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<p>The tags <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electrical" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electrical'" rel="tag">electrical</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electricity" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electricity'" rel="tag">electricity</a> were already banned back in 2015 because they not useful in the context of this site. Every question asked in this Q&A is about electricity/electronics, so since these tags would apply to everything they are not useful in this context.</p>
<p>Meta discussion was here:
<a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5421/the-electrical-tag">The "electrical" tag</a></p>
<p>The tag has been 'blacklisted', it cannot be applied to new questions... however the moderators cannot finally delete the tag itself as long as there are still old questions that have that tag.</p>
<p>There are still hundreds of old questions that still have these tags. Unfortunately when a question is edited to remove a tag, the question then bumps to the top of the 'active questions' list. Bulk retagging of questions is disruptive to the community, so we try to handle those edits just 3-4 questions at a time, to avoid overwhelming the active questions list.</p>
<p>A lot of those questions also have only the electrical/electricity tag, so in each of those cases a judgement call is required to select a new tag if the question is worth keeping, or vote to close/delete the question if it is not worth keeping. Each of these questions need attention on a case-by-case basis, and with only volunteer effort there is really no timeline for implementation.</p>
<p>I had noticed this recently when doing the retagging for the 'small-electronics' questions that a few of those also had 'electrical', but when I edited such questions the system would not let me submit the edit unless I also removed 'electrical' from the question. So any edits to existing questions tagged 'electrical' require removing that tag, and no new questions with that tag can be created.</p>
<p>Perhaps the tag meta description for electrical / electricity should be edited to say 'do not use this tag'?</p>
| 7390 | 2021-03-04T12:39:34.290 | |support| | <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fvri9.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fvri9.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>If it is not allowed, then why is it an option to have?</p>
| Why do we have an electricity tag if one can't use it? |
<p>Stack Exchange encourages editing, there are a few badges that encourage this behavior and is welcome as long as it is improving the post. Secondly they are not really "your posts" once you post they are released under the creative commons license. Also you should use standard grammar and understand that technical speech is likely to be the norm here. Text speech is not as welcome, please don't use it</p>
| 7394 | 2021-03-10T03:19:54.453 | |discussion| | <p>I don't post many questions, but the few that I have --- somebody is coming in and making VERY MINOR edits.</p>
<p>I mean like picayune grammatical or punctuation changes. Trivial stuff. Example -- I put 3 "???" at the end of sentence, for dramatic effect I guess. Big deal. This was edited to a single "?". Seriously???? WHY???????????????? Is the server charging by the byte these days?</p>
<p>Frankly - it's SUPER INSULTING that my words are being changed. I write what I write with <em>intent</em>. I proofread several times to make sure things are clear and understandable. I am not a bad speller, and I don't have poor grammar. Nothing that was edited does diddly to improve intelligibility. This is like the editor saying "I'm better spoken than you". Either that, or he/she is a closet English professor.</p>
<p>I realize this message will probably be deleted, or 'thumbed' down a million times. That's OK</p>
<p>EDIT</p>
<p>Some great points given - Thank you. And yes, this belonged in EE META. I'll admit now, I didn't realize 'EE meta' existed... I only ever saw Meta for the whole SE site (and I didn't think anywhere near right for 'whole site'). I did not know there was a Meta for EE only.</p>
<p>Also quickly - I've had this happen more than twice as suggested. I had to think about that for a bit, but I recall now I was so off-put by the arcaneness of the edits I'd been subjected to before I rolled them back a couple times. Heck, my post earlier today was edited <em>twice</em>... that's what I wrote this!</p>
<p>I guess my problem is I'M HUMAN and I want to converse with humans. Every single question & every single answer here is written & read by humans, so why are we writing like bots? I reply to questions because I like helping people.
I imagine <em>everybody</em> who contributes here does the same. Why else would you?
The prose does not need to be parsed to machine-readable form for that.</p>
<p>Thx for the passive-aggressive insults in the comments. Not gonna lie, I drank way too much coffee today and I deserved it #thumbsup I edited out a bit of my own original passive aggressiveness</p>
<p>Thx more to the folks who chose not to #2thumbsup</p>
| Why is somebody editing my questions? |
<p>It doesn't seem like the close/vote system really adequately can deal with this situation, and the delete queue is next to worthless.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most effective workaround would be to flag such posts as spam??</p>
<p>By way of explanation, my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong), is that repeated spam flags lock and hide the posts without moderator intervention, which is perhaps the desired outcome here.</p>
| 7400 | 2021-03-10T22:40:45.717 | |discussion|homework| | <p>There have been a few users that have continually posted answers to homework questions. This has been discussed <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7313/homework-answers-on-demand">here</a>. I think the best course of action is to allow the community to downvote these types of answers. What should we do with users that repeatedly post answers to homework questions?</p>
<p>I don't feel it best to delete the answers (or any answers but answers that are not answers), but is this the type of behavior acceptable on this community?</p>
| What does the community think about homework answers? |
<p>Done, the tags have been merged</p>
| 7405 | 2021-03-11T21:26:14.940 | |discussion|tags| | <p>The <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/transfer" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'transfer'" rel="tag">transfer</a> tag currently has no wiki guidance and is generally used on questions for one of two purposes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Questions about transfer functions, in which case the question is often tagged both <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/transfer" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'transfer'" rel="tag">transfer</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/function" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'function'" rel="tag">function</a> instead of the single, correct <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/transfer-function" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'transfer-function'" rel="tag">transfer-function</a>.</li>
<li>Questions having to do with power or data transmission / "transfer".</li>
</ol>
<p>The tag should eventually be replaced with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/transfer-function" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'transfer-function'" rel="tag">transfer-function</a> for questions of type (1) but should we keep it for questions of type (2) or phase it out completely?</p>
| What should the [transfer] tag be used for? |
<p>All done, exactly as you suggested. I've put the correctly-spelled tag on that question and deleted the wrongly-spelled tag (so I don't believe it exists any more).</p>
<p>Thanks for the tidy up.</p>
| 7411 | 2021-03-15T13:11:46.643 | |support|tag-cleanup| | <p>I noticed the other day that there is a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/operational-amplifer" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'operational-amplifer'" rel="tag">operational-amplifer</a> tag which has "amplifier" misspelled (it is missing an "i'). I've been slowly replacing it on the posts which use it with the correct <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/operational-amplifier" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'operational-amplifier'" rel="tag">operational-amplifier</a> tag, but there is one <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/533333/51760">locked post with the misspelled tag</a> that I cannot edit. Would a moderator please fix the tag so the misspelled tag will be removed from the system?</p>
<p>Additionally, it might be a good idea to remove the "content dispute" lock on it since the user who asked the question no longer has an account on the site.</p>
| Would a moderator remove the misspelled [operational-amplifer] tag from a locked post? |
<p>You did <strong>not</strong> ask about general requirements or uses of voltage stabilizers. Your question was very clearly focused on one specific consumer product that you were considering: should I "buy <strong>this</strong> voltage stabilizer".</p>
<p>Any time a question asks about whether a <strong>specific item</strong> is "suitable" or "the best choice" then the question becomes a product recommendation.</p>
<p>Furthermore, questions about the use of consumer appliances are off topic. Your question was off-topic for both reasons.</p>
| 7433 | 2021-04-13T09:07:32.303 | |discussion| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/559880/does-it-make-sense-to-buy-this-voltage-stabilizer-for-this-air-conditioner">Does it make sense to buy this voltage stabilizer for this air conditioner?</a></p>
<p>I really don't think it's not about electrical engineering. I can't find any other suitable website to know scientific reasons for it.</p>
| Why this question is off topic and how to make it on topic? |
<p>As far as I can tell, there aren't any new questions with this tag in the months since it was removed - if that's not the case, please let me know. Considering that, I don't see a reason for this tag to be blocked from re-creation. In general, we only block tags that have been burninated and returned more than once.</p>
<p>As such, I'm removing the status tag. Please feel free to retag this as status review in the future if the tag gets created again - hopefully the requirement to have <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/create-tags">300 reputation</a> before creating tags will reduce the likelihood of that happening.</p>
| 7437 | 2021-04-22T03:07:27.193 | |discussion|tag-cleanup|tag-blacklist-request| | <p>The <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/channel" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'channel'" rel="tag">channel</a> tag is a useless meta-tag: this tag does not add any useful meaning by itself, it requires other tags to provide context. That's not how our tags are supposed to be used.</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/channel" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'channel'" rel="tag">channel</a> has 0 watchers.</p>
<p>There is no <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/channel" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'channel'" rel="tag">channel</a> tag wiki to define what a "channel" is. In fact the word <strong>channel</strong> has different technical meanings in several different contexts, as can be seen from the wide variety of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/channel">questions tagged channel</a></p>
<ul>
<li>In a MOSFET, the channel is a physical region between drain and source, where conduction happens</li>
<li>In an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), a channel is an input signal path</li>
<li>In a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter), a channel is an output signal path</li>
<li>Op amps, multiplexers, etc. sometimes the word channel is used to name a signal path</li>
<li>A band of frequencies in a modulated radio communications spectrum may be divided into sub-units called channels (frequency division multiplexing, time division multiplexing, etc.)</li>
<li>A baseband communications signal path may also be called a communications channel</li>
<li>The term "channel interleaving" is seen in DRAM memory architecture</li>
<li>Sometimes sales/marketing refers to the "distribution channel" i.e. selling parts through a 3rd party distributor like Avnet/Digikey/Farnell/Mouser/Newark</li>
<li>When I saw the instagram photo of the <em>Ever Given</em> lodged in the Suez at an acute angle, I needed to channel my frustration into something productive (<em>sorry, I couldn't resist</em>)</li>
</ul>
<p>Just quickly scrolling through the (currently 60) questions tagged <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/channel" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'channel'" rel="tag">channel</a>, I didn't see any questions where <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/channel" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'channel'" rel="tag">channel</a> was the only tag. So it should be safe to bulk delete the tag.</p>
<p>As usual for mass tag edits, we should edit only a few at a time to avoid spamming the "active questions" feed. I'll hold off doing anything until I get some feedback from the <em>meta channel</em>...</p>
| block the [channel] tag |
<p>This is live.</p>
<p>I've reviewed the request and your recent history and I can definitely see that this will likely benefit the site. Thanks for your patience while we got to the place we could make this change.</p>
<p>To determine whether to make this change, I used a few queries - firstly, I like to see what percentage of questions that get at least one flag or vote to close get handled - either closed or marked "leave open".</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1RJCM.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1RJCM.png" alt="Graph showing percentage of questions with at least one flag/vote to close that get handled over the last 2.5 years. The numbers are somewhat unstable and percent handled is usually around 50% but can be as low as 35% and as high as 70%." /></a></p>
<p>The first thing I like to note is that the graph vertical axis is 0-90%, so it can look a bit higher than it is. In general, y'all aren't usually able to get most of the questions handled. While this has changed over time, it seems that you're generally sitting around 50% handled, which means a lot of them are aging out of review. The end result of this is that the site can have a lot of content that should have been closed that sits around cluttering things up.</p>
<p>I'll also note that you have a pretty decent "leave open" result (~10% at times) - many sites don't seem to have such a high percentage (generally closer to 1-5%) - it's not bad but it could indicate there's some disagreement amongst voters about what's close-worthy. As such, it's possible that if more reviews were completed, those questions might actually be left open - it's difficult to know.</p>
<p>The other thing I check for is whether the moderators are doing an outsized volume of the close reviewing - this can indicate that they're doing more than they're necessarily expected to do. While there are many things mods need to handle, reviewing isn't one that we generally include in that. They're certainly welcome to participate but - because of their unilateral close privileges, it means that reopening questions can be significantly harder without moderator participation.</p>
<p>That said, it looks like, in general, the moderators aren't usually doing the bulk of the closures here, so it's not a concern. Over the last year, it looks like they're participating in about a quarter of the closures on average.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJryx.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJryx.png" alt="Graph of who is participating in close and reopens on the site. For the most part, the community is doing the bulk of the closures and the moderators are doing some (between 50-100) per month while the community is doing more (200-300). per month." /></a></p>
<p>If you're interested in which votes are being cast by mods, you can see that below - I made it for a shorter period of time because it makes it a bit easier to see the lines.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bO8Wd.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bO8Wd.png" alt="Graph of which vote mods are casting. It's generally pretty evenly distributed between vote 1-5 with no consistent common vote being cast" /></a></p>
<p>As this shows, mods don't seem to be more likely to cast fifth votes over any other and, in some cases, have cast many first votes - which is understandable! All-in-all, it seems pretty even.</p>
<p>So, the end result is, we'd love to see the percentage of reviews handled increase here and it looks like reducing the votes needed to close and reopen from 5 to 3 will help with that. Because the tests on other sites went generally well, y'all can consider this permanent - at least until you ask us to change it again. I'll check back in a few months but, unless there's something huge to report, I probably won't update things. If you have any questions or want to see how things are going, feel free to let me know.</p>
| 7453 | 2021-05-05T15:59:19.750 | |discussion|feature-request|status-completed|vote-to-close| | <p>I often feel that questions linger too long before being closed, collecting answers making it difficult to edit a closed question. I would like EE.SE to take part in the recent site-wide "three-vote close" experiment. The main meta post can explain it better than I can:</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/364007">Testing three-vote close and reopen on 13 network sites</a></p>
<p>I believe that closing a "questionable question" quickly will lead to better quality over all. Closing a question is not a punishment, nor is it the same as deleting it. A question is closed because it has problems that should be fixed <em>before</em> answers start to arrive. As soon as an answer is posted, editing the question is more complicated.</p>
<p>As far as I understand it, it will also be easier to <em>reopen</em> a closed question — something I also approve of.</p>
| I'd like us to participate in the three-vote close experiment |
<blockquote>
<p>I guess my main concern is that I don't want anyone to think I am somehow behind this.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I will be offline soon as it's past end of day here. I just wanted to put your mind at rest: I've done a quick review of your account and I am 100% sure that you are <strong>not</strong> doing anything to cause this. There is no "adverse mark" on your account as a result of this.</p>
<p>What you are seeing is described in <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/serial-voting-reversed">this</a> page from the Help Center.</p>
<p>You don't need to take any action.</p>
<p>There is actually a bit more going on, which should be kept private, and I will discuss that with the other mods. You may see further such voting "bursts" and subsequent corrections, but again, please don't take any action.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
| 7458 | 2021-05-08T03:49:54.527 | |support| | <p>There is strange voting activity going on on my answers on EESE. Yesterday in a short span of time, I got about 150 points due to upvotes on a variety of answers, many of which were not very new.</p>
<p>Then today, the serial voting was reversed, taking away 150 points. Now again today it seems that I have another burst of upvotes.</p>
<p>I guess my main concern is that I don't want anyone to think I am somehow behind this. My second concern is just to satisfy my curiosity about what might be going on.</p>
| Strange voting activity on my answers |
<p>There is no ban on the meta account, there is on you EE.SE account. You'll have to improve the quality of your existing questions or wait until the ban wears off.</p>
<p>You can post questions on the main site, make sure they are on-topic:<br />
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic</a><br />
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask</a></p>
<p>And many others:
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help</a></p>
| 7482 | 2021-06-10T14:52:58.730 | |discussion| | <p>Good morning.</p>
<p>Could you give some clues so I can improve my questions, to get off my EE.SE ban? I've read some articles in help further I am trying my best.</p>
| Some clues to improve my EE.SE questions? |
<p>I'd try on <a href="https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15/electrical-engineering">chat</a>. I don't think it would be well-received on the main site. For example, searching for <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/search?q=engineer+skill+is%3Aquestion"><code>engineer skill is:question</code></a> will show a few similar questions, all of which are closed.</p>
<p>There also was a question about how to ask for career advices <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/696/how-to-ask-for-career-advice">here</a>, posted 10 years ago, and the answer was the same: chat.</p>
<p>Of course, chat drags much less people.</p>
<p>I also tried to check if there are other sites on the SE network where this kind of questions would be appropriate. The <a href="https://workplace.stackexchange.com/">workplace</a> is dedicated to career-related topics, but it seems asking about skills required for a specific job is off-topic according to <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/246026/325443">this answer</a> (written by an ex-mod of the workplace site). There is also a specific close-reason on this site that confirms it is off-topic: "<em>Questions asking for advice on a specific choice, such as what job to take or what skills to learn, are difficult to answer objectively and are rarely useful for anyone else. [...]</em>"</p>
<p>So, apart from chat, I don't think it can be asked anywhere on Stack Exchange. But I'm pretty sure there are discussion forums outside of SE where you could ask this.</p>
| 7484 | 2021-06-13T14:01:00.390 | |discussion|scope| | <p>In hardware engineering, there are many roles: for example PCB Design engineer, FPGA engineer etc.</p>
<p>Can we ask questions like:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the roles and responsibilities of a FPGA engineer?</li>
<li>What are the skills required for a PCB engineer?</li>
</ul>
<p>on Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange?<br />
If not, is there any other Stack Exchange site to ask such questions?</p>
| On which site can I ask questions on electronic engineering roles? |
<p>It's just a pointless philosophical question that has nothing to do with designing electronics and has absolutely no practical value. You even write in your own answer:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The question you ask is beyond electrical engineering and even beyond Physics. It falls into Metaphysics and philosophy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The close reason is less important, but <em>opinion based</em> seems like the closest one. No one can answer this based on practical experience, other than possibly a quantum physicist with a minor in linguistics seeing how both <em>analog</em> and <em>digital</em> are highly overused.</p>
| 7492 | 2021-07-03T06:07:35.903 | |discussion| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/573608/238188">Analog Is Digital?</a>
Seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me, and I can't see what is opinion based about it. It might be true that it may not have an accurate answer at the moment.</p>
<p>The idea of the question is representing an analog signal as a sum of impulse responses of the analog signal, such that the spacing between 2 impulses is infinitesimal.</p>
<p>It is a good question, what is opinion based about it?</p>
| How is this question "Analog is Digital " opinion based? |
<p>My view is no, such a question would not be on-topic here.</p>
