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<p>It depends. <br>If it's a consumer-type question, then <a href="http://superuser.com">SuperUser</a> would be a better place for it, probably. <br>If it's a design-type question, then it could work here on EE.SE.</p>
<p>What's the question?</p>
| 2911 | 2013-05-08T16:24:32.393 | |discussion| | <p>I have a question about static electricity problem with notebook. I think it more electronic than general physics question. Should I ask it here or somewhere else?</p>
| Is a question about static electricity on-topic? |
<p>If it's a question related to debugging an embedded / microcontroller system I would say it's on topic here and go for it. Of course keep it well defined and scoped as you would on any SE site but otherwise I can't see a problem.</p>
| 2915 | 2013-05-12T12:08:30.263 | |discussion| | <p>I'm unsure if the EE stack exchange or stack overflow is the best place to ask about help with setting up a specific feature in eclipse IDE. Its programming (debugging) but I'm using features that most programmers won't use, as its for interfacing electronics so I doubt stack overflow will be helpful as it likely won't be seen by those who know what I'm talking about. Where would be recommended to post this question? (oh and I assume this is the sort of thing to ask on meta)</p>
| Eclipse setup for electronics |
<p>There are two things that trigger putting a question in the reopen queue (as far as I know):</p>
<ul>
<li>Editing the post (by any user).</li>
<li>Someone voting to reopen the post.</li>
</ul>
<p>Again, the philosophy is that closed questions are "on hold" versus "banished to heck" If someone has made an effort to improve a closed question, then we need to reevaluate the question because they are trying to fix their question. If their efforts are insufficient, then clearly explain what they need. If the question needs some minor copy editing to be a good question, then chip in and help! </p>
<p>Nobody has voted to reopen the question you linked - it was added to the reopen queue because the author added his source code. If someone <em>had</em> voted to reopen, you would see <code>reopen(1)</code>, just like how the number of close votes is visible. New users do not have a button to reopen their question, but they do have ways to "appeal" and have their question reopened by the community.</p>
| 2921 | 2013-05-15T08:17:09.543 | |support| | <p>Earlier today I noticed that this question appeared in the reopen queue:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/68791/stm32-potentiometer-connected-to-adc">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/68791/stm32-potentiometer-connected-to-adc</a></p>
<p>I selected leave closed because while code has been added it's incomplete so the question is still unclear. In a duplicate question (now deleted) someone suggested editing the original question and voting to reopen it, but the OP seemed confused on how to do that and that was hours after it had appeared in the reopen queue, so it made me wonder:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Does an edit by the original author to a closed question cause it to appear automatically on the reopen review queue?</p></li>
<li><p>Do low rep users get the reopen button on their own questions?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Of course it may have been a 3K user voting to reopen that made it appear, or maybe the OP did it and expected some sort of instant result.</p>
| How does the reopen queue work for new users? |
<p>There are a few things I'd like to point out.</p>
<h3>A close vote isn't the end of the world</h3>
<p>Some people think <code>[closed]</code> is definitive. It isn't. When a question is closed as <em>not a real question</em>, for example, this purely means</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered <strong>in its current form.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/faq">FAQ</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To keep the site clean, we have to close questions that lack information and such. Otherwise you'd only get crappy answers anyway.</p>
<p>A similar reasoning goes for closing as <em>not constructive</em>.</p>
<h3>Too sophisticated answers</h3>
<p>Sometimes an answerer can't estimate the level of the OP, which might result in either a too sophisticated answer or an answer that treats the OP as a child. Both are bad: the first isn't useful to the OP, the second irritates. </p>
<p>As I will point out below, you should say in the body of your question that you are a beginner, if so. If you could make this somewhat more specific, do so. For example: "I have never programmed a microcontroller before" or "this is the first time I work with an op-amp". This hopefully helps the answerers to adapt their answer to your understanding.</p>
<p>Of course, sometimes it goes wrong. That's what happened in my answer <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/64485/17592">here</a>. In the comments:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is all very sad. Every other time a layman explanation is needed the answer will contain a gazillion of graphs with trigonometric functions. I strongly believe it shouldn't be this way. – sharptooth Apr 5 at 8:12</p>
<p>@sharptooth you're right. I think skyler is able to understand this, but I've added some layman explanation at the top of the answer. – Camil Staps Apr 5 at 8:47 </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So if an answer is over your head... or you think a less sophisticated answer is needed... shout! Ask for another explanation. The problem solves itself.</p>
<h3>No, we do not want a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/beginner" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'beginner'" rel="tag">beginner</a> tag</h3>
<p>This was requested earlier <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/43/17592">here</a>. Whilst the first answer is outdated (then there was such a tag), the second isn't:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tags should give an indication about the question's topic(s), nothing else. That's the reason the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/homework" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'homework'" rel="tag">homework</a> tag is deprecated too, for instance. If you want to indicate that you're a beginner in order to get answers at your level of knowledge, say so in the question. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Generally, you can keep a rule of thumb for creating tags: </p>
<ol>
<li>Does this give information about the topic, the contents, of the question?</li>
<li>Could anyone possibly want to filter on this tag?</li>
<li>If both yes, make it a tag. If not, don't.</li>
</ol>
| 2923 | 2013-05-17T10:18:48.123 | |discussion| | <p>One problem I always face on this site is that people overestimate the level of sophistication in the question. It is hard for a beginner to find the words to imply the simplicity or noobness of the question. A 'beginner-question' tag may be useful, or perhaps this isn't really the site for beginners (c.f. stackoverflow would be a hard place to learn to program, perhaps).</p>
| Is this site for beginners? |
<p>Yes. According to our <strike>faq</strike> <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/helpcenter/on-topic">help center</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We feel the best Electronics Design questions have a schematic, links to pertinent datasheets or some source code in them, but if your question generally covers …</p>
<ul>
<li>a specific electronics design problem</li>
<li>the theory and simulation of electromagnetic forces</li>
<li>a communication scheme</li>
<li>the writing of firmware for bare-metal or RTOS applications</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Yours is <em>a specific electronics design problem</em>.</p>
| 2952 | 2013-06-07T13:36:45.870 | |discussion| | <p>I'm wondering whether questions related to PCB CAD software (such as EAGLE) are on-topic. Questions could relate to best practices, BOM generation, proper CAM export, etc.</p>
| Are (electronic) CAD software related questions on-topic? |
<p>I did get a message from a Physics moderator to review your question for migration. I've decided to not migrate the question because it's borderline off-topic/not-constructive, and the skeptics answer has a pretty good treatment of the subject.</p>
| 2963 | 2013-06-21T10:02:06.113 | |support|migration| | <p>Recently i asked <a href="https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/68571/why-cant-you-use-your-cellphone-on-an-airplane">this</a> question at physics.se , and as per their comments over there i would like to migrate my question from there to here, whats the process evolved here, i would like to hear it from electronics.se for my question ,i posted an meta question over there too, and what were the procedures to migrate my question over here?</p>
| i would like to migrate my question from physics.se to here |
<p>This is a bit less prevalent now that edits are peer reviewed. However, if someone edited a post in such a way that was not productive, you could "rollback" the revision to the last good version.</p>
<p>Click on the "edited on <strong><em>*</em>***</strong>" link on an edited post, and all previous revisions will show a set of links: <code>source edit rollback link</code>. The rollback simply discards all revisions after the version that you are rolling back to.</p>
<p>The last time I remember using it was for undoing some excessive retagging of a question.</p>
| 2967 | 2013-06-24T20:52:09.550 | |support|badges| | <p>The description for this says it is: "First rollback"; however I have no idea what this means. Could someone explain?</p>
| What is the "Cleanup" badge? |
<p>I am still, for the most part, a newbie when it comes to electronics. I've been tinkering for about 20 years, but never been serious enough to really <em>know</em> my stuff. That's why I'm here, to ask questions, and help people who are less experienced than I am.</p>
<p>I highly value experts such as Olin, who is obviously frustrated at times. The signal to noise ratio on the site is definitely more noisy than it was when I joined almost 3 years ago.</p>
<p>Sometimes I find questions which are basically crap, but I can't help posting a comment or answer in attempt to provide the OP a response that might evoke a positive change.</p>
<p>Here are some examples of "crap" questions (in my opinion) that I answered anyway:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/73790/2028">Why do I suck at electronics so much?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/74307/2028">Arduino starter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/73701/2028">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/73701/2028</a></li>
</ul>
<p>I generally try to be optimistic, hoping the OP will be inspired with a little help, and try to improve. Why? Because, for example, here's a question that I thought was a total bomber (from the title), but turned out to be a rather better question than I thought:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/74061/2028">Is there an implicit "unit of time" involved in electricity measurement? (e.g. miles per hour, kb per second, amps per ???)</a></li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>Ultimately, every SE site seems to have a certain number of visitors that for whatever reason think they can get free handouts, without an inkling of research, effort, clear thought, or total lack of communication skills. The famous StackOverflow "Can I has the codez?" questions have always been the bane of seasoned programmers there. Here on EE, we have our own version in the form of "<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/74225/2028">Give</a> <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/73891/2028">me</a> <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/73175/2028">schematic</a> <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/73060/2028">plz</a>!"</p>
<p>It sucks to only have a few "good" questions out of every page of 20 or so, but I think we just need to do the best we can to use moderation tools to disappear or improve them.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, if the noise ratio continues to climb, despite moderation's best efforts, I cringe at the thought of true experts leaving. Not only would it mean lots of us lose the privilege of having questions answered by professionals, but that the SE model isn't working well enough.</p>
| 2969 | 2013-06-25T20:12:29.687 | |discussion| | <p>I expect everyone has noticed by now the rapid increase of badly written questions over the last several months. We seem to be getting higher traffic, but that seems to be due to a flood of crappy questions that then need to be closed. I haven't actually counted, this is just a feeling, but I strongly suspect it is true. Either way, it's the perception that actually matters in the end, and my perception that this site is rapidly declining is definitely there.</p>
<p>What should we do about this decline in quality? Is there anything we <i>can</i> do, or is the slide into drivel inevitable and those of use looking for more learned discussion need to find someplace else (until that gets overrun by the zombies and the cycle repeats)?</p>
<p>We do seem to continue to get some good questions. My impression (again, not actually measured) is that those are coming at about the rate they did before, but are getting drowned out in the drivel that is making the whole site look amatuerish and less and less a rewarding place to hang out. I seem to be spending proportionately more time writing comments explaining why a question is being closed and closing and downvoting questions than writing decent answers to interesting questions.</p>
<p>Here is my own take: This site has hit the maturity phase. That means most of the experts that are going to find this place have. It used to be a place of high quality discussion and high quality answers. Now in the maturity phase, the unwashed masses have noticed that good answers are to be had. Unfortunately, they don't bother to read the FAQ or spend a little time on the site before blurting out their question. To them this site is merely a resource to take from. <i>So what if my question gets closed? I haven't lost more than a minute typing some barely-readable gibberish. I've got nothing to loose. This isn't "my" site, so what do I care?"</i>. Meanwhile those that would have spent the time writing better answers have to waste it closing questions and picking thru the pile of noise to find the few good questions we still get.</p>
<p>Eventually those that are here for quality discussions will get dissolusioned and leave. This has already happened to some extent. Look at the list of users with 10k or more rep and see which ones are no longer active. Some of that happened earlier so they just moved on before the downhill slide, but don't underestimate the damaging effect of the high drivel level.</p>
<p>If this slide into the swamp can be fixed, it will need a very concerted effort to in effect say <i>"no, this is crap, go away"</i> to those that post crap. We are too gentle now in closing and downvoting bad questions. It needs to feel more like a kick in the butt so that those that don't bother spending time on their questions clearly get the message that they are not welcome here. Just as important, others will see that crappy posts aren't tolerated. I don't know what the mechanism should be exactly. That's what this topic is about. Ideas?</p>
| How can we recover quality here? |
<p>Indeed, this would be an important fix.</p>
<p>As covered in the system-wide blog, the recent revision to the closing mechanism was intended to result in messages which could meaningful educate users as to what specifically was wrong, and wherever possible, what improvement could rescue the question.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, habits die hard, and a lot of close votes are being cast where the claimed reason is more convenient for the closer, than educationally descriptive for the closee. Having all the voted choices shown on the question would increase the chance that at least one accurately and usefully informative message is displayed, even if accompanied by the noise of convenience votes.</p>
| 2980 | 2013-06-27T09:06:58.567 | |support|bug|closing| | <p>When I reviewed <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/close/19792">this</a>, there was one vote for "unclear what you're asking" and one vote for "off topic because ... Questions on the use of electronic devices are off-topic as this site is intended specifically for questions on electronics design."</p>
<p>However, the banner on top said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Should this question be closed as <strong>unclear what you're asking</strong>?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before the close reasons change, that would've been:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Should this question be closed as <strong>unclear what you're asking</strong> or <strong>off topic</strong>?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is this by-design or a bug?</p>
| Not all close reasons that have been voted on appear in the banner |
<p>This is fixed in the next build.</p>
<p>Part of the editor logic is implemented as a <a href="https://code.google.com/p/pagedown/" rel="nofollow">PageDown</a> plugin, and that part didn't take into account the possibility that another plugin may be modifying the Markdown source as well, and thus the content inside the text editor may be different from the Markdown that was passed to the plugin.</p>
<p>The other plugin in this case was the code that separates LaTeX content from the rest of the text, which is why the problem only appeared if the post contained TeX content before the schematic. It also only happened when <em>editing</em> an already-present schematic, not when <em>adding</em> a new one. This combination of events is so rare that it took until now for this to be noticed.</p>
<p>Thanks for the bug report!</p>
| 2988 | 2013-07-01T21:43:00.197 | |bug|status-completed|schematic| | <p>I've noticed that sometimes, when editing a schematic (but not adding a new schematic) to a question, that some of the text above the schematic will be eaten. It's not just me, either. See my latest revision at <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/posts/61699/revisions">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/posts/61699/revisions</a></p>
<p>I can reproduce this problem by:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/posts/61699/edit">editing that answer</a></li>
<li>clicking "edit the above schematic" for the first schematic</li>
<li>click "save and insert" in circuitlab (no need to even make changes)</li>
</ul>
<p>After these steps, some of the text that was before the schematic gets eaten, and the comment markers around the schematic are improperly nested. See the revision just before my fixes for an example.</p>
<p>I'm using Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0.</p>
<p>What's causing this? Can it be fixed?</p>
| Why is the schematic editor damaging questions when editing schematics? |
<p>Post an answer that details what you did to solve the problem, and accept it. It's no different than if someone posted your steps as an answer, and then the answer is there for someone with a similar question later.</p>
| 2993 | 2013-07-04T23:13:19.327 | |discussion| | <p>I'd like an option to close or delete a question that I asked by this motivation:</p>
<p>"The matter was resolved by other means than following the answers. "</p>
<p>Or similar rationale. Since sometimes the answers are good and there can be 2 answers to a question and the problem in the question was resolved not by doing what the answers suggest but by some other activity that solved the problem.</p>
<p>Or is what should be done in these cases, is answering your own question?</p>
| Option to close a question |
<p>A question asking about a specific resistor value is no different from one asking about a particular approach to a project, if it demonstrates research and effort. I think that's all anyone here really expects. All technical levels are welcome, and any project level is welcome (macro or micro). The problem with questions like the monitor heads is that it comes across as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I just saw this really cool thing on YouTube and I want to build one. How do I do it?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's no demonstrated effort, no demonstrated research, just somebody looking for free advice. It's reasonable that any well formed answer would go over their head and be wasted. Someone wording a question like that would read such an answer, and think:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Oh, I have to <em>do</em> stuff? Like, buy tools and learn how to use them? Nevermind!"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Further, we have <em>no</em> idea what the person asking is capable of. Without specifying a stumbling point, we haven't a clue what to suggest. Is the person an RF genius, but unfamiliar with video encoding? Perhaps his or her electronics knowledge is sound, but has never soldered a single pin... How are we to know?</p>
<p>Questions about projects (<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/72047/2028">no matter how silly the project</a>) are perfectly welcome. They just need to be formed in such a way that shows the person asking <em>cares</em> enough about the project (and the assistance of experts) to show it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I found this Widget on Youtube and would really like to build one. I've studied phase-coupled waveforms and borrowed an oscilloscope, and now I'm trying to realign the flux capacitor. It seems to always get stuck at 1.21 GW, despite my careful analysis of the load coils..."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm being humorous but the point is that the question shows <em>effort</em>. A project scope question is even okay, so long as the OP makes it clear what help they need:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"For this monitor-heads project, I've been looking at LCD monitors to use for the displays, but I can't find one that seems to be the right size or is light enough. I'm worried also about heat. Is there a suitably lightweight display that could be used as part of a mask like this?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That's better! Now we know they've actually been reading up on displays and trying to figure out where to go next. It also focuses more on a <em>specific</em> problem, the selection of a display technology. Or this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I've selected the Samsung SMD-1000 (shoulder-mounted display) for my "monitor-head" project, but I'm having trouble getting the video signal to be clean. With a long cable going to the performer wearing it, the video is choppy and has lines and static. I'm using a 50 meter composite video cable made from Cat5 cable with soldered RCA jacks on each end. How can I improve the video quality?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These examples are what we're looking for. I doubt it would receive as many (if any) negative votes if the question was worded more like these trivial examples.</p>
| 3003 | 2013-07-11T10:41:39.480 | |discussion| | <p>For people who just started learning circuit theory (electrical & computer engineer newbies), or are experts outside the field (like mechanical, chemical engineers etc..) it's hard to know exactly what to ask.</p>
<p>Take this thread for example <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/75555/trying-to-do-this-monitor-heads">trying to do this monitor heads</a>.
