Suggestions for updating our FAQ

Question

Based on the results of the vote for a change of policy we've drawn the conclusion that the majority of the users (who voted) are in favor of allowing appropriate tablet questions.

So the new policy means we allow tablet questions, but we don't actively encourage iOS or Android questions. Basically, this is a start of making our hardware policy more in line with our software policy. We don't tell users with Ubuntu questions to go to AskUbuntu, so starting today we'll also stop telling iPad users to go to AskDifferent.

We will also have to update our FAQ and that's where we need your help! Ironically, tablets never were explicitly mentioned on our FAQ, so I'd propose to leave them out and consider them computer/computing hardware.

Here's a draft for the new FAQ, I used the FAQ from Math.SE as a template which points out that while certain topics are on-topic, there are also other sites on the network that might give you better response.

Super User is for computer enthusiasts and power users. If you have a question about …

• computer hardware
• computer software
• personal and home computer networking

… then this is the right place to ask!

There are certain subjects that, while still being on-topic here, might get better response on our sister sites for certain niche topics:

• Android for enthusiasts, power users, and regular people who use the Android operating system
• Ask Different for Apple enthusiasts and power users
• Ask Ubuntu for Ubuntu-related questions. It's also a place to share knowledge about Ubuntu
• Unix and Linux for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems

You are still welcome to post questions from the above categories here on Super User as long as they are otherwise on-topic; however, some types of questions are always considered off-topic:

• Shopping or product recommendations
• Programming and code — Stack Overflow
• Corporate IT support and networks — Server Fault
• Videogames and consoles — Arqade
• Websites or web services, like Facebook, Twitter — Web Apps or WordPress
• Devices, media players and phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer
• Questions about the site itself — please ask on our Meta instead. You can also ask questions that apply to all of Stack Exchange on Meta Stack Overflow, but you don't have to.

I copied the middle part straight from their respective FAQs, so don't blame the messenger. This does not mean we don't think Super User is a great place to ask questions about these respective topics, but just to make users aware that we're part of a larger network of great sites!

Now that this is incorporated into our FAQ, we'd also want to actively discourage comments pointing users to these sites. Don’t attempt to scavenge on-topic questions from other sites by asking the moderators there to migrate them to yours. Such comments should be flagged and will get deleted. The only times a user should be encouraged to have their question migrated to other sites are if the question is one of the following:

• off topic here, but on topic there
• getting very few views after at least a few days, and no good answers, and you believe it might get better answers there
• the user who asks the question requests it to be moved because they think it would do better there

Lastly, I know Daniel and slhck want to have our (software) recommendation policy to be more clear, so if you can think of a change of wording, feel free to propose it now.

Just so everyone knows, moderators can't change the FAQ on Trilogy sites like they can on (beta) SE 2.0 sites, so we'll have to run the final thing past the team.

Answer 1

My simple suggestion for the software recommendation issue would be to replace

Shopping or buying recommendations

With:

Shopping or product recommendations

This takes away the possibility to argue about "free" software, because price was never the problem with those.

status-completed

Answer 2

We don't tell users with Ubuntu questions to go to AskUbuntu, so starting today we'll also stop telling iPad users to go to AskDifferent.

Well, actually, with the new FAQ, we would tell users with Ubuntu questions to go away.

"You have a software question? Cool, come on in! ... Ah, what? Ubuntu? Do we look like we're using Ubuntu? The Ubuntu experts are over there. Well, if you insist, you can ask here, sure, but don't expect to get any answers. We're busy with the topics this site is actually meant for, not niche topics."

---

While there are sites with overlapping topics, but Ubuntu, Linux, or OS X simply aren't niche topics here:

Sure, there are more windows or windows-7 tagged questions than osx or ubuntu (not a big surprise, given the market share), but a niche looks different. There are almost four times as many recent Linux related questions than either firefox or google-chrome, software pretty much everybody uses every day. Every one of these "niche" tags has thousands of questions, and hundreds, or thousands of followers.

This would probably be the first FAQ to not actually be clear whether you should ask a question on the site. It's on topic, but the experts are over there after all.

If we didn't think these questions would fit here or could get answers, we wouldn't allow them, it's as easy as that. Quoting Ivo:

We nowadays get twice as many visits/day than when we made the original decision. So in contrast to Gadgets, which lacked sufficient users who could answer questions about a large plethora of gadgets, I think we have sufficient critical mass that as long as it isn't some obscure device, we should be able to answer it.

So let's not tell newcomers to go away unless we're confident it's a good idea for either them or us.

Answer 3

I feel like the following part a bit too verbose compared to the other list entries:

• Questions about electronic devices, media players, cell phones or smart phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer
• Shopping or product recommendations
• Questions about the site itself — please ask on our Meta instead. You can also ask questions that apply to all of Stack Exchange on Meta Stack Overflow, but you don't have to.

Anything we can do about that?

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Thoughts

The first part could be shortened because any phones that don't interface are off-topic. We can also assume that given the context of our site devices would be electronic, non-electronic shouldn't be on-topic either. Furthermore, you can cut off Questions about because you introduce the list with types of questions in the first place, so:

Devices, media players and phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer

It might even become better by adding in spacing in between the two types of list items using <br><br> or otherwise reword the parts around the list so that you can turn them into two separate lists.

