Am I applying the right procedure? I asked a question and gave it a subject. Someone edited the title to something irrelevant (I assume unknowingly). I replaced the title with something similar to my original title and a bit more precise. The new edit was rolled back by another editor. This time I left the title but edited my opening post to begin with a statement that the title is not what I was asking and to clarify what I was asking. The mistitling could make the actual question harder to find in a search. What should I do next?
3 Answers
Ideally, the title should state the question/main topic that is more-or-less clear to anybody without reading the question body, while the body is to give more context to the question.
The 5th revision done by you stated that the title doesn't reflect the question, in which you added
I never asked if a business could declaim anything and my question is not centered on contracts of adhesion. I asked about whether a contract is one if it is described by a party as not a contract, even if adhesion law applies.
(Emphasis mine)
Instead of clarifying on the body while still having a conflicting title, you should instead clarify the title. In fact, your sentence that I emphasized looks like the main question, in which it should also be used in the title, like
Is it still a contract if it is described by a party as "not a contract", even if adhesion law applies (between two parties)?
Sometimes, being verbose helps better than being unclear.
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1I agree on verbosity vs. vagueness; for me, it's a constant balancing exercise in which success depends on who's looking. This answer seems to have worked.– NickCommented Jun 4, 2018 at 21:41
I would say that it is imperative that a title make sense and be clearly related to the body of the question. Too often, the body of a question does not include any actual question, just a stream of attendant facts, and the question itself is contained in the title of the Q. In essence, the title, and the body of the Q, have become equal partners in the notion of an SE "question". If the title and body of the Q are unclear or contradictory, then the question should be closed as "unclear what you're asking". When it is possible to repair one of those defects, the problem is often fixed, because the alternative of closing for unclarity is a bit harsher.
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I prefer, before posting anywhere, to draft a body to be complete and then title it, not vice versa and not as two incomplete pieces, so the body stands alone. If editors judge my entry as unclear, whether closing or not I hope they'd say how it's unclear so I'd know what to clarify. Not saying how saves editors time but makes repair dependent on guessing. (Sometimes, I'm too concise and should aerate.)– NickCommented Jun 4, 2018 at 21:34
It looks like feetwet was trying to make the title easier for answerers to scan and understand.
As it was, your original title, "if something said not to be a contract", is a sentence fragment and doesn't state the actual question.
feetwet has read the body of your question and tried to phrase the title as an actual question.
Disclaim means to claim that something is not the case.
I would say that "disclaiming a contract of adhesion" means what you're asking, which is "to say that a contract of adhesion is not actually that".
If you insist on your original title, I would expect that users will respect that. However, please note that it may make it less likely that you will get answers, as answerers will need to take the extra step of reading your question body, rather than knowing that they can answer it by reading the title.
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I use sentence fragments titularly for concision for scanning and for fit to a possible length limit but I could have bookended with "what" and "?" instead of implying the question. I was not asking mainly about contracts of adhesion; adhesion-ness was only a secondary factor. Both answers that came pretty much answered my original question, even if we ignore the part of one that answered the question I didn't ask, so success was achieved and the latest title will relevantly support other readers' searches. (Relevance is valid; it's now achieved.)– NickCommented Jun 4, 2018 at 21:31