We’ve changed a lot of thread titles

[Rob]

Over the last 24 hours I have gone through a lot of threads and changed the title to something that is a better description of what is being discussed. Quite a few were vague, which means that people with relevant advice might not bother to open it. Vague thread titles are also difficult to find via Google or our internal search.

Apologies to anyone who is confused by seeing their thread retitled!

[Jacob]

Is this something you’re planning on doing regularly and is it sustainable? Several times over the last week I got caught reading the same threads twice because they got renamed. I tend to remember the titles so I don’t read the same threads twice, but if you rename it after I read it, it looks like a new topic to me. Which I then open and realize after a few seconds that I’ve already seen it.

Can I therefore suggest some options?
1. Implement a feature which differentiate between read and unread threads? E.g. Unread in bold
2. If renaming, try to keep it close to the original title? E.g. Instead of renaming “BA LGW” to “What is the lounge situation in Gatwick?”, but rather make it something like “BA LGW lounges”

Don’t take this negatively, maybe it’s just me problem and I shouldn’t visit the forum so often and feel free to ignore me 😂… But thought I mention it in case other people feel the similar…

[SteveJ]

+1 on the personalised “read / unread” thread approach. Seen that on other forums and coupled with visiting the recent threads section I find that is the best way to keep on top of new things and not revisit threads unnecessarily.

[Aston100]

Would a renamed thread necessarily remain ‘read’ on your screen?
Probably something to do with cookies, but I’m not techy enough to know.

[Jacob]

Aston100 wrote:

Would a renamed thread necessarily remain ‘read’ on your screen?
Probably something to do with cookies, but I’m not techy enough to know.

It looks like the URL stays the same/original even if the title gets renamed, so could work off that. I can imagine the threads have unique and immutable IDs.

[Rob]

Jacob wrote:

Is this something you’re planning on doing regularly and is it sustainable? Several times over the last week I got caught reading the same threads twice because they got renamed. I tend to remember the titles so I don’t read the same threads twice, but if you rename it after I read it, it looks like a new topic to me. Which I then open and realize after a few seconds that I’ve already seen it.

Can I therefore suggest some options?
1. Implement a feature which differentiate between read and unread threads? E.g. Unread in bold
2. If renaming, try to keep it close to the original title? E.g. Instead of renaming “BA LGW” to “What is the lounge situation in Gatwick?”, but rather make it something like “BA LGW lounges”

Don’t take this negatively, maybe it’s just me problem and I shouldn’t visit the forum so often and feel free to ignore me 😂… But thought I mention it in case other people feel the similar…

We are trying to do 2) as best we can, and I’ve been trying to be more laid back about it.

It’s possible we make light changes initially and then do a fundamental title rewrite further down the line when the thread has died away.

We won’t stop doing it, because if we can get a thread title to show on Google as the default answer to a particular query then its SEO gold for us. Yesterday we had 1,800 page views in the forum which initiated from a Google search – it’s huge for us if you extrapolate over a year, especially if you factor it up as the database of queries grows.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[Lady London]

Then maybe the Creation bashing thread should be retitled “Creation cancelled my IHG card” or “My IHG card cancelled and refuses to pay the free night and IHG points”