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Underground > Policy & Help >

Suggestion for Topic Title formats in the comics forum...

15:24 / 15.06.02

Ok. Just been wandering around the comics forum trying to find out some specific information about a specific issue of a comic book, and kept finding threads with titles like 'The latest issue of Promethea' and 'X-force..... Spoilers'

Seems to me that we're going to have increasing trouble with things like this - and it occurred to me that it would probably be much more helpful if people actually labelled the threads that ARE discussions of individual comics books with their full series name and number and nothing else. That way - one topic, not multiple topics, easily findable, easily archivable etc. etc. etc.

I'm suggesting this format: The Filth #1 / New X-Men #127 / Ultimates #1

This is not - I might add - the most thrilling topic in the world...

Matthew Fluxington

15:37 / 15.06.02

I agree with Tom - I've already been doing my best to keep with this format, which is why I've sort of gone out of my way to start the New X-Men/X-Force threads before other people do. It just makes a lot more sense for us to do it that way.

Think about it - we've got one thread per issue of every New X-Men and X-Force issue so far, and people can go back and look at how each issue was collectively reviewed and in some cases, annotated, by us all. That becomes a bit more difficult when we're titling those threads "NXM Preview up" or some clever line from the comic.

I think in addition to what Tom is asking of you, it's also a good idea to include the names of the writers and the artists on the individual comics in the abstract, so if someone runs a search on "Frank Quitely" every individual issue of a comic the man has illustrated that we've discussed here will come up as results.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:45 / 15.06.02

I think we've been edging towards this in some places for a while, all New X-Men discussions have tended to be in the thread which opens up with someone linking to pics of the new issue, but something like this makes a lot of sense.

15:47 / 15.06.02

I have been thinking this for a while, but it didn't seem worth mentioning it until the title and summary editing features were available to moderators. Now hopefully we can drag everything back into some semblence of order!

Murray Hamhandler

03:13 / 16.06.02

I am totally psyched that the moderators have this option now. I've been wanting to clean up this stuff in the Comics forum for some time. My biggest concern here is: should all thread titles and topic abstracts (including ones that don't pertain to a particular issue or whatnot) be altered for clarity when necessary? One topic in particular that I have in mind at the moment is the YES!!!!!! thread. The title of the thread says nothing about the topic and the abstract ("He-man cometh.") is just as useless insofar as the subsequent direction of the discussion is concerned. Just in terms of the initial posts and the direction that the thread originally began to take, I would think that the title and abstract need to be updated. But here's another question: should the titles and abstracts be altered to reflect the direction that the topic ultimately takes, as well? Or should something perhaps be added to the original title and/or topic abstract that indicates changes in the direction of discussion?

I would like to try to make things as streamlined and user-friendly here as possible. Are there any thoughts or suggestions on these matters?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:56 / 16.06.02

I certainly agree that topics such as the one you point out should edited to something with a bit more clarity, although I don't think it's likely to come up often I don't think changing the thread title to reflect where conversations lead is a good idea, they could get rather long...

Matthew Fluxington

15:57 / 16.06.02

Yesterday I was starting work on cleaning up titles and writing new abstracts for the music forum. One thing I was doing was in the case of threads that have been dormant for a while now, when I would write the abstract I would include keywords of relevant names and concepts so that the thread would show up on searches for those things. I think we should try to help the search engine do its job as well as it can, that old threads can be helpful resources for ourselves and new visitors.

As for threads that change topic halfway through - that's a tricky one, and it should be played by ear. In the case of "Yes!!!", I think the abstract should explain where the thread started, and where it went. I'm not sure what to recommend calling it - "80s Toy Comics and their Implications?" That's as best as I can do.

Murray Hamhandler

18:51 / 16.06.02

Okay and...the abstracts. Tom, you've stressed that people starting new threads should fill out the topic abstract field, as well, stating that the implications would become clear later on. Perhaps now is the time to let us in on what the implications are. I had assumed, as Flux says, that the abstracts would be used by the search function in some way. If this is the case, should the topic abstract include not only a quick summary of the topic in question but also pertinent keywords? I'd like to know where you're coming from before I go about altering existing abstracts.

Murray Hamhandler

20:07 / 16.06.02

And...is there any chance in the future of moderators being able to fuse identical or nearly identical topics together? For instance, I noticed that there are 4 or 5 Waking Life topics over in Film, TV and Theatre (and I believe that they're all titled "Waking Life"). I've seen a lot of threads like this in Comics, as well.

20:39 / 16.06.02

I think in principle an abstract should represent the initial intention of the thread rather than how it's descended into anarchy. The first priority for the summaries is that they represent something for the search engine to be able to work its way through. There is some impetus, therefore towards having search terms in it.

The summaries themselves have a wide variety of potential uses - many of which we've thought about seriously. The most fundamental one is the potential for syndication - and for getting a sense of threads very quickly and easily. For example - one use for the right hand column was to make it into a place for specially approved threads - ones recommended by moderators. This could be open for a vote (or some such) - but afterwards would result in the displaying of the thread title and summary on the right displayed prominently. But there's a lot of other potential uses in syndication as well - displaying them together on other people's sites for example. There are considerable other uses, but they're the main ones.

As to fusing together identical or nearly identical topics - that's not going to be something that's available to moderators, but it IS something that I can do if it's necessary. Private message me with the two thread numbers and I'll put them back together for you... Fused threads are assembled in EXACTLY the order of the original postings so they might not always make total sense...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:33 / 17.06.02

Is there perhaps a need for, outside of the Conversation, not allowing a thread to be posted if there is no summary? Or is that taking it a bit too far?

09:49 / 17.06.02

Hey I KEEP suggesting a change of title for the YES!!! topic but it never seems to get ratified (or moved to another forum entirely...)

10:41 / 17.06.02

No you don't! you keep not selecting the radio button for changing the title, so we keep getting 'move this to the conversation as the action, with your comments reading 'let's change the title, eh?'

11:28 / 17.06.02

Ahhh mea culpa