14

I'm seeing a few questions that are specific to one game but which don't mention this in their title. For instance.

There are quite a few situations where you can see the subject of a question, but not the tags. Should we recommend that the game name appear in the subject line? If so, since no-one has 2,000 rep to edit, can we just comment suggesting the author edits?

7 Answers 7

Reset to default
9

What's better?

1) When is Loan worth buying?

when to buy developments?

or

2) When is Loan worth buying on Dominion?

when to buy developments on Catan?

or

3) Dominion: When is Loan worth buying?

Catan: when to buy developments?

For me it is number 2.

Name in title should provide a good flow reading.

Name just on tag doesn't provide it.

Name as a masked tag on title doesn't too.

1
  • I would do #2 or #3. I would also say that not every question would need this, just some. And we would always want them tagged.
    – McLeopold
    May 22, 2011 at 5:53
6

Game names should be in tags. It would be redundant to put them in titles as well IMHO.

Reminder - tags can be indicated on a per user basis as Interesting or Ignored. This should help folks quickly find the questions they are interested in.

19
  • Especially since we can sort questions based on tags
    – tryaria
    Oct 19, 2010 at 22:25
  • @tryaria Yes, and you also denote tags as Interesting and Ignored.
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Oct 19, 2010 at 22:27
  • 3
    As Richard said though, "there are quite a few situations where you can see the subject of a question, but not the tags"; people's profiles come to mind
    – Michael Mrozek
    Oct 19, 2010 at 23:35
  • @michael Mrozek also in the related questions
    – Richard Gadsden
    Oct 20, 2010 at 0:05
  • 1
    I would say it's OKAY to put the name in the title too, if that makes the question flow well. I just don't want "game name must be in title" enforced because it produces some awkwardly phrased questions.
    – lilserf
    Oct 20, 2010 at 6:49
  • 2
    I much prefer having the name or a common abbreviation in the title when possible. It helps a lot where tags are not shown and even scanning the lists where tags are shown is a lot faster as well IMO.
    – Don
    Oct 20, 2010 at 7:51
  • 1
    Disagree strongly, I think people skim read the titles for points of interest, much more than they search or use tags. You're more likely to have your question answered if you can grab someones attention. That said, I'm not sure it should be a hard and fast rule.
    – Jon Hadley
    Oct 20, 2010 at 8:03
  • 7
    Game names should be in tags and in titles. You don't generally look at the tags when scanning a list of questions; you do look at the titles. Game names should of course also be in tags for filtering purposes, but if it's missing from the title, I usually assume it's a general question that applies to multiple games, and am sometimes confused. Of course, this is a "should", not a "must"; there may be some cases when it's clear, or it's awkward to fit the name into the title, but on the whole, we should be trying to do so.
    – Brian Campbell
    Oct 20, 2010 at 18:51
  • 1
    @Brian - what folks "should" do is mark tags that they care about as "Interesting" or "Ignored". Let the system help you
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Oct 20, 2010 at 19:33
  • 3
    @Pat But if I'm interested in two dozen games, and there are many more that I haven't marked as "interested" or "ignored", I still can't tell within each category what game people are talking about until I stop scanning the titles and start peering at the tags.
    – Brian Campbell
    Oct 20, 2010 at 19:35
  • @Brian - It seems that you admit that the information you need is right there for you to use. I look at tags and titles together, perhaps you could do that? (Erg...that probably sounds overly condescending. That isn't my intent. My apologies I couldn't quickly figure out how to reword it mo better)
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Oct 20, 2010 at 19:42
  • 2
    @Pat I can do that, and I do if I don't have enough context from the title alone. But the title should be able to stand on its own. There are plenty of contexts where you see only the title, not the tags. In Google searches, in "Related questions" linked on the side, when people copy and paste the title and link into some other medium. And it slows me down to look at tags when scanning through question lists; I generally just glance at the title, and only check the tags if the title is unclear.
    – Brian Campbell
    Oct 20, 2010 at 19:52
  • Did a bit further research on stackoverflow, found this -> meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10647/… which I think I can get behind. Would that be a good compromise for here?
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Oct 20, 2010 at 19:57
  • 1
    I just tried checking StackOverflow, which I'm most active on, and I do glance at tags, but the best questions that are most likely to catch my attention all do have enough context within the title alone. As I said, I think this is a "should", not a "must"; it usually improves questions to include enough context in the title, but sometimes it doesn't make sense or the title is in a specific enough topic so as not to cause confusion.
    – Brian Campbell
    Oct 20, 2010 at 20:00
  • 1
    @ire, Brian: yes, the more I look it seems we are on well traveled ground here. I'm not going to be vehement about this either way. I find myself agreeing with Jeff Atwood that putting tag info in titles in tag form should be discouraged. But if the tag info is included organically then it is acceptable. Of course, there won't be much editing going on here for a bit, so it doesn't matter too much what we decide :)
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Oct 20, 2010 at 21:27
4

Definitely it should be, and I guess a comment is the best way to fix it for now. I think the rep limit to edit is way too high on the betas (especially here, where it's 2000 for some reason instead of 1000); I'm going to ask about lowering it on the main meta later today

1
  • Should is for me a keyword in what you write, there are some really long titles that could be abbreviated or shortened. Also think it would be a preference not a requirement.
    – Don
    Oct 20, 2010 at 8:29
3

I think it's helpful, but not necessary, depending on how vague the question is.

I strive to be specific in my questions, but sometimes they wind up too long, in which case I rely on the tag and the text of my question (ie not the title). If it's not it the question title, it should definitely be in the first sentence or two of the question proper.

2

I'm not sure - gaming.stackexchange.com is not all consistent about whether the name of the game appears in the question, and that seems to be working fine. Since the name of the game should ALWAYS be a tag, it's easy to see what a question is about either way.

On the other hand, forcing the game title into the question title will easily produce some awkwardly phrased questions. Some questions are quite wordy and complicated enough already without trying to shoehorn "Carcassone: Inns & Cathedrals" in there too.

1
  • Months later, I think gaming is pretty much in the same situation as B&CG. Some questions would look weird if you added the game to the title; other questions can be confusing without the game in the title.
    – Dave DuPlantis
    Jun 9, 2011 at 19:46
2

In general, game names should be in the title.

If someone asked, "How do you turn houses into hotels?" probably MOST people might recognize that as being from Monopoly.

But more obscure games, that the majority wouldn't know, should have a name in the title. That way, people can quickly decide for themselves whether want to read further.

1

You can argue this both ways, and indeed, on Stack Overflow, there is no clear consensus:

Is the programming language not allowed to be part of the title?

I personally prefer having the game as a tag, not in the title. I agree with Pat that it is redundant information. You can still see the tags even when skimming the titles.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .