Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Today I was surprised to discover that my thread title about Phil Robertson was completely edited and changed to say Game of Thrones Discussion Thread (also: ducks). My impression was that the moderator did this to poke fun at me.

While I can certainly understand why a partial title change to update the topic status is warranted, a complete title change is basically attributing words directly to me that I did not write. If there is nothing wrong with changing the title then what is to stop a moderator from editing a post and completely changing post context?


Since a person's thread history including title is forever tied to their username, I don't think this practice should be allowed. A new user could do a search and wonder why I created a thread about Game of Thrones yet started talking about Phil Robertson.

If the explanation is that the thread topic has completely derailed from the original topic then shouldn't a moderator step in, close the thread and generate a new one?

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Yes, they should.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I updated the thread title to indicate that Phil Robertson is not on Game of Thrones. In all seriousness, though:

If we were talking about a thread of reasonable length that's only just starting to veer off-topic, splitting the off-topic posts into another thread is a very viable option. I'd argue that in a very lengthy discussion, the most recent posts are more significant than the original ones. The goal is to encourage discussion, and closing a thread and trying to steer discussion somewhere else tends to do the opposite.

Ultimately, I'd leave it up to the judgement of the moderators.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

It should also be moved to the book forum. Game of Thrones, Bible, Dictionary, yadda yadda...

At least it might die there. :)

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

That's not feedback. I would appreciate at least an explanation why you think this is perfectly fine.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I think it's perfectly fine because it gave everybody a good laugh.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

When was Phil last discussed in that thread? If he's no longer being discussed then close the thread and start a general religion topic.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Do only threads in Other & Politics/Religion that stay precisely on topic have to remain open?

I would honestly like to know your thoughts. A discussion was started earlier among the Mods about the closing of threads, and so far the thought is to err on the side of caution, allowing discussion to go on. Is that wrong thinking?

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Please don't start this here.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

dvdjunkie,

Others can correct me, but it has been a long held belief here that threads, particularly lengthy ones, belong to the whole community and not simply the thread starter. It is one of the reasons why users aren't allowed to delete their own threads.

It has also been a long tradition that at times thread titles are changed by mods, usually for some small comedic effect, and are done so innocently enough. I am certain that it was not changed to poke fun at you, but as both Adam and Groucho stated, for a bit of levity reflecting the current state of the thread. Nothing more. I would ask that you take it in that manner.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I don't mind when threads meander a bit. They will usually find their way back. But when a thread goes completely off topic for days and days, pages upon pages then why keep it open? In addition, the discussion has de-evolved into the usual two sides saying the same thing.

I know a lot of members enjoy this type of thread but, being in the minority, I just find it pointless... unless you want to reflect the change of discussion in the thread title.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

It does seem rather ridiculous that members aren't allowed to even "fix" a post in that forum, but mods can completely change titles simply for no other reason than being cute.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Can I agree with both of these sentiments? Because I do.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Yes.

And I think Numanoid brings up a fair point. Perhaps there shouldn't be any thread changes, aside from the obvious ones such as errors or updates, in the Politics forum in the future. It is worth discussion. There is another side to the issue though.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

News flash: this forum does not revolve around you, and we aren't all out to get you. The title was changed because we had gotten COMPLETELY away from the original topic and everybody was (at that time) discussing Game of Thrones.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I don't mean to be nit picky here and I rarely even start threads anymore. It just rubs me the wrong way to see my actual words removed and replaced by something I never said. That's false attribution, even if it is a minor case done for fun. From a thread search perspective, my username is still attached as the originator of the thread even if the thread belongs to the community.

I do appreciate you looking into the manner.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I'm not a Politics mod, but I look at the two as being completely different things. To me, the most important thing is discussion. "Fixed" posts, at least as they were being overused in Politics, are the polar opposite of discussion. It's a snide way of saying "you're wrong, and I can't even be bothered to say why". If it were an infrequent thing, then whatever, but it was an epidemic for a while there.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I think the difference is that title changes are obvious and funny, whereas post fixes are not always obvious or funny.

That said, I would allow fixes but require that they are clearly marked (for example by prefacing them with the word "[Fixed]" or by striking out the replaced words).

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Fair enough, but my feeling at the time was the GOT references were another form of mocking my posts so the thread title change just offered more encouragement in that direction. If that wasn't the case then I apologize.