Aside the fact he's looking for an opinion which he shouldn't have, It's a project-design question...And aside the fact he's too lazy to convey in words rather than video link his goal.</p>
<p>In another case, say someone else wants to build and design led fixtures, should we answer with information and show a block diagram like this <a href="http://www.ti.com/solution/lighting_streetlight_arealight_highbay_midbay" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TI's Block Diagram of Lighting embedded system</a></p>
<p>He might not know what a microcontroller and an embedded system is, then what kind is most suitable for this project. You could recommend him rasperry pi (which has hdmi output) + webcam</p>
<p>There is more than one way to skin a cat, but pointing in a direction rather than expecting a newbie to ask the right question might be more helpful</p>
<p>Any thoughts on this?</p>
| Should "how to design a project" questions always be put on hold as "too broad"? |
<p>found the answer to my question here:<a href="https://stackapps.com/questions/2115/fullstack-ipad-app">https://stackapps.com/questions/2115/fullstack-ipad-app</a>
It was found in the main Meta site</p>
| 3005 | 2013-07-11T14:06:50.370 | |discussion| | <p>in the link (<a href="https://stackapps.com/questions/36/stackmobile-com-view-stackexchange-sites-on-your-smartphone">https://stackapps.com/questions/36/stackmobile-com-view-stackexchange-sites-on-your-smartphone</a>) provided in one of answers of the question :<a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/98/is-there-a-mobile-app-for-viewing-stack-exchange">Is there a mobile app for viewing stack exchange?</a> , I if found out that there is a stackexchange app for android, but there was none for ios.
Is there any stackexchange app for the ios anyway?</p>
| ios app for stackexchange |
<p>One advantage to showing the delete button regardless is that it gives you more detailed feedback on the reason you can't delete it. For example a while back I posted an answer and the first half solved the OPs question, so he accepted it but the second half contained something false / misleading as pointed out in a comment.</p>
<p>Unfortunately it was when I was heading off to bed and the next morning a better answer had been posted so I thought I might as well delete mine and got something like "an accepted answer may not be deleted". That was clearer than the delete button not being present and I knew to edit the incorrect part of my answer rather than delete it.</p>
<p>Also as Olin pointed out in a comment for Meta posts it's best to mention a particular question or answer you have in mind if you're after a specific reason on why it can't be deleted.</p>
| 3015 | 2013-07-16T11:10:20.220 | |discussion|support| | <p>Wouldn't it be better if there was no option to delete a question that cannot be deleted? Why is there a link there to delete when it cannot be used?</p>
| Why is there a delete option for answered questions? |
<p>In terms of mod tools, this is an example of only having a hammer to deal with a situation. Specifically, the user in question wanted to delete their question. The system won't allow you to delete your own question once you have answers, so they edited the question to remove all content. These changes were then rolled-back. This went back-and-forth a few times, and so I locked the page to keep the question intact.</p>
<p>Also, "locked" does not mean "closed". I don't intend to close this question for the very reasons you mention. </p>
| 3021 | 2013-07-22T01:38:28.837 | |discussion| | <p>I noticed <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/76595/how-to-draw-a-circuit-diagram-to-check-a-4-bits-number-is-odd-or-even">this question</a> was locked by W5VO over a content dispute. But I'm not really sure what the dispute is about. Can someone shed some light on the lock?</p>
| Content dispute on "How to draw a circuit diagram to check a 4 bits number is odd or even" |
<p>Well, It looks like you downvoted his question, harrassed him, and then he deleted his account. Since you downvoted his question so much, the question was automatically deleted when he deleted his account. </p>
| 3029 | 2013-07-30T15:10:58.383 | |discussion| | <p>See the post <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/77432/4512"><i>"Passive circuit to rectify pulse signal"</i></a>.</p>
<p>This question clearly had some problems, and I both downvoted and voted to close it. The downvote was for general sloppiness, pre-supposing a answer, and leaving out stuff that should have been obvious that it would be relevant or useful. The close vote was because it was difficult to tell what was being asked.</p>
<p>However, after some comments, the OP added more information to the question and a reasonable answer was possible. 4 votes to close and 3 downvotes had accumulated until the question finally got to a answerable state. I have no problem with that since it was a mess originally. I you don't like the downvotes or the chance your question will be closed before you fix it, write a better question in the first place.</p>
<p>I started to write a answer, but then a banner popped up that the question had been deleted. I thought maybe the OP got frustrated, but is was deleted by community. That's the part I don't understand. First, I don't see the reason for deletion, considering by that time the question had been salvaged. Second, how can community delete a question so quickly that hadn't even been closed and had only 3 downvotes? If a mod did it, then isn't the mod's name shown? What is the mechanism by which community can delete such a question?</p>
| Why/how was this post deleted? |
<p>I'd simply close vote it as OT vis a vis appliance repair (the reason why it's OT), and flag for attention for migration to DIY, maybe adding a comment that that's what I did.</p>
| 3034 | 2013-08-03T16:45:12.807 | |discussion|flagging| | <p><strong>This question should be removed in my opinion:</strong> <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/77868/how-to-remove-a-vedum-halo-bathroom-light">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/77868/how-to-remove-a-vedum-halo-bathroom-light</a></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>The question if it does get deleted so everybody can see it, not just high rep users:</strong></p>
<p><em>How to remove a Vedum Halo bathroom light [on hold]</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have a wall mounted Vedum Halo bathroom light with 4 spots.</p>
<p>We would like to take it down and replace it. There is a small top
plate that I can remove and disconnect the power wires.</p>
<p>But I cannot see how the light is fixed to the wall. There are no
visible screws.</p>
<p>Anyone know how to get it down?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's about how to get a bathroom light from the ceiling, nothing to do with electronics <em>at all</em>. That user having almost 2K rep on SO.SE I hoped that they would figure it out themselves, but I also decided to flag the post. However, <strong>there wasn't a flag that applied <em>at all</em>.</strong></p>
<p>So the obvious route to flag: <strong>It doesn't belong here, or it is a duplicate > Off-topic because... > ???</strong></p>
<hr>
<p><strong>The options:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><blockquote>
<p>Questions seeking recommendations for specific products or places to
purchase them are off-topic as they are rarely useful to others and
quickly obsolete. Instead, describe your situation and the specific
problem you're trying to solve.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not really a shopping question so not this one.</p></li>
<li><blockquote>
<p>Questions on the use of electronic devices are off-topic as this site
is intended specifically for questions on electronics design.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not really either, but it <em>would</em> work. However, I think that it should be on DIY.SE, not EE.SE. So I proceed down the list.</p></li>
<li><blockquote>
<p>Questions on appliance repair are off-topic unless they involve
specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of
the underlying design of the device being repaired. See: Is asking on
how to fix a faulty circuit on topic?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not really an appliance, but if it was considered an appliance, it would fall under this category.</p></li>
<li><blockquote>
<p>This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can only choose Meta.EE.SE or Super User. Both won't work.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So the best choices: appliance repair or use, not design. <strong>It is not really either.</strong> If I could say that it belongs on DIY.SE, then I would, but there isn't an option. <strong>What should I have done?</strong></p>
<p>(It is closed/on hold now, but I'm asking what I should have flagged it for.)</p>
| How should I flag this question? |
<p>Ham or not to ham is the wrong way to ask, IMO - clearly the answers so far reflect that. I think the content of a ham's message should be judged on the merits of the contents of his or her post - just like any other poster's would be.</p>
<p>RF questions are clearly on topic - consider you can't design anything with a processor running over, what is it now, 100MHz, without FCC considerations (in the US, of course). </p>
<p>On the other hand, if a ham posts about cool radio designs he saw at the XYZ ham fest, that'd be a good candidate for off-topic flagging.</p>
<p>Not a ham, was a ham, not a ham, might be again </p>
| 3047 | 2013-08-14T20:43:30.590 | |discussion| | <p>There's a <a href="http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/43029/amateur-radio">HAM radio proposal</a> going on. Licensed HAMs tend to be qualified and enlightened people. We need them HAMs here on EE.SE . If HAM questions require some special policy, let's define it.</p>
<p>P.S.<br>
The question "<a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/338/where-are-the-hams">Where are the HAMs?</a>" have been asked previously.<br>
Keelan had chimed in about this too <a href="https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9969/differences-with-ee">here</a>.</p>
| amateur radio proposal on SE |
<p>One immediate thing that comes to mind is that I see you've posted the project files as a comment at a later point. You may have copped a few downvotes for a problem not easy to repeat without a significant effort so that would be worth editing into the question. Remember if that was the case their downvotes may be "locked in" because you haven't edited the question since.</p>
<p>Another thing is that on Stack Overflow it's accepted that there's no need to include tag names in the title. Rightly or wrongly that doesn't seem to go down well here, so maybe a title such as "Errors upgrading SOPC VHDL project to Quartus II" would come across better.</p>
<p>Finally it might be considered to be too broad, although personally I don't know enough about the Altera tools to know if that's the case or if all the problems are likely to stem for a few simple problems. Maybe a description of a few things you've tried without success would make it look a bit less like a "port my code" question.</p>
| 3048 | 2013-08-19T04:28:56.680 | |discussion|specific-question| | <p>I put in a question where I try to learn FPGA and I got downvoted for no reasoned mentioned. Could you help me improve the question since it is not a bogus question and not a bad question since it is about upgrading from SOPC to QSys in Quartus II.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/79265/please-help-me-resolve-my-system-errors">How to upgrade a Quartus II project from SOPC to QSys?</a></p>
| How can I improve this question? |
<p>Chris, the main problem that you are seeing is the product of a particular troll. When that troll appears, we all tend to pounce on him quickly. Sometimes his answers are better than others, but regardless of the answer quality we pounce. Give him an inch and he takes a mile (centimeter/kilometer?). Because of that you will sometimes see questions or answers that look reasonable but will have 5 or 10 down votes. It's unfortunate, but necessary. </p>
<p>Other times there is a legit person asking semi-legit questions, and they get an unfavorable response. This answer I gave to a different Q outlines some of the major reasons that questions are criticized: <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2777/does-ee-se-have-a-problem-with-the-treatment-of-newbies/2780#2780">Does EE.SE have a problem with the treatment of newbies?</a></p>
<p>And... Of course there are valid questions that are unduly criticized. Unfortunately that's just how the Internet is. I'm not using that as an excuse! The people who do that should be called on it, and explained how it is not acceptable. But there will always be those types of people and those who use the 'net need to have a certain amount of resolve to look beyond those bad apples.</p>
| 3056 | 2013-09-01T09:48:03.250 | |discussion| | <p>I'm not here everyday, but I check in every now and again. I recommended someone to come here and ask their zener diode question. I came to see if they asked... (they hadn't yet)</p>
<p><strong>And I regret recommending Electronics SE because now it's full of mean jerks.</strong></p>
<p>What happened to the nice people that would try and educate with great answers?</p>
<p><strong>Update</strong> hey thanks for a couple of you caring! Already, I've seen some edits and fixes, and very very much appreciate the genuine response. I was afraid I was going to get pounced on. What motivated me to say something is how impressed I have been with the patience of those answering questions. I was an ET for a stint in the Navy before going on to get my BSEE -- and I find I often learn from reading the questions and answers on here.</p>
| Why are the stewards of the community hurting and not helping? |
<p>Please edit over all critical material for answering your question into your question. Putting a note, "here are some previous questions: 1 2 3 4 5" works, but it is pretty time consuming to have users go back and read 5 previous questions to find what your project is.</p>
| 3057 | 2013-09-01T10:33:28.677 | |discussion|specific-question| | <p>I've gotten downvoted again as I'm learning what I think is quite difficult:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/80835/how-to-arrange-my-connections-in-qsys">How to wire a system for Nios 2 in Qsys?</a></p>
<p>I've had some problem and I might be asking similar question over and over but I'm really trying to make the project work and it is a system for FPGA. I think that the question can be improved since it was hastely put, should I make the title more specific and include more details?</p>
| Kindly suggest how to improve my question |
<p>This is an issue that only presents in IE 8 on Windows XP and has to do with how the JavaScript engine iterates (or rather doesn't) in <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4824207/javascript-for-in-looping-over-arguments-ie-for-arg-in-arguments-does-not-wor">specific cases</a>.</p>
<p>Fixed in the next build (rev 2013.9.23.1029).</p>
| 3065 | 2013-09-03T14:33:24.357 | |bug|status-completed| | <p>I just tried to include a image in a answer and the system didn't let me. I used the same procedure I always do, which is to type ctrl-G, then enter the name of the image file on my disk. When I hit ADD PICTURE, it popped up a window saying <i>"Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page? You have started writing or editing a post. ..."</i>. If I try to upload again after that it pops up a different window that says <i>"For security reasons, framing is not allowed ..."</i>. I would upload screen shots if I could, but I get the same problem trying to upload images here in meta.</p>
<p>Please fix this.</p>
<p>While you're at it, it would be nice to fix the long-standing bugs in the Add Image dialog. When I type ctrl-G, the Add Image dialog pops up. There is a place to enter the image file name with a BROWSE button immediately to the right of that. The stupid thing though is that you can't type in the file name line. You have to click on BROWSE with the mouse, which then pops up another window the finally does let you type a file name. I really dislike being forced to use the mouse. It slows down the flow and requires concious mental intervention as apposed to typing. This has been broken since the last change to this diaglog maybe a year ago.</p>
<h2>Added:</h2>
<p>At least some others are not running into this problem, so I'll try to provide some screen shots. Since I can't upload them I'll put them on a server and provide the link here.</p>
<p>Here is the result of trying to add a image into this post: <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0BQZq.jpg" alt="http://www.embedinc.com/temp/b.jpg"></p>
| Can't upload image anymore |
<p>Answers are sorted according to the tab you've selected: Activity, Oldest, Votes.</p>
<p>When answers are ordered by votes, higher voted answers appear at the top of the list. Answers with the same number of votes are randomized. The accepted answer appears at the top of the list as long as it wasn't written by the person who asked the question (OP). If the accepted answer was written by the OP, then it is sorted according to its votes.</p>
<p>This topic is covered on meta.stackoverflow.com:</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/127231/134987">Ordering of answers for a question</a></p>
| 3085 | 2013-09-15T17:45:35.127 | |discussion|asking-questions| | <p>I found a funny behavior. When I post an answer, it isn't always last, despite earlier answers before me. Is the sorting not chronological? Is reputation a part of the ordering?</p>
| How are answers sorted when posted? |
<p>Unlike voting, which is for the system and everyone else, marking posts as favorites is for you. Go to your user profile, and you will see there is a "favorites" tab. Stuff you mark as favorite shows up in this list. This is basically a way for you to make your own private list of posts kept for you by the system.</p>
<p>There is one side effect seen by others that I can think of. The number of users that have marked a question as favorite is shown by that question. Possibly there is a rep threshold to be able to see the number of uses that marked a question as favorite; I don't remember.</p>
| 3087 | 2013-09-16T12:38:42.690 | |support|bookmarks| | <p>I understand the purpose of up-voting or down-voting a question or answer. But there is another option for the questions i.e., <em>marking a question as favourite</em>. I don't really understand what purpose it serves. As far as I have searched, I could not find any explanation as to what it is used for. I know that this question does not belong to Electronics SE alone but to the entire SE network. But can anyone here enlighten me about the use of <em>marking a question as favourite</em>?</p>
| What is the use of marking a question as favourite? |
<p>Upvote both and pick one that was better somehow (better written, explained better, better formatted, etc) and accept that.</p>
| 3105 | 2013-09-19T14:36:33.157 | |support| | <p>It is not possible to accept more than one answer to any question but what if two people give a perfect answer each in their own way? How do we appreciate their response?</p>
| Accepting Multiple Answers |
<p>The code was assuming that comments were showing on the question page only.</p>
<p>I have amended the link to actually go to that page if not already on it.</p>
<p>Will be with you the next build (rev 2013.9.20.1027).</p>
| 3109 | 2013-09-19T22:38:58.333 | |bug|status-completed| | <p>SE has this cool feature which allows you to link to specific comments etc.</p>
<p>The standard share button, everyone knows about and it looks like this.</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/vltuf.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>You can also link comments like below by copying the link expressed here. The encircled text is a hyperlink that you can copy and paste.</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/iAmoV.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>Except that if you copy and paste that link while in the midst of a review session you get an incorrectly formatted link that leads to nowhere.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/24067#comment162570_82873">Here</a> is the link for that comment from within a review session of "low quality posts"</p>
<p>and
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/82873/what-reason-of-made-tdmi32bit-tumb16bit-jazell8bit-on-at91sam7x-microcont#comment162570_82873">Here</a> is a the proper link to that comment.</p>
<p>Printing the links out you can see where things go awry:</p>
<p>Bad:</p>
<p>"<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/24067#comment162570_82873">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/24067#comment162570_82873</a>"</p>
<p>Good:</p>
<p>"<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/82873/what-reason-of-made-tdmi32bit-tumb16bit-jazell8bit-on-at91sam7x-microcont#comment162570_82873">Why does AT91SAM7X microcontroller have different instruction modes?</a>"</p>
<p>As an aside: This is not to call attention to a particular post, just simply using it as an example.</p>
| A minor bug with linking |
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/tagging">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/tagging</a></p>
<p>This is handled by tags. Take a look.</p>
| 3138 | 2013-10-10T10:35:15.613 | |support| | <p>In stackexchange sometimes when we search for a word, A short description appears. How can I add such a description for a word like "EMI" which stands for "Electromagnetic interference"?</p>
| How to add explanation for a searched word? |
<p>Someone got a bit enthusiastic.</p>
<p>One of the early lessons learned on Stack Overflow was that, occasionally, someone will lose sight of the purpose of voting - elevating useful information and providing gratifying feedback to authors - and will engage in indiscriminate voting for (or against) folks who they like/respect (or dislike). Throwing an extra vote or two at a co-worker or someone who helped you out is no big deal, but when this becomes a bigger problem <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/more-voting-anomalies/">it is caught and reverted:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Based on additional analysis of the voting data and user data, we’ve
refined our detection of voting anomalies even further. I have to be
coy (again) about exactly how we do this because I don’t want users
optimizing around the various checks we do. But, in a nutshell:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>We can automatically detect sockpuppet accounts now.</strong> Sockpuppets used
for the purpose of upvoting or downvoting will be deleted, and their
votes — cancelled.</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>We now perform a more detailed statistical analysis
on voting patterns.</strong> Any voting patterns that are too far outside the
statistical norm will be nullified.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>The moderators here have contacted the folks responsible privately about this, and the votes have been invalidated.</p>
| 3140 | 2013-10-10T20:35:06.740 | |support| | <p>I came across this term when I checked out a fairly new guy who seemed to be answering a few questions and I noticed he had received, over the last few days, big negative numbers taken out of his reputation score with the tag "serial upvoting reversal".</p>
<p>I investigated and found out that it could be because of "unusual activities" surrounding a bunch of upvotes he/she received during a period of a few minutes i.e. it looked fishy; either a cheat, a fan or a stitch-up. I was impressed with the explanation and the tools available to moderators.</p>
