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From the depth of the stack exchange network I bring to you the newest season (7) of our community effort against buzzwords in question titles. The word of the season this time is doubt.

In Indian English the word doubt is used as a synonym for question (see ELU), which makes it as terrible as question itself, which was featured in season one many moons ago.

I do think that the stack exchange network is the perfect place to ask questions in order to clear doubts, but without meaningful titles I doubt they will help as many people as they probably should.

Highlights of the season include quite good questions with helpful answers like "Doubt regarding the Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement in carbocations", and the usual homework type questions that are closed but have answers like "Doubt regarding the second law of thermodynamics".

I'd like to invite you to give some more meaning to a few of these if you have the time. Quoting our fearless leader:

This is no emergency, but it would be nice to have descriptive, googleable titles for these so that people can find them in the future. Admittedly, some of them are regular homework questions without much else, but extracting a concept from them for the title would still be helpful so that we can catalog them accordingly.

Please join me on the NeverEnding Quest versus the Buzzwords:

Wait ...
... there is more...
... frequently closed questions received answers, before they were put on hold. Usually abandoned questions will get removed at one point, so we do not have to worry about them. But sometimes answers on these questions gather a few up-votes, which prevents them from being deleted. The following SEDE query finds close questions with buzzwords in their title, that have answers. Why not give them some more meaning or a stab in the back?

Some more things before I go

A couple of the buzzing posts just desperately need a flag and/or a down-vote. Some of them maybe should have been closed many cpu-cycles ago. If you have one to spare, go ahead. Do it for the community, after all, we just want to keep the quality high.

Sometimes, even if the question looks like a really bad one, it could be a good idea to check if it has a good answer. Then it is still a good idea to edit them.

Please include a meaningful edit summary - if some things have to be sorted out its easier to look up changes. Especially when you suggest edits this will also help to get them approved easier.

And because this is meta:
Thank you for your attention.


Previously on 'Never mind the Buzzwords':

  1. I question the use of "question" in question titles (search here)
  2. Help make help questions have more helpful titles (search here)
  3. Houston, we have a "Problem" in question titles (search here)
  4. Buzzwords in question titles - season 4 & 5 - experiments and exercises (search here for experiments)
  5. Season 5 (search here for exercises)
  6. I am asking about chemistry, you know, that's why I put it in the title (search here for chemistry and here for chemical*)

Spin-off

  1. Can we edit out unnecessary "statements of weakness" or buzzwords inside the questions' bodies?
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    $\begingroup$ About time you showed up with the next season of doubty titles. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Oct 19, 2016 at 8:57
  • $\begingroup$ This post's formatting starts to get weird right after 'Wait'. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Oct 19, 2016 at 11:00
  • $\begingroup$ How To Overcome Doubt - Jocko Willink podcast (YouTube). Quite hilarious in the context of this question:) $\endgroup$
    – andselisk Mod
    Oct 28, 2019 at 13:57

3 Answers 3

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When I started about an hour ago, a search for is:question title:doubt gave 25 questions.

I (have tried to) fixed these.

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    $\begingroup$ That's cool, thank you :D I'm pretty sure there will come more of them, but the fewer the better. One note: is:question is redundant in this case, as only questions have titles. $\endgroup$ Oct 20, 2016 at 4:17
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    $\begingroup$ This is outrageous. We actually have someone in meta that DOES things. Blasphemy $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Oct 20, 2016 at 16:54
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    $\begingroup$ @M.A.R. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly -- Macbeth ;-) $\endgroup$ Oct 20, 2016 at 17:45
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    $\begingroup$ Great, now none show up. What are those of us late to the party supposed to do to understand the problem? Hack archive.org? $\endgroup$
    – feetwet
    Oct 29, 2016 at 23:47
  • $\begingroup$ @feetwet There are several examples in the OP. $\endgroup$
    – Melanie Shebel Mod
    Oct 30, 2016 at 3:49
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I've cleaned up a more recent question full of all that aforementioned doubt. I'll keep an eye out for other potential buzzwords and I'll occasionally look for this buzzword.

I doubt the community will let this buzzword accumulate in question titles again.

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Just a note: I found and cleaned up seven "doubt" questions today. They were mostly unanswered, bad homework type.

Interestingly, they were very old. That probably means our community hasn't received too many "doubt"s lately (or they have been edited out pretty quickly :D). Either way, that's great.

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