<p>IMHO that is a general computer science question and too far from the core on-topic subjects for this site. It would be better suited to Computer Science.SE or Stack Overflow. In fact, I just checked and see that you have already <a href="https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/142463/what-kind-of-binary-compatibility-is-present-for-2-processors-sharing-an-instruc">asked the question on Computer Science.SE</a>.</p>
<p>So even though you have mentioned this topic in comments on an <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/576322">answer to one of your recent questions on this site</a>, that doesn't make it on-topic as a question itself here.</p>
<p>Sorry if that is not the answer that you wanted.</p>
| 7513 | 2021-07-22T12:51:18.290 | |discussion| | <p>I would like to ask a question on what binary compatibility means, and if there is any definition for that .</p>
<p>Will this question be on-topic?</p>
| Can I ask a question on binary compatibility? |
<p>For everyone raising a new question I'd add a "gate" to getting the question posted on the site. That "gate" would be something like this: -</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>"Is your question about homework?"</strong></p>
<p><strong>"Have you fully described where you are stuck?"</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And, if the poster says "yes" and "no", then the whole question text is deleted automatically (before posting) and the good folk on stack exchange never see it.</p>
<p>If the poster says it isn't homework then, the question is allowed to be posted. Of course some folk will lie and there will be a trickle through but it should be less of a serious problem.</p>
<p>Kill the problem at source. Prevention is better than cure.</p>
| 7520 | 2021-07-28T07:48:38.367 | |discussion|feature-request|homework|guidelines| | <p>I've just VTC a 'homework with no attempt' <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/577205/find-the-value-of-rl-for-maximum-power-transfer-and-the-maximum-power-that-can-b">question</a>, and another user has added a link to the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/tour">Tour</a>, perhaps thinking it was helpful. On reading it, it offers no guidance to our policy.</p>
<p>These are the lists from the 'do and don't ask' section of the Tour as it stands at 2021/07/28</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ask about...</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>
<p>Don't ask about...</p>
<ul>
<li>Shopping or buying recommendations</li>
<li>Consumer electronics such as media players, cell phones or smart phones, except when designing these products or modifying their electronics for other uses</li>
<li>Programming software for a PC</li>
<li>Anything else not directly related to electronics design</li>
<li>Questions that are primarily opinion-based</li>
<li>Questions with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I'd like to add to these something along the lines of</p>
<ul>
<li><p>don't ask for homework answers when you have made no attempt at a solution</p>
</li>
<li><p>do ask for help with homework when you have tried to solve it, you show your working, and indicate where you are stuck</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>... if of course this still sums up our current policy on homework.</p>
| Homework questions, and the Tour guidance |
<p>If you comment on a question the OP is always automatically notified and the OP's name is NOT added as a link in your comment.</p>
<p>The same applies if you add a comment to an answer and attempt to notify the answer's writer.</p>
<p>If you comment on a question or answer and cite a person who is involved in the conversation who is NOT the person who wrote the question or answer then the name should "autocomplete".</p>
<p>You can usually check if a notification has occurred by clicking on the cited name (or shift-click for new tab in Windows). This should take you to the profile of the person converned. If this works they have been notified.</p>
<p>Adding comments from others:</p>
<p>You can only 'ping' one person in a comment. (Memory says that this needs to be at the start of the comment).</p>
<p>It is not possible to 'ping' users who are not already active in the comment thread immediately associated with the post being commented on. [eg in commenting on an answer you cannot ping a person who has commented on the question (and vice versa)].</p>
| 8522 | 2021-07-29T06:57:12.747 | |support|tagging| | <p>I had this doubt from the start. When I try to tag some people in my comment , their name is suggested to me on the top left. But occasionally this is not the case, they dont get suggested. And in that situation I just type the first name , do they get notified if I do that ?</p>
| At times I am unable to see the name of the person I am tagging but then I just type his name. Is he/she actually getting tagged? |
<p>Somewhat contrary to what Sam advises, I have on occasion improved an answer that was mainly link only when it was clear that the link was extremely useful and the answer was in danger of being VTC'd. This usually involves precising some material from the linked site with maybe some added comment.</p>
<p>This usually results in a positive user comment or no comment.<br />
I believe that doing this is within the site guidelines, but is something I'd do on only limited occasions.</p>
| 8537 | 2021-09-01T00:18:11.947 | |discussion|editing| | <p>To what extent is editing answers allowable? There is an answer to a question that is almost a link-only answer, but it is a pretty good link.</p>
<p>Would it be OK for me to expand the answer by incorporating more information from the link? If so, how long should I wait after commenting on the answer before making the edit myself?</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/583735/solid-faraday-cage-with-a-hole-for-a-wire/583747#comment1529229_583747">Solid Faraday cage with a hole for a wire</a></p>
| Editing Answers |
<p>If you can phrase it as a design question it's acceptable.<br />
I personally find the restriction on asking genuine design questions which have good technical content and instructional value to be an excessive limitation on what could be useful questions. The aim is to avoid generic "where can I buy an xxx" type questions but in the process I consider we drive away a substantial amount of useful material.</p>
<p>However, my concerns do not alter what the rules are :-) :-(.</p>
<p>If you cannot reframe the question adequately for this site then you will almost get a good answer from the following forum that supports discussion - I suggest that you look at <a href="http://www.piclist.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.piclist.com</a> (don't be put off by the presentation or the PIC in the name). Then visit <a href="http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist</a> and join the mailing list & say hello. Provide as much detail of your requirements and problems as possible.</p>
<p>Just like here, there are people there who know almost everything (collectively), and you are allowed to discuss anything conversationally. Some members of this group are also PICList members (myself included). It's a very useful complement to this site for questions of this sort.</p>
| 8540 | 2021-09-05T21:06:22.280 | |discussion|asking-questions|on-topic| | <p>I am looking for an IC with a very specific set of requirements; can I ask about it here?</p>
<p>Technically it's a product recommendation question and, while I don't know this site well, I'm just assuming it's got a similar policy to other SE sites (i.e.: nope).</p>
<p>However, assuming that's the case, I feel like there <em>might</em> be some compelling cases for making exceptions specifically in the case of integrated circuits? Specifically:</p>
<ul>
<li>Unlike most product rec questions, this might not be as opinion-base because there tend to only be one or two manufacturers that make a given highly specialized IC, so an answer would often be <em>the</em> answer.</li>
<li>The product lifetimes (and post-EOL supply stores) tend to be long enough that it's not e.g. getting obsoleted every couple of months, and even if it does go out of production (and supply disappears), searching for a part given in an old answer usually yields its replacement. So answers shouldn't depreciate in value as quickly as typical product recs.</li>
<li>The products are generally specialized enough that I would expect other people's Google searches to end up pointing here, usually in the first few results, thus adding value to the internet.</li>
<li>It's a knowledgeable community that can provide good answers often based on experience.</li>
</ul>
<p>Anyways, can I ask about an IC here? What do y'all think?</p>
| Looking for ICs; can I ask here? |
<p>I stumbled across this same situation and found this discussion, so for the past few days I've been retagging questions using <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pads'" rel="tag">pads</a>. This is now complete so we can block <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pads'" rel="tag">pads</a> now.</p>
| 8542 | 2021-09-06T08:54:29.650 | |discussion|support|tags| | <p>I've just noticed that <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pads'" rel="tag">pads</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>PADS is a CAD PCB editor produced by Mentor Graphics</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mentor-pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mentor-pads'" rel="tag">mentor-pads</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>PADS is a software package from Mentor Graphics used for schematic capture, PCB layout, and circuit simulation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>exist and aren't aliasies of each other.</p>
<p>Since <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pads'" rel="tag">pads</a> is <strong>highly</strong> ambiguous, but still has only 68 questions to date, I'd like to replace it with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mentor-pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mentor-pads'" rel="tag">mentor-pads</a> on all the question about Mentor PADS, and with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pad" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pad'" rel="tag">pad</a> on all question about a PCB contact in SMT technology (and fix the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pad" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pad'" rel="tag">pad</a> description).</p>
<p>Afterwards, I'd like to ask for <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pads'" rel="tag">pads</a> to be blacklisted – with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/pad" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'pad'" rel="tag">pad</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mentor-pads" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mentor-pads'" rel="tag">mentor-pads</a> as the things an asker would immediately recognize as correct tags while typing.</p>
<p>Is that a desirable mode of operation?</p>
| tags: PADS and mentor-pads: same tag, not linked |
<p>Sorry for the delay on this one.</p>
<p>To answer your question, <strong>yes</strong>, I have found where I could change the syntax highlighter for the <code>system-verilog</code> tag (currently none), to match the <code>verilog</code> tag highlighting.</p>
<p>However as kindly explained in <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/8550">this answer from MarkU</a>, the syntax highlighting module being used for the <code>verilog</code> tag is called "lang-vhdl". There is no syntax highlighter specifically for Verilog (or System Verilog) available for me to choose. (The SE decision not to include Verilog & System Verilog highlighting in the SE-specific <code>highlight.js</code> is stated <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/354029">here</a>.)</p>
<p>Before my upvote for usefulness, that answer from MarkU had 1 downvote and 0 upvotes (and no explanatory comment for the downvote) - so was the original downvote to that answer, because there is some big negative consequence to the proposed change which no-one else has mentioned?</p>
<p><strong>Summary:</strong></p>
<p>I believe I can make the change you requested, but the downvote on that answer pointing out that it will invoke the <code>lang-vhdl</code> highlighting, is puzzling. Further feedback would be helpful.</p>
| 8549 | 2021-09-15T22:56:24.513 | |feature-request|syntax-highlighting| | <p>Please add the same syntax highlighting as the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/verilog" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'verilog'" rel="tag">verilog</a> tag to the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/system-verilog" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'system-verilog'" rel="tag">system-verilog</a> tag for consistency. Currently, <code>verilog</code> has syntax highlighting, but <code>system-verilog</code> does not. The <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/tags/system-verilog/info">system-verilog tag info</a> aptly states that it "is a backwards-compatible superset of verilog". Thus, it makes sense for both to use the same highlighting.</p>
<p>Several questions are tagged with both, and the highlighting looks fine. For example,
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/572251/generate-for-loop-lists">this question</a>.</p>
| Add syntax highlighting for the system-verilog tag |
<p>This has been fixed. More details (and haiku) <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/371004/51">on MSE</a>.</p>
| 8556 | 2021-10-13T12:07:03.163 | |bug|status-completed| | <p>I just got my first "Teacher" medal on EE. It's displayed in my profile overview under newest badges. If I click on it, it says it was awared for. <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/1/arduino-stepper-motor">Arduino Stepper Motor</a></p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DrxZq.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DrxZq.png" alt="Img" /></a></p>
<p>So apparently the correct question ID is not set here and it defaults to 1 or something like that.</p>
| Medal bug: Linking to wrong question |
<p><strong>To summarize,</strong> I propose six master tags: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-emitter" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-emitter'" rel="tag">common-emitter</a>, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-collector" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-collector'" rel="tag">common-collector</a>, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-base" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-base'" rel="tag">common-base</a>, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-source" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-source'" rel="tag">common-source</a>, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-drain" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-drain'" rel="tag">common-drain</a>, and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-gate" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-gate'" rel="tag">common-gate</a>. All these already exist. I further propose marking variants as synonyms for now, and leaving the decision to merge for a later date after there is a greater chance for discussion.</p>
<p><strong>Concerning which tag should be the master</strong>, I personally prefer leaving discussions like that for English Wikipedia where there has typically already been significant global discussion. I see that there, source-follower and emitter-follower redirect to common-drain and common-collector, respectively. In fact, Wikipedia provides <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Transistor_amplifiers" rel="nofollow noreferrer">six separate articles for single transistor amplifiers</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bipolar junction transistor: Common emitter · Common collector · Common base</li>
<li>Field-effect transistor: Common source · Common drain · Common gate</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Concerning merging versus merely synonyms</strong>, per your link <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/70718/299342">on main meta</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All good tag synonyms should eventually be merged (<a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/262288">source</a>)... As merging is not (easily) reversible, it should be done with caution... Merging, by itself, does not create a synonym... In most cases, you will want to create or ensure that a synonym exists, so that future attempts to use the merged tag will replace it with the canonical tag instead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, making synonyms is reversible and a mod doesn't have to worry about making a "bad" synonym as it can be rectified after the fact. Imo making a "bad" synonym is reasonable way to generate more community feedback. However, merging requires more caution, which to me means requiring more community feedback.</p>
<p>Therefore, merging can wait awhile in case implementing the synonym causes dissenting opinions to come out, and reversing or modifying the synonyms is deemed necessary. If no dissent appears after an appropriate amount of time, then they should be merged.</p>
| 8558 | 2021-10-14T14:40:49.867 | |discussion|tags|tag-synonyms| | <p>I recently fixed the tags on a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/516372/51760">question about common source vs. common drain topologies</a>, and I created <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-drain" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-drain'" rel="tag">common-drain</a> since the question used that term. However, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_drain" rel="nofollow noreferrer">common drain is also known as a source follower</a>, which already has a tag: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/source-follower" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'source-follower'" rel="tag">source-follower</a>. Since these terms are synonymous it seems obvious that these tags should be synonyms.</p>
<p>Similarly, we already have <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-collector" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-collector'" rel="tag">common-collector</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/emitter-follower" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'emitter-follower'" rel="tag">emitter-follower</a> even though these are the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_collector" rel="nofollow noreferrer">same topology</a>.</p>
<p>However, there are a couple of questions about how we'd want to handle these synonyms:</p>
<ol>
<li>Which tags should be the masters? Both <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/source-follower" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'source-follower'" rel="tag">source-follower</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/emitter-follower" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'emitter-follower'" rel="tag">emitter-follower</a> are more common (no pun intended), though <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-drain" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-drain'" rel="tag">common-drain</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-collector" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-collector'" rel="tag">common-collector</a> match the names of the tags for common source, common emitter, etc.</li>
<li>Should each pair of tags be <em>merged</em> or merely synonyms? The differences between merged tags and tag synonyms are explained <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/70718/299342">on main meta</a>, but in short merging the tags would mean that all questions would be retagged with the master tag whereas if they are synonyms then some questions will be tagged with one synonym (e.g. <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/common-drain" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'common-drain'" rel="tag">common-drain</a>) and others with the other synonym (e.g. <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/source-follower" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'source-follower'" rel="tag">source-follower</a>), likely using whatever term is in the question.</li>
</ol>
| Make [common-drain] and [source-follower] synonyms, and [common-collector] and [emitter-follower] synonyms? |
<p>Thanks for spotting this. As you said, it's clearly just a misspelling and not something that we need to consider with a full discussion, waiting for voting etc. I've replaced it with the correctly-spelled version of <code>verilog</code> on that question, as you suggested.</p>
<p>My reading of the mod documents on this, says that the misspelled <code>verliog</code> tag will automatically be deleted from the system, when a once-a-day job runs and sees that there are no questions with that tag.</p>
<p>We <em>could</em> get SE staff involved to add it to the blocklist (that is a staff-only function, mods can't add to the tag blocklist), but since this doesn't happen often, can I suggest that we don't add to the SE staff workload unless we <em>really</em> need to?</p>
<p>If you agree, then we would leave the work on this at confirming that the tag has been deleted by the same time tomorrow at the latest (I don't know the exact time each 24hrs that the empty tag delete function runs - I have seen a mention of 8-9 am UTC, but not 100% sure of that).</p>
<p>If this becomes a regular event then, yes, we can get SE staff to add it to the blocklist.</p>
| 8585 | 2021-11-26T11:46:15.510 | |feature-request|tags|tag-blacklist-request| | <p>Would a Moderator please delete the misspelled <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/verliog" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'verliog'" rel="tag">verliog</a> tag?</p>
<p>There is only one question with this tag: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/596650/basic-verilog-assignment">Basic Verilog Assignment</a></p>
<p>The question title has the correct spelling of "Ver<strong>il</strong>og". I can't tell when the "ver<strong>li</strong>og" tag was created, but I assume it was today when this question was posted.</p>
<p>The correct <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/verilog" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'verilog'" rel="tag">verilog</a> tag should be added to the question.</p>
<p>I see no need to keep the misspelled version. Please delete and blocklist it.</p>
| Would a Moderator delete the misspelled [verliog] tag? |
<blockquote>
<p>Is Stack Exchange an appropriate forum to ask whether this kind of lead time is normal for a specific parts supplier?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hi, Thanks for asking. However, I would say <strong>no</strong>, that question wouldn't be on-topic here.</p>
<ul>
<li>It's not a <em>technical</em> question.</li>
<li>It's not close (IMHO) to the subjects the site aims to cover in the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">on-topic list</a>.</li>
<li>In these current Covid-affected times, any lead time problem may not be normal for them, and hence any answer would risk becoming outdated (and hence have no value for future readers) even more quickly than usual. (This is a variation of why shopping-type questions are off-topic - too localized (in both time and place) and so have little value for other readers.)</li>
<li>(Other people might think of more reasons.)</li>
</ul>
<p>Any issues with your <em>specific</em> order might apply just to those parts and their manufacturer, so I would first ask the supplier for an update, as you thought.</p>
<p>If you wanted to discuss that supplier (even though the delay in your case might be specific to the manufacturer instead) I immediately think of the <a href="https://www.eevblog.com/forum/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EEVBlog forums</a> as somewhere that I would consider asking, because I have seen questions about particular companies asked there before.</p>
<p>Sorry that's probably not the response you wanted.</p>
| 8589 | 2021-12-12T04:39:43.503 | |discussion| | <p>I placed an order from a major brand-name electronics component supplier for spare parts and accessories from their online store (not a reseller) and it's been almost a month and it is still "processing".</p>
