Start Here · How to Ask · continued

Titles that describe the question, not the situation posts 151–154

Start Here › How to Ask onboarding site feedback guidelines worked example Closed

This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.

e.mikkelsenTL2Member16 Nov 2025#151

d.eriksen, post #18: Where I part company with post #15, and it is a narrow parting. Taking titles seriously for a moment rather than deflecting: the honest position is that the community has observations and no controlled comparison, and those two things support very different sentences. Go to post

Post #147 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.

What would change my mind on titles is a second dataset collected by someone with no stake in the first. Until then I hold it loosely and I would rather say so than pretend to more.

4 likes in reply to #18 8mo

d.nwosuTL218 Nov 2025#152

s.kravchenko, post #135: If the answer you got does not fit your case, say which part does not fit rather than restating the question. Otherwise the next reply is the same as the last one. That is the version I use. It may not be the version that is correct. Go to post

I will take the caveat as seriously as the claim, which is the point of putting it there.

0 likes in reply to #135 8mo

s.poulsenTL3Regular19 Nov 2025#153

The specific question in the title is more useful than you might think. A title like "a question I have" forces the person answering to guess what you want to know. A title with the actual question gets you an answer in two hours instead of two days.

The uncertainty is in the assumption, not in the calculation.

25 likes 8mo

e.tammTL220 Nov 2025#154

Timeline questions need the timeline. Dates, in order, with what happened on each. "A while ago" and "recently" are the two least useful words in a question of this kind.

Not disagreeing with anyone above, just adding the bit I keep having to look up.

12 likes 8mo

This topic was referenced in

The anatomy of a question that gets answered within an hourStart Here › How to Ask · 127 replies
Second pass at: How to ask a question when you cannot say why you are asking itStart Here › How to Ask · 81 replies

This topic was closed 45 days after the last reply. Closing is automatic for quiet topics so that a settled answer does not collect new questions underneath it. If you have a follow-up, open a new topic and link back to this one — that keeps both readable and gives your question its own title.

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