Retitling is a community process, people vote on the consideration.

Yes, but sometimes the community's decisions suck. There have been a few retitling considerations over the last few months that I consider pretty frivolous, despite there having been two calls for a more reasoned approach.

• Don't Retitle This Node
• Considering nodes for re-titling

I would like especially to draw attention to borisz's observation: I noticed that the new title is in better english, but did not reflect my question anymore. That's just wrong.

And a janitor may well message you, but what if you are in a different time zone (and thus, asleep), or offline for a day or two?

I think sleepingsquirrel has every right to change the title back. And I suspect that the janitors simply won't bother the second time around. Besides, once the node is off the radar in a few days, the probability of it being further considered rapidly approaches zero.

update: s/dopey/frivolous/ The latter word expresses my opinion on the matter more accurately.

Many many nodes get considered for retitling. About half of them get an affirmitive vote by the community's senior monks, and about half of those are acted upon by Janitors. There are several levels of checks and balances, the last of which is the fact that an author never loses his ability to alter the node again. But remember, just because a node got considered doesn't mean it's going to be retitled. A lot of votes don't give sufficient mandate to retitle, and a lot of those that do give sufficient mandate still don't meet the Janitors standards for action. You may see many that got retitled, but for every node that gets retitled there are several that don't.

But this is all something that can be worked out through better communication. Even after a node has been retitled, it's never too late to talk to the Janitors about it, asking why, or providing recommendations for improvement. Janitors never mean to alter a node's intent by retitling it. But sometimes they don't have a lot to go on (unclear titles, unclear nodes, etc.). And other times they get it wrong (myself included). That's where the idea of communication comes in. We might find ourselves working through a list of fifteen or twenty considerations at a time, and while we always attempt to understand the situation before acting, ultimately the consideration vote is the mandate to act, and prior notification of the author is neither required nor efficient. One could wait days, weeks, or an eternity before getting a response from an author.

So we act conscienciously, usually conservatively, and with honest intent. If we get it wrong, all it takes is a /msg to one of us, or to the group, and we'll work with you on rectifying the situation. And ultimately if you feel that we have been unresponsive to your requests, you can always petition the gods. But at least try to work it out through friendly communication first. Misunderstanding is usually caused by a lack of communication, not by mal-intent.




Dave

Retitling is a community process, people vote on the consideration. so normally there is a good reason to do it, and if not, itīs not likely to happen.

Before retitling you normally get a message from a janitor that tells you what is going to happen. You then have to chance to argue against it.

May I ask what the original and the new title of the node was?

From what I can tell, castaway followed protocol with regards to You can use HaXml for munging XML in Haskell. The node fell short of meeting the common sense and practical requirements of an effective node title: Single-word node titles wrek havoc with the 'Search' box at the top of your Monastery screen. So people frequently consider such titles for improvement.

The vote probably went to the affirmitive (though I didn't witness that part). castaway then edited the title to the more sensible "You can use HaXml for munging XML in Haskell", and added proper attribution: "20050219 Edit by castaway: Changed title from 'HaXml'".

You then removed the Janitor's attribution, put the title back to how it was originally, and posted this complaint.

Did you ask castaway or any of the Janitors why your single-word title might have been considered for alteration? What was the outcome of that conversation?




Dave

Single-word node titles wrek havoc with the 'Search' box at the top of your Monastery screen.

I really don't get it with this meme. For example, search for "Perl/Tk question" in the search bar. There are two nodes with that title, and you get a page that says "Duplicates Found"... and all the nodes with said titles... are listed! Fancy that! Praise the technology!

The only problem I am aware of is intrasite linking, however, I think that most people use the [id://nnnnn] form of linking. And that is good. Simply because it just might be that the title may very well change and then your link is in limbo.

It is very, very rare to have a node change its node_id and even then, AFAICR, it has only happened to strangedocs and superdocs or other such beasties. Certainly nothing a mere mortal could produce. So you don't want to link with [blah blah blah] because the resulting link is much more likely to rot over time.

I think that the real solution is to stop freaking out about single-node titles, and rather teach the searchers the asdfasdf trick. That is much more useful. For instance, if you search for grinder in the search field, you hit my home page. But what if you have a dim memory of an obfu that someone posted way back when, and had grinder in the title? In that case, the search bar isn't going to help you, and you are going to have to burn cycles over at super search.

But there is a lightweight solution, just add some chaff to the the seach term, e.g. grinder asdfasdf and you get a different set of results... along with the one you were looking for. Notwithstanding any eventual corrections tye will make on subtleties I've misssed, single word titles are not bad; they do not wreak havoc with searches.

And if anyone puts either of those Perl/TK questions up for consideration, do me a favour and vote Keep, ok?

- another intruder with the mooring in the heart of the Perl