<p>I can call them and certainly ask for the status of my order but what I don't know is how common it is for such a long lead time on spare parts that I thought would have been readily available.</p>
<p>Is Stack Exchange an appropriate forum to ask whether this kind of lead time is normal for a specific parts supplier?</p>
| Is it appropriate to ask a question regarding processing time for a major electronics component supplier? |
<p>The question was closed for the wrong reason. It <em>is</em> on-topic here, but should be closed because of the following problems:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the temperature is monitored by a 2-wire thermistor as far as I can tell...</p>
<p>I considered monitoring it in parallel, adding my own micro controller, and a 433MHz transmitter to be able to monitor the temperature, But I am worried that doing so will interfere with the measurement of the temperature.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is not clear what you mean with monitoring in parallel, why you think this would interfere with the thermistor or how you plan to connect it. We don't even know if this is a PTC or NTC. A simple schematic would be helpful here. Also, it isn't clear if "it will interfere" means the temperature measurement or if you are talking about EMC and the 433MHz radio.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>sends the same signal on to the main circuit board using PWM, but besides potential voltage differences, I can't figure out if that is feasible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What main circuit board? It is unclear how many circuit boards there are, which ones you are modifying and which ones you are designing/adding. Also there is no way to determine if PWM is feasible with such little information given.</p>
<p>So overall the question should have been closed as unclear. It is also too broad, which is another reason for closure - open-ended big picture discussions are not suitable for these kind of Q&A sites. Questions should not ask for opinions, but specific technical solutions given a specific technical question.</p>
| 8591 | 2021-12-13T23:38:11.733 | |discussion| | <p>According to the help center: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>… if your question …</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>… is not about …</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>consumer electronics such as media players, cell phones or smart phones,</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>except</strong> when … <strong>modifying</strong> their electronics for other uses</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>… then you’re in the right place to ask your question!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why then am I getting my question about adding to the feature of a PCB rejected with</p>
<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>Does this only count if I am modifying a water heater for keeping glühwine warm and stirring it at the same time?</p>
<p>In this question
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/598800/smarting-up-a-water-heater">Smarting up a water heater</a> I am asking how to add some other sensors to this, modifying it to interface with other systems than those it was designed for. Is it really only on-topic if I was designing a new PCB for it?</p>
| Clarification of question topic - Am I reading the on-topic help page wrong? |
<p>I'm not a moderator, just a "concerned citizen". The problem with your schematic has nothing to do with formats, but that it was poorly drawn by a novice who is unaware of industry standards and conventions for how to draw proper schematics. The link I gave you, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/28251/rules-and-guidelines-for-drawing-good-schematics">Rules and guidelines for drawing good schematics</a>, is not rules for <em>this site</em>, but best practices used by all electrical engineers out there in the real world. An important part of an engineer's job is to follow established international standards and not invent some local one on project basis.</p>
<p>It is a well-known convention that MOSFETs, BJTs, OP amps, digital logic and many other common components should always be drawn with the gate/base/input etc to the left, supplies facing upwards and ground downwards. Overall, using common sense will get you very far: the ground is downwards.</p>
<p>An N-MOSFET is drawn with an arrow from source at the bottom of the symbol to the gate. A P-MOSFET is drawn with an arrow from the gate to the source at the top. So when you draw your MOSFET mirrored or upside down, you will confuse everyone reading the schematic needlessly and distracting from understanding the actual question.</p>
<p>An IC with signals written on it should naturally be placed so that it can be read by humans without turning the paper/screen 90 degrees. This goes for all designators in the schematic too.</p>
<p>Similarly, there exist no schematics where SMD codes are written for components, the actual values are what's written. You wouldn't write "Brown Black Black" when designing a schematic for through-hole resistors, now would you.</p>
| 9601 | 2022-01-05T03:19:24.557 | |feature-request| | <p>Previously, I and my workmate have a hard time to recreate board schematic on Electronics Stack Exchange because it can't simply import our schematic from Autodesk Eagle. Then we ditched it and upload as screenshot from Eagle because it won't work as we expected.</p>
<p>We wonder if it technically possible to import schematic from any schematic maker software on the market. Pretty sure there are a lot of electronic engineers have the same problem.</p>
| Feature Request: Import Board Schematic from Software like Eagle to Electronics Stack Exchange |
<p>As requested and discussed in comments, I've merged [diff-amp] into the master tag [differential-amplifier] with [diff-amp] being a synonym.</p>
| 9605 | 2022-01-20T00:30:53.067 | |discussion|tags|tag-cleanup|tag-synonyms| | <p>We have both <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/differential-amplifier" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'differential-amplifier'" rel="tag">differential-amplifier</a> and <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/diff-amp" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'diff-amp'" rel="tag">diff-amp</a>, with the latter having far more questions than the former (> 100 questions). However, the former is the full, proper name.</p>
<p>Would a moderator kindly merge the two tags and make them synonyms, with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/differential-amplifier" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'differential-amplifier'" rel="tag">differential-amplifier</a> the master tag?</p>
| Make [diff-amp] a synonym of [differential-amplifier]? |
<p><strong>Summary</strong>: Trying to understand why an OP does X or Y can't be answered with certainty, unless we ask that OP (and we might not be able to believe their reply - they might tell us what they think we want to hear, not their actual reasons).</p>
<p>I agree that answers should not be <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5234/how-does-accepting-an-answer-work">accepted</a> based <em>only</em> based on the reputation of the answer writer. However I think there are a few things going on...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The [first] answer is technically correct and it sufficiently answers the OP's question. But the OP does not accept it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Something I see quite often is an OP who asks a question, then goes offline for some hours (perhaps they go offline overnight their time, or perhaps they go offline until they get home at the end of the day, their time - things like that).</p>
<p>That means the OP may not see that first answer before others have been added, and so they didn't have a chance to see that only the first one was "enough".</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Then, a few minutes (or even hours) later, another member with higher reputation <em>(i.e. higher than that of the member who put the first correct answer)</em> puts exactly the same answer (maybe with only a few unrelated additions just to make their answer a little "different")</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I try not to underestimate the value of those additions you mention. Adding extra information / quoting (and linking to) specific sources, or specific experience, can definitely add value.</p>
<p>Also saying the same thing a different way might be be easier to understand for <em>that</em> OP. I know that when teaching classes of engineers, I sometimes had to explain the same thing with different examples & different starting assumptions, due to the wide variation of backgrounds and previous experiences of the engineers in my classes.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>and the OP accepts this answer, not the first one. Just because the new answer came from a high-rep member?</p>
<p>I really can't understand the motivation behind this. Maybe the OP wants to be sure about the 1st answer by seeing the same thing (in other words, verification) from a higher-rep member.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, I do think that waiting for verification is a real effect, especially if the person asking is unsure (or unable) to verify on their own, whether the first answer given is correct.</p>
<p>I see something similar in medicine as well. For example: A junior doctor diagnoses that the patient has condition X. Later, the patient sees a consultant (i.e. a more senior doctor) who confirms the diagnosis of X - and perhaps explains more and gives more details, due to them having more experience of patients with condition X. Patients tend to believe the later diagnosis from the (senior) consultant more, even though it is the same diagnosis given earlier by the junior doctor. This is a variation of "getting a second opinion".</p>
<p>Getting back to Stack Exchange: Even if (due to the added info), the later answer has a greater chance of being accepted by an OP, all correct (and therefore useful) answers should be worthy of upvotes, as long as they are not clearly duplicates of each other.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What's the point of upvote/downvote system then?</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li><p>Remember that really new OPs cannot yet upvote (<a href="/help/privileges/vote-up">15 points needed</a>) or downvote (<a href="/help/privileges/vote-down">125 points needed</a>).</p>
</li>
<li><p>If an OP isn't sure whether an answer is correct, then it's understandable that they cannot judge enough to vote, even if they do have the required points to be able to do so.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Upvotes / downvotes should be for whether that answer is <em>useful</em>, even if it doesn't include everything needed to completely solve the OP's problem. However for new OPs who cannot yet upvote (or don't understand the difference between upvoting and accepting) I would not be surprised to see useful-but-not-quite-complete answers that have not been upvoted by an OP (because they can't) and not accepted (because the answer may not give them all the info they need, and/or because they don't understand the concept of "accepting").</p>
</li>
<li><p>Personally I would like more people to vote here overall. I know that we all have limited time and different skill-sets & things we want to do - some people do more reviews, others do more editing, and yet others do more answering (all of which we need and thank you to all the active site members here!).</p>
<p>However while doing all those things, it would help if site members also considered voting. For example, we have some active members who rarely vote. Please don't judge only at <em>your</em> expertise level; consider what would be useful for others, who don't know everything that you do.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Finally: Here is a (long but useful) Meta.SE topic which suggests criteria for voting on Q and A:<br />
<a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/130046/when-should-i-vote">When should I vote?</a></p>
<p>While I don't agree with every single point in that topic, I think that it's a good starting point especially for people who are unsure what to consider when voting.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>If the answer is technically wrong or needs some additions/corrections then the comment section can be used for that purpose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Agreed. Unfortunately some OPs don't use comments to request clarification (I have learned that there can be a cultural element to this behaviour, as I have experienced junior engineers who just said "yes" when I told them something. Only later did I discover that they hadn't understood me, but they eventually explained that in their culture, it would have been rude for them to question what someone as senior as me had said). So there might be an element of "conflict avoidance" by those who don't raise points in comments.</p>
<p>Due to the differences between comments and answers on Stack Exchange, I also think that new OPs in particular (but also some longer-term site members) do not fully understand some of the details about the correct use of comments. For them, this is a useful Meta.SE topic: <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19756/how-do-comments-work">How do comments work?</a></p>
<hr />
<p>I don't have a fix for what you describe, partly because we don't <em>know</em> the reason(s) why some OPs behave like that. I have explained my <em>guesses</em>. Overall, I am not surprised that a (perhaps shorter) first answer from a lower-rep site member, isn't trusted as much (especially by an OP who doesn't know enough to quickly judge a correct answer) as a later (perhaps longer) answer from a higher-rep user, especially if that later answer explains <em>why</em> it is correct.</p>
| 9622 | 2022-03-14T10:18:57.917 | |discussion|reputation|accepted-answer| | <p>First of all, if this is already asked or mentioned somewhere in EE.SE Meta please forgive me, and notify me with the original link so that I can delete this.</p>
<hr />
<p>This is one really strange and, sort of annoying thing that I noticed. Here's the thing:</p>
<p>A new question appears. And a member with lower reputation <em>(can be either a new member with 1 rep or an active member with 50k rep. Doesn't matter.)</em> puts the first answer to this question. The answer is technically correct and it sufficiently answers the OP's question. But the OP does not accept it. Then, a few minutes (or even hours) later, another member with higher reputation <em>(i.e. higher than that of the member who put the first correct answer)</em> puts exactly the same answer (maybe with only a few unrelated additions just to make their answer a little "different") and the OP accepts this answer, not the first one. Just because the new answer came from a high-rep member?</p>
<p>I really can't understand the motivation behind this. Maybe the OP wants to be sure about the 1st answer by seeing the same thing (in other words, verification) from a higher-rep member. What's the point of upvote/downvote system then? If the answer is technically wrong or needs some additions/corrections then the comment section can be used for that purpose.</p>
<p>PS: I can't give any "real" examples at the moment but I'm sure that I'm not the only one who noticed this before. And I have to say that I'm not the subject of any of those questions. So please don't even try to smell a "jealousy" here :)</p>
| Accepting an answer based on the reputation of its sender/poster |
<p><strong>Note to other site members:</strong> There was excessive disruption, argument and rudeness in comments that have since been deleted (and elsewhere) i.e. you cannot now see the whole picture.</p>
<p>I knew that my actions in this case were quite likely to result in a question on Meta, and you have done that, so thanks for raising this and for the opportunity to explain.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is it the OP's fault his question is "locked-out" for 7 days due to arguments in answers</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No, it's definitely <em>not</em> the OP's fault, but in a fast-moving situation, a mod's responsibility includes stabilising the situation by any means, to prevent things getting worse. That is why locking posts is given to us as an tool we can use, when we believe it is appropriate.</p>
<p>Locking the topic was not my first action, and was not done lightly. However leaving any part of that topic unlocked last night, would have allowed the arguments to continue in that part (comments or answers). Therefore I make no apology for doing what I believed was necessary, at that time and in the best interests of the site, to prevent the thread from becoming even more argumentative. In that situation, I would do the same again, while working on other measures behind the scenes..</p>
<p>Of course it is very regrettable that any moderator actions have side-effects on innocent site members like the OP, and <strong>I am <em>acutely</em> aware of that.</strong></p>
<p>Sometimes situations need time to resolve. Just because site members don't see things happening, does <em>not</em> mean that nothing is happening. Sometimes we need time to research, consult our notes, consult with other moderators, consult with Stack Exchange staff, write messages etc. (also to drive, sleep, eat...).</p>
<p>Note that the time that a mod locks post(s) is not "set in stone" - it can be modified (either extended <em>or</em> shortened). In this case, my plan was never to leave the topic locked for a week, but there are limited options that we can choose from (1 hour / 1 day / 1 week / permanently) and I had reasons for choosing that one. Again, the responsibility of a mod is to stabilise the situation first, using any and all available tools.</p>
<p>As I explained in a comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I'm locking the whole Q&A <strong>while considering the next actions</strong> and to give time for people to calm down.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have been working "behind the scenes" and things have moved on since I locked that topic. My plan was always to leave the topic locked for shortest time, but which was consistent with dealing with the cause of the (now deleted) disruption. <strong>I have now re-opened the topic.</strong></p>
<p>However, if comments or answers become argumentative again, then a moderator will take action. There have been many comments on the question, perhaps too many. Moving them to a chatroom would have the advantage of them not being "in the face" of visitors to the page (which is one of the reasons that we can move comments to chat) but doing that also makes it more difficult for mods in some ways. So comments have not been moved to a chatroom, yet, but they might be in future.</p>
| 9625 | 2022-03-26T12:39:56.787 | |discussion|closed-questions| | <p>Reference this question: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/613254/op-amp-based-virtual-ground-with-bjt-buffer?noredirect=1#comment1617452_613254">Op-amp based virtual ground with BJT buffer</a>.</p>
<p>This Q and A session has been locked for 7 days: -</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4C3ox.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4C3ox.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>It has been locked due to repeated (warned and reported) behavioural traits made by a specific person offering an answer.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>This means that the OP cannot get answers for 7 days because nobody can offer a new answer during that time period.</p>
</li>
<li><p>This doesn't sound very reasonable to me. After all, it's not his fault that the session has become closed.</p>
</li>
<li><p>If he were needing an answer fairly quickly, he's not going to get one. This seems all wrong to me.</p>
</li>
</ul>
| Is it the OP's fault his question is "locked-out" for 7 days due to arguments in answers |
<p>The message you got points you to <a href="https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/271542/why-wont-the-system-allow-me-to-ask-questions-for-several-days/271543#271543">this post</a> that explains how this block works, and why it exists. You can also read more about it <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/asking-rate-limited">here</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em><strong>This block is only temporary, but much longer blocks exist in the system.</strong></em> We're trying to slow you down and provide you with more guidance now, in hopes that you avoid a much longer period where the system won't accept questions from your account. Please take some time to revisit and improve your previous questions wherever possible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the message noted, it is taking into account the last 4 questions you asked, which, <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/9651/71136">as Voltage Spike noted</a>, takes into account a deleted and downvoted question you asked back in January.</p>
<p>There is no way to manually lift this temporary block, but the upside is that it is only gonna last a single day — like noted in the quote above, the point is not to prevent you from asking question altogether, but instead to have you take a break between asking questions.</p>
| 9650 | 2022-05-09T20:36:27.970 | |support|status-bydesign|asking-questions| | <p>I went to ask a new question on the main EE site, but SE gave me the standard warning, "You have reached your question limit. It looks like you might need a break - take a breather and come back soon!" that it gives before a question ban.</p>
<p>It says that my recent questions were poorly received, but from what I can see they weren't. My most recent question currently has 3 upvotes and a few well received answers, and my question before that has an upvote and was quite useful.</p>
<p>Why am I at a question limit?</p>
| Why am I getting a "You've reached your question limit. [...] you might need a break" message, when my questions have been well-received? |
<p>After four months and more that 250 views, I find it very telling that NOBODY on this META has found a <em>specific</em> reason good enough for that question to be closed.
It's not that the people in here have reached the conclusion that, no maybe it was an error of judgement and it shouldn't have been closed. It seems to me, from the downvotes as well, that people here believe it deserved to be closed. So, what is the <em>specific</em> reason, I have been asking? (I am giving here my answer to the question)</p>
<p>Was it closed out of spite for posting a hastily drawn picture? There are tons of questions with bad pictures.
Was it closed because it lacked a space here and there? There are tons of questions with bad formatting.
Was it closed because there was a typo in one of the formulas? (not sure if it was introduced by the user who formatted it, anyway there are heaps of questions with bad pictures, a typo here and there that do not get closed for any or all of the trivial matters above.)
Or was it closed because those who voted to close it do not understand how transistors work and thought it was the OP to be confused to the point of asking an incoherent question? This last part does not make much sense, either. Should questions only be asked by people who already know the answer?
And regarding the 'focus', it was laser sharp. But I understand it is customary to give bogus reason for closing, once one has made up his mind a question does not make sense.</p>
<p>One of the people who voted to close chose not to make a proper answer and instead answered in the comments, against the site's rule. So many times I have seen "comments are not for extended discussion", "comments are not for answering", "comments prevent content from being searchable", "comments prevents voting"... The impression given here is that rules are not for everybody and some users are 'more equal' than others.
Claiming "<em>I have given up providing reasons now because it seems inevitably I get suspended</em>", is not a tenable justification on Meta. You are not asked to give the reason for closing in the comments section of the answer on EESE. (Also, is the mechanism that gets users suspended wrong, then?)