<p>But, I suddenly remembered that I had received 5 consecutive upvotes (on non-current questions) a couple of days ago. I checked, and lo and behold, the "fairly new guy" also had a series of rapid-fire upvotes at the same time on the same day.</p>
<p>My 5 upvotes all occured at 10:48 and the new guy's 13 upvotes occured from 10:51 to 10:53.</p>
<p>Could someone look into this please. I don't want this guys votes if he's trying to cover his tracks or someone his trying to create a smokescreen.</p>
| Serial upvoting reversal |
<p>I see the question has been deleted, so I don't know how it was phrased exactly. Anyway, I think questions like "what is graphene" are better suited for <a href="http://physics.stackexchange.com">http://physics.stackexchange.com</a> than electronics. As I understand it this site is more for current applications, and graphene hasn't made it out of the research laboratory yet.</p>
| 3151 | 2013-10-18T15:03:58.193 | |discussion|off-topic| | <p>I asked about <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/85814/what-is-graphene">graphene</a>, an up and coming material that I keep seeing in IEEE that seems to be important. I read about it in wikipedia, searched the web, could tell it has importance, but that I don't have enough expertise to answer my question: what is it in relation to the semiconductor/electrical engineering world? So, I've seen people ask about materials before, and thought it was on topic.</p>
<p>Everyone down voted it, and told me it was off topic, and someone eventually suggested I ask in meta: is this on topic?</p>
<p>I thought this was the perfect place to ask about such things. How am I mistaken? Isn't the down-voting completely in contradiction to what this site is about? I understand how people that don't know the answer might consider it an "opinion based question", but there are people out there that know the answer, and those are the people that I wanted to hear from.</p>
<p>The whole thing felt like a big attack-fest. I would have just taken it down, because I didn't like how I seemed to just get attacked, but Olin Lanthrop had posted an answer (a completely worthless answer that even he admitted didn't answer anything), and the system won't let me. Regardless of the negative reception and one user's insistence that it's off topic, I still feel it's an important question. </p>
<p>So, at that user's suggestion, I'm putting it to Meta: are up and coming materials (that IEEE says will be used by electrical engineers in large quantities by 2020) that aren't yet well understood by the masses but have a chance of being answered by an expert off topic? </p>
<p>And, was Olin's answer appropriate, when he himself said "I only gave a short answer because I expect this question to be closed soon"?</p>
| Asking about Graphene: not on topic? |
<p>Generally, I think questions of the form, "Why does product XYZ not exist on the market?" are a bad fit for the site.</p>
<p>This question can only have a few different answers:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The product does exist: see vendor ABC's website. (Then you should have asked first, "Does this product exist?", or even better, "How can I solve this problem?" With a note that you tried looking for a product to do XYZ but didn't find it.</p></li>
<li><p>What you're asking for isn't technologically feasible at this time. But then the answer would have have complete knowledge of what is and isn't possible, so we're only likely to be able to answer this way in the most extreme cases.</p></li>
<li><p>No manufacturer has thought that making this product would be profitable. This makes the question a marketing question and not an engineering question. It also requires us to speculate about the thoughts in the heads of every marketing department in the world. </p>
<p>In particular, if the point of the question is that the product <em>should</em> exist in the market, then there are two problems: First, questions here should not be used to make a point; second, the asker should not be asking about the product here, they should be applying for a patent and/or polishing up a 30 second salespitch for the idea and spending their days going up and down elevators in buildings that VCs often visit.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>My point is, no matter which of these answers applys to the "why doesn't XYZ exist?" question, either the question could have been asked in a better way, or the answer isn't going to be available from the other users here.</p>
<p>In your case, I don't know if any of this applies specifically, but you do have other problems:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Question is too long. An answer touching on all your points would be too long for the site. I'd mark this under the "too broad" category for closing the question.</p></li>
<li><p>The topic of the question is marketing rather than engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>Answering the question requires speculation rather than facts. (I think this is what people were getting at when they checked the "opinion-based" box in the close dialog).</p></li>
</ol>
| 3155 | 2013-10-18T22:14:59.420 | |discussion|closed-questions|specific-question| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/85834/why-is-hardware-multithreading-not-more-common-in-embedded-systems">Why is hardware multithreading not more common in embedded systems?</a> was put on hold for being "opinion-based". Is there any way that the question can be refined to be answerable (by SE standards)?</p>
<p>(I can understand why the question would generate opinion-based answers. Since I was not expecting results from a 100-person-year research effort [which might be a low requirement for an "actual answer" determining the economic and other factors leading to the current state], perhaps I should have recognized that this would be an "opinion-based" question [though if the results of a substantial research project could not be summarized well, the question would be "too broad"]. However, I am curious about the seeming lack of market penetration for multithreading relative to multicore. [Strangely, I was more concerned, after seeing the first close vote, that the question might have been off-topic. As an outsider to embedded system development, I could not guess at how obvious the answer would be.])</p>
<p>Would reducing the breadth from "embedded systems minus networking" help sufficiently? E.g., if only microcontrollers were considered. (Limiting the question to microcontrollers would make the question less interesting to me, but I would still learn from any answers. However, even that question would still seem to be opinion-based.)</p>
<p>Asking about the success specifically of MIPS MT-ASE (i.e., in what types of systems is MIPS MT-ASE seeing use and at what volumes) would seem to be less opinion-based, but answers to that question would only hint at why even that specific ISA has limited uptake for its multithreaded implementations. However, it would at least provide <em>some</em> data on the reception of multithreading in embedded systems.</p>
<p>(Unless someone could get a mole into ARM, Ltd., I doubt a question about why ARM has not defined a multithreading architectural extension could be anything other than opinion-based. Likewise for those controlling development for various 8- and 16-bit processors.)</p>
<p>(I <em>am</em> grateful that it did not attract down votes [even getting two up votes--more than 3% of my reputation!--though based on comments it might not have been sufficiently clear, I think it "shows research effort" :-)].)</p>
<p>Perhaps the question cannot be fixed in any meaningful way and should just be allowed to pass into a permanently closed state.</p>
| Can this question be fixed? |
<p>I had a couple of unexplained down votes in one day about two weeks ago. They occurred within probably 30 mins of each other and I believe they were the 1st votes cast on each question despite them being negative.</p>
<p>If there were a way if seeing who was active on the site would their stats have shown -1 if I'd have visited their reputation profile?</p>
| 3169 | 2013-11-03T14:41:04.313 | |discussion| | <p>We have all probably seen mysterious downvotes occasionally, but recently there seems to be a more persistant vandal on the loose. Here are three answers I wrote yesterday and today that all got silently downvoted for no apparent reason:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87165/4512">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87165/4512</a><br>
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87252/4512">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87252/4512</a><br>
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87335/4512">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87335/4512</a></p>
<p>(Note that the first two are separate answers to the same question)</p>
<p>When you say something controversial or against someone's religiously held beliefs, you sometimes get a silent downvote. In those cases, at least you can take a reasonable guess you stepped on someone's toes who didn't leave a comment because they didn't want to admit the downvote was for personal reasons.</p>
<p>However, these three posts aren't like that. I think it's quite clear someone is going around downvoting for spite, retribution, or just plain vandalism. Has anyone else experienced this?</p>
<p>I don't care about the -6 rep. I do care that the time I put into writing answers is not wasted by pushing those answers artifically down the list where less people will see them or others may think they are wrong or unreliable.</p>
<h2>Added:</h2>
<p>Here are more:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87336/4512">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/87336/4512</a><br>
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/29224/4512">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/29224/4512</a></p>
| It seems we have a vandal loose |
<p>As per <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/164294/what-does-inactive-mean-exactly">What does "inactive" mean exactly?</a> which semi-describes inactivity for the Archeologist tag (editing 6 month old inactive questions), activity is any new answers, or edits to the question or answers. Tag edits count for activity, but not for the badge.</p>
<p>That specific question had someone add an answer that should have been a new question. That answer was deleted accordingly.</p>
<p>And it's not just mods who can see that, but anyone that has gained the "Access to Moderation Tools" <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools</a> privilege at 10k rep. (Frankly, I wish there was a way to turn viewing deleted answers off, they are annoying).</p>
<p>And as W5V0, unanswered/upvoted questions get bumped by the system to give them more attention.</p>
| 3184 | 2013-11-11T13:08:06.733 | |support| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/78592/how-to-implement-fire-detector-smoketemperature-for-an-electronics-project">This question</a> is a perfect example. Nothing has been added or edited. What caused it to get bumped? </p>
| What constitutes activity on a question? |
<p>And I would wear them in a boat!<br>
And I would wear them with a goat...<br>
And I will wear them in the rain.<br>
And in the dark. And on a train.<br>
And in a car. And in a tree. </p>
<p>(Yes hats)</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/QgBTM.png" alt="No eggs and ham"></p>
| 3192 | 2013-11-18T21:24:27.100 | |discussion| | <p>Last year around Christmas time we had an awesome promotion in which hats for for gravatars were awarded for completing basic tasks around the site. If you don't remember it, here is a <a href="http://stackexchange.com/promos/12/winter-bash">link</a> the promo from last year (and <a href="http://blog.gaming.stackexchange.com/2011/12/holiday-2011-hat-dash-the-hattening/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">another!</a>).</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/QOZfx.jpg" alt="hats"></p>
<p>This year, SE is planning to run it for <em>everyone</em> again because we all love hats, right? right?</p>
<p>But to get this awesome hat promotion we have to <strong>opt in</strong>. That means acting on this meta post, whether that's voting it up, answering in the affirmative, positive comments and/or just directing positive energy this direction. </p>
<p>I think this is a good chance at a bit of harmless fun, that could potentially help keep site traffic up through the northern hemisphere winter (when traffic usually dies down a bit for us).</p>
<p>HOWEVER: this promotion is <strong>optional</strong> for sites, and/or individual users. If the users of this site <em>do not</em> want this in general feel free to voice that opinion. We can opt out of the promotion. Individual users will be able to opt out as well (they will be provided with an "I hate Hats" link to opt out).</p>
<hr>
<p>Due to unanimous support, we will have hats! Thanks for voting!</p>
<hr>
<p>(Majority of content blatantly stolen from <a href="https://bicycles.meta.stackexchange.com/users/76/freiheit">freiheit</a>'s copy of <a href="https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49/wax-eagle">waxeagle</a>'s <a href="https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1420/do-you-like-hats">post on meta.christianity</a>.)</p>
| Do you like hats? (2013 Edition) |
<p>The OP requested for its deletion, I didn't see any particular reason not to do it. However, since you wrote the only answer, if you think it's a valuable contribution I can undelete it.</p>
| 3201 | 2013-11-21T14:42:45.190 | |discussion| | <p>I was surprised to see <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/90445/4512">this</a> question deleted by a mod. It was about whether loudspeakers need FCC certification. It wasn't a great question, but I didn't think it was outright bad in the sense of warranting deletion either. Nobody had downvoted the question (or upvoted either) or voted to close it. Nothing inflammtory was said. What is going on here?</p>
| Why was this question deleted? |
<p>Actually it does largely sound like a shopping question, even if you're not asking about price.</p>
<p>Also, when you're outside the Arduino cocoon like here on EE.SE, use grown-up words. It really pisses me off when people come here asking about "shields" and "sketches". I know that's what the Arduino documentation uses, but I resent Arduino marketing trying to re-define words for their own purpose at the expense of everyone else. Besides, "shield" in particular already has a specific meaning in electronics.</p>
<p>I don't care what the voting guidelines are. If I see "shield" and "sketch" and to some extent "Arduino", I'll look for excuses to downvote and close. If the question is really about electronics, then it doesn't matter whether an Arduino is involved. The Arduino questions we get seem to mostly be about user-level issues within the Arduino environment, which don't belong here.</p>
<p>If you can leave the Arduino out of it and ask about the electronics, like how to connect something to a digital output or drive a A/D input, then it is welcome here. Basically, if it matters that one of the components is an Arduino as opposed to just something with inputs, outputs, power connections, etc, then it shouldn't be here.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people don't agree with this, but like it or not, that's my attitude. Surely there is some appropriate place for Arduino questions out there.</p>
| 3205 | 2013-11-21T21:20:37.417 | |discussion|asking-questions|arduino| | <p>Arduino.Se is closed, and unfortunately for me, I only trust SE users. The last time i asked on this site, my question was stupid or dump or does not belong here, to say the least. I have another question about arduino question which is probably going to be labeled as a shopping question and closed. unfortunately for me, this is the only SE site which accepts arduino questions.</p>
<p>I am not afraid of my question being downvoted or closed, after all i don't have high rep to care about. But out of respect to this community, I learned to ask on meta first whenever i feel that my question isn't fit for the main site, especially that arduino isn't the main subject on this site. So my question is as follows:</p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p>I'm doing an arduino uno project and i need to control some motors
using my mobile phone through bluetooth. I contacted an arduino
reseller in my country and he said that he has bluetooth shield for
16$ and bluetooth module for 40$, i don't know which one to buy. </p>
<p>To make things even more confusing, <a href="http://randomnerdtutorials.com/arduino-control-2-dc-motors-via-bluetooth/" rel="nofollow">this guy</a> has done something
similar to what i wanted to do</p>
<p>using this which is <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0093XAV4U" rel="nofollow">only around 6$</a></p>
<p>but i've also seen other projects that are done using the shield, so
what to buy? I don't really care about the price, i am willing to pay,
but i don't know which one to buy.</p>
<p>At first i thought that arduino bluetooth shield is a shield (cover)
that protects the module but <a href="http://arduinobasics.blogspot.com/2013/01/arduino-basics-bluetooth-tutorial.html" rel="nofollow">this guy</a> was able to connect arduino
using the shield only.</p>
<p>my questions are: what is the difference between the shield and the
module? what are the differences between different arduino bluetooth
modules? What do you usually buy to connect an android device to
arduino using bluetooth?</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>Can I ask this on the main site? it's really not a shopping question because i don't really care about the price, i can buy anything, it's just that, it's so confusing to pick the right one since there are just so many options. I'm willing to take few downvotes, if my question is on topic and if i get good answers, i don't care about my rep, at least not on this site, but I don't want it to be closed.</p>
| Can I ask the following question on this site? |
<p>Proposed new close reason (shorter version):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Questions on electronics repair must involve specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying design of the device being repaired."</p>
</blockquote>
| 3208 | 2013-11-26T23:58:20.093 | |feature-request| | <p>I don't like the usage of the word <strong>appliance</strong> in the off-topic close reason for poor repair questions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Questions on appliance repair are off-topic unless they involve specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying design of the device being repaired."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to Merriam Webster's dictionary: An appliance is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"a machine (such as a stove, microwave, or dishwasher) that is powered by electricity and that is used in people's houses to perform a particular job"</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/91952/2028">A recent question</a> about how to unplug cables on a computer motherboard was closed for this reason. The problem is, it's not really an appliance, and I envision the OP scratching his or her head wondering how we categorize these things.</p>
<p>Instead, I'd like to see a close reason for poor repair questions worded something like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Questions on the repair of consumer electronics, appliances, or other devices must involve specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying design of the device being repaired."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or the short version:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Questions on electronics <em>repair</em> must involve specific troubleshooting steps and demonstrate a good understanding of the underlying design of the device being repaired.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/684/2028">Zebonaut's meta question</a> about improving repair questions is a great reference.</p>
| Change off-topic close reason "Appliance" repair |
<p>There was a bug in the job that synced these counts routinely, specifically it wouldn't fix the "now 0" case, a join vs. a left join going on. This will be fixed in the next build.</p>
| 3211 | 2013-11-27T18:51:38.943 | |bug|status-completed|badges| | <p>Maybe a little bug, even though I think it worth to report.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/badges">Badges section</a> you see that Reversal Badge has 1 awarded, like bellow.</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/UgsNa.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>But when you click on it, there isn't any awarded. See below:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/5GCGn.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
| Reversal Badge error |
<p>Here is what I just commented on in the question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>@Ricardo the question does show a lack of research and vagueness. Keycard vs keychain as original listed, no model numbers or even pictures, which is asking us to guess at a possible method it is working by, which makes it open ended. If you said "How does Model X (part number: yyyzzz) Keycard Switch work? I have looked for a schematic or datasheet but can't find one. It does X, Y and Z" that would draw less negative attention. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Asking for essentially Educated guesses are not really conductive to the site, or to you as the asker. We have very little information to work on. And I didn't downvote it either.</p>
<p>As for what we mean by like to actual devices or datasheet, WE mean that you should be providing that for the part you need to understand. Like a manufacturer and model number of the key card switch.</p>
| 3228 | 2013-12-04T22:32:47.357 | |discussion| | <p>I just got a question (<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/92685/29792">Hotel keycard switches on 5,000W load when placed in its holder. How does it do that?</a>) voted down. I know the question isn't a blockbuster, but the comments I got have already been helpful to me. So, I'm a bit confused. </p>
<p><strong>What would be the likely reasons for the votedown?</strong> I wanted to know so that my next questions are better formulated and I can make better use of the EE.SE network in the future.</p>
| Is my question innapropriate to the site? Why is it likely to be voted down? |
<p>I had to search for it too, but it's under the "StackExchange" pulldown.</p>
| 3242 | 2013-12-06T14:48:30.783 | |support| | <p>Previously when we hovered over our username we got a popup with a link to log out. Apparently the popup has gone, and I don't see how to log out.</p>
| How do you log out with the new header? |
<p>Things overlap. Just like there are some electrical wiring questions that are valid here AND on homeimprovement.se, or automotive 12v system questions. Not all, not most, but some. There are some physics or math questions valid here, there are some android and photography (ex. interfacing a microcontroller with a telephoto lens) and cooking (ex. controlling stovetop or toaster over heating elements via PID) questions as well.</p>
<p>The thing they need to have in common though, is a relevant connection to electrical engineering (or embedded design). Coding overlaps in many environments, from home computing and mobile phones, to embedded designs and super computers. From 50 cent toys to billion dollar space satellites. So it falls into a few different exchanges.</p>
<p>Soon there will be a Raspberry Pi stack exchange, so some questions previously falling to SO and Unix/Linux andEE, will also fall there. And some questions that we think belong at the RPI.SE, they think belong here, because of the overlap between an embedded computer like the RPI, and the typical uses of the RPI like hooking up sensors or relays or transistors or leds.</p>
