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Would it be a good thing to rationalize the titles of questions about plugins ?

Some forums do for example :

[Plugin : Plugin Title] My question about the plugin

But here it's still kind of a mess, though I've seen some edits recently renaming questions following the above structure.

Is it worth it (as we already have tags to specify plugins, but then what about users who cannot add tags, and non-tagged plugins?)

What's your take on this?

2 Answers 2

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I am strongly against this and we had discussed this a bit in chat with kaiser (he was doing some of renaming).

As for me title is not appropriate for such kind of wannabe-meta information. It's cluttering and (unlike tags) useless in site's mechanics.

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  • I think it is unrealistic to expect new users - the very ones most likely to be asking Plugin-specific questions - to learn and use such a convention. Far better, if useful, to edit such questions to add the appropriate, Plugin-specific tag.
    – Chip Bennett
    Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 13:20
  • @Rarst, ok so after reading the discussion I guess the conclusion for users is "Use tags" and "do what you want in the title, somebody is going to clean up if you do wrong". I guess your answer is the right one then, I'm going to accept it. (PS. What's up with the downvotes on the questions though?)
    – mike23
    Commented Jul 4, 2011 at 19:53
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    @mike23 don't mind downvotes, they do not affect reputation on meta and people use them more freely to express their attitude towards question/proposal
    – Rarst Mod
    Commented Jul 4, 2011 at 20:02
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I would propose that we use a tag name like [%plugin-url-slug%-plugin] where %plugin-url-slug% is culled from WordPress.org's URL, i.e.:

So for example the tags for the following plugins would be, respectively, [mailchimp-sts-plugin] and [revostock-gallery-plugin]:

In the case of a plugin not found at WordPress.org then use something that would be easily identified as unique, for example [gravityforms-plugin] for this one:

Since new users cannot add these tags I would propose that they request someone with higher privileges add the tag and we'll be happy to do so.

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  • We pretty much already use such tags in practice, just I don't think they are derived from repository slugs, but plugin name in general. And order is different plugin-mailchimp-sts.
    – Rarst Mod
    Commented Jun 29, 2011 at 17:59
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    @Rarst - Is it documented anywhere (that new users can easily find?) Maybe we should add a "how to" regarding plugins and themes on the FAQ?
    – MikeSchinkel Mod
    Commented Jun 29, 2011 at 18:27
  • @MikeSchinkel don't think it's documented
    – Rarst Mod
    Commented Jun 29, 2011 at 18:47
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    @Rarst, using tags to add the meta-info is fine (that's what there are there for), my concern was more the format of the question title. To be honest, when I browse the site, I pay not much attention to tags, they are really not very visible in comparison to the title. As I'm new here, I suppose that's how most of new users "understand" the site visually too. That said, when I see a question about a plugin that doesn't say the name of the plugin in the title, it bothers me because it generates too many clics (need to open the question to realize that it's about plugin X).
    – mike23
    Commented Jun 30, 2011 at 6:14
  • @MikeSchinkel, I think your hoping that users will ask someone with higher privilege to tag their question is somewhat very optimisic. It's fine with regular usrers, but a high number of questions are from one time users (or so it seems to me), this public doesn't even vote on Q/A or accept answers. I think it may be unrealistic to expect them to get involved on an even deeper level and request tags from others (too complex, when a simple vote is already too much). In the end, I am happy when the plugin name is in the title somewhere, and I'm only wondering how to present it nicely.
    – mike23
    Commented Jun 30, 2011 at 6:21
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    @mike23 problem is that anyone's specific idea on format for title isn't everyone's best and isn't necessarily good idea for SEO. Remember - massive amount of incoming traffic for network is from search and in my opinion natural human-produced titles are better for that than trying to stuff them into artificial pattern. btw asking users to follow title structure is as moot as asking them to tag properly. Most of the time it's still a mess to clean up by someone else. :)
    – Rarst Mod
    Commented Jun 30, 2011 at 8:26
  • @Rarst, I get your point about SEO, hadn't thought about that..
    – mike23
    Commented Jun 30, 2011 at 12:29
  • @mike23 - They would not have to request. We could add the tag even if they don't ask for it.
    – MikeSchinkel Mod
    Commented Jun 30, 2011 at 17:57

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