This is Meta: share your reasoning so that it can be evaluated by your peers. The vague reason given in the comments above is "<em>I probably voted to close as needing more focus because the question asserts things that I regard as wrong</em>".
So, are these 'things that [are] regard[ed] as wrong" a secret?
This is an elementary circuit: it should be easy to explain what was so wrong with the answer to the point of closing it. Why are the users who voted to close avoiding discussion - <strong>which should be the purpose of Meta</strong>?</p>
<p>I chose this particular question because the topic is so basic that any engineer worth its salt should be able to form an opinion about its 'answerability' and its 'focus'. And yet it seems that a question as simple as this can create problems even in seasoned engineers.
I posted it <a href="https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/a-simple-transistor-question/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">on another forum</a>, just to get a reality check, and while nobody had problems in understanding what the OP was asking, it exposed certain misconceptions some had.
To be more specific: it is perfectly fine to have batteries without current limiting resistors directly attached to the transistor (when the voltages are less than the maximum allowed values, of course); the transistor is essentially a multiterminal nonlinear resistor; and the concept of resistance as ratio of the total voltage and total current (as opposed to the incremental or differential resistance of small signal analysis) does have a meaning; finally, the transistor does not only amplify small signals about the biasing point: amplification can be referred to large signals as well.</p>
<p>So, here is my answer to the question I posed:
From the interaction in this Meta I have reached the conclusion that the people who voted to close this question have a problem with at least one of the simple concepts above.</p>
<p>There's nothing to be ashamed of, of course, we all have a blind spot here and there; what is wrong, though, and what I am trying to bring the attention to is that people should not vote to close questions on topics they do not fully understand. But most importantly, it's the ensuing "<em>we are right, no matter what, but we won't tell you what was wrong in the question and so there is nothing to discuss here</em>" attitude of certain (several? most?) curators - or whatever is the title they give themselves - that is disappointing to say the least. And I am not even bringing up the selective deletion of comments.</p>
<p>In one of the comments someone asks why didn't I do anything.</p>
<ol>
<li>The question was closed and deleted before I could do anything (not everyone spend every single day on this site) but in any case I was not particularly interested in this specific question, but in the process of abritrarily closing questions. I chose this question to highlight the problem because it was about a very simple topic and also touched what seem to be shared misconceptions, but I would not have done anything to avoid alter your dynamics.
Moreover:</li>
<li>I no longer contribute to this site (except for a few rare exceptions), I am just pointing out how it is broken in the vain hope that the people still willing to participate in it could change it.</li>
<li>In the meantime, I leech the contents that from time to time can be interesting, but I really wished the level of the site would not be dragged down too much.</li>
</ol>
<p>BTW, this is the text that generated the md5 code, right after "<em>I hope it's clear what I am asking, now</em>" at the end of my question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It's about the "we don't know, we cannot know" part. But let's see if
my crystal ball is working: I forecast downvotes that will have the
effect to hide this Meta question and no real explanation about why
the OP question was closed. Except mabye a vague and unsubstantiated
"it's low quality" 'reason'. I would not be surprised to see some
excuse not to answer the questions posed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(Nice try with the image hosting website question.)
So, i guess that if it is possible I will accept my own answer, because the other ones did not address the real core of my question (apart from the mechanism of automatic deletion by a bot due to the negative score).</p>
| 9657 | 2022-05-12T01:19:12.833 | |discussion|close-reasons|deleted-answers| | <p>Since the medium length question was apparently too complex and the short question wasn't apparently clear enough, I will try to rewrite the question about the closing in a more answerable form, motivating my choices.
The part about why it was deleted was mostly cleared by Russel McMahon.</p>
<p><strong>Reason to rewrite the question</strong><br />
It appears that on this Meta, when someone asks "why was question X closed with reason Y" all they really want to know is "because three users with N points decided it had to be closed with reason Y". I didn't expect to receive this answer <em>twice</em> (the other is an answer since deleted because I was 'not nice'), considering the information carried by such an answer, in the light of the second screenshot I posted, is basically zero (and I also guess that the tag '<em>discussion</em>' means something else from what I and my dictionaries think).</p>
<p>Answering "because three users with N points decided to close it" is nothing but a tautology, and if the answer to the most logic (at least in my world, but YMMV) follow-up question "then why three users decided to close it" would be "<em>we don't know, we cannot know</em>, you should ask them", the logic conclusion to draw is that on EESE, simple questions that should be answerable by any electronics practitioner are closed for reason that are imperscrutable to everyone except the users who chose to close them.
And that such a arbitrariness and lack of transparency is okay with the top brass here.</p>
<p><strong>The purpose of this question on Meta</strong><br />
What I am asking here is "how is it possible for a question (as elementary as this) to be closed without that it is possible to find a common agreement on why it was closed?" to the point that the only answer I have got so far is basically "it was closed because someone decided to close it". I find this lack of transparency disturbing and contrary to the purpose of aiding users ask better questions.</p>
<p>So, in order to avoid further tautologies, I am forced to analyze the question one step at the time, sentence after sentence. It's short and simple enough to make this possible. This is not some fringe topic that requires experts in the field. Any EE or even any technician should know how a transistor work. Let's see if the community can agree on a reason for closing the question, with the motivation given, as if it were asked today.</p>
<p>Since the original question I had asked in this post wasn't clear enough (except for user @dim, it appears, but their comments are now buried into a deleted answer), I had to split my question in many explicitly worded bits that are - I hope - tautology-proof.</p>
<p>The answers required are mostly in the form of Yes/No, except for the last one.</p>
<p>Consider this an educative post, for new users that are beginners and want to ask good question. Show them why the question was not focused, so that they can learn how to ask focused questions. So far, nobody has given a reason for that. Feel free to contact the original close-voters, if you wish. My question(s) is (are) directed <em>at the community</em>. In the spirit of the community, the answer that better explains why the OP question is not focused and deserving to be closed <em>should</em> come up on top with the most votes.</p>
<p><strong>A word on notations</strong><br />
In the following the original question from the OP is in <em>italics</em> (if I can make it in italics - the buttons no longer works on my laptop and PC, and it is not possible to correctly indent the text as a quote) - but the screenshot of the question is in a link at the bottom.
More notation: I will write my questions in capital letters to highlight them. This is a convention: it's not intended as shouting; it's writing a sentence in CAPITAL LETTERS to make it stand out from the rest of the text that is not a question (normal text), headings or highlighted text (<strong>bold face</strong>), and the original question (<em>italics</em>.) The purpose is to make all questions easily spotted at a glance, without having to sift through the rest of the text (for those who are in a hurry to get to the gist. I still maintain that the question in the title alone should suffice but, here we are.)</p>
<p><strong>Splitting my original question in several - hopefully less prone to tautology - questions:</strong><br />
First we start with the picture. It shows a PNP transistor with the emitter junction directly biased by a small battery and the collector junction reverse biased by a larger battery. Granted, the picture is ugly, but not everybody can afford a pen tablet, and drawing with the mouse can lead to such uncertain drawings. Are users supposed to be discriminated on the base of their computing gear?<br />
Moreover, this is the picture that can be found in several introductory electronics and physics textbooks when they explain the principles of transistor working (a couple of examples: David A. Bell, "Electronic Devices and Circuits" 2nd edition, fig. 4-4, p. 69 and fig. 4.5 p. 70; Millman, Halkias, "Electronic Devices and Circuits", fig. 9.3 p. 223)<br />
Q1) IS THE UGLY PICTURE THE REASON THE QUESTION SHOULD BE CLOSED?</p>
<p>Now let's get to the body of text.<br />
A few comments noted that the question was not properly formatted and user Eugen Sh. TeXified it correctly, apart from some missing spaces and lack of linefeeds (explained by the way this site renders two separate sentences when there is not a double space at the end of the first one.)<br />
Q2) IS THE BAD FORMATTING THE REASON THE QUESTION SHOULD BE CLOSED?</p>
<p>The question opens with this preamble, where the OP sets up the stage with what the picture represents and what they have learned so far:</p>
<p><em>Quote from OP</em><br />
<em>In the above transistor, we know that due to forward biasing, the resistance is low in the p−n part and high in n−p part due to reverse biasing. And i learnt that voltage drop in p−n part is low due to the low resistance and voltage drop in n−p part is high due to the high resistance.</em></p>
<p>It is anticipated here what will be the <strong>only one question they are about to ask</strong>: they know (more or less, they are a beginner by their own admission) that if you forward bias a pn junction (from P to N) you get a small voltage across it and an appreciable current through it, and if you reverse bias it (from N to P) you can get a large voltage across it and a small current through it. They are about to ask (their <strong>one and only question</strong>) why one voltage is small and the other is large.<br />
Q3) IS THIS 'PREVIEW' OF WHAT WOULD BE <strong>THE ONLY QUESTION</strong> THE REASON THE QUESTION SHOULD BE CLOSED (because it's not focused, of all reasons)?</p>
<p>They go on stating <strong>the one and only question they ask</strong> (why is the voltage across the reverse biased junction greater than the voltage across the forward biased junction if IE > IC), after explaining what they found confusing, i.e. the fact that even if the 'resistance' of a direct biased junction is low and the 'resistance' of a reverse biased junction is high, since IE>IC, it would still be mathematically possible (in their view) to have IE<em>VEB > IC</em>VCB (sign conventions might apply.)</p>
<p><em>Quote from OP</em><br />
<em>But in p−n junction, the current which passes is IE which is a high current and the voltage,let's say, Rpn is low, so by ohm's law voltage difference between the blue marked points E and B is V1=VE−VB = IE Rpn. Similarly V2 = VE−VB = IC Rnp. Now how do we conclude V2 > V1? Even though Rpn < Rnp,we have IE > IC. So there is the possibility of being V1 and V2 equal even.</em></p>
<p>Q4) IS THE REFERENCE TO THE NONLINEAR RESISTANCE OF THE JUNCTION (AND NOT TO AN UNNECESSARY DYNAMIC RESISTANCE) THE REASON THE QUESTION SHOULD BE CLOSED?</p>
<p>Q5) IS THE MENTION OF OTHER VARIABLES (NAMELY, CURRENT AND RESISTANCE) OTHER THAN VOLTAGE THE REASON THIS QUESTION IS NOT FOCUSED AND SHOULD BE CLOSED?</p>
<p>I noticed that there is still a small formatting error, namely "<em>and the voltage,let's say,Rpn is low,so by ohm's law voltage difference between the blue marked points E and B is...</em>" should read, instead, "<em>and the voltage - let's say Rpn is low - so by ohm's law voltage difference between the blue marked points E and B is...</em>"<br />
Q6) IS THIS PART OF BAD FORMATTING THE REASON THE QUESTION SHOULD BE CLOSED?</p>
<p>Finally, after having asked the same question two times already, the OP summarized what the one and only question they are asking is, and by declaring their level of expertise so that a question could be given accordingly:</p>
<p><em>Quote from OP</em>
<em>Then how is it plausible to deduce V2>V1 and not the other way around? I am sorry for having misconceptions but i am saying this from a beginner's point of view.</em></p>
<p>Q7) IS THE REPETITION OF THE ONE AND ONLY QUESTION ASKED THE REASON THE QUESTION SHOULD BE CLOSED? (Of all reasons because it is not focused?)</p>
<p>Q8) IF Q1-Q7 DID NOT EXPLAIN WHY: WHAT MAKES THE QUESTION NOT FOCUSED TO THE POINT IT HAS TO BE CLOSED?</p>
<p>I hope it is clear what I am asking, now.</p>
<hr />
<p><strong>Previous versions of the question</strong></p>
<p>Why was this question closed and what were the "reason of moderation" for which it was deleted?</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/617839/voltage-drop-in-transistor">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/617839/voltage-drop-in-transistor</a></p>
<p>EDIT: to clarify: I asked this question about ten days after the question was closed, and maybe one or two day after if was deleted. The reason for closing and deleting it, therefore are independent of what I am writing here post-facto.
If the remaining additional information is too confusing, just ignore it. The question I am asking is:</p>
<p>"Why was this question deleted and why was it closed?"</p>
<hr />
<p>The question was in topic and clearly stated, just not well formatted (it had an ugly picture but not everybody owns a drawing pad). Here is the text of the question</p>
<p><a href="https://i.postimg.cc//JnfK3Gsv/screenshot-3.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://i.postimg.cc//JnfK3Gsv/screenshot-3.png</a></p>
<p>And here is the reason given for closing it.</p>
<p><a href="https://i.postimg.cc//nh3kRdsv/screenshot-2.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://i.postimg.cc//nh3kRdsv/screenshot-2.png</a></p>
<p>There was no point in editing the question because it was clear what was asked (the focus is quite clear: why is one voltage bigger than the other) so once closed it was impossible to reopen it by editing it without asking a different question.</p>
<p>( Incidentally it was also an interesting question because the answer could be used to explain the core of transistor action and how a transistor can be seen as a way to match impedances. For those who think it was unanswerable, here is a possible answer to complement the other information I had given in the comments: <a href="https://i.postimg.cc//1tfFPWp6/LOL.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://i.postimg.cc//1tfFPWp6/LOL.png</a> )
3d8098c310eb3583a51c95f338b340c5</p>
<p>But my question is only partly about why it was closed.
It is also about why it was deleted. What were the "moderation purposes"?</p>
| Why was this question closed (and then deleted)? |
<p>To <em>specifically</em> reach page 348:<br />
<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/unanswered/tagged/?page=348&tab=votes">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/unanswered/tagged/?page=348&tab=votes</a></p>
<p>Simply replace the number following <em>page=</em> in the URL.</p>
| 9664 | 2022-05-24T20:25:36.480 | |feature-request| | <p>How can I reach e.g. page 348 of this endless list with less than 50 clicks?
When I read these things some pages per day, I can't seek to the last page or range I left some days before.</p>
| Browsing unanswered questions, how to scroll efficiently |
<p>Here is a way:</p>
<p>Create the initial schematic the usual way. Do you stuff on CircuitLab, and when the first version is done, click "Save and Insert". That makes you go back to EE.SE, and there is now some markup in your answer text that looks like this:</p>
<pre><code><!-- Begin schematic: In order to preserve an editable schematic, please
don't edit this section directly.
