Ethics of changing question title without asking OP

Question

On this Q&A: How do I see if and when someone logged in my account I was thinking of asking OP to change question title from:

• How do I see if and when someone logged in my account

to:

• How do I find user login history?

Since I took the time to answer the question I wanted to make it appeal to a broader audience. I felt the current title was too narrowly focused for an obscure situation and people would not click.

Then I realized I could just change the title myself but I think that is unethical.

I'm wondering if others have ever felt the same way and if they would actually go ahead and change the title?

I do change titles all the time to fix typos or make the title reflect the body of the question more accurately of course. So I think answers reflecting that are unnecessary here.

Answer 1

Be faithful to the question being asked, and you're okay ^{(with caveats)}

As you've already mentioned, it's not always the case that the original title and the question body align. This usually comes from people not really knowing how to phrase what they're asking. If you're going to retitle a question, it's important you take the whole picture into account.

What you're suggesting seems to make sense but if you're not first on the scene, it's important you take other opinions into account. If there are other answers which answer an alternative interpretation, it might be best to bring it to Meta. People get upset when you "break" their answers. It's even possible your interpretation is not accurate.

It's important to highlight that this logic applies to OPs too. It being your question does not mean you get to invalidate every answer because you phrased it incorrectly. If that's what you're facing, start a new question and make sure you're explicit.

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I understand why you're asking —you have a reputation interest in this— but I don't think that makes you wrong. The edit you're suggesting makes sense and it does not break the other answer. Go for it.