now back to relevant comments...

by **Agharta** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:56 pm

ConcertinaChap wrote:Ah, so it's 64 chars long. That sounds as if it might be a problem lengthening it since the next power of 2 is 128. Although back in my coding days I (and a lot of other programmers to my knowledge) would set string lengths to powers of 2 not because they needed to be but because they looked as if they needed to be, and hence should not be tampered with. CC

It shouldn't be that hard to change the database attribute for that field if necessary and to restrict the input field on the web form to somewhere between 64 and 128.
Famous last words of course as the number of meetings and cups of tea needed might put the subscription price up by 10%. :shock:

by **Forum Admin** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 4:32 pm

We didn’t code it. PhpBB is a popular off the shelf forum software.

Our tech guys will investigate lengthening but it’s sadly not a simple setting parameter in the forum control panel. Nowt’s ever simple, is it?

by **Forum Admin** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 4:34 pm

By the way, the web team all work remotely so we rarely ever have meetings and we all make our own tea. ;-)

by **zenguitar** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 4:49 pm

Or coffee, as the case may be

Andy

by **Folderol** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:14 pm

Forum Admin wrote:By the way, the web team all work remotely so we rarely ever have meetings and we all make our own tea.

What!!!
That's positively criminal. Everyone should have the right to drink some else's tea (or coffee) :lol:

by **desmond** » Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:44 pm

Forum Admin wrote:Actually, topic subject titles like "Help!!" don't help others who search the Forums, as your posts show up in Google and in the site's own Search. More meaningful Subjects that include lots of relevant (to this site) keywords help boost Google page ranking.

You know I was being facetious above, yes? :protest:

SOUND ON SOUND

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Why is the Subject Title so stingy? I always run out of wor