[Discussion] The introduction and enforcement of [TAGS]

[arbiter5]

I'm quite sure that this has been suggested at least once in the past and a few people are using tags when posting topics, but anyway:

Potential advantages:

• Less clickbait
• For the topics to be more organized
• Probably enabling a sorting functionality?

Tags include:

• [Discussion] or [D]
• [Announcement] or [A]
• [Question] or [Q]
• [Help] or [H]
• [Guide] or [G]
• etc

I've been through a few mostly gaming communities and subreddits in the past with such a system, and it worked really well. I really couldn't think of a negative side-effect if this gets enforced here on Bitcointalk.

An admin can add a short message below the Subject text field to inform people of this new rule when creating a topic.



Probably unlikely to have something similar to the current version of Bitcointalk, but probably something similar with the newer Epochtalk version when it's ready.

Criticisms are very welcome.

[cabalism13]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102944.0

I think your thread is more likely the same as the linked thread above.

If you're too lazy to click...

Moderators here typically don't require you to use good titles for topics, but I thought I'd post some guidelines for anyone wondering how best to write a title.

Include enough info in the title so that readers can mostly guess what your topic is about. Try to condense your topic's main idea into a few sentences. Ideally, people should be able to write useful, on-topic replies by just reading the title (though this sometimes isn't possible).

Terrible titles include:
- "A question"
- "I was wondering..."
- "Someone help me"
These titles are better, though still not great:
- "A question about Bitcoin-Qt"
- "Survey of the community"
- "I have a problem with the forum"
These titles are good:
- "Bitcoin-Qt takes too long to start. How can I speed it up?"
- "Poll: What is your gender?"
- "Whenever I try to send a PM, the forum gives me an error"

When asking a question, never use a title like "How to send BTC"; it makes the topic look like a guide on how to do something instead of a question about how to do it.

Some people like to put "tags" in the title within brackets. Like "[GLBSE] [ANNOUNCE] ASDF: Generic asset". I personally don't like this style. I prefer to include the tag info within the sentence, like "Announcing ASDF, a generic asset on GLBSE". When tags are really necessary, it may indicate that a new subforum should be created.

Use normal capitalization, not "newspaper capitalization". "Thread title style guide" instead of "Thread Title Style Guide". Capitalize the first letter of the title unless it a trademark like "eMachines".

Omit unimportant leading words. "Selling $100" instead of "I'm selling $100". Other than that, it's best to write a grammatically correct sentence if doing so does not make the title annoyingly long.

If the title is composed of only one sentence, don't include a period at the end. If it contains two or more sentences, put a period after each sentence, including the last. Questions must end with a question mark.

Edit: Just wanted to add ONE MORE:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1078441.msg11516985#msg11516985

[Welsh]

I've used tags in the past, and think they can be somewhat useful. Although, ideally we would have a section for guides, announcements and the like. Guides are quite popular here on the forum relating to Bitcoin, and the forum. The thing is with tags they would have to be implemented into the forum if we wanted any sort of consistency. A lot of users prefer clean titles without them, and wouldn't use them at all. Also, what happens when there's multiple tags that apply to the thread? It could become messy, and I think a general summary of the thread is absolutely fine.

[lobcmt2]

Among those ones suggested in the OP, I only agreed with Guide tag. Because we already have specific places for the rest (as @Welsh wrote): from Discussion (Bitcoin/ altcoin); Announcement (ANN), to beginner & help (question and help mostly relate each other, so I think they should be apperaed in one board/ subboard, in B& H or whatever board). Question should be emphasized with Question mark (?), like what @theymos wrote to help forum users made better topic tittles.
In conclusion, I don't think we need such tags.

[Jet Cash]

I think tags have their uses, but are not really required for general threads.