The search was referring to Google... Not chaz...
Look, I realize no one cares about the financial side of things around here but me. However, this place cost money and I'd like to hope that some day, it can actually sustain itself without me having to come out of pocket every month to keep it running.
If that means the members have to adjust their thread titles to be "relevant", I don't think that is such an outrageous request.
The thread title is THE most important part of the post as it ends up being the page title, which in turn has the most impact on your search engine rankings.
This is why forums are so concerned with them. It directly impacts the traffic the forum gets, the members who join and the people who click on ads.
I read this a couple hours ago, and have sat/thought about it since. As members, we're already here, and use the search within the site if we wish to find something. Search engine hits are one of your focus's, to try to draw in new people....something that is nice for us, but not something we need.
However, you bought (ok, I'm assuming you bought it, and going from a very poor memory of the thread of the transistion) Chaz, and I suspect that you did it with the intent of running it as a business, or at least a portion thereof. Along with looking at the books, you had plenty of time to read, peruse, participate (if you so desired) the forum. If you did that at all, I'm sure you saw that thread titles aren't always the most explicit here.
When it was announced that you were taking it over, you wanted to maintain the feeling of chaz. Now you're making changes...fine, it's your ball, you can play the game how you want. If you take it home all for yourself even, you have that right as an owner.
At the same time, changing how the game is played, will affect some of the players...some will like it, some won't. Some might take there bat and gloves and go home themselves.
If Chaz, as is, doesn't earn enough to fund itself at least, there are options. Pay it yourself, add more ads that pay, ask for donations, or sell it and cut your losses. I suspect that if it were offered for sale publicly, there are members here that may consider buying it, but not completely certain myself.
I have been watching the forum the last while, and see the changes happening, both from within, and from it's leadership. Will it stay the same? Not with what's happening now and over the next week or so. Will it be better, worse, or just different? That remains to be seen.
If, making the thread title 'relevant' is an official request, do so. If it's a suggestion, state that. On the other hand, there's no reason why a thread title can't be adjusted if necessary. Using the ingrown toenail example, if it starts as 'Ewwwww', then develops into a thread that has good advice about it, a mod can simply state "This thread is a good one, I'd like to modify the title so it can be found easily during a search", I suspect most here won't object. Threads could also be moved to a section that are strictly for those topics as well, a forum section that is closed for open posting, but contains reference information. If, or when that is done, extra posts and the 'cutsey' titles etc can be edited out.
If you're going to change it, change it...the balls yours to do as you wish. There's lots of things on here that need fixing IMO, but, since the rules are going to be more enforced, I won't go itno it here, however, feel free to PM if you want.