Comments on: Do You Click on Mystery Threads?

By: /AFK – November 1 « Bio Break

/AFK – November 1 « Bio Break — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:49:18 +0000

[...] KTR re: Mystery Threads – “There is no indication of what might be inside, and there is a very good chance that it is poison.” [...]

By: Pardoz

Pardoz — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:38 +0000

Surely I can’t be the only one who reads fora that show you the first line or two of the post when you mouse-over the title? The first few words are usually a decent indicator of how likely the post is to cause bleeding from the eyes and a desire to go up the nearest bell-tower with a high-powered rifle screaming ‘I hate lolcats!’.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:13:31 +0000

Most obscure forums I go on have many posts with no replies entitled “Help!” or “please help me” and so on. Sometimes they are years old and still on the main page of the forums… I at least try to say “Please help me with x problem” so that perhaps others will look in my thread if they are having trouble with the same thing. Usually I don’t bother going near forums unless I am having a problem.

And don’t forget “aaaah the server is down for regular scheduled maintenance but I wanna play naoooooowww!!!!” posts.

By: Moondog548

Moondog548 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:37:49 +0000

But… sometimes they put their credentials in the title too so you KNOW it’s a worthwhile monologue. “An open letter from a lifetimer” is the new one in our modern era.

By: Moondog548

Moondog548 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:35:52 +0000

Yeah that’s great but when are we ever gonna get PvP addressed? HELLOOOOOOOO!

By: Bhagpuss

Bhagpuss — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:02:58 +0000

I just take the links from Virgin Worlds. It has to be a very off putting title for me not even to open it.

By: foolsage

foolsage — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:52:47 +0000

Tesh said, “Forums scare me, though.”

And well they should! Forums have an incredibly high noise-to-signal ratio, and are overwhelmingly full of negative, ill-conceived, poorly-worded abuses of the reader’s time. Ysh nailed it; it’s incredibly rare for time spent in forums to be better spent than time doing practically anything else.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:47:49 +0000

Agreed with Ysh, Yeebo and the sage. I’ve written enough vaguely witty/obtuse blog titles of my own to judge harshly (and dry wit goes a long way to get me to click through). Forums scare me, though.

By: Trin

Trin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:19:53 +0000

My threshold fluctuates based on how bored I currently am and how much time I’m looking to kill. Ysharros correctly pointed out that the formatting of that vague title can say a lot about how high that noise side of the ratio is to help decide if my threshold is that low. I end up in those threads more often because I’m following someone (i.e. a dev), than my threshold has dropped low enough to enter them.

By: foolsage

foolsage — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:57:42 +0000

Ysh and Yeebo expressed it well.

If it’s a blog I already read, then the title isn’t of concern since I have an expectation that the content will be interesting. Besides, I like to use silly titles in my own blog posts, so who am I to judge?

If it’s a forum… no bloody way. I confess I do waste time on forums whenever I’m especially into a game, but even then I don’t bother reading stuff with mystery titles. If the author can’t be bothered to title effectively, odds are incredibly high that the post will be complete rubbish.