The Twenty Character Rule For Subject Lines Results In Titles That Are Unnecessarily Long.

People acting/talking before they read anything is not limited to forums. Hence the acronym RTFM; which of course stands for Read The Flipping Mannual (changed the F to Flipping!).

I used to help write technical manuals and I am here to tell that this is 100% true. As a guy, I am also guilt of doing this myself. More time than not, when I get a new tool, electronic device, or some other 'toy' I typically just open the box, throw the reading aside, and jump right in. This is just human (mostly male) nature.

Even worse and being an engineer, I often then disassemble whatever I buy...how else can I see how it works!?! My wife, bless her sole, learned years ago that I am going to disassemble every new thing that comes into the house. It used to freak her out but now she just says, 'make sure you keep all the pieces'.
Don

Don, your wife loves fishing ? I see she caught a sole. ( I guess you meant "bless her soul" ) :)

Peter

20 characters for a thread title is such a draconian imposition... seriously?

"I have a question about XXXXXXX"

"Can you help me with YYYYYYY?"

"Help me identify ZZZZZZZZZ"

"Are these stamps from Lower Slobovia valuable?"

"Some covers from Outer Punjabistan"


It's not that hard.

I saw Aerosmith in Lower Slobovia.

20 is not unresonable, and less than that is going to yield a lot of meaningless topics.
Though I would say in general, as a "forum" this one lacks a lot of usability that many other "technical" forums have.
Some forums I participate in have designation for the topic heading like "Question, TIP, FAQ". If we had those here, this would all be a lot more useful, especially when avoiding re-writing every time someone asks a "Do I have a 596" question... and while I know there are links to other sites where this exists, my overall view of the "quality" of a site (especially one that is supposed to be technically helpful, and in this case "technical" relates to the details of stamp ID), you shouldn't have to leave one site for another. (As the site owner, I would want to KEEP as much traffic on my site as possible).
I know this is slightly veering off course of this topic, but it's related to WHY you want good subject headings.

Clarifying Statement: I'm not the "site owner". I mentioned it as the owner of other websites, I want to keep my users in MY site... not send them off to somewhere else.

Thanks for the explanations. I understand the point of requiring long titles, and did before I posted the question. The explanation of history of the issue makes me agree with the requirement. I was not complaining about an "imposition" as some said, but rather that a lot of titles are unnecessarily long because there's padding in them.

Bobby131313, obviously I should have communicated clearer in my post regarding the acceptance page.

It was not meant to be cute and thinking that people read everything before checking the box. I have been guilty of that on occassion also.

What I wanted to convey was that before a person can check the box and move on, that an amount of time, 1, 2 or whatever amount of minutes a normal person would take to read the acceptance page; that time pause would have to lapse in order for them to absorb the page before checking that box. Thanks for your efforts.

Mike