Real Question as Title or Statement as Title?

Question

Am I right to understand that the title of a question does not actually have to be a question? It seems that I often search for a question similar to mine but do not find one, but later, after I post, I find a "question" where their title isn't a question at all, but a statement.

For example, this question I asked has a title phrased as a question; this question has a title that is only a statement.

• Should I take the time to phrase my title as a real question or not?
• Does it even matter how the title is phrased, so long as it is descriptive of the topic?
• If phrasing the title as a question is not important, shouldn't we call it topic instead of question?

Consider this question you are reading. Is it better to call it,

Real Question as Title -vs- Statement as Title

or

Does it matter if the Title of a Question is phrased as a question?

Answer 1

Write the title that you think delivers your question or problem in the most succinct and clear way possible.

The difference between whether it's phrased as a question or a statement comes largely as a matter of preference.

Some people just don't care for wasting screen real estate with a fluffy, "How do I ..." (♪ breathe without you ♪). That style also adds extra words you have to scan through a list of others.

Others think the direct approach makes things sound too much like an article or blog post, but they'd be wrong and that's the only correct way to do things.

However you go, make sure it's a summary of the body post that gives a clear, or tipping clear, indication of what someone should expect the question and its answers to be about.

Most of the time, if you can make it a tl;dr then you're winning.

Answer 2

I have a strong preference towards the title being an actual question.

Take for example this question, which began with the title Ampliyfing Wireless Signal. From here it looks like a mundane question about boosting your wireless signal. It's entirely valid and fits the question well. After changing the title to How can I get a wireless signal inside a walk-in freezer?, which is what the question was really about, it drew interest and gathered around 20 upvotes for both the question and top answer.

Super User, being a Q&A site, is interested in two things: questions and answers. Mere titles are markedly less interesting, in my opinion. Most potential answer providers understand a broad array of subject matter, and seeing yet another WiFi question is boring. Getting a wireless signal inside a freezer though? That's interesting.

Putting your question in the title also forces you to clearly state and understand your question. If you can't sum up your entire question in the title, do you really know what you're asking yet? I'm sure there's some edge cases where it's difficult to state your question in a single sentence, but for the majority of questions I'd be willing to bet there's a good single sentence question, and the rest is just about filling in details.

Regardless of whether you "should" put your question in the title, doing so always makes sense.

Answer 3

Please read this post on meta-stackoverflow.com.

The key message is: You have only 16 characters in your title, so don't waste them.
Read the good/bad examples and look if you agree with them.

2. Keep it short.

You don't have to put all the details in the title. There's plenty of space to expand your question in the body of the text.

Likewise, don't insist that your title be expressed as a perfectly formed English sentence.

3. Lead with the most important words.

These articles discuss how people read web pages, based on using an eye tracking system to monitor users. For Stack Overflow-like pages people read most of the first and second entries (the bars of the "F"), and then scan down the rest of the list, reading on average the first 16 characters of each line.

4. Don't start with "How do I..."

Writing in that style ensures that you title will fail criteria 1-3, and get less attention than it deserves.

This is a question site, and people will understand your titles are questions.

To be fair: There is a certain amount of people who disagree with this.