How arrogant that you believe the rest of us can't read the excerpt and understand what the "real meaning" of the article is.
Your comments are welcome and what this forum is all about. But insisting on putting them in the title box --- especially in EVERY THREAD YOU POST --- is immature and selfish.
The fact that other posters do it doesn't make it helpful. And very few do it consistently. Yes, there are a handful of posters who do it on EVERY thread, although some have reconsidered the practice and, out of consideration for the forum, stopped (or mostly stopped). You don't know what conversations take place behind the scenes, which is the preferred way of handling these types of issues and which I attempted with you.
(BTW, to say you're "continuing to do this" because I am stalking you is . . . Sorry. You have been doing this FOREVER, for years! And I finally just decided to speak up a short while ago, as the problem was getting more and more out of hand. But the fact that your reason for continuing to do something that bugs people is that it bugs people pretty much sums up the problem.)
However, the fact that some posters do it does lead to even more doing it (newbies esp. learn by example) --- which makes the forum look like crap and not work very well, especially for those reading it on a small screen.
I sent you a very civil fm, to which you did not respond. Therefore, I will repeat some of the reasons I wish you would kindly reconsider this practice:
1. First and foremost, the title box is supposed to contain the "exact title" of the article. Yes, the mods allow some parentheticals, but that doesn't mean that freepers can't express their view that some posters totally abuse the discretion they are graciously granted to modify, sometimes, for a good reason, the "exact title."
2. Putting the poster's editorial comments in the title box messes with search. In the example I gave you in private, you once posted, in the title box, your opinion that such and such was unconstitutional. If I search for a REAL title that has the word "unconstitutional" in it, I end up having to sort through unnecessary comments such as yours, which are unhelpfully addended to the "exact title," while trying to find the REAL article I am looking for.
Search has enough problems. Out of simple courtesy to others, if they express that this causes a problem, why not simply be nice and put your comment in the comment box?
3. Sometimes it is not clear that the comment of the poster, which should be in the comment box, but is instead unhelpfully added in the title box, is NOT the author's title. In fact, I have seen articles where I discovered the poster's comment had changed the author's meaning to the exact opposite.
That is not right or fair. We use the author's articles here for a "fair use." People can rip up the author's article all they want --- in the COMMENT section. It is not fair to the author to, in effect, change the title they intended their work to have.
4. These snide little remarks and "helpful hints" about what the article is "really" about, according to the poster, make the forum look like a crap Facebook or MySpace page, where teenagers are writing "OMG!!" in their entries and so on.
We can read! Have the discipline to put your comments in the comment box, so scrolling through the article titles doesn't look like a romp through romper room instead of a clean, organized list of article titles that actually reflect the AUTHOR's meaning for the title.
5. Again, it's pretty arrogant and, frankly, embarrassing to think that freepers can't read the excerpt of the article and understand its "real meaning" -- at least enough to know whether they want to click on the link -- without the poster adding an explanatory comment in the title box.
We don't come here to have anyone tell us what the articles "really mean" (your words). All are welcome to state their views and opinions, but proceeding as if freepers need help understanding article titles ON EVERY THREAD is just flat out incorrect and arrogant.
6. Telling freepers who agree with the above, and it's not just me, to simply boycott the threads is another example of arrogance and just plain lack of consideration. Why is it is so important to you to have your comment mucking up the title box when you can place it number one in the comment box if it's so important?
In fact, I have boycotted these threads for a long time, but that doesn't address any of the issues I raised above. The forum still looks like "OMG!!!" garbage, it's arrogant, it messes with search and it's inappropriate and inconsiderate to the author of the article.
The only way to escape this title-modification gone wild is to not use the forum at all, and that's a pretty arrogant request by the few posters who insist on putting their comments in lights in the title box --- especially considering how easy it is to just put comments in the comment box!
I simply fail to understand the ego involved in insisting on "explaining" titles, and "the real meaning of the article" (again, your words), to one's fellow freepers in the TITLE box, especially if it causes even the least bit of offense. Why not just be nice and put your comment in the comment box? How hard is that?
There are more reasons than those above, but if someone is inclined to play nice, that should be enough. If not, that says a lot about the situation and the impulse in the first place to make sure the rest of us can figure out what the article is "really about" (as you said) in the poster's opinion.
Oh, and on that point: Sorry, but many of these comments that a few posters insist on putting in the title box are NOT about anything more than giving that poster's opinion on the article. They simply can't help themselves from giving their opinion in the title box, rather than placing it in the comments like everyone else.
Look at this very thread (or any other thread you have posted): Until you or the mod removed the editorial comment (where you said something like "people are figuring out that Obama is distructive [sic]", that was simply an expression of your opinion, i.e. an editorial -- it wasn't anything that even, by the standard you posited, "helped" people "really understand" what the article was about --- much less what the AUTHOR intended the article to be about (which is what the TITLE is for).
And I am not stalking you. I do sometimes post a blank comment on threads where the comment in the title box is highly aggravating or embarrassing in its effect. (This is not to say the same comment would not have been a good point for discussion if simply put in the comment box, where it belonged.)
The reason I leave the post blank is because I DON'T want to stalk you. I tried to engage you in private and you didn't want to have a conversation about this. So that's that. But I do want, and have a right to express my opinion, as in my tagline, in hopes that other freepers, who do want to play nice --- even if they don't agree with what bugs other freepers --- will themselves refrain from making the forum look and function like crap.
Seeing a spelling error in the comment in the title box on your thread this morning -- sorry, maybe I hadn't had enough coffe yet, but it was just too much. We all make spelling errors and typos from time to time, but to me it just points out another reason why it's dumb and arrogant and looks bad to post comments in the title box. OTOH, a mistake made in the comments is just one of those things.
I would have liked, and tried, to have this conversation in private, but there you go.
Thanks.