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Based on the comments, here is an alternative:

• Programming and code on Stack Overflow
• Corporate IT support and networks on Server Fault
• Videogames and consoles on Arqade
• Websites or web services like Facebook, Twitter on WordPress or Web Apps
• Devices, media players and phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer
• Shopping or product recommendations
• Questions about the site itself — please ask on our Meta instead. You can also ask questions that apply to all of Stack Exchange on Meta Stack Overflow, but you don't have to.

Or if you hate bold, you can do it like this:

• Programming and code — Stack Overflow
• Corporate IT support and networks — Server Fault
• Videogames and consoles — Arqade
• Websites or web services, like Facebook, Twitter — WordPress or Web Apps
• Devices, media players and phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer
• Shopping or product recommendations
• Questions about the site itself — please ask on our Meta instead. You can also ask questions that apply to all of Stack Exchange on Meta Stack Overflow, but you don't have to.

We could also use , ask (them?) on instead of the —.

status-completed, but feel free to suggest better formatting where it makes sense.

Answer 4

The current FAQ accomplishes something that neither the original post nor the suggestions for improvement delivered so far: Delivering the entire on topic/off topic information in a single sentence.

I have, more than once, quoted a single sentence from the FAQ, that looked like this:

Super User is for computer enthusiasts and power users*. If you have a question about …

• computer hardware

and it is not about …

• a shopping or buying recommendation

… then you’re in the right place to ask your question!

I think the fact that the entire section is made up of a single sentence is important and this structure is worth keeping.

The few users who already care about reading the FAQ will stop reading after the first period tells them what they need to know: Everything about computer hardware and software goes! Especially with the "you could also ask here" information, nobody will read that much further, as the rest is clearly just additional bonus information for people with too much time on their hands. That we consider e.g. shopping recommendations off topic is just too far down the page!

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Given the following assumptions and observations:

• There is not a lot wrong, structurally, with the FAQ — all suggestions so far change a lot and there's no real explanation why.
• We don't actually need an FAQ change for the tablet issue, we just no longer consider them to be electronic devices, but computers.
• We really need to fix that product recommendation issue :-)
• Neither the community nor the moderators on a trilogy site can update the FAQ without developer support (and how often did that happen in the last few years?), so we shouldn't put a list of sites right there into the FAQ where it goes stale in a few months, and is restricted in size anyway by what we can reasonably put there.

... my suggestion is the following, changes in italic:

Super User is for computer enthusiasts and power users. If you have a question about …

• computer hardware,
• computer software, or
• personal and home computer networking

and it is not about …

• programming and software development,
• video games 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,
• issues specific to corporate IT support and networks,
• or asking for a shopping or product recommendation,

… then you’re in the right place to ask your question!

For suggestions where to post your question instead, please see here. If your question is about Super User, you can ask on Meta Super User.

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(I changed the "format" of the lists to be able to include the new product recommendation list item that doesn't start with about without starting all other items with about.)

We'd need to change the topic to include alternative sites for both off topic and on topic questions.

A bit further down the FAQ, there's also this gem (again, changes in italic):

What if I don’t get a good answer?

First, make sure you’ve asked a good question. To get better answers, you may need to put additional effort into your question. Edit your question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question and get more people interested in it. If you still don't get any answers, you can try to ask your question on a different site. Meta Super User has suggestions where you can ask your question instead.

Answer 5

Can I make the suggestion to make the "off-topic" section to look like this:

You are still welcome to post questions from the above categories here on Super User as long as they are otherwise on-topic; however, some types of questions are always considered off-topic:

• Programming and code questions. Feel free to use Stack Overflow
• Issues specific to corporate IT support and networks. Feel free to use Server Fault
• Videogames or consoles. Feel free to use Arqade
• Websites or web services like Facebook, Twitter. Feel free to use Web Apps and WordPress
• Questions about electronic devices, media players, cell phones or smart phones, except insofar as they interface with your computer
• Shopping or product recommendations
• Questions about the site itself — please ask on our Meta instead. You can also ask questions that apply to all of Stack Exchange on Meta Stack Overflow, but you don't have to.

Answer 6

Suggestion: replace the five sentences addressing niche topics with something like this:

Android, Apple, Ubuntu, and Unix/Linux questions are welcome but may receive a better response at one of our sister sites

Answer 7

IMHO it looks good.

For software recommendations I propose the following rule:

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If it is something can be answered with a simple Google search (something like "Presentation software", or "Program like filemaker") then please Google it. SuperUser is not a replacement for Google, and as such questions that simply ask for programs that are like some other program, or can do a broad class of things are not constructive and will be closed as such.

However, if what you are asking is how to accomplish a specific task (something like "How do I remove all metadata from a quicktime movie file?" or "How do I crop or black out personal information from a large number of short video clips" then it is a valid question.

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The primary different between these two categories is that the first type of question is looking for all possibilities, or the best possibility. Doing so makes it a question that is no longer based on facts/data to a large extent, as things like the design of the interface start to play a role. The second type is looking for any solution. That is something that can be clearly determined, and therefore is a good and valid question for SU.