Click the "edit" link below the image in the preview instead. -->
<!-- End schematic -->
</code></pre>
<p>Copy this entire part as many times you want in your post. This will make as many instances of your schematic in your post. For each instance, you'll have a "edit the above schematic" link. If you click it, you can modify the instances you want individually. When you "Save and Insert" from CircuitLab for a given instance, the corresponding link (the <code>*****.png</code>) part will change for the modified instance, but it will not update the other instances, and the original schematic will be preserved.</p>
<p>You can even use the same technique to reuse, possibly with some modifications, a schematic from another post. Go to the source post that contains the schematic, click "Edit" as if you wanted to modify the post: that will show you the markup text. From there, copy the schematic block as shown above, cancel the post edit, and paste the block in your destination post. You can use the schematic as is, or modify it (the original schematic, of course, won't change).</p>
| 9688 | 2022-06-28T05:38:00.183 | |support| | <p>Sometimes I want to use two or more circuit diagrams in one post, which are only slight variations of each other.</p>
<p>Is it possible to "continue" an existing schematic and then insert it as a new separate schematic ?</p>
| How to use several similar CircuitLab schematics in one post without redrawing the whole diagram? |
<p>As commented, there is nothing we can do directly here. Each SE site has its own mods and even as a mod <em>here</em>, I cannot see any details over <em>there</em>.</p>
<p>I have contacted the mods over there and they are currently investigating.</p>
<hr />
<p>Update:</p>
<p>The suspension has kindly been removed by the mods over there. No sign of a <em>bug</em>, but I'm not going to disclose more details publicly.</p>
<p>They have asked me to pass on a recommendation that you change your passwords on your SE account and your email.</p>
<p>If you have more questions, please ask over there, not here.</p>
<hr />
<p>Regarding your wider point:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have a general complaint with the process of being put in the penalty box without being shown exactly why I am in the penalty box. Maybe there is, after all, some valid reason. But all I'm told is that I'm in the box.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I appreciate your concern, however there is some history in your case. Usually there <em>would</em> have been a prior message.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Also, there should be some button that you can press that says that I think this happened accidentally, and that I should not be in the penalty box.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are only a tiny number of situations like yours. From what I understand, a specific series of manual actions happened in the past, (which usually don't happen unless the account is a spammer) leading to your situation today.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it definitely doesn't make sense that I am automatically penalty-boxed as soon as I join a community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I understand it doesn't make sense to you, but there <em>was</em> a reason and it was functioning as designed.</p>
<p>Getting "Penalty Box by Mistake" functionality added to the site, just for those tiny number of situations, will be so far down the SE priorities list that I doubt it would happen.</p>
<p>The slower-but-preferred way to address your situation, would have been for you to use the contact form at the bottom of the page on the Stats site. Your workaround of asking here caused some extra work, but it was probably a quicker resolution than using the contact form.</p>
| 9690 | 2022-07-05T05:40:37.957 | |bug| | <p>I wanted to join the Statistics Stack Exchange, so I did join the community, but as soon as I did, I was put in the penalty box there. Of course, once in the penalty box, I'm a non-citizen and can't even ask the Meta there what's going on. Since I have put in the most work here, I hope that posting here is not a problem. Having only 1 point is very constraining!</p>
<p>I have been experimenting with keeping JavaScript off by default. Many of the web sites that I go to are just searches for information, and I get the info without all the flashing lights, in-your-face email sign-ups, and other internet trash. So perhaps there is a subtle bug having to do with that.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I have a general complaint with the process of being put in the penalty box without being shown exactly why I am in the penalty box. Maybe there is, after all, some valid reason. But all I'm told is that I'm in the box.</p>
<p>Also, there should be some button that you can press that says that I think this happened accidentally, and that I should not be in the penalty box. To not do this assumes that our web site programmers are perfect, and being a Senior Developer of many years now, I am daily confronted with just how imperfect I am, and how limited is the capacity of my own grey matter (as renowned Dijkstra is famous for explaining).</p>
<p>The "Penalty Box by Mistake" button only makes sense if the user is given a reason why they are in the box. Either the reason makes sense to them or it doesn't.</p>
<p>But it definitely doesn't make sense that I am automatically penalty-boxed as soon as I join a community.</p>
<p>I don't want you to just fix what's wrong with my account. Let's make this place a better place to play and work! Thanks.</p>
<p>To see my Penalty-Boxed account you can click here and see that I have only 1 point (I should have 101 points):
<a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/users/362318/microservicesonddd">https://stats.stackexchange.com/users/362318/microservicesonddd</a>.</p>
<p>Thank you for your time, understanding, and all the work you do for StackExchange!</p>
| Why am I in the Penalty Box when I just joined (sorry posting here, temp. non-citizen can't post where it's needed) |
<blockquote>
<p>If this was moderated, could a moderator indicate why this action was taken?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've checked your comments on that question. As of now, no comments on that topic (by anyone) were deleted, by a moderator or by its author. A few were edited by their authors, within the usual 5-minute window. That's all!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>closed for poor focus</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The question has never been closed. Perhaps you are thinking of a different question? Or a different site? That would explain why you can't find a comment here that you believe you wrote. That seems a likely explanation, and the exact same situation has happened to me.</p>
| 9705 | 2022-07-19T23:56:02.343 | |discussion|moderation|comments| | <p>In, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/627710/dc-dc-boost-converter-theory-principle-testing#comment1659931_627710">DC-DC boost converter theory / principle / testing</a>, I had a comment about something OP mentioned that I found concerning, regarding operating with a live battery; at least, I <em>think</em> I did?! But without an edit history it seems it's as much hearsay, as gaslighting myself at this point.</p>
<p>If this was moderated, could a moderator indicate why this action was taken?</p>
<p>On a related note, I suppose the conversation never should've gone so far anyway, closed for poor focus; is that a fair assessment?</p>
| Comments edited regarding safety? |
<p>If JJM and dim voted to reopen that would be a step in the right direction. So far it has only one reopen vote.</p>
<p>As a moderator I'd consider reopening it but as another moderator was one of the two VTCs I'll leave it for now.</p>
<p>I understand both sides of this - possibly editing to somewhat more emphasise the design aspect of the question. 3 votes to open and some editing as above would probably do it. The aim is to make it a technical question of ongoing value to others. I'd say it managed that already BUT you can improve it.</p>
<p>Flag for moderator attention if the above is done and nothing happens.</p>
| 9722 | 2022-09-21T13:34:30.890 | |discussion|closed-questions|specific-question| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/635384/ups-vs-portable-power-station-capacity-ratings">My question</a> has been closed on the grounds of "Questions on the use of electronic devices are off-topic as this site is intended specifically for questions on electronics design." Whoever closed my question, didn't seem to have read it, as it was not about the use of the devices. It seems quite obvious that both devices (a UPS and a portable power station) are intended for different uses (heck, it's in the name), I've never questioned that. Yet, from a technical perspective they are very similar, which is the premise to my question. It is a question not about use, but about specifications, which is relevant for any design.</p>
<p>If the question for whatever <em>other</em> reason does not fit in electrical engineering, migrate it to some other place.</p>
| Reason for question closure unfounded |
<p>This is a good idea. I've set the language for the tag.</p>
| 9724 | 2022-09-21T14:55:53.607 | |feature-request|status-completed|syntax-highlighting| | <p>Please add syntax highlighting to the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/matlab" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'matlab'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'matlab'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="matlab-container">matlab</a> tag.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/184108/what-is-syntax-highlighting-and-how-does-it-work">What is syntax highlighting and how does it work?</a> :</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Only moderators can change the highlighting language for a tag.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><code>lang-matlab</code> is one of the supported languages for syntax highlighting.</p>
<p>I manually added the <code>matlab</code> language hint to the code block when I edited this <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/635682/confusion-regarding-transfer-function-and-state-space-conversion-in-matlab">question</a>. However, it would be much more convenient to have the syntax highlighting automatically applied to code blocks for this tag.</p>
| Add syntax highlighting for the matlab tag |
<p>Since no one has objected, I've merged "cell-battery" into <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/batteries" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'batteries'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'batteries'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="batteries-container">batteries</a>.</p>
| 9729 | 2022-10-06T18:00:06.720 | |discussion|tag-cleanup| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/cell-battery" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'cell-battery'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'cell-battery'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="cell-battery-container">cell-battery</a> appears on 285 questions but has no tag wiki. <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/batteries" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'batteries'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'batteries'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="batteries-container">batteries</a> also appears on 138 of those questions and its tag wiki indicates that its use is for "one or more electrochemical cells", so it seems to me that <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/cell-battery" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'cell-battery'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'cell-battery'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="cell-battery-container">cell-battery</a> should be merged with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/batteries" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'batteries'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'batteries'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="batteries-container">batteries</a> (with the latter as the master tag).</p>
<p>Any objections to this? If there's a reason not to merge them then we should provide a tag wiki for <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/cell-battery" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'cell-battery'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'cell-battery'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="cell-battery-container">cell-battery</a>.</p>
| Merge [batteries] and [cell-battery] tags? |
<p>There has been no response other than a positive score to the question so I've made "mesh" a synonym of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mesh-analysis" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="mesh-analysis-container">mesh-analysis</a>. I have not created any other tags.</p>
| 9733 | 2022-10-12T15:38:00.770 | |discussion|tags|tag-synonyms| | <p>We had a tag called "mesh" but it had no tag wiki. I reviewed all 80 questions it was on and found that 75 of them referred to mesh analysis. Consequently, I removed "mesh" from the 5 questions that were not about mesh analysis, renamed the tag to <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mesh-analysis" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="mesh-analysis-container">mesh-analysis</a>, and added a tag wiki.</p>
<p>Since users who type "mesh" in the list of tags almost always use it in the context of mesh analysis, <strong>should we make "mesh" a synonym of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mesh-analysis" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="mesh-analysis-container">mesh-analysis</a> so that the question would be automatically tagged correctly in those cases?</strong> On the other hand, it's possible that someone might be referring to "mesh" in a different context as in the 5 questions from which I removed "mesh".</p>
<p>Of the 5 questions which were tagged with "mesh" but were not about mesh analysis, 3 were about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking" rel="nofollow noreferrer">mesh networking</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/412209/51760">BLE mesh Provisioning</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/379741/51760">Mesh Thread network using Sub-1GHz</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/624653/51760">Mesh WiFi ESP32-C3</a></li>
</ul>
<p>and 2 were about mesh wires:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/505587/51760">Mesh Wire opening size for EMI filter at frequency of 30 MHz</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/546573/51760">Randomize PCB trace generation with Altium Designer</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Should new "mesh-network" (or "mesh-networking") and/or "mesh-wire" tags be created and added to these questions, or are they not necessary?</strong> If we decide not to create any of these new tags then it would definitely make sense to make "mesh" a synonym of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/mesh-analysis" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'mesh-analysis'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="mesh-analysis-container">mesh-analysis</a> since only mesh analysis questions would require a tag with "mesh" in the name.</p>
| Make "mesh" a synonym of the "mesh-analysis" tag? |
<p>I guess a question formulated like this can still a bit too open-ended, unless the circuit is <em>very</em> simple (like no more than 4-5 components, and a single, very simple task).</p>
<p>As soon as the circuits is a bit more complex than this, it would certainly make it easier to guide the readers and formulate the question such as "Are there any safety issues with having the R1 resistor here, and are there particular precautions to take regarding the C2 capacitor ratings". You can still end the question with an invitation to check the rest ("Any advice on the safety of this ciruit is welcome"), but providing a list of specific things you're not sure about will certainly make the experience better for both you and the answerer.</p>
<p>If you don't do that, the job is actually more difficult for the answerers, so you might get less answers, and the answers may be less interesting: you risk having answers basically just saying "Everything looks good to me.". Then, you did not learn much, and what confidence can you have in such an answer, even if the person saying this is right?</p>
| 9736 | 2022-10-18T17:57:48.767 | |discussion| | <p>I understand that open-ended design review questions are generally discouraged.</p>
<p>However, I'm designing my first mains powered device and was wondering if constrained design review questions such as "Are there any glaring safety issues with this circuit" on topic?</p>
<p>Assuming the circuit in question is fairly simple.</p>
| Are "Is My Circuit Safe" questions on-topic? |
<p>I consider that either may be appropriate depending on which aspects are being asked about. For example Lithium Ion battery questions are common on this site, with the cell largely (but not totally) being treated as a black-box with certain defined characteristics. If the question related to chemistry, anode or cathode materials, intercalation, electrolytes and similar then chemistry SE would be better.</p>
<p>So too with fuel cells, which are similar to secondary batteries in the manner which they straddle the EE and chemical divide.</p>
| 9754 | 2022-11-05T15:26:01.657 | |discussion| | <p>On occasion, I have questions about generating electricity, which would clearly make these sort of questions applicable for this SE. On the other hand, some of the questions I have involve generating electricity using fuel cells, which may make questions more applicable for the chemistry SE. Which site would be more appropriate for fuel cell-related questions, around the electrical design/electricity generation aspects?</p>
| Is this SE an appropriate site to ask questions about fuel cells? |
<p>Thanks for bringing this to our attention.</p>
<p>I merged the tag into <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/differential-amplifier" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'differential-amplifier'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'differential-amplifier'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="differential-amplifier-container">differential-amplifier</a> so it is gone now.</p>
| 9762 | 2022-11-25T18:22:18.357 | |support|status-completed|tags| | <p>Please could the tag <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/differiential-pair" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'differiential-pair'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'differiential-pair'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="differiential-pair-container">differiential-pair</a> have its spelling corrected to <strong>differential-pair</strong>.</p>
<p>(There are currently only five questions using that tag.)</p>
| Request for tag spelling correction: [differiential-pair] [sic] |
<p>The site already has a comments section, and so having two areas to have discussion would be redundant. This would need to be site wide and site wide features are decided by stack exchange.</p>
| 9765 | 2022-11-30T17:28:27.617 | |feature-request| | <p>I want to suggest to add a Discussion Tab in the side panel of each question. I think it will help users to discuss about the topic with out interfering with in the comments and share their thought about the topic. As it is Electrical Engineering forum such tab might be helpful for multiple reason. Beginners would get chance to raise thought without disturbing the main purpose of the question, experts can give suggestion and help improve the context about the topic.</p>
| Discussion Tab in the side panel of each question |
<p>If the issue is supposed to be between a user and a mod, then wouldn't specifying that a suspension is because of plagiarism on the user's profile be a violation of that idea??</p>
| 9774 | 2022-12-16T02:06:09.617 | |discussion|moderation| | <p>If a user is suspended for plagiarism, is it possible for non-moderators to view the plagiarism? If not should it be possible? It seems that this would be a good idea from the perspective of transparency. As far as reputational damage goes, it seems that being suspended for plagiarism already constitutes reputational damage. Allowing inspection would simply allow any interested party to verify the plagiarism.</p>
| Suspension for Plagiarism |
<p>Because your reputation has recently shot up this month from 111 to 666 (as of now) that's expected because you have over 3 x 200 reputation so you've become eligible for three badges. You've now been a member six years so you could get another three fairly quickly if it increases to 1200. The following answer explains it further:</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/237083/203972">How does the Yearling badge now work over multi years?</a></p>
<p>But I've seen the same thing asked a few times before and had the same myself on other sites so it's expected behaviour not a bug.</p>
| 9782 | 2022-12-28T23:44:40.477 | |bug| | <p>I'm not sure if this is intended behaviour or a bug, but this notification has come up three times this week. I've definitely only earned 200 reputation in one calendar year (or, at best, in two separate 365-day periods, one of which just began).</p>
<p>It seems to just award me this badge, both on the main SE and on meta, every time my reputation crosses a multiple of 200.</p>
<p>Seems kind of weird. Does anyone know what's going on here?</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Uvsd.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Uvsd.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
| 'Yearling' badge awarded three times in five days |
<p>This site isn't for asking questions about consumer devices, this site is more geared toward questions that are about the design of such devices. I'm not sure which site would be best, you can go to any site and then help and on topic</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic</a></p>
| 9790 | 2023-01-06T17:13:52.463 | |support| | <p>Title has my question:</p>
<p>Is this the right group to ask questions about uninterruptible power supplies?</p>
<p>I found " <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5279/is-a-question-asking-for-specific-power-consumption-okay%22">https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5279/is-a-question-asking-for-specific-power-consumption-okay"</a>, but itdidn't answer my question.</p>
<p>If not, what is the StackExchange group to use to ask UPS questions questions?</p>
| Is this the right group to ask questions about uninterruptible power supplies? |
<p>A quick look at the list of questions migrated to DIY (not available to all users) suggests that it is a decent migration candidate: DIY is the migration target a significant number of the questions migrated from this site, and they seem to be generally accepted by DIY. It might be a good idea to add DIY as a migration target for this site, though I'd have to look into it more to be sure.</p>
<p>The main reason why the company is reluctant to add options to migrate is that inappropriate migrations are an annoyance both on the original site <em>and</em> the target site. To mitigate this, <strong>moderators are able to migrate to any site on the network even if there is not a dedicated migration path</strong>.</p>
<p>The correct way for a non-moderator to suggest a migration to a site that doesn't have a dedicated migration path is to <strong>flag for a moderator's attention with a request to migrate to a specific site</strong>. In this case, you simply voted to close as off-topic on this site (albeit with a custom close reason) and none of your fellow close-voters raised a moderator flag to have it migrated. No one raised a moderator flag and no moderator saw the question before it was closed, so no moderator had a chance to decide whether or not to migrate it.</p>
| 9800 | 2023-01-11T20:41:20.977 | |discussion|migration| | <p>I know this topic has been oft repeated, but I find it silly that there exist only options to migrate questions to Meta or SuperUser. <em>Really?!</em> The vast majority of questions I see migrated seem to go to <strong>diy</strong>.stackexchange.com or <strong>mechanics</strong>.stackexchange.com Of course I'm aware there are stacks for Arduino and Raspberry Pi and a myriad of other applicable sites as well.</p>
<p>I'm usually told that the pushback for adding these options is due to the target site rejecting migrated questions for whatever reason... Or some sort of hell where questions go when nobody wants them.</p>
<p>The reason I bring this up is a new user recently posted <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/649629/2028">a question</a> which was about home mains wiring, which I thought a better fit on DIY. Without the option to migrate, I voted to close with the reason being that it should be migrated. Subsequent users agreed with the vote and the question was closed. This led the user to be confused and post a new (<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/649635">deleted</a>) question which specifically called me out for effectively shutting them down.</p>
<p>While I'm not surprised the question got closed (due to the current sub-par mechanism), I am annoyed at the fact there does not appear to be a way to suggest a proper migration, and even more irritated that I have no way to help the user understand what the closure vote comment was actually trying to do.</p>
<p>When a question is voted as belonging to another site as a migration candidate, what actually happens? Do moderators see it and decide whether it should be migrated or closed? If so, then what is the <em>[expletive redacted]</em> problem with having a couple more options to migrate?</p>
| Can we add the option to migrate questions to DIY? |
<p>I have not seen this until now.<br />
Long experience has led me to (strongly :-) ) believe that I am better than most people at understanding technical questions which are obscurely put and / or which contain inadequate information.</p>
<p>I have not met systems as described in the question.<br />
The terms are meaningless to me.<br />
eg " ... Rc/G/W/Y, ..." seems likely to refer to the wire designations / applications, but would not allow me to start to answer the question well.<br />
As edited the question is tailored only for a person experienced and proficient in the art. If you can find such people to answer the question then it may succeed, BUT if it was well described it's quite possible that I could provide a useful answer.</p>
<p>Your (Matt S's) answer provides excellent explanatory information.<br />
If appropriate parts of this were in the question it may be answerable by eg me.<br />
I'm generally resistant to closing questions.<br />
As it stands I agree with the decision made - although the reasons given is, as often, probably inappropriate. .
