text:
Should we ban "how to hack XYZ" from our site?
I can picture questions like this popping up everywhere:

How do I hack a treadmill?
How do I hack my alarm clock?
How do I hack my garage door opener?

Some of those things aren't really meant to be hacked. We already have one question like this: Using the Waspmote Sensor Board. It isn't that bad alone, but questions like this could add up and really clutter our site.
The treadmill is already on EE (answered my me). Some devices that use AC shouldn't really be messed with, especially from users who don't even know that it is dangerous, or how to do it in the first place. However, I do believe that some of these "hacking questions" may be useful. For example, should we allow, "How do I simulate pressing a physical push button on a PCB?" What should we do about this?
Edit: After a while, questions like this seem to have died down. This doesn't seem like a problem now.

It's hard to answer a question that targets a specific device. Hacking could also mean illegal modifications in some cases, and those should definitely be banned.

@TheDoctor Definitely not allowed for illegal.

The example questions you give are poor examples of the kinds of questions we want to see on the site and should not be allowed.
Questions should ask something specific. Like this:

How can I log the distance and time from my treadmill to an SD card using an Arduino?

There are two parts to this question:

How do I interface my treadmill with Arduino?
How do I log data to SD card with Arduino?

We can clearly help with the second question.
The first part of the question may  or may not be off topic, depending on how much detail the person has provided (schematics, datasheets), what kind of effort they've put into solving the problem themselves, and the scope of the problem.
tl;dr: it depends on the question. Maybe we can answer part of it and another part is better for another site on the SE network.


text:
What should the design of our site be?
Part of the [7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta(http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/07/the-7-essential-meta-questions-of-every-beta/)]
We have our site here, and we should start thinking about the theme. We don't have to create a full theme, but if we can get some outstanding ideas, it will only make our site better. What are some ideas that you can think of? We should try to get some ideas.

This is a great question... however, sites don't get their design until they get out of beta (i.e. they are a graduated site). So don't delete the question, but keep in mind it may keep years for this design to happen.

@hichris123 I know it takes a while for the design, but it was in the 7 essential questions of every beta. If they put it in there, it must be somewhat important.

The 7 essential questions are kinda out of date... if you're bored there's some mSO questions on this.

@hichris123 Ouch... 4 years old, not updated, nor taken down? Whoops! Oh well it can spark some activity because lately the site has been slowing down...

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about an event years into the future. Also, as the 7 essential questions are no longer relevant at such an early stage.

A relevant post (on this meta) by one of our designers from earlier this week: Custom Arduino Community design and logo - Information gathering :)

Just a few ideas I had:

Arduino color (HEX: 00979c, accent color: e34c00) We may have to get it cleared by Arduino itself, but SE is pretty well respected so I don't think that it will be that hard as long as we try to add a few key differences. The colors, however, are comforting for a user to see.
An Uno with a LED (blinking, maybe?). This is a symbolic "start" of Arduino knowledge, and might be a good symbol too new users. Animations might be annoying, maybe just two quick flashes at a page load? It might still be distracting but at least have the LED drawn on.

We should also think of names for the site... oh well, tomorrow!
I make a small little image here in GIMP:

Take a look at [gaming.se] site theme. Its got some elements of what you suggest.

If we were to have an LED blink on page load, it most definitely should be the on-board pin 13 LED.

@Guy Good point. However, I'm not going to mess with the design: it is still a bit off. We only got into public today.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Are questions asking for libraries on-topic?
We have questions such as this one on the site right now. My gut feeling (coming from Stack Overflow) is that such questions are off-topic. However, I feel as if these questions aren't really broad (not as many libraries exist for Arduino as say Javascript). I feel that if these questions are specifically scoped, they are okay to ask on here. However, since we are still in private beta, is this a question we really want modeled for public beta? Are these questions on-topic here?

As a platform, Arduino is still somewhat in its infancy (compared to more mainstream areas of programming). As you've indicated, that means there aren't all that many libraries for it yet, and indeed many of them are now shipped with the official IDE as standard. Additionally, it can be very hard for a new Arduino user to know where to look, where to ask, or what to use to solve any given problem.
However, there are already new libraries popping up on places such as GitHub. I would expect more and more to appear as time goes on and the Arduino user-base expands and matures. That means any answers recommending a library will probably go out of date before very long, especially as more boards/revisions/variants are released.
What we want to build up here is a long-term Q&A resource, so I think we have to treat broad questions about library recommendations as generally off-topic. As with everything else here though, it needs to be done carefully, with a kind nudge towards a more suitable venue (such as the Arduino discussion boards).
That's not to say we should never suggest libraries in answers though. I think it's still OK to suggest a library if it's an appropriate answer to a specific problem, especially if it relates to a core library which is likely to be maintained long-term. We just need to discourage people from asking for recommendations.

I think it should be on-topic.
A questions asking for a library to do X, is just a rephrasing of "Is it possible to do X? How?". If the second is on-topic, then the former should be as well, considering exactly the point that you mention. There are not as many libraries out there for Arduino. Of course, the usual question quality rules apply, such as that the scope of the question should be reasonable.