In retrospect, the replies don't appear as harshly as I was perceiving yesterday, but I think my feelings are understandable when you have page after page of immediate replies mostly to the effect that I am stupid. It becomes white noise after awhile.

I never thought that the forum revolved around me. I actually don't like this level of attention so it's best that i keep my participation at a very limited level. I'm fine with whatever decision the moderators make regarding my question. Thank you.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Agreed.

In this case, the title was changed for humor purposes, not to belittle dvdjunkie. However, the humor came from the fact that maybe a dozen posts talked about GoT. It wasn't as if the entire thread changed to a GoT discussion.

Aside from the title change, which I do not think should be permissible merely for humor reasons, the thread was full of personal attacks on the OP with no moderator intervention.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I didn't see the GoT posts as any sort of goof on you. However, I was surprised that the moderators allowed GoT posts to be posted in such numbers. It was actually pretty annoying because I wasn't sure what was going to be spoiled or not spoiled. It had no place there.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I was actually going to check out the brouhaha but I've only seen through season 2 and didn't want to get spoiled.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

There were a lot of spoiler tags thrown about but I just skipped everything to be safe. There was a lot of book vs show talk.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

Honestly, they did a better job with spoiler tags than most of the show threads do :lol:

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

The changing of thread titles in the other forum for comedic effect has been a tradition there for as long as I can remember. Since Politics/Religion is sort of the bastard child of the other forum the tradition naturally flowed into that forum as well.

From my experience most of the thread title changes were innocent enough and generally were well received by the posting community. If the majority of the community is now against this tradition then we might want to rethink it. If only a handful of people don't like it, I don't see a need for a change to the traditional practice.

I don't want posters to feel like the mods are ruling with an iron fist either. My advice to an OP would be if a mod changes your thread title and you're still active in the thread and want it changed back, I would PM the mod. If the mod refuses, PM an admin. We will discuss the need/merits of the name change and either change it back or leave it, letting you know why. Sorry I haven't seen this feedback thread, I've been on the road a lot this week.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I don't care that mods can change titles for comedic effect...hell, some of us have had our usernames changed for a laugh (TaranTebow, anyone?), but it's all in jest.

I do, however, think that topic creators should absolutely be able to change their thread titles, and I'm definitely confused as to why we cannot. Seems like it would be less work for mods when say, a movie's title changes from Hummingbird to Redemption, if the original topic creator could jump in and fix it themselves.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I would be in favor of this, if the forum software allows it.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I actually side with dvdjunkie on this one. It would also help us search for threads when we need to look up something that we were called out on and we need to find a rebuttal. Like if someone consistently, and rather foolishly, said I would never agree with a Christian on anything, it would help me scroll through the threads and find specific posts as a rebuttal.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I've never tried to edit a thread title, so I'm assuming you can't do so at all. I'd be in favor of allowing creators to have this option, but only for a short time, to allow for someone to make a simple correction to spelling/grammar that's often noticed shortly after hitting the "submit" button. Giving folks free reign to edit thread titles seems like it could open the door to other problems.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

:thumbsup:

There is no real controversy here.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I disagree. On a different forum I visit, people frequently change titles to update the post status...sometimes adding an updated release date, etc. Makes it more helpful.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I understand that. And those are good examples of helpful changes. I just don't think everyone in the forum would be responsible with the thread title updates.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I would be incredibly disappointed if the mods were told to stop changing thread titles for humorous effect. Sometimes the changed thread title is the only reason I even bother to read a thread, to see what prompted the change. In the case of that particular thread, it had long gone so far off course that there was virtually no discussion of Duck Dynasty at all.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I would trust very few people here to be responsible with the ability to edit thread titles. Allow it for the first couple minutes for typos maybe, which I think is already the function actually.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I don't know if the board software allows for this, but it would be nice if a user could change a thread title themselves, but the thread title change wouldn't go through unless approved by a mod/admin.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

That would be pretty cool, but probably a lot of work for the mods.

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

About as much work as the current system (OP reports a post, and the mods change it).

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

What kind of anarchy do you see happening? OMG they can change thread titles now, RUN

I just don't see every thread title changing to, "WHOEVER POSTS IN THIS THREAD IS GAY LOLOLOL".

Re: Should A Moderator Be Allowed to Completely Change Thread Titles?
 

I suppose, I just assume more people would do it then the number that actually bother reporting a post to a mod to change.