Questions tagged [discussion]

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Why are mod-close rates so much higher for Super User than for other similar SE sites?

Why are the mod-close rates here on Super User so much higher than on other similar Stack Exchange communities? For comparison, I pulled the questions for the last (roughly) 11 days to analyze close-...
NotTheDr01ds's user avatar
  • 21.8k
18 votes
2 answers
264 views

What should we do with outdated, but highly-popular questions?

Example: We have a question about SSDs, which is now two years old. Are SSDs worth the money? I've been hearing a lot of hype about the SSDs recently. I'm planning to buy a new machine as ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
18 votes
8 answers
690 views

2014 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire

In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as ...
Grace Note's user avatar
  • 181
17 votes
5 answers
267 views

Why are questions off-topic for Super User being migrated from other trilogy sites?

It's unbelievable that Super User is still being used as a dumping ground especially for questions not on-topic on Stack Overflow. Latest example: https://superuser.com/questions/194442/recommended-...
Sathyajith Bhat's user avatar
  • 61.8k
17 votes
1 answer
274 views

July 2012 Moderator Election: Town Hall Chat [closed]

In connection with the moderator elections, we will be holding a Town Hall Chat session with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the ...
Grace Note's user avatar
  • 181
17 votes
5 answers
431 views

Do we need better definitions for off-topic questions in the help center?

This question mainly relates to users and contributors' interpretations of the Help Center » Asking guidelines: Super User is for computer enthusiasts and power users. If you have a question ...
Tim_Stewart's user avatar
  • 5,969
16 votes
4 answers
257 views

Can we please have better tag wiki excerpts?

Today someone proposed lots of tag wiki excerpts edits that all followed the form: Questions about <tag-name>, <description of object>. Why do we need the Questions about element? We don'...
DMA57361's user avatar
  • 18.7k
16 votes
1 answer
141 views

Should we look up existing answers when reviewing?

Today I got an audit (which I passed because I tried to edit it - it throws a "has been deleted" error) of a seemingly good answer (I lost the link). The answer is good, however it has been removed ...
Vylix's user avatar
  • 1,746
15 votes
1 answer
592 views

Logistics for tag cleanup weekend 1

Tag cleanup weekend 1 is now complete! For afterthoughts, see here: Tag cleanup weekend 1 - After action reports and impressions Considering that we're attempting to short circuit some of the usual ...
15 votes
4 answers
298 views

Are some questions too easy for Super User?

To put it another way: Can we assume that someone who asks a question on Super User has tried to find the answer elsewhere first? For many (most?) people, the first step in finding an answer to ...
boot13's user avatar
  • 5,859
15 votes
2 answers
391 views

What is the policy on duplicate answers?

In the question how do I echo $something >> file.txt without carriage return? which was asked and answered about a month ago, a new answer has been submitted which is essentially a duplicate (...
killermist's user avatar
  • 1,929
15 votes
1 answer
268 views

Unattended first posts

I am fairly new in the Super User community, and I am still trying to understand how things work. So forgive me for asking this question which may seem a bit silly to some members. This is ...
Art Gertner's user avatar
  • 7,279
14 votes
1 answer
574 views

Clear question with examples closed as unclear

I’ve come across this question Non-intersecting values in columns in Excel which was put on hold as unclear what you're asking. What is not clear with this question? It is well explained and even ...
User15's user avatar
  • 466
14 votes
4 answers
330 views

Define Scope of Community Promotion Ads?

I'm looking at the Community Promotion Ads submitted, and am wondering if they are being used in the best interest of the community. I envisioned that these ads would be used to promote products and ...
Robert Cartaino's user avatar
14 votes
0 answers
196 views

Let's put [preview] in the rear-view

The tag preview has an ambiguity problem. It has no tag wiki and is often misapplied in place of better, more specific tags. For example, about half of the questions tagged with it are about Preview, ...
Excellll's user avatar
  • 12.7k
13 votes
2 answers
262 views

Three batches of questions to close or delete

In line with Help us clean up Super User, I've been closing a lot of questions recently, but some are fairly old and hard to get close votes on. Ideally I'd vote to delete but I don't have enough ...
Gareth's user avatar
  • 18.8k
13 votes
1 answer
249 views

Take away the chinese tag

While working on Manufacturer & Company tags are back. Again I have come across the tag chinese. There are quite a few questions on there of varying quality. What is it for, why do we have tags ...
Burgi's user avatar
  • 6,551
13 votes
4 answers
337 views

Firefox versions going to infinity – should we merge the tags?