<strong>NB</strong>: Reasons for closing are very limited and often do not well reflect the close reason. In this case I'd say that "substantially lacking in detail" would be much closer.</p>
<p>+1 on Matt S's answer :-)</p>
| 9804 | 2023-01-23T16:54:56.263 | |discussion| | <p>Question in question: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/650949/powering-home-thermostat-using-standard-four-wire-connection">Powering home thermostat using standard four-wire connection</a></p>
<p>This is a question about building a thermostat to work with a standard home HVAC communication protocol. It was closed (IMO, incorrectly) as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This question does not appear to be about electronics design within the scope defined in the help center.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>IMO, it is quite clearly a question that covers:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>a specific electronics design problem</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>and</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>a communication scheme</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>and most certainly is not</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>a shopping or buying recommendation</li>
<li>consumer electronics such as media players, cell phones or smart phones, except when designing these products or modifying their electronics for other uses</li>
<li>Programming software for a PC</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Nonetheless, I submitted some suggested edits based on comments in the answer, to correct some factual errors that were causing confusion in the original post. Even after that, though, the only feedback from that edit and reopen request is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Original close reason(s) were not resolved</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Which doesn't make sense to me, since the original close reason didn't apply.</p>
<p>I left a comment on the post itself, but unfortunately nobody responded to it explaining why. What am I missing about this question that makes it inappropriate? FWIW, this is the second question I've seen closed in the past few days that was worthy of an answer -- in neither case was the reason for closure explained.</p>
| Unclear why question about thermostats remains closed |
<p>There are (unusual) reasons which I cannot discuss publicly, sorry. (Moderator work is ongoing in the background...)</p>
| 9807 | 2023-01-26T16:05:22.447 | |discussion|support|moderation| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/651563/can-a-50mm2-cable-handle-350-amps">This Question: "Can a 50mm2 cable handle 350 amps?"</a> has been locked for 7 days.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Cyuhm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Cyuhm.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why?<br />
It doesn't appear to be particularly controversial, and considering that it's only been viewed 13 times it hardly seems likely to have engendered a flame-war in the comments ...</p>
| Another strangely "Locked" question |
<p>In general what you're proposing is OK but don't do it as a screenshot, instead copy the comment(s) as text to the answer and give credit to the person that wrote it with a link to their profile. It's always better to post anything that can be text that way so that search engines index it.</p>
<p>I'm not sure exactly which comment you're referring to, but it's also worth checking it's a fairly complete and correct answer to the question. Sometimes people post partial answers as comments because they don't feel it's complete enough to post as an answer</p>
| 9810 | 2023-01-29T10:40:25.707 | |support|answers|comments| | <p>I posted a question about a CPU transistor and finally a member has answered it, but in the comment section. I asked him to put that in an answer so that every one can benefit from the information, but he/she didn't reply. Can I screenshot his/her comment with his/her pseudo and put it in the answer?</p>
| Can I answer my question with a comment screenshot? |
<p>I didn't down vote any of your questions (or answers,) but I can see why you might not have gotten any upvotes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Language problems. It looks to me like English is not your native language. You use odd expressions for common things (shortcut instead of short circuit, for example.) Not using the common English expressions for common things makes your questions look like you haven't done any research into the subject yourself.</li>
<li>Communication problems. You seem to have a concept in mind, but that concept doesn't actually make it into the question.</li>
<li>Misunderstanding the things you've read and therefore asking a question that doesn't relate to the text you refer to.</li>
<li>Very short questions that don't convey your understanding of the subject.</li>
<li>Arguing against the answers you receive. You acknowledge that you don't know something when you ask a question (simple fact, people ask questions to clarify things they don't know or understand.) Despite not knowing the answer, you argue that the answers you receive are incomplete or incorrect.</li>
<li>Many of your comments come across as curt. They have an aggressive feel to them because they are short and direct.</li>
</ol>
<p>Much of the difficulties seem to stem from the language problems. I understand how that goes. I am an American, but I've lived in Germany for over thirty years. I speak and write German fairly well (now) but in earlier times I tended to write in German like you do now in English - the minimum needed to get the point across. Writing in a foreign language is difficult, so you write as little as possible to avoid mistakes and to reduce the difficulty in phrasing so many things.</p>
<p>Points 2,4, and 6 are probably direct results of point 1 - the language hampers you, so you don't put any background into the questions and then your responses are snippish because it is hard to be polite when writing very simple responses.</p>
<p>I've covered point 1.</p>
<p>You can see point 2 in <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/580286/power-conversion-to-temperature-formula">this question about heating in a short circuit.</a> Your question asks how much power is needed to calculate the temperature of a conductor. In the comments, it becomes clear that you understand that you need more parameters than just the current and the material but that wasn't clear in the question. Your edit says that you would like a formula to calculate the power needed to heat a conductor to its melting temperature. That should have been there to begin with. It also makes it seem as if you don't understand the problem at all since you speak of power when it should be energy.</p>
<p>Point 3 <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/651721/how-much-power-can-a-6-nm-transistor-handle">comes up in this question.</a> You are trying to figure out how a tiny transistor could handle 360 amperes of current. The 360 amperes appears to come from the thermal design power (TDP) and the operating voltage of the CPU you were looking at. That confusion lead to a lot of comments that have nothing to do with an answer. To top it off, you selected an answer from the comments that doesn't actually answer the question at all. "How much power can a 6nm transistor handle" answered by "...processors have two main mechanisms of heating. One is static power loss (caused by leakage through transistor gates) and the other is dynamic power loss..." does not compute. It seems to have answered something that was unclear in your mind, but it is certainly not the answer to the question you asked - that goes back to point 2 again.</p>
<p>For point 5, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/536399/digital-multimeter-display-count-range">you argued against the (correct) answers to this question.</a> The answers are all correct, but you keep poking because you don't see that they are correct. That is irritating to the people who wrote the answers as well as to people who read the question and the answers. It is obvious that you had trouble understanding the concept, but you also had trouble expressing which part of it you didn't "get."</p>
<p>Point 6 shows up in the same question and the comments to the answers. You probably didn't intend it that way, but your comments to the answers are rather snippish - short, direct, unfriendly.</p>
<p>Point 4 shows up in <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/537468/what-are-the-waveforms-of-radio-frequencies">this question about radio signals.</a> You basically state the correct answer in the question (even showing diagrams that prove it,) but you don't explain why you think you might be wrong or why you think there might be (which there is) more to a radio signal than a sine wave. It leaves people wondering just what it is you meant to ask about. Something is missing, but no one knows what.</p>
<hr />
<p>It all boils down to difficulties expressing yourself and explaining what it is you want to know. It all starts with the language barrier. Trust me, you will not fix that in a short time frame (been there, spent years getting better at expressing myself in a foreign language.)</p>
<p>What you can do is to explain yourself more fully - even if you don't use the language correctly. There's several people here (myself among them) who make a hobby of cleaning up questions and answers to fix language problems. Do your best with the language, but don't sweat it. It is more important for your questions to be complete than that the language be perfect. We can (usually) guess what you mean from a sentence even when the grammar is bad. We can't guess what thoughts you have in your head.</p>
<p>I think you need to expand your questions so that others can see why you are asking.</p>
<p>A few specific recommendations:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/537468/what-are-the-waveforms-of-radio-frequencies">What are the waveforms of radio frequencies?</a> - What makes you think that radio waves aren't simple sine waves? What is missing in your understanding of radio waves that made you ask the question?</li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/536399/digital-multimeter-display-count-range">Digital multimeter display count range</a> - Why do you think that the count number depends on the ADC reference voltage?</li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/580286/power-conversion-to-temperature-formula">Power conversion to temperature formula</a> - Edit the question to include the ideas you expressed in the comments. Include what you understand of electrical heating, and things that you think might influence the result.</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<p>A final hint:</p>
<p>You haven't accepted an answer to several of your questions, even when to all appearances the question was correctly answered.</p>
<p>If the answers don't tell you what you wanted to know, then you need to fix the question so that you will get that answer rather than the answers already there. That is, you got answers to the question as written, but you didn't accept them because they don't answer what ever it was that cause you to ask. That means you asked the wrong question. You need to ask the right question.</p>
<p>If the answers do tell you what you needed to know, then accept one so that the question is done.</p>
<p>Not accepting an answer leaves a bad impression and makes people disinclined to upvote the question.</p>
<p>Accepting answers will not have any effect on the question ban, but it might be a reason why you haven't gotten many upvotes in the past.</p>
<hr />
<p>The bans are based on the number of votes (up and down) your questions get. The system can't tell if your edits are good or not - an edit itself won't help.</p>
<p>The system can only tell if you have improved your questions by the upvotes they get.</p>
<p>Your goal is to make your questions interesting enough for other people to upvote them. Upvotes go towards getting you unbanned.</p>
<p>Make your questions complete and interesting and useful to other people. They will then vote for you and eventually get you out of the ban.</p>
| 9812 | 2023-01-30T14:07:21.203 | |discussion|support|editing| | <p>Two days ago I posted a question and today I am surprised that I can't post again.</p>
<p>In this five years, only one question was downvoted, but its ok.<br />
So I am asking you to help me out to put things right, you can visit my questions and tell me what must be edited thank you.</p>
| What should I edit in my previous questions? |
<p>I agree that it isn't opinion-based, but part of it is off-topic.</p>
<p>On-topic: a question similar to "what areas of EE overlap with quantum computing?" This is for sure a question about electrical engineering.</p>
<p>Off-topic: a question similar to "is anyone doing research on topic x?" Which isn't a question about EE but a question about what on-going research programs that might exist across the world.</p>
<p>However, it is not uncommon that on-topic questions contain various derailing into off-topic matters. Like a schematic design review question (on-topic) also containing part recommendations (off-topic). Generally these can be edited into shape or we can just ignore the off-topic part of it, as long as most of the question is on-topic.</p>
<p>In this specific case I think it's on-topic enough for us to leave it alone. I've cast a re-open vote. However, big picture questions that are cross-disciplinary (Like EE, chemistry, physics all at once etc) might be more suitable for <a href="https://engineering.stackexchange.com">https://engineering.stackexchange.com</a>. One could ask on their meta if they think questions like this are more suited there.</p>
| 9814 | 2023-01-31T17:02:10.623 | |discussion|closed-questions| | <p>Why is <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/652187/are-quantum-computing-and-quantum-information-ee-subjects-at-this-point">this question</a> closed?</p>
<p>I think the question could be better worded, sure. But the gist is asking about what areas of EE might overlap with Quantum computing.</p>
<p>I don't see how answering to that will be opinion based, the research in EE that helps QC progress is useful, and should be talked about.</p>
<p>I don't see how opinion fits into a potential answer to this question.</p>
<p>Can anyone explain how's this so?</p>
| I disagree that this question is opinion based |
<p>Yes, this tag adds no value so it should be removed. The other tags on the existing questions are sufficient.</p>
| 9816 | 2023-02-09T08:27:38.467 | |discussion|tags| | <p>There are four <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/group">questions tagged [group]</a>, used in three different contexts:</p>
<ul>
<li>group delay:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/427824/difficulty-understanding-group-delay-concept">Difficulty understanding group delay concept</a></li>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/441533/for-what-type-of-signals-group-delay-of-a-filter-should-be-taken-into-account">For what type of signals group delay of a filter should be taken into account?</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>group vector transformers:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/506338/dissimilar-vector-group-transformers-fed-from-2-dissimilar-phased-sources-of-pow">Dissimilar Vector Group Transformers fed from 2 dissimilar phased sources of power</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>VHDL 'group' keyword:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/652205/what-is-the-purpose-of-groups-in-vhdl">What is the purpose of groups in VHDL?</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I don't think the [group] tag adds value to any of these questions. Should this tag be removed?</p>
| Should the 'group' tag be removed? |
<p>I agree, this tag serves no purpose and should be cleaned up.</p>
| 9825 | 2023-03-05T23:23:13.660 | |discussion|tag-cleanup| | <p>There is no usage for the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/custom" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'custom'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'custom'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-custom-tooltip-container">custom</a> tag, and it doesn't seem to add anything but noise.</p>
<p>Currently it is applied to 33 questions, a few recent ones, mostly quite old questions. All of them appear to have other useful tags and do not appear as if they would care having this tag removed.</p>
<p>Cleanup time?</p>
| Remove all [tag:custom]-isation |
<p>In this Meta question, what you said about <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/659121/is-there-any-scientific-proof-that-passive-cell-balancing-can-improve-the-life-o">your question on the main site</a> is: "This is clearly a technical inquiry asking for an explanation"</p>
<p>But your question on the main site did <em>not</em> read like a technical inquiry. What you actually said in the question on the main site is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My question is as follows: <strong>are there any studies</strong> that can show that passive balancing can improve the lifespan of a lithium-ion battery pack? (<strong>Please cite</strong> and explain!)</p>
<p>Or could you at least confirm or correct the above logic as I understand it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(My bold)</p>
<p>That can be (and probably <em>was</em>) interpreted as you asking people to find existing research (studies) for you, rather than a <em>technical</em> question.</p>
<p>That type of question tends to be poorly received here, since people could waste lots of time checking the same places that you have already checked and, presumably, didn't find what you are looking for. Out of the limited available closure reasons for those site members who believe it is off-topic, the shopping/recommendation reason is the one usually chosen for questions which ask for <em>other</em> sources of information.</p>
<p>If you are looking to understand about cell-balancing then asking a question about <em>that</em>, instead of asking for other people's studies, is likely to be much better received by the site members here.</p>
| 9829 | 2023-03-23T10:03:46.767 | |discussion|closed-questions| | <p>I'm referring to my own question:</p>
<p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/659121/is-there-any-scientific-proof-that-passive-cell-balancing-can-improve-the-life-o">Is there any scientific proof that passive cell balancing can improve the life of a battery pack?</a></p>
<p>asking about the effect of balancing on the battery life or state of health.</p>
<p>This is clearly a technical inquiry asking for an explanation. Therefore I cannot agree to the closure reason saying:</p>
<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>In opposite I think this is a valid and valuable question, it can certainly be improved and be better formulated, but it is a concern for anybody in the field who maybe confronted by questions asking how and whether cell balancing really has an effect on the life span of a battery pack. As a pack highly depends on the weakest cell.<br />
I'm neither recommending products nor looking for a recommendation nor for places to buy them this is clearly not the topic nor intent of my question. I rather want to get a more profound insight in the benefits of cell balancing on the life span of a lithium Ion battery pack each of these topics (balancing, lithium ion batteries, and battery-lifespan are clearly on-topic here) is on-topic (else why would related tags exist) on this site. So if I can't ask this here then where should I ask?</p>
<p>Therefore I'd be pleased to understand how this question can be off-topic.</p>
| Closure reason doesn't make any sense to me |
<p>You've asked an important question. Given more time, I could probably write a more detailed & polished answer, but that would delay things. On the basis that "something is better than nothing", here is a bit of a "brain dump" (as this is something I'm already actively thinking about) so you can see that your question is not being ignored:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>IMHO ChatGPT and similar tools & technology pose a significant threat to Stack Exchange, in various different ways.</p>
<p>One obvious concern is their ability to provide often plausible-sounding <em>apparently</em> authoritative answers, but containing various amounts of wrongness which can sometimes only be detected by subject matter experts (SME) in that <em>specific</em> area.</p>
<p>That leads to difficult-to-detect wrong answers being left on the site to mislead people, <em>until spotted by an SME in that area</em> (and sometimes accumulating upvotes in the meantime due to the answer's plausible-but-wrong contents, leading to even more people believing the answer).</p>
<p>Stack Exchange overall is (again IMHO) still catching-up on processes and policies in this area. It's not a great situation. We have more work to do (e.g. guess what I had planned for this weekend? :) ) but it will take time.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Due to ChatGPT flags and detections, I know that my mod workload has increased significantly. That's partly due to the amount of work that goes into background checks on each one. As you have seen from the flags you submit, we do take action.</p>
<p>From personal experience, I have occasionally seen the site being swamped with ChatGPT-generated answers quicker than I can review them. And that's part of the problem - it takes almost no effort for a "bad actor" to copy a question from this site into ChatGPT, get an "answer", and post it here. This happened on Stack Overflow (only much worse).</p>
</li>
<li><p>We <em>are</em> going to get things wrong in moderating this issue: Partly because processes & policies are still being developed; partly because the detection tools aren't perfect as you said; partly because people do try to evade being detected when posting ChatGPT content, and partly because we're fallible humans as you also said.</p>
<p>We've been thrown into a new moderation situation that we didn't ask for, but somehow we have to navigate though it, as best we can, with the tools we have and while we are also learning.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>Due to some clues you have included, I suspect I know which user is in contact with you. As usual, I have to be cautious about revealing specifics. However (if I guessed correctly) I will say that they are in the queue for a response, as they have used the usual reply mechanism for a suspension (which is the answer to part of your question - yes, there is a way for a user to reply to a suspension). But, as I said, workload (including all the usual flags) and even writing this, mean that the queue is taking a while to get through.</p>
<p>If you are in contact with that user, please reassure them that they <em>will</em> get a private response, after their reply message and the original flags / detection results have been <em>thoroughly</em> reviewed.</p>
| 9833 | 2023-04-01T11:12:26.943 | |discussion|moderation| | <p>In general, I agree that chatbot content should be forbidden.</p>
<p>I am also aware that detecting chatbot content isn't always easy - there are bound to be false positives and false negatives.</p>
<p>As I have flagged several posts as chatbot content myself, I hope that I haven't gotten any innocent parties suspended. I try to be certain before I flag such content, and I'm sure the moderators do their best to verify it before they hit "suspend," but we are all fallible human beings.</p>
<p>What recourse does an innocent user have if they receive this message in error:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have recently been detected as posting AI-generated (e.g.
ChatGPT) content on Stack Exchange. This is neither good community
citizenship, nor is it what we expect of our users.</p>
<p>Considering there have been warnings about the disruptiveness of this
behavior all over the Stack Exchange Metas, we feel there's sufficient
warnings about the inappropriateness of this.</p>
<p>Also this behavior counts as plagiarism since you did not (and
cannot) cite & reference the original sources used by the AI to
generate that content.</p>
<p>Do not post AI-generated content again.
