Thread Titles

Alright, this is something that has probably been discussed too many times here. It may be halfway suited for the Board Q&B forum, but I'm wanting to just rant about it and not make it a formal "complaint" of any kind. This isn't being directed at any one thread or member in particular, just something bugging me.

I don't know how many times in the past couple of days I've seen a thread titled "The Truth about _______", "Is there any proof about _______?", "Proof about _____" or something similar. Seemingly honest questions, or something leading one to believe the subject is finally closed, with some smoking gun evidence or massive logical connection that can't be denied.

Click the title, ready for a good, reasonable debate or the chance to answer someone's question, and the body of the thread is little more than an ideological diatribe about subjects that have been beaten into the ground. Evolution, the war in Iraq, terrorism, just about anything that would have any kind of division in the ATS ranks.

"The truth is that ______ doesn't exist! Get over it!"

"No, there is no proof. Stop believing in it!"

The best solution is to ignore these threads, I know. And quite often I do. But sometimes they get sneaky. They throw out some halfway logical points to drag you in, and then when you feel like you're getting a reasonable debate going on, they switch over to to something along the lines of "No, you're just wrong," throwing in quotes from sources that have already been discussed ad nauseum and have been generally considered to be unreliable.

You know, I understand there's new people coming in on a daily basis. Not everyone knows or feels like searching to see if a subject's already been beaten to death or not. But for cryin out loud, make the subject line a little more obvious. "______ Is Wrong." "There is no proof for ______." Even Better: "My/Some Thoughts on ______." If you're asking a question in your subject line, don't answer it in your first paragraph. Make your post a question. If you're saying there is proof for something, then by all means, show proof. If you're saying "The Truth about" something, then GIVE US THE TRUTH, not YOUR OPINION. We've all got our own opinions, and if we all considered them the "truth" then we'd never learn anything. Opinions are perfectly fine in my book--they're the basis for any good debate. But don't try and pass them off as the truth. And just because it's someone elses opinion that they threw into a book to sell to people, that does not make it any more truthful than my opinion, your opinion before you read the book, or anyone elses.

I'm going to stop here because it's already almost impossible to go on without losing my temper enough to violate T&C. I do feel a little better now though