When a very short subject line is too long

Showing $$\frac{|\overrightarrow{A_1B}|}{|\overrightarrow{A_1C}|}\frac{|\overrightarrow{B_1C}|}{|\overrightarrow{B_1A}|}\frac{|\overrightarrow{C_1A}|}{|\overrightarrow{C_1B}|}=1$$ implies $$AA_1$$, $$BB_1$$, $$CC_1$$ concur

Does anyone regard the above as an inappropriately long subject line for a question?

It exceeds the number of characters allowed. Do those who make the rules and those who write the software understand things like this?

• It seems that you are talking about this recent question: Showing $\frac{|\vec{A_1B}|}{|\vec{A_1C}|}\frac{|\vec{B_1C}|}{|\vec{B_1A}|}\frac{|\vec{C_1A}|}{|\vec{C_1B}|}=1$ implies $AA_1$, $BB_1$, $CC_1$ concur Do you suggest an alternative title? – user9464 Sep 12 '20 at 20:19
• @T.S : Why would I be the one asked to suggest an alternative title when I am the one suggesting that this title should NOT be considered too long? – Michael Hardy Sep 14 '20 at 16:46
• Well, (1) I did not see you suggested "this title should NOT be considered too long" in your post but only later in your comment. (2) the one I linked is different from yours: they used \vec while you use \overrightarrow and that's why I asked if you suggest an "alternative". (3) I'm one of those who upvoted this post; this is of course not relevant to your question though. – user9464 Sep 22 '20 at 1:40

Showing $\frac{|\overrightarrow{A_1B}|}{|\overrightarrow{A_1C}|}\frac{|\overrightarrow{B_1C}|}{|\overrightarrow{B_1A}|}\frac{|\overrightarrow{C_1A}|}{|\overrightarrow{C_1B}|}=1$ implies $AA_1$, $BB_1$, $CC_1$ concur (215 characters).

Since \newcommand is now local, I believe it is safe to do [Edit: as per Martin's comment, this may not be so safe]

Showing $\newcommand\Y[3]{\frac{|\overrightarrow{#1_1#2}|}{|\overrightarrow{#1_1#3}|}}\Y ABC\Y BCA\Y CAB=1$ implies $AA_1$, $BB_1$, $CC_1$ concur (145 characters, under the 150 limit)

The MathJax result is the same: yours is

Showing $$\frac{|\overrightarrow{A_1B}|}{|\overrightarrow{A_1C}|}\frac{|\overrightarrow{B_1C}|}{|\overrightarrow{B_1A}|}\frac{|\overrightarrow{C_1A}|}{|\overrightarrow{C_1B}|}=1$$ implies $$AA_1$$, $$BB_1$$, $$CC_1$$ concur

Mine is

Showing $$\newcommand\Y[3]{\frac{|\overrightarrow{#1_1#2}|}{|\overrightarrow{#1_1#3}|}}\Y ABC\Y BCA\Y CAB=1$$ implies $$AA_1$$, $$BB_1$$, $$CC_1$$ concur

If you want to slightly mess the formatting, you can replace the three $,$s with \  for 3 more characters.

PS the frustration is not unwarranted but the website designer(s) likely had to work around certain compromises; not assuming their lack of understanding would perhaps result is less downvotes (not that it matters, in meta of all places).

• As far as I can tell, newcommand can still "leak" from the titles: Should titles be included in begingroup..endgroup (similarly as posts and comments)? (Unless it has already been fixed, but the bug is not marked (status-completed).) In fact, the answer saying that macros in the titles should be blacklisted gained some support. – Martin Sleziak Sep 13 '20 at 8:32
• @MartinSleziak ah, well that's unfortunate then...not that I disagree with the proposal! – Calvin Khor Sep 13 '20 at 8:40
• I will also add that there is a recommendation against macros in the title here: Guidelines for good use of $\rm\LaTeX$ in question titles. Still, that recommendation was likely given for the reasons related to the scope of macros (which, in this case, also include posts showing the title among related/linked questions). So if this problem is fixed one day, then this recommendation will become less important. – Martin Sleziak Sep 13 '20 at 8:43
• Just as a test whether the difference between macros in a title and macros in the body of a post still persists, I have posted this question: math.stackexchange.com/q/3824320 I will eventually delete it, but I will leave it around for some time - in case somebody wants to experiment with this question or what happens if another question is linked to it, etc. – Martin Sleziak Sep 13 '20 at 8:49
• I have added a bug report also on Meta Stack Exchange: Shouldn't the titles be enclosed in the begingroup..endgroup, too? (Sorry for the digression from the original topic, which was shortening of the title - still, macros in the titles are somewhat related.) – Martin Sleziak Sep 13 '20 at 9:30
• Are you saying this \newcommand should be in the body of the question and it will be effective in the title? – Michael Hardy Sep 14 '20 at 16:49
• @MichaelHardy I believe that won’t work. It definitely won’t work if it shows up in related questions since the body isn’t loaded in that situation – Calvin Khor Sep 14 '20 at 23:48

Improvise:

E.g., click on "edit" to see my almost instantaneous improvisition of the proposed title:

"Showing $$\frac{|\vec{A_1B}|}{|\vec{A_1C}|}\frac{|\vec{B_1C}|}{|\vec{B_1A}|}\frac{|\vec{C_1A}|}{|\vec{C_1B}|}=1\iff AA_1, BB_1, CC_1$$ concur."

Even shorter:

Do $$\frac{|\vec{A_1B}|}{|\vec{A_1C}|}\frac{|\vec{B_1C}|}{|\vec{B_1A}|}\frac{|\vec{C_1A}|}{|\vec{C_1B}|}=1\iff AA_1, BB_1, CC_1$$ concur?

I tested it, and the question's title immediately passed the software's muster.

I suspect the software counting characters does not have a separate loop when encountering mathjax, to differentiate the characters in mathjax, know that it is mathjax, then render the mathjax to count actual characters rendering, and give it a pass. The software counts, most efficiently (to not delay successful posting), the total number of characters in the title field.

• Another way is to combine the LHS as one fraction which saves at least ten characters. – TheSimpliFire Sep 12 '20 at 18:47
• @TheSimpliFire good point! – amWhy Sep 12 '20 at 18:50
• +1, this sort of MathJax hack has been occasionally useful to me in the past. Other ways you can do this sort of thing are reducing the number of \mathscr, \mathcal, \mathbb and other such tags by extending them over punctuation (make sure this doesn't alter the punctuation too much, though!). Perhaps a feature request or further discussion of improving the title character counting when encountering MathJax might be in order. – KReiser Sep 12 '20 at 20:11
• BTW, a possible reason for the downvote(s) could be that the "implies" was turned into an "$\iff$". Changing the \iff to \implies $\implies$ does not make either of them over the 150 limit. A second reason could be that its essentially the current title of the linked question, and therefore might be seen to sidestep what OP wanted to discuss (despite the comment showing the linked question coming after this answer). – Calvin Khor Sep 17 '20 at 7:55