<p><strong>Overlap is fine, as long as the main point of the question, has a very real connection with the site theme.</strong></p>
| 3251 | 2013-12-10T08:21:53.143 | |discussion| | <p>I have seen questions related to programming like</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/93174/compilers-and-msb-identification-for-data-types">Compilers and MSB identification for Data types</a></li>
</ul>
<p>as a matter of fact if I select the c18 tag (I have no idea why it exists here) I get many questions all related to programming</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/92423/deepsleep-mode-data-saving-in-pic18">Deepsleep mode Data saving in PIC18</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/91890/function-to-read-float-from-eeprom-devices-that-need-2-bytes-for-addressing">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/91890/function-to-read-float-from-eeprom-devices-that-need-2-bytes-for-addressing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/91776/i2c-delay-needed-and-c18">I2C delay needed and c18</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/84730/migrated-from-c18-to-hi-tech-c-18-interrupt-not-working">Migrated from C18 to Hi-Tech C 18.. Interrupt not working</a></li>
</ul>
<p>and many more...</p>
<p>None of them has been flagged by anyone, am I missing something regarding to what is off topic for electrical engineering?</p>
<p>Shouldn't these question have been asked in stack overflow ?</p>
| Related to off topic questions |
<p>This tag has been removed from all posts and marked as "intrinsic" - it'll still be possible to migrate posts in that use it, but it'll be silently stripped and won't be allowed on any new posts or edits.</p>
<p>Please help <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/tags/untagged">clean up the untagged</a></p>
| 3260 | 2013-12-11T12:27:35.093 | |discussion|status-completed|tags| | <p>I noticed there is an <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electronics" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electronics'" rel="tag">electronics</a> tag that seems a bit redundant to me. It appears to be used on a lot of questions migrated from Physics.SE such as <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/91824/resistor-on-anode-or-cathode">Resistor on anode or cathode? </a> presumably because it's one of the few common one between sites, but if removed those questions would be migrated as <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/untagged" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'untagged'" rel="tag">untagged</a> as is the case with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/93220/an-amplifier-with-feedback">An amplifier with feedback</a>.</p>
<p>There are 75 questions tagged with it at the moment and most look like they could do with better tags being applied rather than it being <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/120640/what-does-it-mean-to-burninate-a-tag">burninated</a>. I wondered if there's any objections to it being removed gradually via edits and maybe an edit on the wiki for the tag to say it's deprecated?</p>
| Is there any point to the electronics tag? |
<p>It is perfectly fine to give additional information relevant to the question in a answer, even if it does not directly answer the question. However, others may see that it doesn't answer the question and downvote.</p>
<p>What you should do is start a answer like that with something like <i>"This doesn't directly answer the question, but I think it's important to point out ..."</i>. that way people will see that you aren't pretending to answer the question and may actually upvote if the additional information is useful.</p>
| 3264 | 2013-12-12T13:25:13.457 | |discussion| | <p>While reading this question (<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/1150/29792">Controlling 500 LEDs with PWM</a>), I noticed that none of the answers addressed a design issue of LED brightness variability in a batch, factor that I thought could impact the OP's design.</p>
<p>I added <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/93484/29792">this answer</a> to highlight the issue that I thought was relevant, and right away I got a comment complaining that my answer brought a valid point but didn't answer the question.</p>
<p>My meta-question is: <strong>Are answers like mine valid for the site and appreciated by the users of EE.SE?</strong></p>
<p>In other words, <strong>Can I post answers that address side issues that are relevant to the question at hand, but have not been answered properly by others, but doesn't answer the question completely?</strong></p>
| Is it valid to post an answer that only complements other answers already posted? |
<p>I agree 100% with Stacey's analysis, but when you say "I flagged wrong?" the best thing to do is just flag how you see fit at the time. As long as you're doing your best to try and improve the site at the time for a lot of things like that there's not really a wrong / right decision.</p>
<p>Even when you get direct close / re-open votes I've seen questions closed I think should have been left open and others I think should have been closed that are left open. Everyone will have a different opinion and that's the idea of everone apart from moderators needing five votes to close or re-open a question.</p>
| 3275 | 2013-12-18T11:17:27.273 | |discussion|asking-questions|closed-questions|off-topic| | <p>I would like to know why this question <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/93359/sniffing-for-iphones">Sniffing for iPhones</a> was closed and this other question <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/11884/how-many-gps-channels-make-sense">How many GPS channels make sense?</a> my flag was declined.</p>
<p>The two question is really good question, I really want to know the answer, but not here in EE.SE. In my understanding the two questions are off-topic, the questions are asking about some doubt in use of a communication protocol.</p>
<p>I flagged wrong?</p>
| Doubt in Off-Topic Question |
<blockquote>
<p>should we take advantage of those opportunities and warn inexperienced
users of potential safety issues?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My reaction to this is "better safe than sorry", so I'd rather get tired of repeating the safety consideration over and over again (especially when I feel the question comes from an inexperienced member) rather than having any chance of a person injuring himself unaware of the danger involved.</p>
<p>I personally prefer to add a danger warning in bold at the end of any reply that includes circuits that are potentially dangerous.</p>
| 3283 | 2013-12-20T12:11:34.983 | |discussion| | <p>I've just come across a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/94235/29792">question from someone clearly inexperienced with electronics</a> trying to build a potentially dangerous AC/DC rectifier. An expert gave a very precise answer, but there was no mention of safety issues the OP may need to address to accomplish his task safely. But we newbies just don't know we don't know important stuff.</p>
<p>So, my question is, <strong>should we take advantage of those opportunities and warn inexperienced users of potential safety issues?</strong> To make the task easier, we could create a few safety boilerplate questions and answers and provide links to those. What's the EE.SE policy on the issue?</p>
| Should we give safety advice to those new to electronics? |
<p>Check <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/bounty">Help Center > Reputation & Moderation</a> for an explanation about bounties. Most important for you is that you need at least 50 rep to spend on a bounty.</p>
| 3290 | 2013-12-26T18:47:03.717 | |support|bounty| | <p>I am interested in how to setup a bounty to a question. I <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/search?page=1&tab=relevance&q=bounty">searched</a> for the tag [bounty] here but all the questions are about the rewardeing of bounties. If I overlooked the explanation please link me the answer. Thank you! </p>
| What do I need to set a bounty to my question |
<p>The <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/discharge" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'discharge'" rel="tag">discharge</a> is being used on questions, but nobody yet took the effort of writing a tag-wiki (and tag wiki excerpt). So the first one who proposes content for the tag wiki basically changes the empty text to a new text. Also notice that you often get two almost similar edits, but if you watch closely one is for the wiki and the other one for the wiki-excerpt.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that any reasonable text for a tag wiki is better than an empty one, so I am usually pretty easy on approving initial proposed text. When necessary it can be improved and I think it the threshold for improving an existing tag wiki is easier taken than the threshold for coming up with a completely new text.</p>
| 3296 | 2013-12-31T16:18:23.580 | |discussion|support| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/30251">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/30251</a> and the next one offer no context on what the original post was. Is this as its meant to be?</p>
| Weird suggested edit with no context |
<p>Flags, close votes and downvotes can all be applied unfairly. There are "checks and balances" in the system to reduce this.</p>
<p>A minimum reputation is required to close vote; it takes more than one close vote to close; and questions can be reopened.</p>
<p>Patterns of serial downvoting are detected by the system and reversed and failing that, behaviors can be reported and investigated by admins and possibly acted upon.</p>
<p>In the case of flags, you can directly express your disagreement, if you have moderator privileges (10K reputation or more).</p>
<p>Sometimes a little yellow number appears in the main bar, denoting flagged items needing moderator attention. Next to items there is a button [Flag or Disagree].</p>
<p>The choices there are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am flagging this answer because</p>
<ul>
<li><p>it is spam: This answer is effectively an advertisement with no disclosure. It is not useful or relevant, but promotional.</p>
</li>
<li><p>it is offensive, abusive, or hate speech: This answer contains content that a reasonable person would deem inappropriate for respectful discourse.</p>
</li>
<li><p>it is not an answer: This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.</p>
</li>
<li><p><strong>it has invalid flags: I do not agree with the existing flags on this answer, they are incorrect and should be ignored.</strong></p>
</li>
<li><p>it is very low quality: This answer has severe formatting or content problems. This answer is unlikely to be salvageable through editing, and might need to be removed.</p>
</li>
<li><p>other (needs ♦ moderator attention): This answer needs a moderator's attention. Please describe exactly what's wrong.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>The "invalid flags" choice seems to be designed exactly out of concern for the same thing that you've identified.</p>
| 3321 | 2014-01-15T15:54:51.423 | |discussion|flagging| | <p>Lately I've been seeing a lot of "not an answer" flags on things that <em>are</em> answers, just not good ones. Most recent example:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/51057/how-to-search-for-a-component/51070#51070">How to search for a component?</a></p>
<p>The "not an answer" flag says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't think answers should be flagged and deleted just because the answerer missed the point or is wrong, but that's exactly what's happening. Suggest improvements in comments, sure. Downvote if it's really bad. But if you say someone's answer "does not attempt to answer the question", when in fact the author <em>did</em> attempt to answer the question (but missed the mark), that's really rude and discouraging.</p>
| "not an answer" vs. "not a good answer" |
<p>Personally, I think there's little reason to advertse or endorse a course until you've taken it yourself and found it valuable. Coursera courses will not disappear if you miss one opportunity to take it.</p>
| 3323 | 2014-01-18T11:51:59.887 | |discussion| | <p>I've been looking for a quality, free introductory Electrical Engineering online course for a while, and finally came across these two below, from <a href="http://coursera.org" rel="nofollow">Coursera.org</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.coursera.org/course/eefun" rel="nofollow">Fundaments of Electrical Engineering</a> (free)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.coursera.org/course/eefunlab" rel="nofollow">Fundaments of Electrical Engineering - Laboratory</a> (free but requires ordering a lab kit costing around $250)</li>
</ul>
<p>My questions:</p>
<p><strong>1. Does the EE.SE site have na interest in these courses?</strong></p>
<p><strong>2. If so, what is the proper/best way to advertise it to EE.SE users?</strong> I thought that someone could post a link to this question on the bulleting board and that would be it.</p>
<p>I think that this is an excelente opportunity for all of our new users who are avid to learn Electrical Engineering, but didn't have the chance of getting the fundamentals right.</p>
| Is our site interested in advertising online EE courses? |
<p>From memory when you sign-up only one account can be entered and that is used to see if you qualify for access. However once your application has been accepted under "view & manage your profile..." the following appears for me when I click on the edit accounts button:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/GFmeg.png" alt="Careers 2.0 accounts"></p>
<p>From there you can add any example answers from each site that appear under your profile. Note that I haven't used Careers 2.0 much so hopefully this answers your question and you didn't have something else in mind.</p>
| 3340 | 2014-01-31T09:52:49.087 | |discussion|feature-request| | <p>I have both Stack Overflow & Electrical Engineering accounts. But, I found that only Stack Overflow account can be attached to CAREERS 2.0 account. Why it is not possible for Electrical Engineering? </p>
| Why Electrical Engineering account can't be attached to CAREERS 2.0 account? |
<p>Indeed you are encouraged to edit potentially good questions to turn them into <em>good</em> ones. Just, if you do so, leave a comment so that the poster can be aware of that and can improve the question.</p>
| 3354 | 2014-02-11T18:57:30.083 | |discussion| | <p>Just read this question, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/99430/scope-recommendation-to-view-1000base-t-waveform">What kind of tools would I need to analyze 1000BASE-T/gigabit ethernet waveforms?</a>, but was disappointed that it was marked as off-topic. I was interested in hearing what the experts had to say about it. </p>
<p>Someone suggested that a small change in title would make the question on-topic again. Well, I just did that, and am now waiting for the reviewers to approve it. I really hope they do.</p>
<p>So, my question is: <strong>Why not edit the question to make it on-topic instead of voting to close it?</strong> Is there a badge for closing questions that may be driving this behaviour? It's just too bad if there's pressure to get good questions like that off the site.</p>
| Why close this question instead of editting it to make it on-topic? |
<p>I'm with tcrosley on this, in that this deserves to be fixed. But an automatic fix may not be so easy to implement. The logic to prevent dead links like this:</p>
<ul>
<li>when question B is closed as a duplicate of question A, this should be recorded with question A. There may be several questions B </li>
<li>when question A is deleted the list of questions B linked to it have to be reopened</li>
</ul>
<p>Frankly I think this is too complex and requires too much work for what it's worth, as it won't happen that often; questions aren't deleted that much. So an alternative: </p>
<ul>
<li>when a closed question's link is dead, flag a moderator to reopen.</li>
</ul>
| 3360 | 2014-02-14T15:43:11.203 | |discussion| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/99774/how-can-i-learn-to-build-my-own-computer-with-arm-processors">This question</a> was marked as a duplicate of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/99699/how-can-i-learn-build-my-own-boards-with-amr-processors">this question</a>, but the latter has been removed from the system. So the reason "This question has been asked before and already has an answer." is no longer appropriate since there is no answer (or question for that matter). Regardless of whether the new question should be closed on other grounds or not, shouldn't the system have not the original question to be marked as a duplicate?</p>
| Duplicate question, question linked to no longer in system |
<p>All excellent points made by Jippie et al. </p>
<p>Avoid using multiple part questions. It is better to ask five separate questions than one question with five parts. This allows the answer to be short and specific and not end up as an essay.</p>
| 3379 | 2014-02-26T17:17:35.013 | |discussion| | <p>I am one of the organizers of <a href="http://www.robo-crc.ca" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a robotics competition</a> for high school students. We're entering our 14th year. Over the years, the students have amassed a fairly sophisticated level of technical knowledge, expertise and understanding, which has been passed down institutionally.</p>
<p>One of the keys to our competition is that <em>all</em> of the work on their robots must be performed directly by students. So, while adult expert 'mentors' are available, they only offer guidance and may not always have an answer to a particular question.</p>
<p>Not being new to the Stack, I wanted to check with this group to ensure that it would find it appropriate for us to actively direct students here as part of their resource pool.</p>
<p>I think it would be a great resource, and offer the young students a chance to engage with professionals and expert hobbyists alike. But I also understand that the context of Stack Exchange is not geared to this, specifically. Would it be worthwhile (for us) to ask students to provide some context if they chose to post here, such as their age bracket? I know I read a "silly" question on Stack Overflow from an identified high school student struggling with a jQuery selector differently than from someone I perceive to be a professional web developer.</p>
<p>I also fully accept and agree with the necessity to close and down-vote bad questions for the good of <strong>this</strong> community (which is essentially why I'm asking).</p>
<p>If relevant, we provide VEX-based base kits to student teams, and a few motors, but they are not limited to that. For example, some have interconnected Arduino boards and sensors to automate some tasks.</p>
<p>NOTE: I have posted <a href="https://robotics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/237/appropriate-to-send-high-school-students-from-a-robotics-competition-here">a similar question to Robotics.SE Meta</a>, as they are closely linked themes, but distinct communities.</p>
<p>EDIT: I'm sorry I can only accept one answer. Thank you, everyone, for your input!</p>
| Appropriate to send high school students from a robotics competition here? |
<p>The particular question you cited is actually a good example of what DOES belong here. Global variable versus other ways to solve the same problem is one of the areas where being on a small resource-limited machine matters.</p>
<p>So to respond to your request, no, there is no need for a direct migration option to SO because:<ol></p>
<p><li>You seem to have the wrong idea what should be migrated to SO, thereby your impression of how often it is necessary is skewed.</p>
<p><li>What W5VO said, which is that the volume of migration to SO is tiny.</p>
<p></ol></p>
| 3403 | 2014-03-04T14:31:18.797 | |feature-request|status-declined|migration| | <p>Sometimes I stumble upon programming questions that are nor embedded-device specific, but instead ask about good practices, coding style or the programming language. An example:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/97241/use-of-global-variables-in-embedded-systems">Use of global variables in Embedded Systems</a></p>
<p>I think it would be interesting to add an option in the flag dialog to migrate to Stack Overflow, where there are more readers that could help the op faster with general programming questions.</p>
| Option to migrate questions to stackoverflow? |
<p>You have <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3287/4512">asked this before</a>, and apparently learned nothing from the answers.</p>
<p>You just <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/102258/4512">asked another question</a> on the main site, and it's full of the same things you were told not to do. I did give a brief answer, but with so many wrong statements, invalid assumptions, and overall sloppiness, it's no surprise it is getting downvoted. All the problems make it difficult to answer because a lot of stuff would have to be unraveled first before the context for a meaningful answer could be established, let alone actually answering the question.</p>
<p>In short, you were banned from asking questions for a good reason. You tried to weasel around the ban by creating a new account. That's probably against the rules in the first place. However, you haven't cleaned up your act, which is even worse from my point of view (the moderators may take a particularly dim view of creating another account to circumvent a ban).</p>
<p>On a separate topic, you say that you are about to graduate with a degree in electrical engineering, but yet you are asking how a voltage divider works. You need to seriously think about your career plans, and take your education seriously - including how you're learning (or <em>not</em> learning) from your questions <strong>here</strong>.</p>
| 3409 | 2014-03-08T08:53:35.790 | |discussion|asking-questions| | <p>I asked a question: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/100594/explanation-of-transistor-amplifying-action">Explanation of transistor amplifying action</a>. I wrote my question very specifically by highlighting the main points which I do not understand but even I have not got any useful answer.</p>
<p>I don't know why someone downvoted my question. Perhaps the downvote is due to the grammatical or formatting mistakes; I can just speculate.</p>
<p>I want to ask more questions but I am afraid I would be again downvoted and banned. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Please help me how should I ask my questions. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have more question to ask like on \$LC\$ tuned circuit and on pull down resister. Please tell me how should I ask these questions. </p>
<p>I also want to ask this question: <a href="https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/82949/steady-state-of-diffusion-current-in-semiconductors">https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/82949/steady-state-of-diffusion-current-in-semiconductors</a> on this website because I think on physic.SE people are not so much familiar with solid state electronics. When I was using my previous account I cross-posted this question on this website but it get downvoted and soon deleted by the community moderator.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>So should I cross-post this question from phys.SE? </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>This is a response to @ChrisLaplante.<br>
<a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3409/how-to-ask-a-question/3411#comment7588_3411">My comment</a> was not for the whole SE network(i.e. every SE website), it is only for <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/</a>. Although my comment has been edited by someone its essence is pretty much same as before.
