57
There are two ways to generally ask questions of this nature. The Good and the Bad.
How NOT TO ASK questions that may require a software solution:
"What the best <X-Category> software?"
"Can you recommend me a program that does <x-action>?"
"Give me a list of pieces of software that do <x-action>!"
or this question's sister: "Is there ...
57
Two things - it's on the hot network question list, and it's on Hacker News. It's also the sort of thing that geeks find hilarious.
I'd add it doesn't have one answer - we've occasionally had to shove a few bad answers out the airlock.
These things just occasionally happen ;)
31
I'd suggest a few things.
Firstly, remember the question and answer format and don't make it like an ad. So, ask a question as a confused, lost user would, and answer it likewise
Secondly, make it clear you work for the company - I notice you have it in your profile, but including it in your answer as well.
Third is a general thing. Answers that link to a ...
26
What is "obvious" or "stupid" is really dependent on the reader. What might be obvious (and thus a stupid question) to you, might not be for me.
Some people may say that a question is stupid only because the answer could be easily found by asking a search engine. Which is ridiculous, because we want people to find Super User through said search engine (...
25
Technically you can get the Tumbleweed badge for a number of reasons, not all of which are contingent upon you asking bad questions:
Asking them at the wrong time, so they get pushed off the front-page and nobody sees them
Tons of other editing/review activity goes on whenever your question gets promoted to the front page, so it doesn't get to stay there ...
24
Please note, StackExchange sites are marked with the little
Computer Hardware and Software
Your question is off-topic if it's not about personal computer hardware or software issues, but rather deals with professional environments …
Managing and Administering computer systems in a professional capacity.
Server Fault
Information Security professionals ...
23
You can go to http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com and ask!
Software Recommendations is a Stack Exchange QA site designed specifically for this type of questions. Questions should include as many requirements as possible, be sure to also describe exactly what you want to achieve, your final goal.
23
I posted the toaster question as I genuinely wanted to know what was going on with the toaster icon and was completely confused by it.
I'd googled around a bunch for it but couldn't find anything about it at the time. About half an hour after posting it I found someone else with the same question on Microsoft's own support site but no proper answer as to ...
20
I often ask niche or difficult questions, and I often get tumbleweed badges.
Part of the formula is low views, so I see them mostly as a useful notification that very few people are looking at my question and that I might therefore need to do more to get it seen.
Ways in which I've responded to Tumbleweed before:
Migrating questions to a different site. ...
19
I have a strong preference towards the title being an actual question.
Take for example this question, which began with the title Ampliyfing Wireless Signal. From here it looks like a mundane question about boosting your wireless signal. It's entirely valid and fits the question well. After changing the title to How can I get a wireless signal inside a walk-...
16
I think it smells fishy, like you're trying to get something for nothing, and those things don't usually go over well (along with the likes of Hackintoshes and averting IT security policies at your work place, etc.).
If you're going to try, then ensure you provide all the details you can about the program, and what efforts you've already put into stopping ...
15
This question already has a couple of answers, and is closed as "too broad". If you later understood that the issue is different enough to invalidate the current answers, I'd post a new question. Additionally, I'd mention the current question in the new one - "I recently asked about X and was helped by the answers I've got, but recently understood the ...
15
Source How do I write a good answer?
Provide context for links
Links to external resources are encouraged, but please add context
around the link so your fellow users will have some idea what it is
and why it’s there. Always quote the most relevant part of an
important link, in case the target site is unreachable or goes
permanently offline.
...
15
For me, it comes down to how drastically the OP edited their question.
Since the "spectrum" of possible edit-changeiness (how much the content of the question was edited) is infinite in a continuum, I'll break it down into three rough categories:
A little tweak in the question that (one would hope) requires just a little tweak or added paragraph ...
15
Do it if it gets the same information you were originally looking for: How to fix problem X.
Looking at the comments, you mention something that is very crucial to addressing the original issue, and that should definitely be edited into your question. But yes, you are free to edit your question to add clarifying information that would help people look at ...
14
After a lot of thinking - My opinion is that its actually going to be a lot simpler to have a canonical answer posted with a hypothetical or real case (I'm sure we can find one!) of someone needing to do this, picking it, and making it a community FAQ.
While I do suppose we could use our decision on hackintoshes as precedent having a single answer that ...
13
I see that there are already a few answers to this post, however, I think it is worth mentioning my opinion which, I admit, is very generous.
First, realize that the internet is FILLED with all types of people and you will not believe the level of people that can stumble on a place like this, stumble through the account creation process and, 3 hours later, ...
13
Unfortunately, they don't get removed unless there's a very good reason (i.e. obvious spam, sock puppet used for voting irregularities, etc). We appreciate content, and with the CC-WIKI license of all the stuff you post, it belongs to Stack Exchange Inc. and the world! If it is potentially helpful, it will stay on the site.
If it's blatantly unuseful, then ...
13
We like canonical and complete answers and I personally don't see any reason for it to be classed as off topic as such.
Typically a question and answer should be short and to the point, but a canonical answer detailing how to do something properly and succinctly is always appreciated.
One thing to keep in mind though is whether or not you need to update it ...
12
This is not a real "answer" to your question nor official policy, so please bear with me when I'm rambling a little.
First of all, NDAs are a very specific case: Should moderators enforce NDAs for software vendors?
No user can sign an NDA on SEI's part, and therefore SEI [Stack Exchange, Inc. ] is not required to act when a user breaks a contract with a ...
12
12
In addition to those two sources mentioned by Journeyman Geek, this question has also appeared on reddit, under the /r/sysadmin sub amongst others. That subreddit alone drew at least 10,000 individual visits.
12
Allquixotic's answer is good, but I would look at his middle case a little differently. These tend to fall in two categories:
The original question was not worded well. The edit clarifies what was intended and is consistent with the original wording potentially having meant that.
After getting some input, the OP decides he really should have asked a ...
12
Primarily opinion based in my opinion, even as a CW. Its polling for reasons, which can range from "I want to run old games" to "I have old hardware that won't run on anything else" to its a running joke (like my OS/2 VM).
The best place for this would be comments and/or chat.
Digital obsolence on its own could be a better question if the question needed a ...
11
I would suggest to implement a system with a buffered pool, which is what some news sites that tweet do to schedule out there messages over time while having control over them.
The main gist:
New questions (picked by current algorithm) automatically get added to a pool.
Moderators could add questions, perhaps also meta questions that could use some ...
11
"Throwing around ideas" is usually subjective, and usually not a question anyway.
11
I can imagine a few reasons:
High reputation users have acquired a lot of knowledge—not only in a technical sense, but knowledge that helps them find an answer to their own problems more quickly. Writing good answers requires thorough research, and after contributing hundreds of answers you might be more efficient at solving your own problems, hence no need ...
11
No, it is absolutely possible to answer a whole lot of questions about advantages of X without resorting to opinion.
See examples here: http://www.slf4j.org/faq.html#declared_static
This is at least one order of magnitude more constructive than scouring the stack* for something that can be closed.
11
It's a matter of politeness more than 'is it right'. I'm encouraging ramhound to post an answer since he comments lots and answers less than he should ;p. However, it should be entirely fine, most of the time to post your own, detailed correct answer.
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