This is an update to: Merge firefox-related tags? We now have: firefox-3.6 x33 firefox-4 x129 firefox-5 x33 firefox-6 x15 firefox-7 x8 (nothing in between) firefox-10 x4 How is this going to end up?...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
12 votes
3 answers
238 views

The [failure] tag, a story of fail?

Please look at the 226 questions under failure. We are a site for computer problems. Tags such as "error" often don't add any additional value. The same goes for "failure", and it's probably a bit ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
12 votes
3 answers
342 views

Questions about bypassing or circumventing network security

I have seen a number of questions on how to bypass network security. I was wondering if superuser (or stackexchange) had a policy or stock answer about this? As a regular kind of user, I can ...
David's user avatar
  • 2,322
12 votes
2 answers
250 views

What should we do with those ever-recurring "image entire hard drive" questions?

I think every week or so, we get the occasional "How do I copy my entire hard drive?" question. The answers are always the same, in the sense of suggesting software like Acronis TrueImage or ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
12 votes
1 answer
350 views

Does a list of canonical questions for Super User exist?

When reviewing questions I often run across ones I think should already have a canonical answer, but I'm still new enough to the site that I don't know for sure. Not wanting to answer if the question ...
I say Reinstate Monica's user avatar
12 votes
4 answers
267 views

What to do with answers to abandoned questions?

This problem has been discussed in several ways by now, but I did not find the problem I am facing with it. I often face the problem that I answer a question and the user who made the question just ...
Michael K's user avatar
  • 3,428
12 votes
3 answers
596 views

Is there a valid Stackexchange for my home networking question, or should I just use the DD-WRT Forum?

I asked a question at serverfault, it was migrated to superuser, and promptly closed as off-topic. Here is the question: Is it possible to throw DD-WRT on a F5D8235-4 v2? Now is there a valid ...
leeand00's user avatar
  • 22.4k
12 votes
1 answer
401 views

Critique my [windows-7] tag wiki

I haven't seen any other tag wiki1 pages on Super User yet, so I didn't have anything to compare it to as I wrote up the new windows-7 tag wiki page. What do you think? If you can edit it, go right ...
12 votes
1 answer
517 views

Questions about WordPress on Super User

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 ...
user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
107 views

Should we edit link only answers?

There's lots of them around, and most times I comment asking the OP to edit the answer and add more detail. However there are some cases where the OP isn't around, but the answer is still valid (...
James Mertz's user avatar
  • 26.3k
11 votes
1 answer
167 views

"mono" tag as in "vs .net" and as in "vs. stereo"

There seem to be two uses of the tag "mono", one for questions related to audio and one for questions related to the Mono framework. Wouldn't it be better to create a tag "mono-framework" and retag ...
Andrew J. Brehm's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
276 views

Should we split up the off-topic "shopping" closing reason?

One of our current off-topic reasons reads like this: Questions seeking product, service, or learning material recommendations are off-topic because they tend to become obsolete quickly. Instead, ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
11 votes
2 answers
576 views

Why do people attempt to discourage long well-written answers by instant AI accusations?

I remember a discussion where people were so sure in their ability to detect AI, when SE decided to not allow dealing with potential ChatGPT answers. What I see in reality, occassionally, is that most ...
Destroy666's user avatar
  • 6,733
11 votes
4 answers
196 views

Should we close old questions with no more feedback as "no longer relevant", on SuperUser?

SuperUser has a much higher ratio of "personal" question. I mean that many questions are linked to one user only, with his particular configuration. Of course his question can be of help to other ...
Gnoupi's user avatar
  • 8,138
11 votes
0 answers
89 views

Should adding a constructive comment fail an audit? [duplicate]

I have just failed this audit for adding a comment. After having carefully read the question and the answer (which was in the first post review) I noticed that the answer ends with the following ...
DavidPostill's user avatar
  • 157k
11 votes
1 answer
1k views

Canonical question on USB flash drives becoming write-protected

We have lots of questions about USB flash drives becoming write-protected and most of them aren't closed. The closest I can find to a canonical question is this, whose answers are rather lacking as ...
bwDraco's user avatar
  • 46.1k
10 votes
7 answers
25k views

What is the standard term for a USB flash-drive/pen/thumb/stick?

