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3 answers
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Should every answer involving registry edits contain a warning to back up the registry?

I encountered this comment while browsing questions on Super User: "Remember to always be careful with the registry!": Such a notice should be added, because newbies can mess up! Also, instructions ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.4k
32 votes
2 answers
575 views

Old questions - system discourages answering them?

I've been a member on other SE sites for a while now, but only recently joined SU. I found a few things a bit different here, and there are a couple of things I think could use some discussion. 1. ...
Adrien's user avatar
  • 1,275
2 votes
0 answers
50 views

I created a resource for an answer. Are there specifications/rules to include it as picture or link?

I answered to this question "Looking up gnuplot abbreviations", in the beginning giving only the method to find the meaning of the abbreviations used or usable. After I've created a a resource (a ...
Hastur's user avatar
  • 19.3k
-5 votes
0 answers
149 views

Quit bein' so blockin' [closed]

I think Stack Exchange is too strict on closing and deleting questions. Perfectly feasible questions are marked as low-quality, too broad, or "unclear what you're asking." Are we really going too far ...
clickbait's user avatar
  • 1,020
-3 votes
2 answers
134 views

What can be done about false answers that suggest the asker to run malicious code? [duplicate]

What can be done about false answers that suggest the asker to run malicious code? I mean, like an answer that says something along these lines: If you have administrative privileges, the ...
clickbait's user avatar
  • 1,020
21 votes
5 answers
859 views

User tries to do something forbidden by license. Is explaining why it's illegal an answer?

Specifically, I'm speaking about this question: Windows 10 License in UEFI. Long story short, OP currently uses Windows with a license provided by his university through DreamSpark. He's going to move ...
gronostaj's user avatar
  • 57.9k
0 votes
1 answer
73 views

Why doesn't Superuser have superuser.stackexchange.com address unlike other stackexchange websites? [duplicate]

Similar to Stackoveflow, Superuser has independent domain. Is this because Superuser was older than most of the StackExchange sites before the StackExchange idea did come up? What's the relation ...
pinkpanther's user avatar
22 votes
1 answer
485 views

Two long answers disagreeing with each other - how to canonicalize?

Someone posted a new answer to a rather old question of mine, Disadvantages of partitioning an SSD?. The answer I accepted has 13 upvotes at this time, and I have accepted the information therein as ...
MarioDS's user avatar
  • 1,622
12 votes
0 answers
135 views

Are answers duplicate if they use different aliases of the same command?

This answer came up in the First Posts queue. It uses the Windows rd command to accomplish the task in the question. The accepted answer (from 2010), however, uses rmdir with the same parameters. rd ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 41.7k
17 votes
0 answers
362 views

Let's do something about all the old link-only answers

We do a pretty good job removing or repairing link-only answers nowadays, but there are boatloads of old link-only answers sitting ignored or at a slight negative score, written largely by users that ...
Ben N's user avatar
  • 41.7k
9 votes
1 answer
284 views

Same answer from different users on different questions

There are almost duplicate questions, and not very surprisingly they have similar answers. But one answer is an exact copy, though posted from a different account. The newer version is slightly more ...
Tomáš Zato's user avatar
  • 4,620
-2 votes
1 answer
39 views

Q&A Posts - The Question

I'm looking at starting to do Q&A posts here on SuperUser for problems that I encounter, from uncommon problems to common problems. Obviously, the answer will have the most info in the entire post,...
Bilfred's user avatar
  • 673
6 votes
2 answers
423 views

Is this kind of "non-answer" appropriate?

Edit: After posting this question and receiving feedback, I expanded the answer to make it more of a direct answer to the question. So the referenced answer is no longer a good example of the issue ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27.8k
4 votes
0 answers
49 views

How do you know when the asker has read your answer?

Sometimes when I write a pretty long answer I never know whether he/she has read my answer or had just left and decided not to bother with it. I don't however want to know everyone who has read it ...
Racing121's user avatar
  • 1,491
5 votes
1 answer
186 views

How do I sign up to Superuser with my Stack Exchange OpenID?

It sounds like a simple question, right? If you have an existing StackExchage user, you'll want to sign up to SuperUser with it. But there isn't an option to do that in the sign up page: I found a ...
Coomie's user avatar
  • 253
2 votes
1 answer
57 views

Do we flag answers which offer nothing new [duplicate]

I know we can mark duplicate posts but, what if the answer is a duplicate because it's a combination of different answers (all from the answers on the same post)? Are we still to flag it?
Dave's user avatar
  • 25.4k
4 votes
1 answer
69 views

What's the good way to answer "What is the analog of software X for operating system Y?"