Your account has been temporarily suspended for 30 days.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I have the impression (from looking around other Meta sites) that there is supposed to be a link in (or with) that message that should lead to a place to request a review of the suspension, but I have not seen the message itself, nor do I know what it looks like when it pops up. I also do not know if the message is somehow linked into the user profile so that the user can review it and take needed actions.</p>
<hr />
<p>I ask this question because I am in personal contact with a user who received the above message. This person swears to have never posted a chatbot based answer.</p>
<p>One possibility that I see is that this person is not a native English speaking person. The somewhat stilted translation from that person's native language (German) to English may have resulted in a text that "looks" somewhat "chatbotish."</p>
<p>While the available chatbot detectors seem to work, I know that they also make mistakes.</p>
<p>I've fed some of my own answers to a few of the chatbot detectors. They usually come back as more than 90 percent certain that they were written by a human, but they have flagged individual passages as "chatbot output" - and I <strong>know</strong> that I wrote that text. Such "chatbot" passages are usually where I stop the explanations and make a simple blanket statement that summarizes the explanation.</p>
| How can users who were suspended for posting alleged ChatGPT answers appeal the suspension? |
<p>One thing to know is that comments are treated like post-it notes and they can be thrown away by SE. Their attitude is that relevant information should be posted in an answer, and not in comments. So it might be good to simply post the information in an answer, I know it's not always possible.</p>
| 9842 | 2023-04-19T04:57:08.593 | |feature-request|comments|mathjax|chat| | <p>I am always reluctant to move comments to chat, if they contain MathJax, because the chat interface doesn't support it. All math expressions are displayed as plain text, with the \$ delimiters, and no attempt to render what's in between.</p>
<p>Some users will move comments to chat "on my behalf", the reasons for which I understand. I know what chat is for, and I know what comments are for. But the consequence is that all the math becomes illegible, and further comments in chat can't employ MathJax either.</p>
<p>Is there any way to overcome this, or is there a chance that SE developers will enable MathJax rendering in chat?</p>
| MathJax in chat |
<p>Re: Flag or not an "Answer" when "Question" does not contain a question</p>
<p><strong>Summary:</strong> I think the part about the <em>question</em> is the primary issue in that situation.</p>
<p>Unclear (vague, insufficiently defined etc.) questions can lead to problems, when people try (usually with good intentions) to answer them.</p>
<p>Therefore for a situation where:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a "question" post does not actually contain a question</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I suggest on the question:</p>
<ul>
<li>add a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment"><em>polite & constructive</em> comment</a> to the OP recommending improvements;</li>
</ul>
<p>and/or</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/close-questions">vote to close</a> it as "Needs details or clarity" and (optional, but recommended if not done in the point above) explain in a <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment"><em>polite & constructive</em> comment</a> what specifically is wrong/needed.</p>
<p>Adding that explanation makes it easier for the OP to understand how specifically they are being asked to improve the question. Also it helps other site members to see when the missing material has been added, and then they can vote to reopen it (and those helping in the reopen review queue can see whether the requested information has been added to the question).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>Regarding the answering of unclear questions. Generally, unclear questions shouldn't be answered, as explained <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer">here</a> (especially the first bullet point):</p>
<blockquote>
<h3>Answer <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask">well-asked</a> questions</h3>
<p>Not all questions can or should be answered here. Save yourself some frustration and avoid trying to answer questions which...</p>
<ul>
<li>...are unclear or lacking specific details that can uniquely identify the problem.</li>
<li>...solicit <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask">opinions</a> rather than facts.</li>
<li>...have <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/search">already been asked</a> and answered many times before.</li>
<li>...require too much guidance for you to answer in full, or request answers to multiple questions.</li>
<li>...are not about electronics design as <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">defined in the help center</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Don't forget that you can <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/editing">edit the question you're answering</a> to improve the clarity and focus – this can reduce the chances of the question being closed or <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/deleted-questions">deleted</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The use of the "Not An Answer" (NAA) flag should be limited to <em>really clear</em> cases where a post is not an <em>answer</em>, and that would apply irrespective of the quality of the question e.g. when an "answer" is really someone new asking a related question, or just a rant about the topic etc.</p>
<p>More details and examples of when to use the NAA flag here:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/185073/how-do-i-properly-use-the-not-an-answer-flag">How do I properly use the "Not an Answer" flag?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/81389/when-should-you-decide-whether-to-flag-a-posted-answer-as-not-an-answer">When should you decide whether to flag a posted answer as Not an answer?</a></li>
</ul>
<p>As you see in those linked Meta article, a genuine attempt to answer a poor question shouldn't be flagged as NAA. That user might be misguided and perhaps is unable to resist attempting to answer a question which they really <em>shouldn't</em> do (see above), but that doesn't make it NAA. (However it might be a valid NAA for other reasons, unrelated to the question.)</p>
| 9862 | 2023-05-26T15:05:21.850 | |discussion|flagging|not-an-answer| | <p>If a "question" post does not actually contain a question, is it appropriate to flag an "answer" to that post as "not an answer"?</p>
| Flag as not an "Answer" when "Question" does not contain a question |
<p>Posters that would welcome such an offer likely:</p>
<ul>
<li>are signed up with their real name, so you could search them on the web</li>
<li>leave contact details in their profile pages</li>
</ul>
<p>For others, it should be assumed that they wish to remain anonymous.</p>
<p>Regardless, asking them in a comment to one of their contributions, whether they would agree to a private exchange is not forbidden, I think.</p>
| 9876 | 2023-06-15T04:29:58.903 | |support| | <p>I would like to ask one of your contributors if they are for hire as a consultant, is that allowed?</p>
<p>If so, how should I contact them? Should I post my interest in their services under their answer?</p>
<p>I don't want to break any rules and could not find this subject in a search.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for the correct protocol in this regard.</p>
| Is it allowed to ask if a contributor is for hire as a consultant? |
<p>tl;dr: The fix should be out in production now. Please let me know if you're still seeing issues with schematic-related links.</p>
<hr />
<p>Big thanks to <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/users/268467/math-keeps-me-busy">Math Keeps Me Busy</a> for the HTTP vs HTTPS pointer. I'm not entirely sure how we're ending up with <code>http</code> for newly created schematics (I looked a bit through the image upload code, but nothing jumped out at me), but either way, when we process the post markdown, we convert http to https. It looks like at that point the post revision has one thing and the rendered HTML has another. My guess is that in past we did a mass edit of posts to rewrite existing image urls to https, but parts of the code that makes the schematic editor work didn't get the memo.</p>
| 9892 | 2023-08-05T06:18:15.460 | |bug|status-completed|editing|circuitlab|schematic| | <p>I have noticed that I can't edit my old schematics because the EDIT button under the schematic doesn't appear after I go into edit mode on my answer. What could be the reason?</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/JAQc2.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/JAQc2.png" alt="Missing EDIT button" /></a></p>
| I can't edit my old schematics |
<p><strong>The tour is now back in the top bar drop-down menu.</strong></p>
<p>See the earlier version of my answer below, where SE said this was an unintentional change which they were fixing. It has now been fixed (at least on our site).</p>
<hr />
<hr />
<p>As <em><a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/users/107479/dim">dim</a></em> kindly <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9924/was-the-tour-removed#comment21224_9924">commented</a>, this has been recognised as a regression on Meta.SE:</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/393737/the-tour-link-has-disappeared-from-the-help-menu-in-the-top-bar">"The tour link has disappeared from the help menu in the top bar"</a></p>
<p>I'll make that information more visible by posting it as this answer.</p>
<p>The SE staff member (actually VP) <em><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/936316/philippe">Philippe</a></em> said on that page:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This was an unintentional regression. We're working on getting a fix pushed out right now. Will update when completed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here's a screenshot of <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/393737/the-tour-link-has-disappeared-from-the-help-menu-in-the-top-bar">that Meta.SE page</a> currently (click for the full size version):</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XDpGy.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/XDpGyl.png" alt="screenshot" /></a></p>
| 9924 | 2023-10-16T17:56:40.240 | |support|bug|status-completed| | <p>In researching to respond to a question, I tried to find the site tour and couldn't find it. Is it gone? I hope not -- it was a good resource, even for experienced users.</p>
<p>Update: Found it here: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/tour">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/tour</a> -- but it really belongs in the drop down help list.</p>
| Was the "Tour" removed? |
<p>I agree. What is doubly bad about this one is that it tends to be mistakenly added when someone is trying to use a tag that has multiple words -- a space between words is interpreted by the system as a tag separator, and we use a "-" to connect words that are part of the same tag. For example, <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/posts/626770/revisions">this question</a> was tagged "electric" and "field" rather than <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electric-field" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electric-field'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'electric-field'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-electric-field-tooltip-container">electric-field</a>.</p>
<p>We can't just make this a synonym of <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electric-field" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electric-field'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'electric-field'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-electric-field-tooltip-container">electric-field</a>, either, as a user could also try to apply "electric" to, say, "motor".</p>
<p>I've replaced the tag with more appropriate tag(s) on all questions for which it was the only tag so it can also be "burninated" (deleted from all questions) without leaving any questions untagged.</p>
| 9930 | 2023-10-27T03:06:20.107 | |discussion|status-completed|tag-cleanup|tag-blacklist-request| | <p>(A bad pun or play on words in the title of such requests is expected by tradition.)</p>
<p>Remembering <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7212/im-not-electrified-by-the-existence-of-the-blanket-electrical-and-electricit">I'm not electrified by the existence of the blanket [electrical] and [electricity] tags, let's remove them, or at least blacklist them</a>, of course people have found a new spelling to work around our burnination: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electric" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electric'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'electric'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-electric-tooltip-container">electric</a>, as of now 133 questions, of which 81 have a score of less than 1. (The average <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electric" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electric'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'electric'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-electric-tooltip-container">electric</a> question score is <a href="https://data.stackexchange.com/electronics/query/1245891/average-tag-statistics-with-answers?tagname=electric" rel="nofollow noreferrer">0.826</a>, the average question score on EE.SE is <a href="https://data.stackexchange.com/electronics/query/1793803/mean-and-standard-deviation-of-question-score" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1.67</a>, so twice as good.)</p>
<p>Can we get rid of that tag? And ideally, really get rid of it, not just blacklist it, as right now, the number of questions that works need work is manageable.</p>
| implicit tag: can we cut out the [electric]ity? |
<p>Yes, this is another intrinsic tag which needs to be blocklisted. As with "electric", at least some of the time it is only used when a user is trying to tag the question as "electrical engineering", which results in tagging the question with not just one intrinsic tag ("electrical-engineering") but two ("electrical" and "engineering").</p>
<p>I've removed it from all questions for which it is the only tag so that it can be "burninated" (i.e. deleted from all questions) without leaving any question untagged.</p>
| 9932 | 2023-10-27T17:47:51.057 | |discussion|status-completed|tag-blacklist-request| | <p>While cleaning up <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/electric" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'electric'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'electric'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-electric-tooltip-container">electric</a>, I noticed that there are an <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/engineering" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'engineering'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'engineering'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-engineering-tooltip-container">engineering</a> tag. On a website whose title is "Electrical Engineering", that's a strong candidate for an <em>intrinsic</em> tag, i.e., one that carries no information, because <em>every</em> question could carry it.</p>
<p>Current state is 116 questions, of which 20 are currently closed, non-deleted. That's not a great quota, and is as it seems a result of that tag to have a high likelihood to be used when people actually ask off-topic, non-technical questions.</p>
<p>So: let's blacklist that tag!</p>
| Let's not over-engineer questions: blacklist [engineering] |
<blockquote>
<p>Would it be on topic to ask whether or not I picked the right charge
controller and wire sizes, based on the calculations I made?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Design questions are fine, shopping questions are not fine. Please keep it to a design question, use block diagrams and make sure you link datasheets (make sure the product you buy has documentation, we can't answer questions on undocumented products, a retail page is not sufficient). Screenshots of hand calcs drawings are hard to read. We can check calculations, make sure the question is well documented, if equations are used latex is preferable.</p>
| 9936 | 2023-11-08T12:24:26.707 | |discussion| | <p>I have almost no knowledge in electronics. For the past few days, I have been learning what I believe to be all the basics required for assembling sort of a DIY solar battery project, using solar panels, a solar charge controller, a 12V LiFePO4 battery and a 12V 220V converter.</p>
<p>I think I made the necessary calculations to pick the correct solar charge controller and the sizing of the cables. That being said, I am not a professional, and since all I've learned are the basics, I'm not safe from the Dunning-Kruger effect. So, before I start wiring stuff and potentially burn down my house (or worse), I was thinking it might be a good idea to ask.</p>
<p>Would it be on topic to ask whether or not I picked the right charge controller and wire sizes, based on the calculations I made?</p>
<p>I'll probably have another question about how to proceed to connect the solar charge controller along with the battery, the inverter, and a socket charger, based on what I initially intended to do too (to know whether or not what I had in mind was the correct approach). I would be asking 2 separates questions if both are on topic (or none if both are off topic).</p>
| Can I ask questions about a DIY solar battery project to know whether or not my calculations are off? |
<p>The Stack Exchange site has features that the sub sites don't have, it's the most-used site and gets the most attention. There isn't a deliberate reason. My guess is they don't have the analytics to detect AI questions on this site or haven't implemented it yet.</p>
| 9941 | 2023-11-18T09:21:59.157 | |discussion| | <p>The main Stack Overflow site has the following reminder in the <em>Your Answer</em> box:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Reminder</strong>: Answers generated by Artificial Intelligence tools are not allowed on Stack Overflow. <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/help/ai-policy">Learn more</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whereas on the Electrical Engineering site the above reminder doesn't appear in the <em>Your Answer</em> box (checked when both logged in and when an anonymous user).</p>
<p>Currently I have no desire to use <em>Artificial Intelligence tools</em> to get information, but just wondering if there is a deliberate reason for why the above reminder isn't shown on the Electrical Engineering site.</p>
| Is the reminder that "Answers generated by Artificial Intelligence tools are not allowed on Stack Overflow" supposed to appear on all sites? |
<p>If you have over 10k rep you can see deleted answers, otherwise have a mod search it for you.</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/105835/how-to-find-my-deleted-answer">How to find my deleted answer?</a></p>
| 9962 | 2023-12-07T16:52:04.727 | |support|deleted-questions| | <p><em>"You don't need to know everything. You merely need to know where to look it up."</em></p>
<p>Often a time, when trying to remember a specific solution to a problem, I don't remember the solution exactly, but I do remember that I had researched one and made an answer about it at EE.SE. I then usually manage to find the answer containing the details using the <code>user:me keywords</code> search term. This is exactly what StackExchange tries to provide: a Q&A repository.</p>
<p>Can it be that if a question has been deleted, I can't find my answers to it? (I know how I can find my own deleted answers.)</p>
| How can I search for an old answer of mine when the question is seemingly deleted? |
<p>I think tags like DFN, QFN, DIP, etc. are too specific. Questions should use <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/packages" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'packages'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'packages'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-packages-tooltip-container">packages</a> instead.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/tagging">purpose of tags</a> is to help users find/identify questions that are interesting to them. Packaging experts would likely want <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/interesting-topics">use tags</a> like <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/packages" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'packages'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'packages'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-packages-tooltip-container">packages</a> to find packaging questions, but are unlikely to want to look for questions about specific packages. It would be odd to be interested specifically in, say, DIP packages, but not other packages. Furthermore, each of the specific package tags have so few questions (despite the maturity of EE.SE) that they don't seem to have proven themselves useful: I can only find a single tag for a specific package that has more than 100 questions (BGA, but not DFN, QFN, DIP, TO220, SOIC, or SOP). It's not obvious why some package-specific tags exist but others don't, or what to do with related packages (e.g. SSOP, TSOP, TSSOP, etc. -- should they each have their own tag or be subsumed under a common tag?).</p>
<p>Worse, the <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/posts/692363/revisions">edits to the linked main site question</a> exhibit a problem caused by the use of specific tags like "DFN": it's easy to add the specific tag while forgetting to add the more important general tag: <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/packages" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'packages'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'packages'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-packages-tooltip-container">packages</a>. The more general tag wasn't added until revision 9 despite multiple tag edits. That means that a packaging expert who is watching <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/packages" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'packages'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'packages'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-packages-tooltip-container">packages</a> would not be notified of this DFN package question unless he's specifically watching the "DFN" tag (which I think is unlikely). This problem would be worth it if the specific tag was popular enough on its own, but these package-specific tags are not popular.</p>
<p>Contra <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/9972/51760">Lundin's answer</a>, I think specific package tags would be a <em>problem</em> for identification questions: do you tag the question with the specific package if the OP doesn't even know what package it is? If you do, and it's a question like "What package is this?" then you end up with the awkward situation in which the OP is supposed to self-answer the question by adding the correct tag. This issue comes up on other sites with identification questions, and I've generally seen that tags which answer the question are <em>not</em> added to the question either before or after the answer is determined (e.g., see <a href="https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/12285/31936">here</a>).</p>
<p>I think the best thing to do would be to merge all the existing package-specific tags with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/packages" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'packages'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'packages'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-packages-tooltip-container">packages</a> and make them synonyms so that anyone attempting to use one of those package-specific tags will end up tagging the question with <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/packages" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'packages'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'packages'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-packages-tooltip-container">packages</a>, which it should be tagged with anyway. You can just as easily find package-specific questions like the linked main site question by searching <code>[packages] DFN</code>, and we only need to maintain one tag wiki. Moderators can easily do this, and I would be happy to make it happen if the community wanted to do it.</p>
