Topic Abstracts

From Barbelith

What's a topic abstract?

Basically when you start a topic you get given a small space to write a quick summary of the thread that you are starting. This is displayed every time anyone tries to reply to the thread, reminding them to keep their replies roughly on topic. It's also used in RSS / RDF syndication systems and will eventually be syndicatable onto lots of other people's sites. However, at the moment it's most important function is that it's one of the only searchable things on Barbelith itself.... Only titles and abstracts show up on a search. This will change eventually, but in the meantime...

How to write a good topic abstract

Basically the ideal topic abstract is pithy, full of search terms and tantalises people into the thread in question. Normally it's the equivalent of the first sentence or couple of sentences of your post, and - in fact - sometimes it's just worth directly copy and pasting them into the summary field. What you're looking for is enough of a summary to make it clear to people the kind of questions you're asking, or what arguments you're planning to make. It can be a really good way of making sure that you actually have something to talk about.

Here's something that Haus wrote about them that's quite useful:

Ok - let's assume that in X-Statix 8 Guy Smith is killed. So, we have a thread called "X-Statix 6 - Milligan and Allred" (although you might notice that titles in 'Comic Books' are rarely this accurate or succinct). So, somebody searching for "X-Statix" or "Milligan" will find that thread.

However, if somebody takes the time, in the abstract, to mention Guy Smith, then somebody searching for "Guy Smith" who does not want to read general X-Statix threads will be able to find this as a thread mentioning Guy Smith by searching for "Guy Smith" in "Topics and Abstracts".

Bear in mind: While not writing topic abstracts is generally considered to be poor form, disrupting threads to castigate the topic starter for not writing an abstract is also increasingly frowned upon. If you must complain, you should do so by a private message or --if it's recurrent behaviour-- by posting in The Policy. You may also like to direct people to these pages if you think that would be useful.

Please note that you can't put formatting in topic abstracts - no bold or italic tags, links and so on (see Formatting Text and Posting Links and Images).