I gave an answer today, being just a software recommendation, to a question, asking for a recommendation. If you cannot see deleted answers, there was the software name, a link to homepage and ...
Nick Volynkin's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
274 views

Should I answer my own question? Was I wrong to post it?

Here's my question (oh boy, the meta effect is about to descend upon it): Suppress Google Chrome's "Your Connection is Not Private" for specific Address? Am I wrong to be asking the ...
ArtOfWarfare's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
43 views

What should we do when new users post questions as an answer?

What should we do about stuff like Serge's answer to this question? On the one hand, his question seems similar too the one being asked and it would probably serve well as a comment or something ...
Matt Walck's user avatar
29 votes
6 answers
592 views

Old posts and answers need protection?

As member of SU for more than 5 years, I have quite a number of old answers lying around. Some of them are so old and outdated that today they are just ridiculous, such as recommending the ...
harrymc's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
88 views

How do we handle duplicate answers?

I flagged a post for deletion that was (IMO) low quality being that it was more of a comment/question for more information than an answer. I had also posted onto the same question a duplicate answer ...
James Mertz's user avatar
  • 26.5k
24 votes
2 answers
547 views

Super User in Portuguese

As you may know, Stack Overflow in Portuguese is a huge success. Now, it is time to expand the idea and get our hands at the Super User in Portuguese, right now on Area 51. Stack Exchange team has a ...
Victor Stafusa's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
51 views

The slider to make the text area taller does not work on iPad

In questions and answers, the text area has a nice slider to make him taller. Alas, on iPad, the slider does not work. It would be nice to make the slider work. Thank you. I have Safari on iOS 7 ...
TheMaskedCucumber's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
320 views

Old "link-only answers" by a former moderator

When I report answers (new or old) that point to a link instead of answering the question on Super User, they get deleted or edited to reflect our policies. However, I've tried to report this answer, ...
user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
570 views

Is it okay to use headers to summarize content?

About a month ago, I adopted an answering style from Thaddeus of Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange. The new format uses bullet points below a level 3 header with a brief summary of the ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.4k
18 votes
2 answers
438 views

What should we do with answers that are low quality but otherwise legitimate attempts to answer the question?

In my extensive time on the review queues and 10k tools, there's one thing that's always been bothering me: low-quality answers that consist of no more than a few sentences and often a link to ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.4k
2 votes
2 answers
111 views

Should I take question quality into account when answering questions?

I noticed this comment from one of our established users: I only answer questions I belive [sic] are extremely high quality – Ramhound (source; moderator only) Assuming the questions are ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.4k
3 votes
2 answers
105 views

How is one sentence of unsubstantiated opinion the best answer?

I recently asked a question and received this answer: No, hard drives are in sealed enclosures and these images are marketing shots to give you an idea of the engineering inside. That's it. One ...
Brock Adams's user avatar
  • 2,180
2 votes
0 answers
64 views

How to post trivial answers when that is all that is required?

Often a problem can be solved with a trivial answer, which can be stretched to make one complete sentence. These kinds of answers are often done as a comment because they don't seem worthy of "answer"...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27.8k
2 votes
1 answer
126 views

New OPs answering their own questions

Edit: Nevermind. This was a newbie question based on misunderstanding how the site works. Skip to the last edit at the bottom for clarification. Much of the time, new OPs leave a question, get a ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27.8k
1 vote
1 answer
61 views

Should I flag an answer which *tries* to answer the question, but is useless for this *particular* question [duplicate]

Going through the late answer review queue, I came across this answer. While it should normally be helpful ('root' and 'toor' should be the default username and password from what I recall), in this ...
lzam's user avatar
  • 1,430
16 votes
2 answers
309 views

Are link-only answers fine if they link to Super User questions?

Let's say someone asks a question: How do I upgrade a widget for defrobulator?. There are many possible answers, each one correct and the question isn't too broad. (And defrobulator in this case is a ...
gronostaj's user avatar
  • 57.9k
2 votes
1 answer
39 views

Bug in search results

I did a search for "windows 2000", and on page 2 of the results, I see the following: Notice the last question in the screenshot just says 4 votes. I should actually say 1 vote and 2 answers.
pacoverflow's user avatar
  • 2,112
3 votes
1 answer
56 views

Should I post an answer that isn't a perfect fit?

