Guild Wars 2

Too long headers hurt kittens brains?

It’s Anet;s way of saying “If you can’t sum up the topic by the set length, think of a different topic to talk about”

Because titles are supposed to be a quick few word summary of the post. Not a detailed summary. That’s for the tldr on the first line or the last line.

I’d guess the reason is “technical limitations,” as in, the maker of the board’s software designed it that way. While you ponder that, ponder also that that third party designer designed the forum search function, which doesn’t.

Reason 1: To make it look nice in the topic overview.
Reason 2: To force you to actually think of a header that describes your topic in a few words.

Think of it like the header of a newspaper article. It’s use is to tell the reader at a glance whether they’re interested in this topic or not. It’s not supposed to be a summary and it certainly is not supposed to be part of the post. Heck, it’s not even supposed to be a complete sentence most of the time.

Bad headers:
These don’t tell the topic of the thread

• Hi there
• ANet please look at this
• Need help

These could be shorter and/or are part of the post

• Where can I find X/Y?
  Post: See header /15char
• So I really have a problem and nee
  Post: d help. Where can I find X/Y?

Good headers:

• Where is X/Y?
  Post: I’m looking for X/Y. Can you tell me where to find?
• Limit on topic name length
  Post: Why is there a limit on the topic name length?

I suspect the original reason is technical limitations. Allowing more characters would require either allowing titles to go to more than 1 line, or stretching the forum layout to fit it all on one line. I suspect it was simpler to just restrict the titles to 1 line’s worth of characters.

But encouraging people to think of a concise title is an added benefit. I don’t have time to read every topic on the forum so I tend to skim the list of topics looking for words and phrases that interest me and that’s much easier to do with short titles. I suspect a lot of other people do the same thing.

It would be nice if there was also a way to stop people using titles like “Anet what were you thinking?” or “Help please”. Otherwise I end up clicking on it only to realise it’s something I know nothing about or have no interest in. And it doesn’t just happen once, chances are every time I visit that section of the forum I’ll forget which vaguely named topics I’ve already looked at and click on them again.

Which is especially bad with topics called something like “Help me” because then the poster sees the number of views going up and up and barely any replies and doesn’t know if it’s because no one can be bothered to help them or because they vast majority of people reading don’t know what sigils a thief in sinister gear should use for pistols when raiding or whatever other highly specific question they’re asking, and people who do know haven’t bothered to click on the topic because it’s equally likely to be “Hi, I’m new, does anyone want to level a character with me?” or “Where can I find thin leather?” or “How do I choose a guild?” or any one of a hundred other questions which some people are happy to answer in full and others have no idea on.

Well the problem is, when i make a topic bit more complicated than “Gimme SHINIES” or “Gold Farm” i routinely run into restriction and have to cut essential for understanding stuff, same as with hero names.

I guess i would need to adapt to the concise two-word “meow meow” style.

The longest title I’ve seen is Post a pic of your character only if your armor is mix n match

If you need more characters than that then you’re trying to put to much into a simple title.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

The longest title I’ve seen is Post a pic of your character only if your armor is mix n match

If you need more characters than that then you’re trying to put to much into a simple title.

This, pretty much.

Okay here you go:

Gold Farm.

Please help.

Buy farm.
Buy gold paint.
Grow gold coloured animals?

General Health.9678:

Buy farm.
Buy gold paint.
Grow gold coloured animals?

Either the meaning of “sarcasm” is sadly lost on this one, or i just got sarcasmed back

paShadoWn.5723:

Okay here you go:

Gold Farm.

Please help.

Credit card

Wave it at ANet

GOLD!!!

Rinse and repeat.

The title “Gold farm” gives the viewer hardly any idea what your post is really about.
Also, the post “Gold farm” was made by another account. I am confused.

Anyway, that post is about people farming with their pets while being afk and the question if it is allowed. I would have suggested “Is afk farming using pets allowed?” as title.

paShadoWn.5723:

Why the limit on the topic name length?

For the same reason you wouldn’t write the entire novel on the cover of the book.

If you tell us what you want to convey I can come up for a title for you. No offense but that’s something you learn in grade school….

Shikigami.4013:

The title “Gold farm” gives the viewer hardly any idea what your post is really about.
Also, the post “Gold farm” was made by another account. I am confused.

Anyway, that post is about people farming with their pets while being afk and the question if it is allowed. I would have suggested “Is afk farming using pets allowed?” as title.

I’m pretty sure Pa was stating an opinion that such short titles as “Gold Farm” are insufficient and s/he wants longer titles possible so as to be more specific. S/he is countering the contention that shorter is better.

Which may be true, but one can generally get a precis of the actual thread topic within the character limit, as your reply points out.

Because older people know how to squeeze as many informations into only 8 characters.
MS-DOS anyone?

Have you downloaded something with jDownloader that was called “Filename_of_File_Uploaded_to_Youtube_on_10_06_2016_Cat_Videos.mp4” or a similar long name? Fine. But if this file is in a directory of the same name, it will “break” Windows (or better: The file system) because you exceed the 256 character limit; the path is included. If you try to move that file you will receive random error messages which say nothing.

paShadoWn.5723:

Zedek.8932:

Because older people know how to squeeze as many informations into only 8 characters.

I know it too. “stfugtfo”, exactly 8 chars. But these hard limitations are past so why irk people now?

Allowing thread name to be 2 strings not 1 would not break the world supposedly.

We still have those hard limitations. They are just really large now.

Bloggers still have those limitations. Screens are only so large so titles and images can only be so long.

And titles are supposed to be short and sweet and to the point. Longer titles defeat that purpose.

Using a thread that actually exists:

Good Title (what it actually has): Proposition to put a hard cap on boons+condis

Bad title: Proposition

Bad title: Players should only be able to put up to a certain amount of boons and condies on other players or themselves to reduce condi and boon spam.

All three titles describe the thread. The second is too vague, could be a proposition for anything. The third is too detailed. You don’t get the gist of the thread at a glance.

how many letters is “pls ban pashadown”?
just enough?

General Health.9678:

how many letters is “pls ban pashadown”?
just enough?

I will take care to not violate enough rules for a permaban.