There are several questions, particularly on Super User, which refer to the use of these drives but there isn't a standard term in use nor a standard tag. Though SU has 'thumb drive', it is not ...
user avatar
10 votes
3 answers
362 views

What is the etiquette surrounding Asking and Answering Your Own Questions

I Feel I now need to pre-face this question given the start of every answer, I love the idea of answering ones own question and sharing knowledge it's a good system and I feel it benefits the ...
50-3's user avatar
  • 3,959
10 votes
1 answer
200 views

Was this flag declined correctly?

I flagged this post as Very Low Quality. The flag was declined. Was this flag declined correctly? UPDATE: I changed the flag based on the helpful feedback by moderator Mokubai. In the interest of ...
End Anti-Semitic Hate's user avatar
10 votes
5 answers
217 views

What aspect of Super User needs more attention?

There are a lot of things to do on Super User. But I wonder what the most important things are we should be paying attention at... Is there anything we are skipping out on that will hurt us in the ...
Tamara Wijsman's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
296 views

The [filter] tag is ambiguous

See list of questions tagged filter: some of them are about ffmpeg filters (used for resizing videos and such), some are about filtering data in MS Excel, some are about organising emails... none of ...
evilsoup's user avatar
  • 13.4k
8 votes
1 answer
143 views

What should be done about old, abandoned questions?

Whenever a retag request comes about - or when I'm wading through /review I often come across old questions which haven't been answered, with low views & most of the times the questions are by ...
Sathyajith Bhat's user avatar
  • 61.8k
8 votes
0 answers
543 views

Question of the Week #45

Note: From here on, until I'm done with school, I'll be posting QOTW every OTHER week (unless someone want to join up and help me out) Now we're into post #45 of the "Top Question" of Super User in ...
James Mertz's user avatar
  • 26.3k
8 votes
3 answers
377 views

Mac and osx tag usage on SU

I see there are a lot of questions tagged mac (749) and even more tagged osx (860) on SuperUser. However, I find the usage of the tags to be quite inconsistent. A lot of people tag their questions mac ...
alex's user avatar
  • 17.9k
8 votes
1 answer
891 views

Are "Guessing Game" type questions allowed on SU?

First, a little background: https://superuser.com/questions/483692/windows-3-animated-background-desktop-wallpaper was a question I had myself tried hard to answer, back when it was posted. Recently ...
Karan's user avatar
  • 56.5k
8 votes
1 answer
2k views

How to know who downvoted you?

Few minutes ago someone downvoted all my question and answers in stackoverflow.com. My reputation today As you can see in the picture: It's unethical, drops my reputation and my tags points.. I ...
Math's user avatar
  • 350
8 votes
2 answers
125 views

How should I request for comment cleanup on migrated questions?

Going through the list of recently migrated questions (10k), some of these really need some editing or other moderation. What you see quite often on those questions are comments like: not ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
8 votes
1 answer
102 views

Should I write question when I know answer?

I had a problem for which I couldn't find solution on the Internet. I found a solution and I think that the solution for the problem is useful and somebody could have the same problem. Is it OK to ...
Tomas's user avatar
  • 306
8 votes
1 answer
154 views

Burn [computer-buying] tag

computer-buying has about 24 questions, almost all of which are closed for shopping recommendations. Can this tag be burned since questions about shopping are clearly off-topic?
Simon Sheehan's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
140 views

How can we promote the blog?

Our blog has been running great for a while, and its content is great, however recently, all editors and frequent writers have been busy (including myself). This is why there currently are no weekly ...
slhck's user avatar
  • 228k
8 votes
1 answer
895 views

Question of the Week #44 [duplicate]

Now we're into post #44 of the "Top Question" of Super User in the Super User blog. Please post and vote for your favorite question for this week. Please post any questions that you feel is of worth ...
James Mertz's user avatar
  • 26.3k
7 votes
1 answer
111 views

Is there a method to rename a tag without editing the questions?

I just added apache to the manufacturer meta tag list because Apache is a software foundation with an extensive list of projects, not just the web server software. The [apache] tag has been used for ...
fixer1234's user avatar
  • 27.5k
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

Are detailed Excel VBA questions best posed here or on Stack Overflow?

I recently posted this question concerning Excel VBA TypeOf difficulties on Stack Overflow. Was that the best site to post the question on, or would superUser have been a better choice?
Pieter Geerkens's user avatar

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