I had an account on this website which I have deleted. With my previous account I asked some questions which were downvoted silently. I <strong>did not know</strong> why my questions were downvoted that's why I could not improve them. I was banned to ask more questions. I do not have enough knowledge to answer Engineering questions that's why I could not lift the ban. Once I was banned on Phys.SE too but by posting answers I lifted that ban. I have made a new account here and asked two questions. My two question are not well received by the community and are downvoted. Now I know why my questions were downvoted in my previous account \$-\$ Because I did make some grammatical and formatting mistakes. But now I do not know why these two present questions are still remain downvoted although a gentle person has corrected the grammatical and formatting mistakes in it. Perhaps on this website people forget after downvoting.<br>
Now let's come to the point. I am not mistaken this website. It is a FACT. On <a href="http://math.stackexchange.com">http://math.stackexchange.com</a> I did make the same grammatical and formatting mistakes(like not capitalizing the word "I") but nobody downvoted for this reason. Math.SE is very good website there are very friendly people, they have given me very useful answers. This website should learn from Math.SE.<br>
Do you know what most of the people do here(on EE.SE)? They downvote silently and walk away. They do not tell what's wrong in the post. They do not even bother whether the OP has corrected the error in his question or not.
Like any country is known by the behaviour of its people, any website is known by the behaviour of its users. If majority of the people(users) of a community(website) discriminate(and humiliate) on the basis of language then that community(website) will be called "<em>A Linguistic discriminating community(website)</em>"<br>
I did not came here to dissrespect anyone. I came here to learn and to ask questions. I did not want to make things personal but people here have prejudices for me, they made things personal. Yes I am an Engg. student and never understood any of my subjects. You know why? Because human race is alike, people behave in real life the same they do on any internet website. Throughout my academic carrier I have always been mocked because I ask questions which are difficult to understand and difficult to answer. My teachers always say: Your question is nonsense, it is not understandable, you are confused and confusing me too, etc etc. But the truth is my teachers do not have the qualification to answer my questions.<br>
No one can take away my right to learn. I can self study like I did in school time.
Mr. Lathrop is right - I do not belong here. This website is an English based website for intelligent students. </p>
| How to ask a question? |
<p>The question marked "<em>duplicate</em>" is closed and the link to the other duplicate is added on top. The questions and their answers remain unchanged.</p>
<p>"<em>Merge</em>" requires an additional action which is done by moderators. I haven't done it myself (yet), so I don't have first hand experience. <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/06/improved-question-merging/">Here's an SE blog post about merging.</a><br>
Merging is seldom done on EE.SE (don't know if there is a rationale against doing it).</p>
| 3429 | 2014-03-16T18:23:19.653 | |discussion| | <p>If a question is marked as a duplicate for another question, what happens to the answers for the duplicate question? Are they merged with the original? Does the duplicate question remain in the system?</p>
<p>If no to both these (the are not merged, and the duplicated question is to be deleted), then if an answer for the duplicate question applies equally to the original question as well, should the person who wrote the answer for the duplicate question then respond to the original question as well with the same answer?</p>
| What happens to answers on duplicate questions? |
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/200177/updated-procedure-for-reporting-scrapers">Reported to SE</a> and left comment for user as this seems to have good intent. </p>
<p>You are allowed to copy content with attribution, this is lacking it and seems to clearly be attempting to drag users to their site for discussion of a question on our site. </p>
| 3433 | 2014-03-17T16:58:56.613 | |discussion| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/101769/problem-testing-an-adc-with-a-dac-and-voltage-divider">Problem testing an ADC with a DAC and voltage divider</a></p>
<p>How do folks feel about this? Looks like a TI engineer reposting on behalf of a SE poster on the TI site. Might be a great way to help the OP, but feels sorta funny to me.</p>
| Redirection by engineer to other site? |
<blockquote>
<p>What are the components I need for assembling a hobby mobile phone?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Way too broad. Do you mean individual parts, like specific ICs, etc? Or do you mean high level, block diagrams? A hobby device is exactly like a commercial device.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How would I go about assembling such a hobby device?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Again too broad. There is no one way except "Soldering"</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Are there laws governing assembly/use of such hobby devices?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We are not lawyers. And most likely, noone here has built a device like you intend, so they haven't done any research on their own. And laws vary by county, state, federal even international levels. Only a lawyer or paralegal would have a clue of where to even begin looking up documents.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can I flash the ROM of a mobile phone, e.g. Nokia, in order to install a custom minimal operating system on it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes. And a specific question on how to do that like "I have xyz rom. I've check the datasheet but can't be sure. Can it be flashed?" is good. A general question like "I have a nokia 3620. I can hack it?" is not.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Which peripheral/main units can be used to check a firmware's digital signature?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A computing question, at best. Not EE. Off topic.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can someone point me to an appropriate SE site or a related SE forum? I'm hoping for a site with about as much users as this site has.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is no other SE site that is close to EE for electronics question, and most of the other questions are off topic on most of them. Sorry.</p>
| 3446 | 2014-03-25T23:40:34.557 | |support|asking-questions|on-topic| | <p>I recently had most of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/33856/user33856?tab=questions">my questions</a> closed, down-voted, or put on hold, so I'm asking.</p>
<ol>
<li>Don't my questions really belong here in EE SE? Below are samples
<ul>
<li>What are the components I need for assembling a hobby mobile phone?</li>
<li>How would I go about assembling such a hobby device?</li>
<li>Are there laws governing assembly/use of such hobby devices?</li>
<li>Can I flash the ROM of a mobile phone, e.g. Nokia, in order to install a custom minimal operating system on it?</li>
<li>Which peripheral/main units can be used to check a firmware's digital signature?</li>
</ul></li>
<li>Can someone point me to an appropriate SE site or a related SE forum? I'm hoping for a site with about as much users as this site has.</li>
</ol>
| Don't my questions belong to this site? |
<p>Each user who has at least 15 reputation is allowed to use a certain number (anywhere from 10 to 100) of moderator flags per day. The specific number depends on your level of reputation and your previous flagging history. Your personal flag count resets at midnight GMT.</p>
| 3452 | 2014-04-01T20:00:18.087 | |support| | <p>Is the number of "flag" you can set for moderator attention regenerating up to 10?</p>
| Is the number of "flag" for moderator attention regenerating up to 10? |
<p>A title where 3 out of 4 words are acronyms is not a good title. </p>
<p>When the acronyms are used properly, they don't impede (sometimes even improve) the flow of reading. When they are used improperly, they impede the flow of reading.</p>
<p>Abbreviations I/P (input), O/P (output), s/w (software), h/w (hardware), f/w (firmware), b/w (between), w/ and w/o (with and without). These are very handy for taking hand-written notes, especially in real time. But in the typed text, they should be used judiciously.</p>
<p>P.S. Here's another acronym question: <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2997/7036">What are acceptable abbreviations/shorthand for microcontroller?</a></p>
| 3456 | 2014-04-02T18:33:21.430 | |discussion| | <p>I've occasionally seen the abbreviations "O/P" and "I/P" used in a context where it can be inferred they mean "output" and "input" respectively. However, in years of doing electronics work (in the US) I've never actually encountered these particular abbreviations until recently on this site.</p>
<p>Example question: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/68337/2028">BJT Amplifier I/P O/P</a></p>
<p>Are these abbreviations common in other regions or languages? Should they be edited to conform to an English StackExchange site?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Note: the question has been edited, see history</p>
</blockquote>
| Are "O/P" and "I/P" acceptable or standard abbreviations for output and input? |
<p>In his case I declined the flag. Indeed the answer is quite poor, and could have been a comment (although I'm not sure how useful). That's why I left a comment below it.</p>
<p>The reason I declined the flag is that it's an attempt from a new user to participate to the site, and I feel like deletion should be reserved for posts that actually harm the site when left there. I prefer seeing poor answers downvoted, then it's up to the poster to delete them if he/she has a problem with them.</p>
<p>My intention was not to discourage you from flagging posts, just to give <em>my</em> feedback about what <em>I</em> consider worth flagging. I'm also open to your (and I mean anyone's) feedback on this.</p>
<p>Looking for reference, I've found <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/123382/should-i-flag-a-poor-comment-of-a-poor-answer">this</a>. And <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/167632/177507">this</a> (from a SE.Team's member ;)) pretty much explains my vision.</p>
| 3463 | 2014-04-03T17:09:57.017 | |discussion| | <p>What is a "very low quality" answer? I flagged <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/4482/vhdl-converting-from-an-integer-type-to-a-std-logic-vector/105234#105234">this answer</a> as very low quality, which was declined with the reason:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My reasons for flagging it in the first place were:</p>
<ul>
<li>it is very late (>3 years) that adds nothing to other answers.</li>
<li>it should have been a comment.</li>
<li>it is technically inaccurate, as pointed out by two other correct answers and comments on one other inaccurate answer.</li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps I could have flagged as "not an answer", or not flagged at all. </p>
<p>Advice on how I can flag this kind of answer better in future would be useful, as would any examples of when to use "very low quality".</p>
| What is a "very low quality" answer? |
<p>My initial reaction was to close it as off-topic "Questions seeking recommendations for specific products [...]" (what @ThePhoton said). Then I have remembered that a <a href="http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com">stack for software recommendations</a> was established recently, and I've migrate it over there.</p>
<p>We have closed a lot of software recommendation requests on EE.SE.</p>
<p><strong>Q:</strong> What should one do, if one thinks that he has a software recommendation request, which should be addressed by EE.SE specifically?<br>
<strong>A:</strong> Ask for recommendations in EE.SE <strong>chat</strong>.</p>
| 3470 | 2014-04-14T17:43:32.497 | |discussion| | <p>This <a href="https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/3227/what-are-free-rs-232-terminal-programs">question</a> was recently migrated from Electrical Engineering to Software Recommendations. It is asking for a software interface to view the serial output of a microcontroller.</p>
<p>It is certainly asking for a software recommendation, but I think it's much more applicable to an EE Forum than a software forum. The answers had more than 20 aggregate Upvotes in the EE Stack. I would liken the question to "Should I use MPLAB X or MPLAB v8 for developing microcontroller code." Definitely software related, but only for EE's :)</p>
<p>Am I incorrect? Does it matter?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
| A question was migrated, but I think it belongs in the original stack |
<p>Sorry 'bout that. I broke a thing earlier today. This should be fixed now.</p>
| 3489 | 2014-05-05T17:21:03.960 | |bug|status-completed| | <p>Trying to post an answer to a question in main EE StackOverflow, I will get "an error occurred" without more specifics.
Posting comments works fine.
