@IsaacMoses Hello. My flags were to indicate that a question title could be improved if they were more specific (not use the word "we"). Instead of saying "why do we...", it should say "Why do Chasidic Jews..." or whatever is appropriate for those questions.
That's what people will search for when searching for answers to their questions.
@RobertCartaino In both cases, I think "we" implied, roughly "those who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition and anyone interested in learning more," in other words, the scope of the site.
@IsaacMoses OTOH "we" can be omitted: instead of "Why do we [infinitive]" it can be "Why [infinitive]".
@IsaacMoses No, not that one. Some movie whose action takes place in the military, and the sergeant (or whoever) is calling the roll, and everyone replies "yo" except one guy who responds "yo, yo". To be honest, that's the only part of the movie I remember.
@RobertCartaino I would expect the Jewish context of all J.SE questions to be provided to search engines by all kinds of important elements on every page, including the title, URL, etc.
@IsaacMoses Nobody would go to Google and type in anything even remotely reminiscent of "Why don't we bow 'correctly' anymore?"... so the question is less than findable.
It's not every question. Only two (that I saw) was worded in such a vague context.
Most are worded correctly: e.g. "Did Shuls in Europe display their countries' flags prior to the holocaust?"
My suggestion was only to word ambiguous titles to be more specific.
Specifically: Any ideas for rewording "why don't we bow 'correctly' any more"? I can't think of anything TBH except sticking 'Jews' in there, which is already taken care of in the <title>.
@IsaacMoses 44th for me, and it's the "kashering a microwave" question (169).
I did not know if "Jewish" was the correct context for that particular question which is why I didn't "improve" the question myself. So I flagged; That's all.
@IsaacMoses There does not need to be the word "Jewish" in every title. Those two particular questions are ambiguous if you are only seeing the title. Titles are important. If I saw a Tweet that said "Why don't we bow 'correctly' any more", it makes no sense. It's much clearer to say "Why don't Jews bow correctly anymore" or whatever makes the title clearer.
... I don't really see why that's necessary for SEO, though I do see your point about tweets (though the latter is presently not a huge vector for bringing in readers)
Hm............ looking at the list of active questions, I see (surprisingly) the vast majority already do have something in the title that's Jewish-specific, if nothing more thana translitrated word.
@msh210 Not surprising to me. Most times I hear non-J.SE SE people commenting on J.SE, they're saying that the list of questions is filled with nonsense words (from their perspective).
Only the railing one I just mentioned, the food-wrapping one, "Is it permissible to erase the name of G-d from an E-reader?", and "Were slave-related commandments observed in America?", & "Buying New Electronics During the 9 Days" are not clearly Jewish (on the site's home page).
In chat, Robert Cartaino indicated that a few questions looked ambiguous and not "findable." He clarified:
Titles are important. If I saw a Tweet that said "Why don't we bow 'correctly' any more", it makes no sense. It's much clearer to say "Why don't Jews bow correctly anymore" or whatever m...
Would there be any halakhic problem with using LDS resources to do family history research, if you knew it would result in deceased Jews being named in posthumous baptism rituals? Or is this completely irrelevant?
(Note that in practice this would not seem to be an issue, as they seem to have p...
In many places (or at least in the USA), users are charged for incoming calls and text messages.
If someone explicitly tells someone else to stop calling or texting their number, does that person then become responsible for such charges? Or can he/she claim that the phone company is the one char...
A three-part question about funerary practices.
In ancient times, Jews used to bury people for a year or two, then, after the body decomposed, collect their bones and put them in a family cave. In antiquity, the bones were all placed together, but later on, the bones were collected into ossuari...
In a no-lose lottery, lots of people put money in a bank; all of them will get their money back whenever they want. Additionally, the bank takes the proceeds from investing their money and occasionally gives a random person a large bonus sum.
My impression is that those who prohibit gambling in...
As with all retroactive title editing, I'd focus on questions whose content is particularly valuable or has gotten lots of views (following the lead of the CHAOS people, who are cleaning up titles for the top 1000 questions per site, by views).
@IsaacMoses Nice. "What happened to", like the original "Why not", implies both the first two parts of the question (literally what happened to it) and the third (why not reinstate it), which is something I couldn't think of how to do.
Is there any truth to the common claim that each person has a predetermined number of words that he can speak in his life? Source, please.
If so, then how does it work? In particular (with sources or arguments, please):
To whom does this apply? Jews? others?
Does each person have the same numb...
I realize this is a very common question, but the problem of evil is an important one, and as far as I can tell, has not been asked here.
In short, why does G-d allow evil to exist?
Why is chicken considered meat but fish is not? Also, why is an egg considered pareve? And if we can eat chicken eggs, why can't we eat caviar (fish eggs)?
A sign at a recent rally protesting New York's 2011 Marriage Equality Act reads
Judaism considers male homosexuality a worse sin than murder
I imagine that this is a minority opinion, but does it have any support at all in Jewish thought?
In chat, Robert Cartaino indicated that a few questions looked ambiguous and not "findable." He clarified:
Titles are important. If I saw a Tweet that said "Why don't we bow 'correctly' any more", it makes no sense. It's much clearer to say "Why don't Jews bow correctly anymore" or whatever m...
^ Those are off the "hot" lists. So is this next one, but since its content really isn't Jewish-specific, I don't think it's a problem to leave the title as is. ;-)
@msh210 I gave it a try. In some of these cases, I guess we just have to cop out to "in Halacha"/ "in Minhag"/ "in Aggada" / "in Judaism" / etc.
In this case, I like the change the apparent cop-out form made even outside of the current effort. "Prohibited" is a bit ambiguous, even in our context.
... a side-effect of this effort is to increase the percentage of question titles that could intimidate a newbie/outsider, but oh, well; I guess that percentage was pretty high already.
and even go to "Finite number of words to speak (aggadic concept)" if you want to eliminate another ~10 chars
@msh210 To make it clear what the topic is, as opposed to, say, a limit on how much one may talk in shul (or something). But maybe that much specification is unnecessary in this title.
There are many questions currently in our system that have more than one distinct question stuffed into a single posting.
Two quick examples:
Cholent falafel Bracha
Why is chicken “meat” (w.r.t. basar bechalav)? And about eggs
Having these "multiple questions" is a serious detriment to our l...
I've heard from people that it says in Kabbalah that one shouldn't walk with one's hands behind one's back. Does anyone know the source?
In chat, Robert Cartaino indicated that a few questions looked ambiguous and not "findable." He clarified:
Titles are important. If I saw a Tweet that said "Why don't we bow 'correctly' any more", it makes no sense. It's much clearer to say "Why don't Jews bow correctly anymore" or whatever m...
In a no-lose lottery, lots of people put money in a bank; all of them will get their money back whenever they want. Additionally, the bank takes the proceeds from investing their money and occasionally gives a random person a large bonus sum.
My impression is that those who prohibit gambling in...
Can someone swear off something that is already prohibited to them?
For instance: "I swear I won't eat non-kosher."
A sign at a recent rally protesting New York's 2011 Marriage Equality Act reads
Judaism considers male homosexuality a worse sin than murder
I imagine that this is a minority opinion, but does it have any support at all in Jewish thought?
After a fast often people get sick when they eat. What type of food or drink is the best way to break the fast and avoid becoming ill?
