descriptive subjects

Agreed. I also like "Train Show this week!"

Great, but I'm in central PA, I'm not driving to your train show in Illinois. Please put a location...

While the soap box is out, lets put a stop to those folks who copy an ENTIRE post, with all those photos, just to type only one word or only one line.

I'm with Hot Water. That drives me crazy.

I agree Gary: I have asked members who wrote particularly helpful posts to go back and change the subject to something more descriptive so that it could be found in a future search for the topic.  

david

Count me in favor, also. I would really like to see the forum that the topic was posted to; that would also help clarify the subject.

+1.

If we are listing other peeves, people also need to learn how to not embed their follow up comments within the text they are quoting (or if they do, color it differently, italicize it,  or something (anything!) to tell it apart from the original). 

Someone commented they like to do that so their comments are near the related content of the original post, but it's way too much work to go back and re-read the original post (which I've probably already read) to figure out what is the original author's thoughts vs. what is the follow up comments.

-Dave

YES !!! Use fully descriptive headings for all subjects and make this a better forum all around !

This is a forum for suggestions that we can implement to make the forum better. Surely you understand that we have no control over how members write their subject lines.

You are preaching to the choir...

I agreed with Hot Water.  Also there may be a little bit of journalism/sensationalism at work here.  "World Ends Tomorrow",  "I Make $15,000 A Week From Home, Find Out How",  "Secret Tips That _______ (fill in the blank) Hopes You Wont Use",  "Miracle Cream: Removes Wrinkles, Makes Dollar Bills Duplicate In Your Wallet While You Sleep".   On the forum it's appears as "Has Anyone Seen This Before", etc. 

Spelling the key words correctly helps find the topic at a later time.  Often, I can't remember which incorrect spelling the OP used. There's no excuse these days for not being able to spell correctly. 

Arthur P. Bloom posted:

Spelling the key words correctly helps find the topic at a later time.  ...

my sympathy is definitely with Ives collectors.  outside train forums, being a Marx fan is bad enough with "Karl" and the "Bros." often taking top billing, but "James Merit" must really annoy Edward "Ives" train collectors swamping most general searches.  hint:  Ives -Currier ... and just to be safe , -Courier, -Coorier.

OGR Webmaster posted:

This is a forum for suggestions that we can implement to make the forum better. Surely you understand that we have no control over how members write their subject lines.

You are preaching to the choir...

how about this...  in some Yahoo Groups i subscribe to (not that i am a fan of their archaic format), once monthly many of the group owners post an "etiquette" guideline.  i'm sure the moderators of this group have or could be given the power to broadcast a similar message(?)

preach to the congregation!

Overlandflyer, that's a nice idea. I'll have to give that some consideration.

We can easily send an email message to each member of the forum.

I like that idea. Now, on to the spelling part. Can we start with the apostrophe?

overlandflyer posted:

before a topic is posted, it would be great if you could add a popup box or something else that would be attention getting to address the matter of creating a descriptive subject line.  people continue to post messages with titles such as, "PART NEEDED" or "eBay BUY!" or "YOU MUST WATCH SEE THIS" or the quintessential "HELP".  not only do these subjects waste practically everyone's time, but even if the topic is well received, the long term effect will be a post practically useless to future searches.

thanks...gary

OGR Webmaster posted:

This is a forum for suggestions that we can implement to make the forum better. Surely you understand that we have no control over how members write their subject lines.

You are preaching to the choir...

When making a new post, could there be a conspicuous prompt about creating a fully descriptive subject title, and the poster has to click that off before the new post is accepted. The title might be automatically prefixed with the sub-forum category (abbreviated as necessary) unless the poster deliberately over-writes it.

More descriptive titles would make the search function more useful and improve the overall quality of the forum. Most of us don't have all day to browse everything.

I would also like to suggest that any post in the "for sale" sub-forum have the subject heading automatically prefixed with "For sale ..." (which can't be over-written) so that will be obvious in the "recent posts" list. Or perhaps left out of "recent posts".

Hmm, this thread title could be preceded by "Forum Suggestion Box: ..." so people know what it's about in the recent posts list.

Thank you for the opportunity to make suggestions.

It think things are ok as is. but this is of course my personal opinion.

Bob C.

When making a new post, could there be a conspicuous prompt about creating a fully descriptive subject title, and the poster has to click that off before the new post is accepted.

Might work for a day or two. Then it would become an annoyance.

Sometimes folks put up vague subjects in order to get as many hits as possible.
I think most folks on the forum want to be good citizens and contribute.
If that's so, the "etiquette" guideline should do.

The board moderators could also start deleting those "click bait" posts, but that would be a lot of work, and folks would start crying about excessive moderator activity (censorship).

Overall, I think this board is well organized and very well run. Sometimes its best to leave well enough alone.