http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=415730


in reply to Re: Don't Retitle This Node
in thread Don't Retitle This Node

Btw. it would have been nice if you had /msged me asking for my reasons (before or after making the thread), and indeed I may have been wrong here...wouldn't be the first time.

If this had been meant as some sort of personal indictment, kutsu, I would have. The fact is that this sort of thing happens pretty regularly and I've seen it many times in the couple of years that I've been coming here. You just happened to be the person to do it this time. And it just happened to be this time that I decided to speak my mind.

I think that people's eagerness to help simply gets in the way sometimes. And, unfortunately, many people often vote "edit" or "delete" on considerations without actually considering anything themselves.

As for bland and boring, I care about function more then most else, so for the most part I care not if something is bland and boring as long as that something works

Firstly, they aren't mutually exclusive. Secondly, I maintain that the author's original title was better than yours from the functional standpoint as well. You are correct in saying that someone with the same problem probably won't search for "trashed by HTML" but on the other side of the coin, someone searching for "HTML comments" would likely have no interest in this node.

Moreover, it would be better if something would be found in the case that a user actually does come along and search for "trashed by HTML". A search for "HTML comment" already returns several results. If someone used that phrase in a title once, then someone else is likely to search for that phrase later.

I'll toss out the suggestion here that searchability isn't the end-all-be-all for a node title in any case. The vast majority of nodes here won't ever need to be visited again. The same questions are answered time and time again and this is another Good Thing™ because dusty sprawling FAQs aren't nearly as effective as a personal response. (And they do nothing to enroll anyone in a community.) And since the answers are so abundant here, it is also true that most of them serve their purpose and then can be safely forgotten. There is little or no added value in every answer to a question popping up in a search. As I pointed out above, it's far better that something will come back for any search. Finally, the simple search isn't meant to be a fine-grained control. There is Super Search for when you really need to find something specific.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

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Re^3: Don't Retitle This Node
by kutsu (Priest) on Dec 17, 2004 at 20:01 UTC

    As for /msg me, I don't have a problem with it, as the only part of your writing directed at me was as an example not an attack or insult. I would have liked to have given my reasons, if only to show I actually have reasons for most of the things I do, but I was able to do this anyway.

    Looking back at the title and my recommended title, I seem to have broken my own rule "if I can argue with my recommendation, don't make the recommendation", and I could have argued many of your own points with myself. So ++ for pointing out my error, which fortunetly seems to be a rare error (though through chance or purpose could be argued ;), and ++ for not letting me slip out of it.

    "Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." Ambrose Bierce

Re^3: Don't Retitle This Node
by ysth (Canon) on Dec 19, 2004 at 04:44 UTC
    I think that people's eagerness to help simply gets in the way sometimes. And, unfortunately, many people often vote "edit" or "delete" on considerations without actually considering anything themselves.
    That's why janitors oughtn't to act on considerations with a edit to keep ratio of less than 3 or 4.