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It doesn't currently, and it adds nothing to the question. Most of the time it's "urgent" because homework is due soon. Agree or disagree?

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    $\begingroup$ "Urgent" is one of those words that make me actively ignore a question. "No, your time is not more important than mine." $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Oct 9, 2016 at 22:44
  • $\begingroup$ @J.M. Fully agreed. $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Oct 10, 2016 at 0:14
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    $\begingroup$ If it triggers a warning, isn't it just helping the poster be cleverer in disguising a homework question? Whereas if there were no warning and the word was left in, we would know it was a homework question and we could close it. By the time the OP understands, it'd be too late (if indeed it was "urgent"). Of course, this depends on whether our aim is to be "ethical" and not answer homework questions as much as possible, or only to have to answer well written questions. $\endgroup$
    – M. Vinay
    Oct 10, 2016 at 2:35
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    $\begingroup$ @M.Vinay I have no issue with homework questions and I don't think many people do. Low quality questions or homework questions with no effort shown, I do have a problem with and I routinely downvote/vote to close. $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Oct 10, 2016 at 2:46
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    $\begingroup$ @ZacharySelk If the OP chooses to use the word "urgent", then the rest of the question is also most likely to be poorly typed, or at least to show no effort. See this comment too. $\endgroup$
    – M. Vinay
    Oct 10, 2016 at 2:55
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    $\begingroup$ @M.Vinay That's why I want to offer a warning. Most of these questions are low quality. Hopefully a warning would get them to think first. Maybe...maybe not. We can at least try though. $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Oct 10, 2016 at 2:59
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    $\begingroup$ @M. Vinay, As Zachary says, a warning will at least force them to pause. Certainly, it may or may not trigger a reconsideration on the part of the asker, but at least we have given them the opportunity. $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Oct 10, 2016 at 4:19
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    $\begingroup$ @ZacharySelk: I apologize for the nuisance: I had deleted a tag without really understanding what role it played in the question. It wasn't a wise thing to do, so I rolled back to your original version. Once again, I apologize. $\endgroup$
    – Alex M.
    Oct 10, 2016 at 15:52
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    $\begingroup$ ur-gent adj. Requiring someone else to do my homework for me so I can go partying with my friends over the weekend. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Soupe
    Oct 14, 2016 at 3:51
  • $\begingroup$ Wonder why my comment was removed? $\endgroup$
    – copper.hat
    Oct 14, 2016 at 4:13
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    $\begingroup$ I certainly understand what you're saying, but I'm curious. Why spend time here, answering other people's questions, who may not even show appreciation for your efforts? @J.M. $\endgroup$
    – Mad Banners
    Oct 17, 2016 at 8:01
  • $\begingroup$ Related: My catalog of words that should generally not appear in question titles $\endgroup$
    – MJD
    Oct 15, 2017 at 16:43

1 Answer 1

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I agree. Right now there is a smallish list of words that will cause a warning to pop up when they appear in short question titles . From Shog9's answer the regex is

^.{0,30}(^|\W)(anyone|difficult|doubt|easy|hard|help|interesting|please|problem|query|question|someone|stuck|very)(\W|$).{0,30}$

(Essentially a title containing at least one of the listed words and at most 30 characters before and at most 30 characters after matches the regex.)

Adding urgent to this list shouldn't be much of a problem.

This word doesn't actually appear in too many titles (using moderator abilities, only 61 questions on the site, deleted and undeleted, currently have this word in the title). However it is often a sign of a terrible question: only 10 of these questions remain on the site undeleted. Of course, this word is often edited out by other users, but according to the SEDE, there are only 31 extant questions which were originally posted with "urgent" in the title.

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    $\begingroup$ Why are the words "question"/"query"/"problem" on the list? $\endgroup$
    – John Mayne
    Oct 10, 2016 at 10:11
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    $\begingroup$ @JohnMayne Because they are pretty much superfluous. Since one is asking a question, it's generally redundant to use "question" in the title. "Query" and "problem" are generally synonyms (though "problem" does have some technical uses). Not that these warnings do much. Over 2700 undeleted questions asked this year currently have "question" in the title. Another 800 have been deleted. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Oct 10, 2016 at 11:29
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    $\begingroup$ Any status on getting this done? $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Oct 12, 2016 at 4:43
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    $\begingroup$ @ZacharySelk Site moderators cannot alter the site blacklists/warnings, so someone else will have to do it. I've pinged a CM linking specifically to this question, so someone should know about it. I don't think it is a difficult thing to do, but who knows when it'll get done. (It took about two years to get that other feature request implemented.) $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Oct 12, 2016 at 12:42
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks! Hopefully it won't take 2 years... $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Oct 12, 2016 at 13:39
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    $\begingroup$ @Zachary, well, 6-8 weeks seems likely... $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Oct 12, 2016 at 14:18
  • $\begingroup$ Hey, it's almost 2 years! Hahaha $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Jul 13, 2018 at 17:02
  • $\begingroup$ @ZacharySelk Now there is some response from the moderators at least in chat. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Jul 20, 2018 at 6:16
  • $\begingroup$ @martin thank you for the update $\endgroup$
    – user223391
    Jul 20, 2018 at 14:57

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