Why is that? Something going on? Something with my account?</p>
<p>The specific error is a red box right next to the submit post button saying "An error occurred submitting the answer."</p>
<p>And, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Seems to have started recently.</p>
| Why do my answers keep getting an error? |
<p>It doesn't <em>mean</em> anything.</p>
<p>A bounty "buys" you up to 7 days under the <strong>Featured</strong> tab, and the ability to give reputation as a reward to one answer. While I'm not interested in researching/testing, the original author gets the award, not any additional editors. It's the bounty offer's money, they can award it to any answer they want. </p>
<p>As to <em>why</em>... I can't answer that.</p>
| 3494 | 2014-05-05T22:18:39.827 | |discussion| | <p>There is currently a question on the site called <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/108522/what-are-abbreviations-used-in-electrical-engineering">"What are abbreviations used in electrical engineering?"</a> which has gotten quite a bit of attention.</p>
<p>Someone just put an open bounty worth 50 reputation, with the reason "This question has <strong>not</strong> received enough attention." (My emphasis.)</p>
<p>Huh? First of all, this question is Community Wiki, so what does a bounty even mean in this case? (Oh, I think I found that out, see below.) Plus it seems with 170+ answers, this question <em>has</em> gotten quite a lot of attention.</p>
<p>So is the bounty just a joke then? I see the poster actually has only 50 points rep left, and claims to be 13, so maybe that is the case.</p>
<p>But my question still stands, re the meaning of a bounty on a community wiki question.</p>
<p>I did some research (which I should have done before asking the question, my bad), and discovered in the meta.stackexchange.com FAQ that "Bounties awarded to answer marked as community wiki give reputation as usual.</p>
<p>So does this means that the person posting the bounty, can, a week from now, pick one of some 200+ answers (I'm sure it will be up to that point by then), and award <em>one</em> of those answers 50 points? I'm not begrudging the rep, just seems a bit strange. (And I don't understand why the authors of community Wiki answers should get awarded bounties anyway.)</p>
| What does an open bounty on a community wiki question mean? |
<h1>Move it to Meta.EE!</h1>
<p>Remove the moderator lock, and migrate the question and all answers <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/">to meta</a>.</p>
| 3497 | 2014-05-06T04:52:17.510 | |discussion| | <p><strong>So we now have a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/108522/what-are-abbreviations-used-in-electrical-engineering">Terminology Reference</a></strong> </p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3482/what-about-a-terminology-reference-question">Original Meta Question</a> </p>
<p>Well this has grown into something much larger than originally intended. This started as a quickly implemented suggestion of a moderator, and that's part of the reason why it has stayed around so long. As of this writing, there are 174 answers (including the deleted ones). I have locked the post while we figure out what to do with it. </p>
<p>To summarize the opinions I've seen (and feel free to leave a comment if I'm missing anything):</p>
<h1>Pros:</h1>
<ul>
<li>Centralized "repository" of jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms.</li>
<li>Allows users to assess whether a given acronym is common or not.</li>
<li>Each individual post can be linked to in Questions/Answers/Comments. </li>
<li>There are entries for items that do not have tags and/or tag wikis (60+)</li>
</ul>
<h1>Cons:</h1>
<ul>
<li>It violates the guidelines of StackExchange
<ul>
<li>It is NOT off-topic. Stop trying to use that excuse any time you want to get rid of a question.</li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask">Using criteria from the Help Center</a>, this question is not practical, answerable, based on a problem. It is by definition open-ended, and certainly has generated a lot of chatter. "All the acronyms used in EE" is not a reasonable scope. Every (well, almost every) answer is equally valid, and there is no problem to be solved (other than a lack of an acronym reference). The question is not subjective. </li>
</ul></li>
<li>It replicates the functionality of the tag wikis</li>
<li>It replicates a number of existing acronym indexes on the Internet (thanks Adam)</li>
<li>It is not close to being complete - there are plenty of acronyms or abbreviations missing, resulting in activity for weeks if not months.</li>
<li>It will serve as a poor indicator as to the type of questions allowed.</li>
<li>It will encourage more list-style questions (e.g. "What types of capacitors are used in EE?")</li>
<li>It requires maintainence (checking back to see new additions, updating of the index)</li>
<li>Voting gives a preference to oldest answers</li>
</ul>
<h1>So what do we do?</h1>
<p>Honestly, I'm torn on what to do with this question. The only "Con" that I don't <em>really</em> care about is following the StackExchange guidelines, as long as there is community consensus. I've seen three suggestions on what to do with the post: Leave it as it is, Move it to meta.EE, or delete it. Those three options will be placed below as answers for a poll (see, it's fun to subvert the StackExchange engine for fun and profit). I'll be going by total answer score, so yes that means you can upvote what you like, and downvote what you don't like, or even have a preference in your options. If there is another solution, add it as an answer.</p>
<h1> tldr: Vote Below!</h1>
<p><strong>Results:</strong> </p>
<ul>
<li>At a net vote count of +8 (+18, -10), the majority of the community has voted in favor of keeping the reference question. The second closest option, deleting the question, was at +1 (+12,-11). Moving it to meta was at -1 (+8, -9). The question will stay around (unlocked) as long as it is maintained.</li>
</ul>
| What to do with the terminology reference question |
<p>It's possible the OP was using another computer and didn't log in, or didn't understand that logging in was necessary to make the edit appear to be from the same user. In a case like what you saw, I would leave a comment for the OP asking if the added schematic is correct.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you find a suggested edit that is clearly not correct, roll it back or flag it. I think anonymous or new users' edits to questions should be fairly minor until they've become trusted through reputation gain.</p>
| 3700 | 2014-05-19T14:18:08.917 | |discussion| | <p>Today I came across <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/39134#./39134?&_suid=1400508548897040188259327664943">this suggested edit</a> from an anonymous user. The edit added a schematic to a question that was begging for one. At first I found that suspicious: how could an anonymous user know what circuit the OP was talking about, but then I studied the circuit a little and thought that the circuit was ok and the anonymous user was just being helpful. Then I saw that PeterJ rejected it, so I thought that maybe I had been fooled.</p>
<p>My questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>As a reviewer, how should I handle this and similar cases?</p></li>
<li><p>Should we just go in and rollback the edit (it's been approved now)?</p></li>
</ol>
| Suspect suggested edit by anonymous user: what to do? |
<p>For my graduate work, it was recommended for people to use Microsoft Visio to recreate their circuits with nice formatting and the capability to do subscripts for labels. It's still clunky for that if I remember right, but at least it's possible there. Visio has a nice library of elements for circuit schematics. Obviously, you can't simulate a circuit from Visio...</p>
| 3701 | 2014-05-20T17:16:51.633 | |support|circuitlab| | <p>I need the components in my circuits to be labelled using sub-scripts like \$R_1,\ R_2,\ Z_{in}, V_{DS},\$ etc., Is there any way to do so?</p>
| Use subscripts in labels in schematic added from Circuitlab |
<p>On EE.SE, the the Up/Down breakdown privilege turns on at <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/established-user">1k reputation (established user)</a>.</p>
<p>I'm guessing that privileges in the stacks that are in beta (like Embedded Systems) turn on at lower reputation, because their number of members is smaller.</p>
| 3708 | 2014-05-29T19:37:00.030 | |support| | <p>I was recently invited to the new Embedded Systems beta and I noticed that I could click on the vote number of a question or answer and it would show me the breakdown of up votes versus down votes. I thought this was pretty cool and mentioned to a friend that I wished the EE.SE could do that too... To which he replied that it did. </p>
<p>So, I guess my question is: <strong>What is the rule/pattern for being able to view the up/down vote breakdown for a question or answer?</strong></p>
<p>It doesn't seem to simply be rep based because I have 101 rep on Embedded Systems and <em>I can</em> see the breakdown... but I have 560 rep on Electrical Engineering and <em>cannot</em> see it.</p>
| Up/Down voting breakdown on questions and answers |
<p>You can set the scaling for yourself using MathJax's contextual menu. Right click (or control click on a Mac) any typeset equation and select the "Math Settings" submenu, then the "Scale All Math" item. You can enter a scaling factor that will be used for all equations on the site where you set it. It is saved in a cookie, so should continue to be used for subsequent visits until you toss your cookies (or a year passes, which is the expiration time for the cookie). So if you don't like the default scaling, you can chance it, and can make it either larger or smaller.</p>
<p>Note that the readability of the text is very much dependent on the browser and OS that you are using, the rendering engine used by the browser or OS, and settings controlling antialiasing of the fonts. For instance, your example with the fraction and double-subscripted V's is very readable for me. I understand that Windows (particularly older versions) produce very poor results for small fonts in general.</p>
<p>Since the math displays nicely for me, I would find an enlarged scaling factor a distraction (since the math would not match the surrounding font well). So I would vote not to make such a global change.</p>
| 3716 | 2014-06-05T17:51:38.893 | |support|mathjax| | <p>Between fractions and subscripts using MathJax characters can get really small to the point of not being legible under the current default zoom conditions. From <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/233651/changing-font-size-for-equations-on-electronics-se-and-others-that-are-capable/233654?noredirect=1#233654">here</a> it was recommended that I see if others on the EE SE are interested in changing the default size/zoom of equations here. </p>
<p>Here's an example text of a dual subscript in a fraction that makes it really hard to read. Even the "t"s in it are difficult to discern. Your votes will determine if I just need new glasses.</p>
<p>$$ \frac{V_{t_p}}{V_{t_n}} $$</p>
<p>Here's the quote from the other Meta stack site stating a way to change the default size:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Or, if sufficiently many EE users think that the font size in formulas
should be increased, that can be done site-wide, by changing MathJax
configuration. E.g., the configuring script could include
MathJax.Hub.Config({ "HTML-CSS": {scale: 120} });. This is something
you can bring up for discussion on meta.EE.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>EDIT:
No one had come up with a good answer/solution to the original question on the other SE so this question was originally a feature request. I've changed it to be a support topic as no new feature is needed. W5VO answered this question perfectly in his comment.</p>
| Increase default size of equations to allow subscripts to be seen easily without zoom |
<p>No, these are currently only active on the three big sites, as per <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/157121/what-are-review-tests-audits-and-how-do-they-work#comment520523_157121">this comment</a> on the question you linked to. Actually, that is the post that I would take all my information from.</p>
<p>If they were active, you would know immediately after completing a review test whether it was an audit or not. </p>
| 3725 | 2014-06-14T01:41:30.823 | |discussion| | <p>Today I learned about a new Stack Exchange concept, called <strong>Review Audits</strong> (for more information, please see <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/157121/what-are-review-tests-audits-and-how-do-they-work">What are review tests (audits) and how do they work?</a>).</p>
<p>Well, after having reviewed a fair amount of posts on our site (600+), I was quite surprised to learn about the new concept, and, more importantly, that I was being tested (yes, I'm a bit paranoid). I never came across an audit, at least, not that I know of. So, my questions are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Since I've never seen any audits here, <strong>are review audits turned off for our site?</strong></li>
<li>Have I been audited but didn't notice?</li>
<li>Have I aced all the audits without noticing any of them? (not likely, but possible)</li>
<li>Have I failed a bunch of them, and now should wait for the Review Police to knock on my door?</li>
</ul>
<p>When I think I've seen everything that could ever be invented in StackExchange... then I learn about some more.</p>
| Are review audits turned off on our site, or did I just ace all of them without noticing? |
<p>In general it's quite a broad question, but (IMO) can be a good one as long as you:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>verify that the prototype works,</p></li>
<li><p>explain the design choices you made</p></li>
<li><p>express your perplexities and doubts you had in the design phase.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>So in general I'd say that instead of just saying "please look at my design" you could ask for clarifications and feedback on the aspects you're not that confident about.</p>
| 3730 | 2014-06-18T04:04:57.570 | |discussion| | <p>I have a designed and prototyped a circuit, and it works. I'd like to get community review of the design though, in the same way that I can get code review at <a href="https://codereview.stackexchange.com/">https://codereview.stackexchange.com/</a>.</p>
<p>Are review requests on-topic here? I've checked the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">FAQ</a> but can't find anything specific.</p>
| Requests for review on-topic? |
<p>I think that the question is fine here. It has a lot to do with the properties of motors, which are definitely part of electrical engineering.</p>
| 3733 | 2014-06-18T22:23:19.333 | |discussion|scope| | <p>I understand that questions involving the usage of a particular electronic device are off topic. However, I asked <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/115886/why-do-refrigeration-compressors-stall-when-switched-off-and-on-quickly">a question about refrigeration compressors</a> and a user has commented that it may be off topic. The question is not really about the usage of the equipment itself but the technical details of the operation of the device and how and why certain conditions may cause the device to operate incorrectly.</p>
<p>Are such questions on topic?</p>
| Are questions involving the technical details of the operation of a device on topic? |
<p>I went ahead and deleted it.</p>
<p>Part of the concern is to discourage going through old questions looking for trouble. When you go back 3-4 years, to the infancy of the site, you see a lot of behavior that would not be allowed now because people were unfamiliar with the format. Also, rules have changed over the years. Finding things to flag in old questions isn't that hard, but usually it's not a productive use of anyone's time.</p>
| 3735 | 2014-06-19T15:32:49.687 | |discussion|specific-question|flagging| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/5990/do-antistatic-bags-have-conductive-interior-exterior-or-both">Do antistatic bags have conductive interior, exterior or both?</a></p>
<p>This is the Question with the answer that I flagged.</p>
<p>I came upon this question by way of a link from a <a href="https://superuser.com/questions/770685/is-it-safe-to-power-on-a-motherboard-outside-of-its-case#comment1000350_770690">comment</a> on an answer to a question on the Superuser site.</p>
<p>I flagged this <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/6139/18475">answer</a> because it doesn't answer the question <strong><em>(to any degree)</em></strong>, and this was the response that I received on the decline:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Declined - This is a 3.5 year old question, not worth revisiting now.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How is it not worth revisiting? Simple vote to delete would be sufficient to get rid of this "non-answer."</p>
<p>Right?</p>
| Answer flag declined because of the age of the answer |
<p>If you're answering questions with the goal of getting up-votes, then I understand your frustration.</p>
<p>So, maybe you should consider changing your goal.</p>
<p>Write the answer <em>for your own benefit</em>. The act of focusing one's mind to pull one's thoughts together and compose a succinct, coherent answer is almost always <em>profitable</em>.</p>
<p>Revisiting something you learned some time ago <em>refreshes</em> that knowledge and sometimes allows you make a connection you hadn't noticed before.</p>
<p>In other words, <em>make it your goal to come away with an improved understanding of the material for having written the answer</em>.</p>
<p>Moreover, chances are good that, over time, some will visit the question and find your answer valuable too and show their appreciation with an up-vote.</p>
| 3754 | 2014-07-03T05:26:47.327 | |discussion| | <p>With all due respect to the following (et all) : Andy aka, Spehro Spephany, Olin Lathrop, Russel McMahon, Phil Frost, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams, Dave Tweed, Passerby (darn, can I type in all of your revered names ? ) Thus "et all".</p>
<p>Sometimes I feel like I cannot get an answer in before you gentlemen answer. I want to be a part of this vibrant community. And I do understand that the above mentioned gentlemen contribute mightily to this Exchange. I also have recently become aware of the competition among the above mentioned. These people are so good at using their knowledge and resources they are capable of answering all questions with concise answers, but with follow up beyond the question. </p>
<p>Now to my question (request ?) <strong>How will we build the base of knowledge for the future? .</strong> </p>
<p>All of us have felt the frustration as a newbie. And now I (as a fairly newbie) find myself frustrated by the early and quick answers by the Guru"s of Electrical Stack Exchange.</p>
<p>This is not a complaint. I love your answers, and I learn (even fundamentals daily from you) from your answers, and I love it. I hope I am not being impatient. And I will not be impatient. </p>
<p>I think my expectations were that moderators, and the major players would eventually become the last resort (or the Guru type who were called upon later to settle the subtleties ) </p>
<p>I will continue to answer to my limited abilities, with thanks to all of you. But a tiny request would be to give just a little time to all of us who want to contribute and advance would be appreciated.</p>
<p>In conclusion, I just ask that the major </p>
| Future of Stack Exchange . So positive, and good, Now what about future moderators? |
<p>I have rejected those edits. However, I've typed in the custom reason, and I'm surprised that these cookie cutter reasons got stored. If it was a miss-click on my part, I apologize.</p>
<p>The custom reason I've typed in was along the lines of: <em>"This edit does not cover Fe - iron as element or material, which is used in magnetic cores, among other places. This tag is stretched and/or misused."</em></p>
<p>For some reason, we have the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/soldering" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'soldering'" rel="tag">soldering</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/soldering-iron" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'soldering-iron'" rel="tag">soldering-iron</a> as synonyms. Not all of the soldering is done with soldering iron. I'm inclined to break them up. After that, we could write proper tag wikis.</p>
<p>Lorenzo, thank you bringing this forward.</p>
<p><strong>edit:</strong></p>
<p>You are trying to add wiki excerpts to tags that are also common English words. These have multiple and very different meanings in engineering. But you are giving only one meaning in the excerpt. Examples:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/iron" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'iron'" rel="tag">iron</a> may apply to soldering iron. It may apply to <em>Fe</em> (the chemical element).<br>
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/stack" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'stack'" rel="tag">stack</a> may apply to a LIFO. It may also apply to a protocol stack. <em>TCP/IP stack</em>, for example.<br>
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/tube" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'tube'" rel="tag">tube</a> may apply to an electronic tube. It may apply to a general purpose tube/pipe.<br>
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/static" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'static'" rel="tag">static</a> may apply to static electricity. It may apply to a <em>static variable</em>.<br>
On the opposite end, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/convolution" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'convolution'" rel="tag">convolution</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/noise-spectral-density" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'noise-spectral-density'" rel="tag">noise-spectral-density</a> have narrow meanings.</p>
<p>One of the purposes for an excerpt is that a user can read it and decide whether or not the tag would apply to his question. If an excerpt is too narrow, it can be detrimental compared to no excerpt at all. Perhaps, that’s the reason why nobody was creating the excerpts for those tags for a long time.</p>
<p>I would suggest that you don’t edit the <em>excerpts</em> for these common words that have multiple meanings across engineering disciplines. At the same time, the <em>wikis themselves</em> are fair game, because they are not used on-the-fly for determining the applicability of the tag.</p>
<p>Finally, taxonomy systems are never perfect. I guess, this is a preemptive response to Olin’s comment that he doesn’t believe in the tag system here (or something along those lines).</p>
| 3759 | 2014-07-05T19:52:15.750 | |discussion|editing|tag-wiki| | <p>I'm fairly new to EESE so I hope I didn't do something wrong to upset a mod. </p>
<p>Today I had a bit of spare time and wanted to do some "housekeeping" on tag wikis. I edited a fair amount of them (almost all having empty content) and all my edits were accepted.</p>
<p>Until <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/44064">this</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/44063">this</a>. OK, no problem for a rejection, but I can't understand the motive for the second one: "<em>This edit introduces spam, defaces the post in some way, or is otherwise inappropriate.</em>", especially because it is so different from the rejection reason of the first.</p>
