What are common mistakes in titles that get posts removed or downvoted?

Several categories of title mistakes reliably result in removal, downvotes, or both. The most common is vagueness — a title so generic that moderators and readers cannot determine whether the post belongs in the community. "Help needed" or "Weird situation" tells no one anything, and many communities have rules requiring titles to be descriptive enough to stand alone. Clickbait phrasing is another frequent offender. Titles written to provoke emotional reactions without delivering substance — "This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen" above an otherwise innocuous image — feel manipulative to experienced Reddit users, who tend to downvote them. News communities often have explicit rules against editorializing, meaning you must use a headline close to the original article's without adding your own spin. Titles that contain a request for votes — "Upvote if you agree," "Let's get this to the front page" — violate Reddit's site-wide rules against vote manipulation and are removed automatically or by moderators. Similarly, titles that explicitly ask for awards or Reddit Gold are frowned upon in most communities. Spelling and grammar errors in titles signal low effort, which many communities penalize with downvotes even when the content is genuinely interesting. This is especially true in advice and information communities where credibility matters. All-caps titles are widely disliked and are explicitly banned in many subreddits. Titles that misrepresent the content of the post — promising a funny story and delivering an advertisement, for example — are considered deceptive and often result in both downvotes and removal. Finally, titles that include spoilers for media (games, movies, TV shows) without a spoiler warning are a consistent source of frustration in entertainment communities. Reading a community's rules about title formatting before posting is the most reliable way to avoid these mistakes. Another frequently overlooked mistake is recycling a title that a quick search would reveal has been used dozens of times before in the same community. In communities with strong anti-repost enforcement, a title identical or nearly identical to previous posts may trigger automated removal. Taking sixty seconds to search for your proposed title before submitting is a minimal investment that prevents a common and easily avoidable removal.