| 9966 | 2023-12-08T17:06:30.940 | |discussion|tags| | <p>For the question <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/692363/what-is-this-dfn-8-pin-package">What is this DFN 8-pin package?</a> which originally used QFN instead of DFN, I added the tag DFN.</p>
<p>The tag QFN already exists, but the tag DFN did not. Neither does the tag "Flat no-leads package".</p>
<p>Was I correct to add that tag, or is there something else I should have used?</p>
| Added tag DFN - do we want it? |
<p>In addition to what Sam says about the reason, also consider that <em>changing</em> it, at this point, would require mass editing thousands if not millions of questions and answers, which, besides being a lot of work, would be a heavy load on the database.</p>
<p>And it would require that all of our best answerers would need to break the habit of typing <code>\$</code> built up over years of answering questions.</p>
| 9967 | 2023-12-13T14:32:58.247 | |feature-request| | <p>I am accustomed to inline-math with MathJax support on many Stack Exchange sites. For electrical engineering, equations are a really big part of circuit modeling. $I_{DS}$ for instance is used to describe the Drain-Source current in a n-channel MOSFET transistors on other Stack Exchange sites, and new users can get confused. Other sites have this inline use of math work perfectly, which is widely documented on these other sites. I appreciate it if this could be an added feature as the raw MathJax code inline looks very ugly currently. <span class="math-container">\$I_{DS}\$</span> seems to work thankfully.</p>
<p>I saw <a href="https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6427/why-does-our-inline-syntax-for-mathjax-different-from-say-the-math-se">this link Why does our inline syntax for Mathjax different from say, the Math SE</a> only after writing this question, and now I am handling it like referenced. But I think it would be best if there is not this inconsistency among the various Stack Exchange sites to make it more direct for newer users to write equations, who are more familiar with the extensive equation formatting documentation for the other sites. Maybe an inline-math link could be added to make it easier for authors to be more aware of this difference.</p>
<p>Thank you for your help and consideration.</p>
<p>P.S. I am also testing the not-inline math:</p>
<p><span class="math-container">$$V_{be}=V_{b}-V_{e}$$</span></p>
<p>It seems to work the usual way using $$ to start and finish the equation.</p>
<p>Be careful though about using twice $$ on a single line.</p>
<p>Here is an example: <span class="math-container">$$V_1+V_2=V_3$$</span> It automatically starts a stand-alone equation on a new line.</p>
<p>When editing text there is also a link to <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/editing-help">Advanced Help</a> which includes the unique formatting:</p>
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LYNGt.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/LYNGt.png" alt="Math Formatting Picture from the Advanced Help" /></a></p>
<p>That information is everything needed to insert an inline math equation and also to insert a stand-alone equation. The extra link "MathJax Help" should not then be needed.</p>
| Is it possible to add inline-mathjax support like the other StackExchange sites document? |
<p>According to <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/48578/what-can-cause-a-question-to-be-bumped">the appropriate meta post</a>, auto bump can be triggered on <em>non-negatively scored, open questions that have at least one answer scoring 0 and none scoring more than that.</em></p>
<p>Therefore, questions that have no answers will not be bumped. Only questions that have answers are bumped. Accepted answers have no effect on the auto bump, contrary to what you seem to believe. And using closing to remove them from the auto bump candidates is a twist of the system, there is no reason to prevent other persons to answer a correct question even though it's old.</p>
<p>Since it is hard to remember the conditions for bumping, if you click on the "Timeline" clock icon under the question vote buttons, then click on the "bumped" link, you will land on the Meta link above.</p>
<p>Here are other solutions you have, to make a question excluded from the auto bump:</p>
<ul>
<li>Upvote one answer, if one of them is good enough.</li>
<li>Downvote the question, if the question is bad (or, yes, close it, but only if a "real" close reason applies).</li>
<li>If the question is good enough, and no answer is satisfactory enough to be upvoted, write a good answer. If good enough, it will be upvoted right away, or the next time the question is bumped, if another person applies the above rules.</li>
</ul>
<p>There. Applying this reciepe will remove all questions from the auto bump candidates list at some point, and improve the overall site quality. In fact, this is why the auto bump exists.</p>
<p>Sure, it's gonna take more time than just closing them.</p>
<p><sup>Side note: I'm just explaining how the system works, and the solutions available for this problem. I'm not defending the system. I hate auto bump too.</sup></p>
| 9973 | 2023-12-20T16:19:42.100 | |discussion|close-reasons| | <p>Every question that is both old and not with an accepted answer will be bumped sooner or later by the Community bot into the recently active questions.</p>
<p>However, a fair portion of them are obviously abandoned questions, for example if they were answered in comments. Some even have satisfactory answers, but they weren't accepted.</p>
<p>As we want to keep the noise level low, wouldn't it be logical to prevent the bot from bumping these questions? (I have already accepted that stopping bumping entirely won't happen.)</p>
<p>One way I see to do this would be closing these questions. The simplest way IMO would be to add a close reason to the list that should be chosen in the case of abandoned questions.</p>
| Should abandonment be a "community-specific" close reason? |
<p>I can't speak for those that voted to close, of course, but I would offer my perception of the situation:</p>
<p>Readers don't like presuppositions or unchecked (esp. mistaken) assumptions in questions. It's generally better to ask a question neutrally, rather than asking why some given (shaky) position is right or wrong -- most often, it's neither and both, simultaneously! It makes more effort to answer, and tends to make a mess that's both confusing for the asker and readers, while diluting what could've been a more concise point.</p>
<p>Whether this is a correct, right and good use of the Close function, or reflected by the reason selected, is another matter. I tend to agree, at least the wrong reason was selected here. I would not have closed it myself.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, I don't have a great substitute to offer for this strategy. I tend to do it a lot myself; the intent is usually to provide context around the question, and to illustrate what basic level of competency one has on the subject (for example, to anticipate trivial / oversimplified "did you turn it off and back on again?" sorts of comments/answers). There's also the intended good will of "see I did the 'homework', could you at least check my results?" (Which can also be, perhaps one isn't aware of, or expecting, what degree of answer may come, and being overly humble, when a more comprehensive answer would indeed be gladly given.) Of course, when ones' state of knowledge is meager on a topic, it... well yeah, it sure does serve its purpose: those assumptions tend to reveal, probably more ignorance, or more mistaken conclusions, than was likely intended. So you can see why it can cause problems.</p>
<p>(Also, to note: a close action isn't negative, at least in and of itself. It serves the purpose of, I would say, setting a minimum threshold for clarity and quality of a question. It can tend to be used "in anger" so to speak, though. Voters can vote to close for any reasons they see fit, so it can be a bit arbitrary at times I'm afraid.)</p>
<p>Anyway. Here are some alternative questions that, I think, would likely go over better (or have already been asked; of course, one should search first):</p>
<ul>
<li><p>"How to substitute a Darlington?" A sufficiently comprehensive answer to which, I think, is likely to check their own assumptions by going shopping and checking that such parts are, in fact, available; at least presently (bonus points for checking life cycle so that the answer is likely to remain valid some years into the future). Supplier links might even be provided! This can be <s>a sneaky way</s> the right way to ask "where to buy--?" questions. (Mind, if its "where to buy"-ness is too obvious, it's still likely to get closed.)</p>
<p>Regarding closed-ness, I think the crux of the reaction here was: looking at just the top two paragraphs, and the title, one can reasonably deduce it's either a "repair" ("oh they're just trying to substitute some existing part") or "where to buy" question <em>without having to read the rest of the post</em>. Is this hasty? Unfair? Yes; but one can also view it as a lesson to be concise. Not a great lesson, granted, but there are negatives and positives to pretty much everything, and it's up to ourselves which ones we focus on.</p>
</li>
<li><p>"How to design a precision fixed power supply?" Sometimes, a more general question is better. But be careful: there are dozens of specifications needed before a small enough set of circuits can be selected for answers. In this case, grounding it by providing your application would suffice (ordinary lab use, DC only, undefined parameters can most likely be ignored e.g. AC noise, compliance range, efficiency, cost, etc.).</p>
<p>Well, I don't know about that last one, cost. Given you're scrounging appnotes for schematics here, one might guess simplicity is desired, and with it, low cost. I don't know how that compares with the labor/time spent, say, reading this answer alone... but, keep that in mind, too. Lab equipment is expensive because, well, it does its job well for one, but also, <em>you only need one</em> (well, per instance that you do..), and the time spent worrying about, let alone building, testing and qualifying an alternative, adds up <em>really fast</em>.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Avoid X-Y problems: don't ask about proposed solution Y to problem X. Instead, just ask about problem X. Often, proposed solutions are driven by mistaken assumptions, and just get in the way (see above!).</p>
<p>For example here, it's not obvious if you would be at all interested in, or served by, solutions to your "precision 10V 4A supply" application directly -- solutions which would likely completely and utterly ignore what seems to be the bulk of your question (substitution). Either subject would seem to be a viable answer to the question -- and potential grounds for a "Needs more focus" close.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Check your assumptions. Is a fixed voltage really what you need here? If you're calibrating ammeters, surely you need a fixed current instead? True, a resistor converts that voltage to a current, but how are you ensuring the resistance remains fixed (it has a tempco!), and that the voltage measured is across the resistance as intended (Kelvin connections are not shown in your schematic)? Have you accounted for all sources of error in the measurement? And how you will deal with them?</p>
</li>
<li><p>Along similar lines, be careful whether goals are aligned between your question and your actual need.[1] To wit: presenting it as a power supply question has me asking: what about startup or transient-load conditions? Short circuit handling? (The circuit shown will blow up if overloaded, or overheated.) Drawing from application notes can be a dubious prospect; application notes are generally, at best, jumping-off points for further development or refinement, and should rarely if ever be used verbatim. (For this one, I would at least want to see better development of compensation, stability, a worked example of operating area, and current limiting added, preferably temperature limit too. But, you see -- these are all features that might simply not be at all important to your application.)</p>
</li>
<li><p>A more interesting focus is likely to pay off. Comparing and contrasting BJTs (plain or Darlington) with P-channel MOSFETs, in linear service, is an interesting topic; I might even ponder an answer to such a question myself. Most answer-ers have their depth of knowledge in at least narrow fields of expertise; this is a sufficiently deep topic that is likely to draw in multiple answers (perhaps even some <s>controversy</s> engagement between them, too!). The downside for you, of course, is: a question on a deep enough matter, may be too abstract for you to turn into <em>your worked problem</em>. (Keeping it focused, and grounded, with an application (say, V/I input/output range, bandwidth, precision), helps with this.)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Also, try to avoid -- ehh, I don't want to say <em>gimmicky</em> language, but, let me put it this way: I know what you were going for with the "your challenge, if you choose to accept it" sort of stuff, but, that particular line is a bit cliche, and, just keeping it clear, professional and matter-of-fact is most likely for the best. Certain catchy questions may indeed drive engagement, but overdoing it can also drive eye-rolling, and can add fluff to what could be a more concise question.</p>
<p>And, yeah, as you can see, I'm hardly one to talk about conciseness. It's a lot easier to see conciseness from a distance, but a lot harder to cut to the heart of a point when there are a dozen side-points whose importance isn't immediately obvious while one is taking a stroll through all of them. On the other hand, there are those who relish the long-form answer, and I guess you could say I tend to cater to that audience. Whether you are among it, alas, I'm not sure, and if not I apologize. Put another way: all of these points seem interesting and helpful to me, and maybe not all of them are to you, but I don't know which ones to cull so I'd rather leave them all in just in case; it's casting a wide net and hoping something sticks.</p>
<p>[1] Again, this can be hard to know without knowledge of what all is going on with these things. And, alas, this isn't really a good place to ask about them; SE is not a one-stop shop for all your information needs. Much knowledge is gained by everything from textbooks and class time, to practical books (some on power supply and amplifier design would be relevant here), to just plain old word-of-mouth and on-the-job experience. Obviously, quick question-answer posts cannot possibly substitute years of experience. So, I understand if there's some frustration here.</p>
| 9979 | 2023-12-31T07:42:41.700 | |support|asking-questions| | <p>I asked <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/695841/356391">this question</a> about replacing a Darlington transistor in a power amplifier with something else. It was closed with the reason:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Questions seeking <strong>recommendations for specific products or places to purchase them</strong> are off-topic as they are rarely useful to others and quickly obsolete. <strong>Instead, describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, I sort of disagree with that characterization of the original question, but nevertheless I edited the question to make it as generic as I could while still retaining the concrete example.</p>
<p>"Describe your situation": I want to create a high power precision voltage power supply from a low power precision voltage source. I have a schematic for one that uses a Darlington transistor.</p>
<p>"The specific problem you're trying to solve": it seems Darlingtons have gone out of favor. At the very least, the one in the schematic is deemed obsolete and there is no obvious replacement for it. That suggests to me that Darlingtons as a class have been replaced by a better kind of component. So 1) what is that component and 2) how do I use it in this application.</p>
<p>These edits failed to reopen the post. "Original close reason(s) were not resolved".</p>
<p>I'm pretty much at a loss about how to move forward and resolve the close reason. I am not asking for a part number or vendor, I am asking about how to update an apparently obsolete amplifier design. (Thanks to a commenter, I've already found a source for the obsolete component in the schematic, but that still leaves me with all these other questions.)</p>
<p>I mean, I suppose I could remove all references to specific components and ask "How do I build a high power precision voltage power supply?" but that is awfully vague and would likely be closed for needing details, clarity, and/or focus.</p>
<p>The answer to my revised question would not be quickly obsolete and would be helpful to anyone looking to build a highly regulated low-noise power supply, and especially anyone looking to replace a Darlington pair in an existing circuit design given that they are now harder to find. Additionally, it would be helpful to many people to know <em>why</em> Darlingtons are obsolete and what they have been supplanted by.</p>
<p>Please help me understand how to make my question appropriate for the site.</p>
| What more can I do to fix this question? |
<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/C81oy.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/C81oy.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>
<p>The question is not specific enough, please be more speicfic on what you need help with. It looks more like "here is my buck design help me with the problem" It would be nice to see a specific question on where your understanding is falling short or an aspect of the design that you need help with.</p>
| 10001 | 2024-02-02T21:35:35.827 | |discussion|closed-questions| | <p>My recent <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/699883/buck-regulators-feedback-voltage-far-lower-than-expected">question</a> about my buck regulator output was closed for "needs detail or clarity" but I don't know what details I should add to this question to fix that. I have a specific problem/question so it shouldn't be about clarity, and I tried to list all of the details that one would need to help. Can anyone provide me with some idea as to what else I can add to reopen this question? <p> Also, I don't really get <em>why</em> this was closed. I had already responded to one person who asked for additional info and edited my question to include said info, so clearly I was willing to engage with comments and provide more details. Why VTC instead of asking me for the details that would have made it a better question? And what can I do different next time so this doesn't happen?</p>
| How can I improve my question? |
<p>I voted to close the question. This had the symptoms of "cheap product gives cheap results". No shame in trying to save a buck or two but, as @SamGibson says, you are rolling the dice and sometimes you end up with a dud. For instance, I just bought a horrible HDMI adapter that's going back to Amazon.</p>
<p>Your question was, in my opinion, unanswerable. Or at least it was unanswerable in a way that would satisfy you. It's a new product, so the chances of any component breaking on it are pretty slim and the fix for that would be RMAing it (which, good luck) and the hissing only on Bluetooth meant that it was probably either an implementation problem which is not fixable without redesigning the board or a software problem which is not fixable without immense effort - not realistic for a $22 part.</p>
| 10006 | 2024-02-23T13:27:21.117 | |discussion| | <p><a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/702577/fix-for-horrible-hissing-from-a-sanwu-hf41-tpa3116-bluetooth-5-0-2-1ch-amplifier">Fix for Horrible Hissing from a SANWU HF41 TPA3116 bluetooth 5.0 2.1CH Amplifier/BT Module</a></p>
<p>Not sure why this one was closed.</p>
<p>My question is about how to modify a board to solve a problem it is experiencing. It isn't about "use of an electronic device" (which was the reason given) nor is it about the other two reasons given at <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic</a></p>
<p>It is about a "specific electronics design problem" (in my case a combined bluetooth and amp board), and according to <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic</a>, "pecific electronics design problems" are on-topic.</p>
<p>Can I improve the question in some way?</p>
| Confused about why closed? |
<p>It's hard not to notice that there are a limited number of questions on the relevant tags at the code review site, and for most of those, there is only one answer provided, and it's provided by you.</p>
<p>I have zero problems with a comment showing that there are valuable code-review services available at Code Review, that reviews at the level you'd find there are much more rigorous than what you'd be likely to find here, along with a guideline on how to post a good question there.</p>
<p>That said, I don't think people who ask verilog questions here are looking for that level of review.</p>
| 10021 | 2024-03-23T23:25:03.207 | |discussion| | <p>I was in a chat with user @<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/53015/mast">Mast</a> on the <a href="https://codereview.stackexchange.com">Code Review Stack Exchange site</a> (CR). @Mast, who is a <a href="https://codereview.stackexchange.com/users?tab=moderators">Moderator</a> there, then had a chat with our Moderator @<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/users/101852/samgibson">SamGibson</a>, and recommended I post this question for discussion.</p>
<hr />
<p>I occasionally post comments on <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/verilog" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'verilog'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'verilog'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-verilog-tooltip-container">verilog</a>/<a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/system-verilog" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged 'system-verilog'" aria-label="show questions tagged 'system-verilog'" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="tag-system-verilog-tooltip-container">system-verilog</a> questions here, suggesting that the OP consider posting the Verilog code also on the Code Review site. I do so under the following circumstances:</p>
<ul>
<li>The question contains a detailed description of a Verilog simulation or synthesis problem.</li>
<li>The question has sufficient code to easily reproduce the problem.</li>
<li>There is at least one detailed answer providing a solution to the problem.</li>
<li>The Verilog code has other potential issues aside from the reported problem; the issues may either be functional or general coding style.</li>
</ul>
<p>My comments are of the style: "If you are interested in a review of your code..."</p>
<p>Code reviews can often be verbose and stray far from the immediate problem reported by the OP. As such, I think supplementing an answer here with a review would be counter-productive because the solution could easily be buried in a lot of tangential review content. This is precisely the reason for the Code Review SE site (a site which is under-utilized in my opinion). People routinely refer questions from Stack Overflow to CR using comments.</p>
<p>To be clear, I am not referring to <em>migrating</em> the question. That is a different topic. I am referring to the OP posting a <strong>working</strong> version of the code on Code Review (as required on that site).</p>
<p>This isn't limited to just Verilog code, it's just that I happen to answer a lot of Verilog questions here. Code in any language would also apply.</p>
<hr />
<p>@Mast saw one of my comments on an SO question, thereby leading to our chat. I mentioned that I thought most Verilog questions on SO and EE would benefit by a follow-up question on CR. This led @Mast to contact @Sam. And here we are. One question @Mast had for me was whether CR could handle any increase in Verilog questions. Given the small number of such questions here and on SO, it would be no problem even for a single person. It is worth mentioning that many people do not post a follow-up question on CR even if they like the idea.</p>
<hr />
<p>If nothing comes of this discussion, I will continue posting the occasional comment. My referral comments are either well-received or ignored. So far, I have not had a negative response to one.</p>
| Suggest posting a follow-up question on Code Review site |