10

See also "Is there *really* a reason why so many questions *really* need to include the word 'really'?" for the reasons why using these two adverbs is not good for this site.

I periodically go through the list of questions and delete basically all usages of "really" and "actually" from the titles. Whilst there are a very few cases in which the use of these adverbs is warranted, I'd like to blacklist these words. Users that really need to use them can use a circumlocution (e.g. "Users that have a concrete necessity to use them...", see what I did there?)

The effect would be similar to this, the text has some customization for guidance.

test of blacklist effect on title

What do you think?

7
  • 1
    What would message would the user get when trying to submit a title with one of these words in it?
    – user5582
    Jul 12 '14 at 11:55
  • Looks good to me!
    – user5582
    Jul 12 '14 at 19:24
  • 10
    I <s>really</s> strongly wish that we could just have a pop-up saying "Please don't use that word! Here's why: link" rather than a hard ban. That would treat our users as intelligent people, rather than idiots. However, that's more a comment on Stack Exchange software, rather than "actually" and "really".
    – Andrew Grimm
    Jul 13 '14 at 1:35
  • 5
    This suggestions is really tempting. Must wait a while to calm down and find out what I actually think the consequences might be.
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Jul 13 '14 at 5:41
  • 3
    Do you Really think this is going to work? The law of unintended consequences tells me people will just use a thesaurus. I would love to see the results of this test though, and see if usage of genuinely, indeed, in fact, truthfully! etc. don't spike in usage when the ban is in place.
    – user1873
    Jul 14 '14 at 15:18
  • 1
    @user1873 We can try to avoid that with a good message demonstrating that simply removing the emphasis word is the suggested improvement. But, only trying will tell! And we can always undo the change just as easily.
    – user5582
    Jul 14 '14 at 16:39
  • Can we extend this to the word "true", to shorten "Is it true that ..." questions?
    – Andrew Grimm
    Mar 9 '19 at 5:54
3

Given the lack of meaninguful negative feedback, and that I've had to nuke three more really today, the blacklist is on.

The help text will be

Words like 'really' or 'actually' are usually superfluous in questions on this site, please avoid them.

enter image description here

Let me know if anything goes wrong, or if you think the text can be improved.

1
  • Why does "really" have double quotes but then the second time has single quotes in the message?
    – Stormblessed
    Apr 23 '19 at 1:29

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