If I have an answer to a question that would help some people with the same question, but not the OP, should I post it? Case in point: https://superuser.com/a/748752/231678 This doesn't help the OP, ...
Garrulinae's user avatar
  • 1,929
5 votes
3 answers
239 views

Why do high-reputation users tend to have lots of answers but very few or no questions, and am I asking too many questions for my reputation?

After looking through the user profiles of very high-reputation users, it seems that most such users have lots and lots of answers, but very few or even no questions at all. Why? On the other hand, ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.4k
1 vote
1 answer
186 views

What's the policy on using the same answer to multiple questions about the same thing?

I just found a new method to do a certain thing ... And excitedly wrote/pasted it to all the questions for which this is an exact fit. Then I started worrying if it wasn't the right thing to do... ...
Milind R's user avatar
  • 907
-7 votes
2 answers
56 views

Exception to the minimum answer character count

Sometimes a user just needs a single command line answer. To be most efficient (The mantra of the SE community) it would make sense just to give them a single command to run rather than appending ...
Scandalist's user avatar
  • 3,099
0 votes
1 answer
81 views

Why has a question's post notice been added to an answer?

I just noticed that an answer has a post notice that says "we're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context...". Why would an answer have answers? It doesn't make sense to me. ...
gparyani's user avatar
  • 1,851
-1 votes
1 answer
244 views

How do you delete your accounts on stack exchange websites?

...and are your questions/answers deleted along with that or are they still findable via search engines or with a URL?
user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
45 views

Why are some posts text grey or dim?

Just curious as to why some posts appear grey or dim compared to other posts?
Carl B's user avatar
  • 6,650
9 votes
2 answers
873 views

What is the proper way to cite an answer from another StackExchange site?

What is the proper way to cite an answer from another StackExchange site? It is not uncommon to find an answer to a question for SuperUser on ServerFault or StackOverflow. But there doesnt seem to ...
Keltari's user avatar
  • 74.1k
8 votes
1 answer
148 views

Is Super User connected to askquestions.in?

I posted a question on Super User yesterday. Today, when I google the problem I had, I find my question on askquestions.in. I have never created a user at askquestions. Is there an official ...
Stewie Griffin's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
63 views

Should the tag wiki for [security] direct people to Information Security Stack Exchange?

Would it be ok to edit the tag wiki of the [security] tag (on the main Super User) to ask people to consider asking the question on our sister site the Information Security Stack Exchange? It appears ...
b_jonas's user avatar
  • 231
1 vote
2 answers
198 views

Why try to answer if you're unfamiliar with the question?

I just don't get the responses like the comments I see on How to disable blue highlighting of text form field when selected in Word? First two comments are "Can you provide a screenshot for before ...
Debra's user avatar
  • 4,326
-5 votes
2 answers
142 views

Wassup with "answers has to be platform independent"?

It seems that someone believes that SuperUser has to have answers that solves all problems in all OS's. While I strongly believe that each answer is right on its own if it addresses the question ...
Braiam's user avatar
  • 4,747
3 votes
2 answers
79 views

What do I do if someone posts an answer I had as a comment?

This just happened here. I posted a possible solution as a comment (not being sure if it would work for the asker), and while I was waiting for a reply, krowe posted basically what I had as an answer. ...
Blacklight Shining's user avatar
18 votes
4 answers
473 views

Is it rude to answer a question that has been solved in comments?

In this question Make system sounds louder than device A couple different people helped the OP discover the solution to his problem in comments. In cases like this, is it best to just suggest to ...
user avatar
33 votes
7 answers
965 views

Is "It's impossible" a valid answer, or is it a comment?

Sometimes you can see a question like How to do <something> in <some program>, asking for advice how to replicate a feature of competitive program or how to do something that OP expects to ...
gronostaj's user avatar
  • 57.9k
0 votes
0 answers
32 views

Belongs on another SE site [duplicate]

When you click close, off-topic, belongs on another SE site, there are a few common options. I believe iPhone/iOS (thinkdifferent.stackexchange.com) should be on the list. Ideally, one should be ...
Keltari's user avatar
  • 74.1k
8 votes
1 answer
180 views

What is the proper procedure for us laypeople to edit an answer?

How do I get rid of adware from Search Conduit/White Smoke? A few days ago, I had this question answered with the assistance of another user. His answer did not entirely solve my problem, however. ...
Michael Jordan's user avatar