<p>I've a bit of experience on StackOverflow, so I know this kind of reasons are used for quite inappropriate behaviors, but I can't explain what I've done here, besides maybe not meeting the guidelines. I guess on SO it wouldn't have been marked as such, so maybe here on EESE there are other criteria in place.</p>
<p>Am I missing something? Any explanation is welcome, so that I can avoid future mistakes.</p>
| Understanding the reason of a tag wiki edit rejection |
<p>"Marketing Bollocks" is probably the correct <em>answer</em> to your original question, not a statement <em>about your question.</em> Those are all terms that Asus made up to help them sell parts - they likely don't have technical merits or real-world impacts. It's like someone is selling milk and making the claim that "It comes from brown cows!". You can't disprove the statement, but you would be hard pressed to identify how the fact that "it comes from brown cows" impacts the milk that you buy.</p>
<p>Your question was probably downvoted and almost closed because it was on consumer electronics (a computer motherboard), and four questions lumped into one.</p>
| 3762 | 2014-07-08T14:58:08.793 | |discussion| | <p>Today was odd for me. I asked a technical question about a motherboard but someguys down-voted me! Why? the question is this:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/118317/4-questions-about-asus-z97-motherboard">4 Questions about Asus Z97 motherboard</a></p>
<p>I'm ciurios to know What's the mean of <strong>marketing bollocks</strong>???</p>
| Marketing bollocks? |
<p>If you delete a question or answer then regardless of upvotes or downvotes your reputation will be reverted back to what it was before. So say for a question if you got 1 upvote (+5 reputation) and then 2 downvotes (-4 reputation) while sitting at -1 votes if you deleted it you'd lose the 1 reputation point you'd gained. Conversely for 5 downvotes (-10 rep) you'd get that back upon deletion.</p>
<p>Something to remember though is that deleted posts still count towards automated question / answer bans. A person that posts a lot of questions or answers that are heavily downvoted can still get banned for that reason. That helps prevent people posting a continous stream of low quality content and then simply deleting it.</p>
<p>The exact rules for question / answer bans aren't made public to prevent gaming the system but from what I gather having a lot of deleted posts weighs heavily into the rules.</p>
| 3765 | 2014-07-10T12:04:18.250 | |discussion|support|reputation|deleted-questions| | <p>Since I havn't experienced this, I want to ask it beforehand. If a question receives a number of down votes causing the asker to lose reputation, and then is deleted, will the reputation be restored or remain as it is? Same thing goes for up votes too. Sorry if this is already discussed. Couldn't find the post.</p>
| Reputation change for removed questions |
<p>If you can identify an earlier question that is basically the same, vote to close the new question as a duplicate, giving the link to the earlier question.</p>
<p>If you don't have enough rep to vote to close, you can either skip it and let others handle it, or flag for moderator attention. If it's really a blatant duplicate, others will catch it soon enough. It's probably not worth bothering mods about something that basic that plenty of ordinary users can take care of for them.</p>
<p>Another option is to write a comment saying that you think this is a duplicate, and providing the link. That makes it really easy for those with higher rep to check out the supposed duplicate and vote to close if they feel it really is a dupe.</p>
| 3766 | 2014-07-10T12:35:02.533 | |support| | <p>What should happen to questions that are repeated again but have a post note that says 'Sorry if this is already discussed. Couldn't find the post.'? (Due to negligence of asker repeatedly). Should they be answered with links or flagged to get moderator attention for merging?</p>
<p>Sorry if this is already discussed. Couldn't find the post. :)</p>
| Repeated questions problem |
<p>Your proposed tags are both redundant and too narrow. The discussion of failures is an essential subtopic of both <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/power-transmission" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'power-transmission'" rel="tag">power-transmission</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/power-distribution" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'power-distribution'" rel="tag">power-distribution</a>.</p>
| 3768 | 2014-07-10T14:36:25.957 | |discussion|tags| | <p>I wanted to <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/45398">edit</a> a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/47009/why-the-delay-between-transformer-failure-and-power-outage/118219#118219">question</a> by adding what I consider to be relevant tags. The edit was rejected with two different reasons:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/N2O3Q.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>The tags I wanted to add were the ones user_2 mentions: <code>[blackout]</code> and <code>[power-outage]</code>.</p>
<p>I know that there probably won't be a ton of questions with these tags, but I still think they are relevant to the question and on-topic. And I can't see how those tags could be any more general, except <code>[Power-distribution]</code> which really doesn't say anything about what the question is about except "not electronics". </p>
<p>I believe that possible new users (myself included) might want to use those tags in the future. I'm quite certain the person posting the question wanted to add those tags, but couldn't due to low rep. For the moment, the only relevant tags that can be used by power system engineers (utility scale) are: <code>[Power-transmission]</code> and <code>[Power-distribution]</code>. </p>
<p><code>[blackout]</code> and <code>[power-outage]</code> should probably be synonyms as they basically mean the same thing, but I don't know exactly how that works.</p>
<p>I know that this site contains mostly questions about electronics, but according to <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3118/are-power-electrical-engineering-questions-on-topic-for-ee-se-if-so-should-thi">this meta post</a>, power system questions are on topic. </p>
<p>I would understand if my edit was rejected as too minor, but that was not the case. (The first rejection reason is in my opinion plain wrong, but probably the user didn't consider it a good edit and just picked a random reason to avoid wasting time. The main reason for suggesting the edit was actually to create the tags for future <em>new</em> users, and write tag wikis.</p>
<p>Any views on this topic? Am I wrong?</p>
| Are these tags really unnecessary? |
<p>If something lacks a migration path, simply flag it for moderator attention and describe where and why in the flag note.</p>
<p>Also, StackExchange policy is not to migrate to betas, even though EE breaks that often with RPI and Ardunio Betas :/</p>
| 3771 | 2014-07-10T17:23:55.973 | |feature-request|migration|flagging| | <p>I encountered <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/120648/wiringpi-vs-default-raspbian-rpi-gpio-module">this question</a> today and it clearly is better suited for the raspberry pi stack exchange. So I searched on how to flag it to be moved and encountered <a href="https://unix.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/882/how-to-migrate-questions-from-stackoverflow">this question</a> which the answer states that a stack exchange is only allowed to have 5 migration paths. So I went hrough the process of flagging for migration and it turns out Electrical Engineering only has two migration paths. </p>
<p>Seeing as how the RaspberryPi is closely related to Electrical Engineering, we are no doubt going to get questions that should be on the Raspberry Pi exchange rather than the Electrical Engineering one.</p>
<p>Can we get a migration path?</p>
| Add a migration path to the Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange |
<p>You have two problems. The first is that you're confusing StackExchange with an IDE.</p>
<p>The code highlighting doesn't work on <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/121346/spi1-doesnt-work">your question here</a> because you have put a whole lot of relatively worthless tags on your question instead of one that defines the language you are using. For example, if you used <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/c" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'c'" rel="tag">c</a> instead of each individual microcontroller you used, you wouldn't have an issue. I have changed your tags and now syntax highlighting shows up.</p>
| 3776 | 2014-07-16T17:58:04.273 | |feature-request|status-bydesign| | <p>In your opinion, Which code viewer is better?</p>
<p>this is the code viewer of the Stack:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cbAws.jpg" alt="figure 1"></p>
<p>and this is another code viewer:</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/2IV70.jpg" alt="figure2"></p>
<p>Really Why doesn't the Stack has a good code viewer?</p>
| The code viewer isn't good |
<p>IMO this site is all about (providing) information. A downvote by itself (whether on a question or on an answer) provides very little information. When I downvote I either upvote a comment that describes my reason for downvoting, or add such a comment myself. I consider leaving an author in the dark as to why he was downvoted as (somewhat) rude behavior. IMO such a comment itself does not necessarily have to be polite: a "design this for me, and do it quickly" type of question, or one that written in ALL CAPS SMS STYLE deserves a (mildly) rude comment.</p>
| 3783 | 2014-07-20T18:48:26.587 | |discussion| | <p>I have noticed that when a new user posts for the first time people around here tend to react in two very distinct ways. I am speaking of questions that are off topic for some reason but might be improved. </p>
<p>The two reactions are:</p>
<ol>
<li>downvote/flag/vote to close without even trying to help the user</li>
<li>do (or not) one or more of the above but comment trying to explain the problem(s) to the newbie</li>
</ol>
<p>I understand that if you stick to the rules option 1 is the way to go but sometimes I feel that waiting a bit and trying to help might be better, also if we want to keep the Q&A quality high since we are few, as I've read somewhere around here. </p>
<p>So the question is: is there a sort of guideline or the guideline is "well if you have time to waste to help someone who can't help you you are welcome but don't bother anyone else"?</p>
| Attitude to new users regarding off-topic questions |
<p>I think it's on-topic if it's a challenging question for you, but can't you simply look up the instructions and how they affect the flags? I wrote and ported a lot of math routines back in the day and all that information was actually <strong>necessary</strong> to do that job properly. Never had any problems finding it in the manufacturer's documentation (and that was long before the internet was common). </p>
<p>In this case, a quick web search will <em>easily</em> locate a reference that answers that question <em>exactly</em> and <em>authoritatively</em>, so I don't think it would be a good candidate, and would probably vote to close if I was into that sort of thing. </p>
| 3785 | 2014-07-21T16:58:47.023 | |discussion|on-topic| | <p>I have a question about the workings of a particular processor (to give some context, it's the 6502, a very commonly used processor). Would such a question be on topic here?</p>
| Are questions about a particular processor on topic on this site? |
<p>It depends on the nature of your question. If you want to ask something about designing equipment that is compatible with the standard, then <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/">EE.SE</a> is probably the place to do it. On the other hand, if your question is about installing/using the existing equipment, then <a href="https://diy.stackexchange.com/">DIY.SE</a> would probably be a better place.</p>
| 3819 | 2014-08-05T09:30:25.390 | |discussion| | <p>Is this site intended for questions only about electronics as opposed to electrical equipment such as dimmers or light sources?</p>
<p>As english is not my native language I not sure a question about the digital LED dimming standard "<a href="http://ledotron.com/" rel="nofollow">Ledotron</a>" will fit here. </p>
<p>So, Go or no go?</p>
| Dimmers and light sources |
<p>A newby here but hopefully I can add a bit of what I feel is the prevailing atmosphere here.</p>
<p>Personally I would agree with David Tweed who is a regular here but would add the two following points.</p>
<p>Ignore personal identification with negative criticism as it does not mean a thing in the big picture once you have some points anyway. </p>
<p>Then also remember that SE is not intended to be a chatty forum for kids late with their homework, it is intended to be a serious place for recording the collected wisdom of uncountable (wo)man hours of personal experience in (many) diverse fields.</p>
<p>Witty answers like this appear to be frowned upon a bit. However your tactic of fleshing out your topical answer seems right and I will do the same when I have information to share.</p>
| 3827 | 2014-08-08T17:19:52.943 | |discussion|answers| | <p>There have been times when I answer a question, in some cases, I'll be urged, by some commenter, that I haven't provided enough information or I should include something else. </p>
<p>In other cases, I'll be chastised for having too much information, even while relevant. </p>
<p>I have always erred on the side that it's better have too much information, rather than too little. Because of that, I'll answer OPs question, while trying to provide some insight as to if their method is "good". If it isn't, I'll try to offer some extra info as to what else they should consider instead of what they are trying to force. Sometimes, I'll even list some reasons why if so merited. </p>
<p>In both cases when I decide to include this extra insightful bit or not, I have been told I need more or less information by people and it is slightly confusing as to exactly how much I should give.</p>
<p>Obviously I need to answer OPs question, but when should I give insight into their design that stems from their question but isn't <em>necessarily</em> <em>the</em> question.</p>
| What is the right amount of information in an answer? |
<p>We had problems with a datacenter test that left our caching layer in a partially broken state.</p>
<p>All issues should now be resolved.</p>
<p>See also <a href="https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/268957/topbar-notifications-dont-go-away">https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/268957/topbar-notifications-dont-go-away</a></p>
| 3840 | 2014-08-17T01:46:05.983 | |bug|status-completed| | <p>When I logged in today, the little red inbox flag was lit up red with the number 1. So I clicked on it, and then clicked on the linked message, but whenever I log in again it still comes up red.</p>
<p>I have tried clicking on all the messages visible one at a time but that hasn't done any good.</p>
<p>Is there any way to mark "all messages read" like there is in a typical email program? Or some other way for me to get rid of the red flag?</p>
| Can't get rid of red inbox flag |
<p>To add to @Ricardo's excellent answer:</p>
<p>When I come across puzzles or challenges during a project, and solve them myself, I sometimes look to see if there are any useful answers here about said problem. Occasionally I find the information I needed online, but it's spread out and often not easy to find. When that happens, I consider posting a question here and answering it myself.</p>
<p>You have to present the question from the viewpoint of someone having that particular problem, and think wording it in such a way that others can benefit from it. For example, did you learn new vocabulary words while you solved the problem? If so, the question should include the terms you used <em>before</em> you learned the proper ones.</p>
<p>Your answer can provide an explanation of how you resolved the problem, and correct misunderstandings or incorrect term usage. Again, the goal is to provide <em>useful</em> content for future visitors (not to mention <em>yourself</em>, should you come back to refer to it, as I have occasionally).</p>
<p>Here are a couple of examples of questions I answered myself:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/82093/2028">How do I create "beveled" T-intersection traces in Eagle CAD?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/72908/2028">Why would the VCC/GND pins of an ATtiny26 not be aligned?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Other times, I asked a question I already knew the answer to, but it didn't exist on the site, or wasn't presented in the same way I would have asked if I had needed to. In that case, I asked and just let other users answer:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/11046/2028">How can I control many LEDs with just a few pins on my micro?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>There are also good opportunities to create question-and-answer pairs that explain a common misunderstanding. Consider <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/34745/2028">Olin's legendary question-and-answer about choosing power supplies</a>. I created <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/105136/2028">one to help users with schematics, wiring and block diagrams</a>.</p>
<p>So while these aren't <em>tutorials</em> or a <em>blog</em> sharing the details of your adventures, you can still provide some great <em>educational</em> resources.</p>
| 3848 | 2014-08-21T07:46:45.560 | |feature-request| | <p>How can I make an educational topic? (e.g. when I have made a successful finished project and I want to share it with the others) Is there any feature to do that?</p>
| How can I create an educational topic? |
<p>There are types of questions that are one or more of the following: killed on sight, frowned upon, not a good fit for StackExchange Q&A format.</p>
<p>One can try his luck with such question in the EE.SE chat, where rules are more relaxed.</p>
<p>The link to the chat is through the StackExchange menu.</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/swkiZ.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
| 3854 | 2014-08-23T01:12:06.717 | |discussion|asking-questions| | <p>I have recently been informed that is frowned upon to ask if anyone knows a part that would work in your circuit. What I need, is a part. I have done digging, I can't find what I'm looking for.</p>
<p>Since it is bad form, I will not ask that sort of question here. What I would like to know, is if anyone knows of a place where I can ask that sort of question. (Another forum, something.)</p>
| Where to ask certain questions |
<p>If you hover your mouse over the comment, you should see the <code>X</code> button, which deletes the comment.<br>
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/nVbkJ.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>Similar screenshot from StackOverflow.<br>
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/813sq.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
<p>P.S. This is a bit of a modern UI, where a function is hidden until you get close to it.</p>
| 3856 | 2014-08-23T23:08:39.447 | |discussion|support|feature-request|bug| | <p>After due consideration, I'd like to delete one or more of my own comments because they serve no site-valuable purpose. I don't find any means to do so, however. Plan B was to flag the comment(s) for deletion, giving a suitable explanation for said flagging. I also find no means to do that.</p>
<p>What can I do to clean up my own wayward tracks? Does any such mechanism exist? If none, could we add a means of at least flagging said comment(s) for deletion such that, if any there exist any replies relying upon said comment(s), such replies losing all meaning if said comment(s) get deleted, at least a moderator could examine the situation and take appropriate action?</p>
| How to delete or flag one's own comment? |
<p>Of course you can. Just go to your user page, select the "Activity" tab, and then the "Comments" tab under that.</p>
| 3858 | 2014-08-24T00:03:41.307 | |discussion|support|feature-request| | <p>This is related to my prior question, but the subject material is different enough to warrant its own question.</p>
<p>If one goes to one's own profile page, one can easily find a list of their own questions, answers, tags, badges, etc, but no historical list of comments they've made. Have I simply missed a mechanism by which one might find such a list?</p>
<p>I understand, of course, that I can find some of those comments indirectly (in cases wherein someone has responded to such a comment) by poring through my Inbox. The Inbox is a poor substitute, though, for a complete ordered historical list.</p>
<p>If the site software lacks such a mechanism, that might be a handy feature addition. Speaking for my own case, I'd like to review comments I've made over the course of, say, the last two weeks as part of a self-audit. It might be handy, too, for the user who would like to review their own comments for other reasons - second thoughts, additional inspirations, followup questions, etc.</p>
| Is there any way to list one's own comments? |
<p>You have probably put the tag in the <code>Ignored</code> list in the main page.</p>
<p>More information about the favorite and ignored tags can be found <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/interesting-topics">here</a>.</p>
<p>Quoting:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Favorite</strong> tags are meant to call out questions that are important or interesting to you. Any question tagged with one of your favorite tags will be highlighted on the homepage and questions lists.</p>
<p><strong>Ignored</strong> tags downplay subjects you are not as interested in. Questions with these tags are faded on the homepage and questions list, but are still visible. If you want to completely hide questions with containing your ignored tags, you may checking the "Hide Ignored Tags" box in the "prefs" tab of your profile.</p>
</blockquote>
| 3862 | 2014-08-25T18:13:11.233 | |discussion| | <p>This is the second time that I've seen a question appear faded!</p>
<p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EXAg7.jpg" alt="Screenshot of question list"></p>
<p>If I recall correctly, I have already seen another question like this. Why does this question appear faint?</p>
| Why is this question faded? |
<p>Because we are serious people :) (look, an emoticon!)</p>
<p>Jokes aside, I don't really see it as a priority, and most of the people around here are probably more pleased with the plain text emoticons. Or at least this is my impression.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think the proper place to ask is the <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/">Stack Exchange Meta</a>. Where, I just noticed, the issue has been raised with <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/234840/emoticons-for-stack-exchange-chat">not</a> <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/77958/emoticons-am-i-the-first">so</a> <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/636/should-smilies-be-turned-into-images-in-questions-and-answers">much</a> <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/137532/textual-smilies-emoticons-usage/137570#137570">success</a>, I fear.</p>
| 3872 | 2014-08-27T04:26:47.760 | |discussion|feature-request| | <p>Why doesn't the chatroom have any smiley? It can help us to transfer the emotions. I know that here isn't suitable for chatting but IMO having the smileys is a good idea.</p>
| Why doesn't the chatroom have any smiley? |
<p>You mean like \$\overline{this}\$?</p>
<p>Just invoke the <code>\overline</code> command in MathJax:</p>
<pre><code>You mean like \$\overline{this}\$?
