Easy Language for Questions and Meaningful Titles

Dear Monks,

The language of the question asked should be very easy. Question should be easily understandable. If required we can re-format the titles and the questions. We dont' need Obfuscation in question asking. It should be very simple. Creation of a special node via experienced monks to simplify the question would be a great service.

It will help all of us.

It will also propagate, a simpler way of looking at our problem, which will help besides understanding someone else's problem. May be it will define a standardization and a better level of looking at the problem from our 'internal' perspective in general.

It will advocate many others to ponder over the questions and learn more from the monastery and offer to the monastery if those questions are presented in simpler way.

Titles are very important part. I see many titles which dosn't serve any meaning to me. Example Alternate ways to loop over input (was: I think this is a simple one...) or How do I execute a shell command against each file in a directory and it's subdirectories? (was: looking for a quickie). In the long term, example.. via supersearch all the useful information presented via this node is lost. In that respect, If we have meditation index or sopw index, just like snippets index by grinder, that would be very valuable.

Some random thoughts
artist.

Comment on Easy Language for Questions and Meaningful Titles

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Easy Language for Questions and Meaningful Titles by robartes (Priest) on Mar 19, 2003 at 08:52 UTC
While I agree that the title of a node should in the least contain the keywords relating to the question to facilitate searching, those nodes that have titles that are completely off tend to get considered quickly and have their titles edited to something more meaningful. As an interesting example, the two nodes you linked to have in fact been through this process. They used to have non informative titles but have been retitled through the consideration / editing process. This is yet another example that the PerlMonks system does work. OTOH, it would lighten the load on the editors if people chose meaningful titles from the start. As to "easy language" in titles, as long as the useful information is in the title, I don't really have a preference either way. In the end, when the node is off the frontpage and first pages of the category indexes, it will be retrieved through the search engine anyway, so whether it says 'hash of hashes syntax problem' or 'Help me find the correct syntax for accessing the values of the second level hashes in a hash of hashes data structure' becomes largely irrelevant. The first is easier on people with limited screen real estate though. CU Robartes-	[reply]
Re: Easy Language for Questions and Meaningful Titles by awkmonk (Monk) on Mar 19, 2003 at 11:40 UTC
As a newly enrolled monk, I can testify that spending some effort in reducing the title and text of a question can seriously refine the way you actually look at the problem in hand (and even solve it). By now the majority of 'newbie' questions will almost certainly have been asked, answered, commented on and consigned to the annals of history. A good troll through the history and an amount of RTFMing should always be done before any post, but keywords in the title will help to cut down the number of posts to check out for the info in the first place. Clean and concise posts are far easier to read and follow - for all concerned, not just the poor souls trying to answer it. As a side issue/rant, the sample code posted in a number of questions I've looked at recently has been very large. Generally it's the whole chunk of code that someone is obviously having problems with. If the offending code is stripped down to show just the 'faulty' components in a small sample program, the problem will often show itself up. We've all had the Ahhh moment when showing someone else why our code isn't working, do people want this publicly on the web?. The problems associated with the posting of questions is really due to the ease of use. The success and effort of those monks willing to dive straight in a lend a hand (very commendable), is at the mercy of people who won't put some effort in to solve their own problems. (My god, by the sound of this I think I'm turning into my dad!).	[reply]
Re: Easy Language for Questions and Meaningful Titles by shirkdog_perl (Beadle) on Mar 19, 2003 at 05:17 UTC
For the most part, I believe some of the titles are well done. I try to make mine meaningfull. And if it is not 100% descriptive, at least it is fancy enough for you to remember. Shirkdog_perl is meditating...	[reply]
Re: Easy Language for Questions and Meaningful Titles by Discipulus (Canon) on Mar 19, 2003 at 13:19 UTC
well artist can I add that PerlMonks is a mondial community so if we all use international english and NOT SLANG expression it would be easier for all. thanks artist cheers from sunny Roma lor*	[reply]


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