I was updating my blog by installing wordpress on a server of mine, and I had a particular question.
As it seems, it is not allowed to ask any questions about WordPress the software, since the question was closed twice by two different moderators (Ivo Flipse and random). Let's interpret the FAQ:
Super User is for computer enthusiasts and power users. If you have a question about …
- computer hardware
- computer software
My question is definitely about computer software, WordPress in this case.
and it is not about …
- videogames or consoles
- websites or web services like Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress
- electronic devices, media players, cell phones or smart phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer
And it is definitely NOT any of those; I was just givin an example of how it is configured on wordpress.com, but nothing else to do with it.
On the other hand one of the most common tags is Gmail (half questions closed, but still).
The most questions are operation-systems related. So:
- "how do I change my windows theme" would be allowed
- "how to change my wordpress (installed on my machine) theme" would be closed
This hardly makes sense to me, and it appears that too many questions are being closed on Super User for allegedly being offtopic. This is definitely not welcoming for users.
What could be done? Well, don't close so many questions, and make clearer definition of what cannot be asked; let's say "Everything that is on a computer of yours and is configurable by you is a proper subject to ask about".
Update: As per Ivo's comment (linking to Jeff's postlinking to Jeff's post) I'd propose explicitly mentioning in the faq that web-applications are out of the scope of Super User.
Update2: As limiting the scope via closing questions is not (imo) a good way to achieve "purity", why not introduce forbidden tags. I.e. whenever you tag wordpress, the system will pop a message "Wordpress is not allowed, see FAQ"