</code></pre>
<p>To have it not italicized you can use <code>\text{}</code> like in \$\overline{\text{this}}\$.</p>
<pre><code>\$\overline{\text{this}}\$
</code></pre>
| 3878 | 2014-09-01T18:24:52.560 | |discussion| | <p>I've often seen a notation where there is a horizontal bar over a letter to indicate the inverted value of something, e.g. q and (not)q for the outputs of a flip-flop. The not q would be a q with a bar over it. </p>
<p>More recently I was trying to describe the inputs to a 16 bit ADC, where one of the lines was R/(not)C.</p>
<p>I just waded through page after page of Unicode but could not find Roman letters with bars over them, except a few vowels. </p>
<p>Is there a way to do that in a Stack Exchange post?</p>
| How do you make a complement symbol? |
<p>I've seen this asked a few times on Meta.SE and I believe this answer is still current:</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/91922/how-was-this-answer-posted-after-this-question-was-closed">How was this answer posted after this question was closed?</a></p>
<p>The message that you see not allowing an answer to be posted happens on the client side of things, the server allows a grace period of around four hours. So one likely cause is that Jim had it open in his browser for some time and that check failed. Or maybe he did the same using the mobile version of the site that according to that answer doesn't have that check.</p>
<p>The real-time updates you see on questions (votes can change without refreshing etc) use a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WebSocket</a> on modern browsers but some operations fall back to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest" rel="nofollow noreferrer">XHR</a> on older browsers. Looking at the JavaScript involved I had a bit of a problem understanding some aspects, but from what I could work out the ability to post seems to get disabled in the client browser as a result of a message back from the server so if that fails (WebSocket is closed / times out while the page is still open) you can still post an answer.</p>
| 3880 | 2014-09-02T13:46:14.800 | |discussion| | <p>The question <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/127491/4512">how to choose resistors' value for common emitter amplifier?</a> was closed (at the time of this writing) 1 hour ago, yet <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/127517/4512">this answer</a> was written 5 minutes ago. How is this possible? I thought closing a question prevents new answers. I have had answers I've written rejected when the question was closed before I posted them.</p>
<p>Apparently I have a micconception about closing and answering. Please enlighten me.</p>
| Question answered after having been closed |
<p>Yes. Your question is an electronics design question and on-topic here.</p>
<p>The answer, BTW, is also yes. The complete answer is "it depends." It depends on what the modification is and how the laptop power adapter is implemented internally.</p>
<p>The most common failure-mode in my experience is high voltage spikes on the "sine" wave edges that degrade the input clamp circuit to failure and then the failure cascades.</p>
| 3886 | 2014-09-05T16:28:50.293 | |support| | <p>I have an inverter that generates modified sine wave output. My newly purchased AC adapter for my laptop is not working (first thing I tried it on was the inverter), and I'm wondering: could the modified sine wave output have damaged my AC adapter?</p>
<p>I've been looking for an appropriate Stack Exchange site to post this question to, including more details about wattages, voltages, and the research I've already uncovered about this. After reading through the valid topics here, I am thinking it would not be on topic because it involves consumer electronics. However I posted about this on meta Supuser and one 19k user there suggested it might be on topic at EE despite involving consumer electronics. </p>
<p>I'm uncertain and looking for clarification. Is my question on topic here?</p>
<p>For reference, <a href="https://meta.superuser.com/questions/8452/">here's the meta Supuser post</a>.</p>
| Is a question about the impact of modified sine wave AC output on a typical laptop AC adapter on topic? |
<p>Observation: @Nick is wrong on (at least some of :-)) his assertions re OP laziness.<br>
What is 'obvious' to some may be affected by culture, language and circumstance in ways which are completely inobvious to others*. And, as a bonus, the system auto-kneecaps enthusiastic new users using rules which it specifically notes that it does not reveal. Post say 3 questions early on which attract downvotes and it MAY lock them out from asking more questions until they fix their existing questions. This is not made as obvious to them as it could be, and odds are the downvoters have moved on to new victims and will never reverse their votes. Reopening closed questions seems usually to happen if there is an active "campaign" by other users.</p>
<p>*. Some are extraordinarily blind to cultural and language affects - so much so that they may rudely rebuke perceived offenders while themselves committing linguistic, grammatical and technical 'offences' in the process. </p>
| 3893 | 2014-09-11T18:57:43.073 | |discussion| | <p>There seems to be a bit of difference of opinion here about editing questions to improve them with regard to English usage, capitalization, grammar, and punctuation.</p>
<h2>"Beautification" Edits</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3837/2028">this meta question</a>, <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/users/7036/nick-alexeev">@Nick</a> posted <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3838/2028">an answer</a> which called me out for "putting lipstick on a pig" with a link to <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/125365/2028">a question</a> I <em>never edited</em>. It was edited by another user to improve gross capitalization errors. It (currently) has a score of -2 (+1/-3), probably garnering down-votes from its pre-edit state. It's <em>still</em> not a great question, but it <em>is</em> more readable. The posted answer was accepted and has an upvote.</p>
<p>I fail to see why anyone would object to attempting to improve the question for future site visitors. Therefore, Nick's answer seems somewhat off-base. He did say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are still waiting from the O.P. for a schematic, or diagram, or any other clarification.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That's fine. What's stopping the OP from adding said information? It's not as though the OP is likely to fix English mistakes when adding a schematic, so why object to another user volunteering to do so?</p>
<h2>"Throwaway" Questions</h2>
<p>More recently, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/128820/2028">another lack-of-effort homework question</a> was posted with a silly misspelling and a couple of words to capitalize:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>an electric cattle has coils A and B.When only A is switched on the water boils in 10 minutes and when only B is switched on water boils in 20 minutes.Calculate time taken by same amount of water boil if the coils are connected in series</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I edited the question but still voted to close it. My thinking is that if the OP wants to show some effort, they can edit their question to do so, and perhaps salvage it.</p>
<p>@Olin posted a comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Please don't "fix" attitude problems in questions. The OP's disdain and disrespect for us should remain visible to all. Fixing the letters doesn't fix his attitude, which is important information in deciding how to react to the post. In short, you are depriving us of useful information by covering up for the OP. If someone is thumbing his nose at me, I want to know that before deciding whether to answer, downvote, and/or vote to close.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm surprised by this, because I don't detect any "attitude" in the question. As much as it sucks, I've gotten used to the fact that questions often need editing and interpretation. The site attracts a lot of non-native English speakers, which is great for an international scope, but questions will sometimes require a bit of cleanup.</p>
<p>In this case, the OP dumped a no-effort-shown homework question on us, which happens with annoying frequency. Still, there are <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/58899/2028">some</a> <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/42340/2028">good</a> homework questions from time to time. If the OP learns from comments and modifies the question, what is the harm in editing it?</p>
<p>Questions that are beyond salvaging, I won't edit. It is my hope they get downvoted and deleted, and disappear. If the homework question never gets improved, then fine, editing it was perhaps a waste of time.</p>
<h2>The Question</h2>
<p>The site is for Electrical Engineering. This is a field which requires clarity and precision, otherwise time-consuming mistakes start to add up. I do not view edits as cosmetic or "beautifying", but rather as making things clearer or more accurate.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/edit">FAQ says to avoid trivial edits</a>, and there are <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/2950/134987">ancient Meta.SE</a> discussions about whether to edit to only remove greetings and thanks. I never try to change the tone or meaning of a question, only make it readable and/or conform a bit to standards. </p>
<p>Voting is supposed to be about the quality/accuracy of the question or answer, not whether it conforms to language standards.</p>
<p><strong>So what's the problem?</strong></p>
| Editing for quality: The "lipstick on a pig" problem |
<p>Just expand the definition of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/efficiency" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'efficiency'" rel="tag">efficiency</a>. In 99% of cases, power efficiency and energy efficiency are used synonymously. In those cases in which a distinction needs to be made between power (energy over time) and total energy, the question itself can specify what is meant.</p>
<p>Tags are primarily a means of finding relevant quesitons, and a single <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/efficiency" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'efficiency'" rel="tag">efficiency</a> tag would be the best way of meeting this need.</p>
| 3906 | 2014-09-18T16:36:44.177 | |discussion|tags| | <p>When trying to provide tags for <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/129742/15426">"How can error correction codes reduce bit error rate, for same amount of energy"</a> I noticed that there was no tag for energy efficiency. <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/efficiency" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'efficiency'" rel="tag">efficiency</a> has the wiki summary of: "The ratio of output power to input power". (This seems strangely specific as output "work" to input power can also be a measure of efficiency, where "work" may not correspond to energy exactly but the accomplishment of the desired task. The referenced question is not about power conversion as such, which seems to be the focus for <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/efficiency" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'efficiency'" rel="tag">efficiency</a>.)</p>
<p>(Incidentally, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/energy-harvesting" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'energy-harvesting'" rel="tag">energy-harvesting</a> does exist.)</p>
<p>Is there some other tag that would be appropriate or should <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/efficiency" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'efficiency'" rel="tag">efficiency</a>'s wiki entry be modified to be more inclusive? (There is a distinction between power efficiency and energy efficiency. I also suspect it would be appropriate for the subject to include concerns about energy use which are not <em>strictly</em> efficiency-based since battery life is not purely defined by energy used and energy harvesting (and grid electricity use) can make consuming more energy when it is cheap the appropriate strategy. However, energy budgeting might be excessively general as a subject and might even exclude the referenced question which concerns abstract energy efficiency outside of a system context where a budget would be implied.)</p>
| Should there be an "energy-efficiency" tag? |
<p>As Nick mentioned in a comment chat is a good place to ask those sorts of questions and I've asked a few component sourcing / recommendations questions in the past with good results. Although the name "chat" implies real-time (which it is if someone is around) often because of time zone differences and peoples availability it might take a while to get a response.</p>
<p>From that point of view just remember to start your message with something like "@PeterJ" when replying to someone that has replied to you and they'll get a notification in their inbox when visiting any Stack Exchange site. The only thing to avoid (other than if generally just saying hello) is doing that to random people who happen to have been in chat recently unless you happen to be familiar enough with the person to know they might be able / interested in that particular topic.</p>
| 3924 | 2014-09-24T01:21:35.307 | |discussion| | <p>I have a question about parts for a circuit (specifically solenoids), but I'm unsure where to ask it as I've heard that it is taboo to ask for suggestions for parts on any '.SE forum. Would the EE.SE chat be an acceptable place to ask?</p>
| Question about parts |
<p>There is a fine line between piling too much into one question versus creating several questions that are similar. There is no simple single criterion you can use to decide how to ask the several related questions.</p>
<p>Asking too much in a single question makes it difficult to answer because it might require dispelling wrong assumptions implied by some of the questions, or be too long if everything were answered. If the questions are truly related, then sometimes a good answer can go into the background theory, although that is rare. Sometimes one or two of the questions can be answered and the others ignored, but the simplest expedient is to close on account of being <i>too broad</i> or possibly <i>unclear</i>.</p>
<p>On the flip side, closely related separate questions are annoying when roughly the same answer would apply to each of them. You'd rather write a comprehensive answer and not have to repeat it. If the question is interesting, then sometimes a nice answer can be written in one place and the other questions closed as duplicates, pointing to the question with the good answer. However, the most likely and common expedient is to simply close all of them as duplicates. If the offense is particularly egregious, it's great fun to close all of them, each pointing to one of the others.</p>
<p>So what to do? Three things:<ol></p>
<p><li>First and foremost, get a grip on what you really want to know. If you think you have several related questions, then you really have a misunderstanding or a knowledge gap one conceptual level up. Identify that properly and ask about that, but be careful not to make it so general as <i>tell me about ...</i>.</p>
<p><li>Consider the <i>answers</i> instead of your questions. If a single well written answer can tell you what you really want to know, then ask a single question. If the answers will be mostly unrelated, then ask separate questions. However, see point 1 first. If that still doesn't work, see point 3 first.</p>
<p><li>Ask one question at a time. See point 1 first. Hopefully the right single question is all you need. If you still think you have multiple questions, pick the one you really want to know about most, or the one that might help with the others if you understood the answer, and ask just that one. There is some chance that the answers will fill in the other things you would have asked anyway.</p>
<p>If not, wait a couple of days, then ask the next question, referencing the first. It would help to make it clear you learned something from the previous question, but that has lead to confusion about xxx. This shows you are trying to learn, are actually reading other answers, and implicitly shows the new question is not a duplicate of the first.</p>
<p></ol></p>
<p>Above all, remember that this site isn't about you. You have to look at it not from the point of view of what you are here to get, but how to give those you seek a favor from the opportunity to do what <i>they</i> came here to do. There is no such thing as true altruism, no matter how much some people claim there are here just to help you. Nonsense. Everyone is here for their own personal private selfish reasons. They want to look smart, gain a high reputation (not the SE numerical kind) among their peers, like to contemplate interesting problems in their field, like teaching, etc. None of this has anything to do with solving your silly-ass problem directly. That is just collateral gain on the way so some other goal.</p>
<p>Since nobody gives a crap about you or your problem directly, and we get plenty of traffic here, questions that don't let people fulfill their purposes are dealt with expediently. That can mean downvoting and voting to close, sometimes for the quickest handiest reason whether it applies or not if the question is particularly bad.</p>
<p>That all said, the mechanisms for people to get what they want here are set up to provide good answers, <i>but only to questions that are well asked</i>, aren't annoying to read, and don't appear to waste the answerer's time. Keep all this in mind, and you can get a lot out of this site.</p>
| 3927 | 2014-09-28T11:09:23.930 | |discussion| | <p>I always make sure I don't ask more than one question in one most. This is because by asking so, I might scare away a person who would know an answer to one of my questions but not to both. He might not share his opinion as he cannot answer the whole question. </p>
<p>In this post,
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/131132/important-parameters-to-check-while-chosing-a-gsm-gprs-antenna?noredirect=1#comment264428_131132">Important Parameters to Check while Chosing a GSM/GPRS Antenna</a></p>
<p>I have carefully asked one question and another on this linked</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/131130/mobile-phone-gsm-antennae-used-what-are-the-latest-types">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/131130/mobile-phone-gsm-antennae-used-what-are-the-latest-types</a></p>
<p>But the previous link it says, a possible answers in my other post, alerting a possible duplicate. </p>
<p>My concern is why people without a clear understanding are allowed to make changes to the way posts/questions. I believe it decreases the quality of the forum. I've always tried my best to maintain the standard of the forum and I love this forum. I hope this post is seen by people responsible. </p>
| Post Changed by Someone Else |
<p>I agree with @Keelan completely. Sometimes questions only have one minor issue, such as a typo or non-capitalized "I". These are the ones I wish would <em>not</em> bubble up to the top of the active questions queue when edited, but nevertheless I feel should be corrected.</p>
<p>I've come across several posts that were previously edited, and only certain things were fixed. When I edit questions I really do read the whole thing and try to edit it not just for capitalization but also for <em>readability</em>. It's not always easy, however, because some posts are just very badly written. (It may be an iterative process, assisted by asking the OP in comments, etc.)</p>
<p>The "thanks" politeness topic is <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/2950/134987">somewhat of a debate</a>. I agree with <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/3021/134987">TheTXI's</a> and <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/2960/134987">Jon Skeet's</a> answers. The take-away point being that <strong>this is not a forum.</strong> It should just be <em>information</em> as useful and concise as possible. Leaving various forms of thanks and greetings in the question just seems to invite more noise, and pretty soon you have something like Yahoo Answers, where it is difficult to trust anything.</p>
<p>I <em>really</em> would like if the site would provide some guidelines for new posters along these lines:</p>
<ul>
<li>Please don't include "thanks" on your question. Show appreciation by voting for answers that help answer your question.</li>
<li>You do not need to "sign" your post, your user info is always automatically added by the system.</li>
</ul>
<p>I do not have any brilliant suggestions for how to handle how "minor" edits bubble up on the active queue. Having an incentive (such as rep or badges) to edit is nice, but it also leads to a situation where you have to police the edits to ensure they are valid.</p>
<p>I don't edit for reputation, so why bother? It's simple: I <em>like</em> this site, and I <em>care</em> about the quality. I'd rather find useful information about electronics that's highly readable and not just SMS text and amateurish-looking posts on arbitrary forums.</p>
| 3942 | 2014-10-14T10:08:34.760 | |discussion|editing|reviewing|guidelines| | <p>Lately there have been <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2014/10/new-editing-badges-and-enhancements-to-suggested-edits/?cb=1">some changes</a> to the suggested edits review system. This now makes it impossible to reject edits as 'too minor' (which, in my opinion, is something terrible, but that's not what this is about).</p>
<p><strong>I have the feeling that some users on this site are misusing the editing system.</strong></p>
<p>It's great that some of you want to capitalize every 'i' on this site, change every 'you're' to 'your', and all the 'its's to 'it's's. But please, please, please, if you edit, make sure you edit everything that can possibly make the post better.</p>
<h2>Example: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/134224/17592">3.5mm headphone jack frequency range</a></h2>
<p><sup>(I'm mostly active on EE.SE, so I take an example from there, but this issue is network-wide).</sup></p>
<p>Sure, the 'i' <em>is</em> annoying. But what about the 'Thanks'? What about all the sentences that don't start with a capital? What about the abuse of capitals in 'Analog to Digital'? What about 'I have been searched'? What about the utterly useless texts 'please help me!' and 'please say simple!'?</p>
<p>What's just completely annoying me is that some people are treating data space (because every edit takes space) of others as if it's free. Because every edit takes data space. <strong>It's like visiting someone and drinking all the coffee he has in stock.</strong> You don't do that, even when coffee is cheap and they have more than you can ever drink.</p>
<p>When I reviewed the first edit suggestion on this one, I just couldn't accept it. I really wanted to skip, because I didn't think a question that was so clearly off topic deserved a proper edit to fix all the grammar, so I didn't want to waste my time on editing it either. But I knew that if I would skip, the edit would most likely get accepted.</p>
<p>In the end another reviewer accepted the edit, but changed something himself as well: he removed the thanks. Great, again, but really. Do you guys only check for ' i ' and the bottom of the post when you edit? I truly think every post deserves more than that. So <strong>please, if you're going to edit, edit everything</strong>.</p>
<h2>My guidelines</h2>
<p>I think the system works. Some people just don't use the system properly. I feel there should be some editing guidelines. Ideally, the main points would show up on the edit page. But in this post I would just like to draw everyone's attention one's more to the problem.</p>
<p>This is how I would like to see editing being used.</p>
<h3>For editors</h3>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Check the whole post</strong> for things to improve. If you feel like your time is too important to edit everything you see, leave it to others. If the post is so messy that nobody's time is unimportant enough, the post is really messy, the OP shouldn't expect an answer anyway and the question will most likely get closed as unclear what you're asking.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Don't edit for the 2 rep alone. This really isn't helpful to anyone, and the next privileges aren't as awesome and special as you think.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>For reviewers</h3>
<ul>
<li><p>If you're reviewing an edit that is way too minor, either <strong><em>reject</em> and edit</strong> or skip. The initial suggestion doesn't deserve a place in the edit history, and the person who suggested the edit doesn't deserve the 2 rep, so don't <em>accept</em> and edit.</p>
<p><sup>In this particular case I didn't skip because I was really, really annoyed. My apologies.</sup></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Related: <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3938/17592">Minor edits without impacting activity queue</a></p>
| Editing guidelines |
<p>Non-moderator users with more that 15K rep can protect questions, but only after a full day has elapsed. See the <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/52764/what-is-a-protected-question">blog post</a> for details. I think you just jumped the gun on this one.</p>
| 3966 | 2014-11-12T13:33:57.603 | |support| | <p>I noticed <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/138056/4512">this</a> question was getting too many "me too", and in one case offensive, posts, so I was going to "protect" it. I know I have done this before. It requires anyone answering it to have some basic minimum rep. The bar is quite low, just intended to keep very new or drive-by users from chiming in with presumably no additional useful content.</p>
<p>However, the <i>protect</i> link is missing. I can see <i>share</i>, <i>edit</i>, <i>close</i>, and <i>flag</i>, but no <i>protect</i> as I'm sure I've seen (and used) in the past.</p>
<p>What am I missing?</p>
| What happened to being able to "protect" a question? |