I do believe that they should be allowed.
Arduino is a line of products and their accessories. (Also with their code.) SO is different here. Some users are even pushing allowing shopping questions. This is very similar to a shopping recommendation.
I say that we leave it for now. If it becomes a problem that it becomes only finding libraries, then the moderators implemented by then will have to clean up the problem before it grows. It may seem like a nuisance, but I do believe that if we can attract another user this way, it can only help us. Plus, there are only a limited number of libraries available out their. I've noticed a pattern with Arduino that people tend to create similar projects.

My gut feeling (coming from Stack Overflow) is that such questions are off-topic.

Remember, this isn't SO. We were given a canvas by Stack Exchange to build our site the way we want it. The sites tend to follow a pattern, but if all of the sites were practically the same, there would be no need to open up another site. From some work on different sites, each community is different. If it will serve us good, why should we not do it just because Stack Overflow doesn't?

There is little more infuriating than posting a question to a SE site, have it closed, try another, have it closed etc. until you have been sent round in a big loop.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Why aren't we in public beta yet?
I thought the private beta was only supposed to last 7 days. We have been in for 9 days at the time of writing, and we are still in private beta. What are the condidions needed to reach public beta?

Sorry about that, folks! We normally do write a post when a private beta is being extended.
Arduino just needs some more time to come up with some additional questions, just to make certain there's plenty of interesting things for folks to do once the doors open. Nothing to be alarmed at, you're doing a great job - just need to build up the base a bit more.
Pops can chime in with any other guidance now that he's feeling better (which is probably what's to blame for you not getting a notice when we decided to extend the private beta).
Our bad.

We've actually been talking about this in chat. Apparently the private beta can last up to 2 weeks. If it's performing well, it is possible to go public after 1 week though, but it all depends on reviews by the SE Community Managers.
From what I've read of other betas, I get the impression we're doing fairly well. There may be some issues regarding our scope though, and the possibility of overlap with existing SE sites.

Arduino went into public beta a few hours ago!
Congrats, everyone!


text:
Should "Arduino Mega 2560" be considered a revision of the Mega board?
We have the tag mega. I am almost positive that the OP for the only question so far is referring to the 2560 version of the board. Should we rename it as arduino-mega-2560, leave it because most people won't use the old revision, or add arduino-mega-original or arduino-mega-classic to refer to the original board?
It seems like the original version would still be used some. That's why I like the "original" and "classic" suffixes to the tags so a beginner Arduinoist (is that a word?) who wouldn't know the difference would just use the standard mega tag. However, someone referring to the vintage Arduino board would still be able to ask.

How should board revisions be handled? is not a duplicate because the Meta isn't simply a revision, it is just a "makeover" of a fairly popular board to keep the branding.

Mm... honestly I think it depends on one thing: would the question be completely changed if it was referring to the old Mega vs. the new Mega? If yes, probably we need a tag for the old one vs. the new one. If not... leave it.

I propose the old revision be called [tag:arduino-mega-1280], because that's what he rest of the community calls it

@TheDoctor Good idea.


text:
Provisional Community Moderator Nominations
We already decided some attributes that the  moderators should have, now let's start actual nomination.

Actually, knowing Arduino too well is far from necessary. They should
be knowledgeable, yes, but anything more is just a bonus for the
community and their efforts should be focussed as such ;-)
What is needed in a community moderator is the ability to communicate
clearly and effectively, as well as have the patience to handle all
types of members of the community respectfully. Also, to function
impartially even when faced with difficult situations such as that may
happen involving respected members, arguments, flame wars, etc.
Community moderators aren't referred to as janitors for nothing. There
is a fair bit of work to be done behind the scenes, a lot of which may
be fairly involved and taxing. The only reward for this effort is
seeing the site grow and move towards graduation (which can be rather
satisfying :) )
The only thing necessary is that the individual should be active and
involved in the community through content generation, meta
participation, chat availability, editing, reviewing and voting
(close/reopen). Also, in general the individual should be helpful and
guide new members of the community wherever needed.

How do you become a provisional moderator for this site?
Soon after the site launches into "public beta," the Community Team will appoint provisional moderators from this community until the community is ready to hold its own elections (once it graduates from beta).

What do moderators gain?

Candidates will be contacted and three of them will be selected to act
as provisional Moderators until the community holds formal elections
after the Beta period. Besides the normal abilities of a Moderator,
they will:

Have access to a special chat room where we will collectively work through the challenges of moderation and community self-policing.
Organize the process of selecting the site’s attributes (the [help center], site scope, tags, etc.).
Rally community support and drive the mission of getting publicity for the site.

Essentially, they will have the ear of the Stack Exchange team for
anything we can do to help their sites succeed!

Here's what you should have to be a moderator here:

Have a decent reputation
Participate on Meta
Be well spoken, polite, professional (that includes formatting it with bold and other tags to make it look good and spelling/grammar), and a natural leader.
Be trusted. You'll have some data that a standard user won't. Handel it wisely and follow the TOS and privacy policy of SE.
Have a decent amount of time (30+ minutes a day has been recommended to this site only for "dirty work.")
Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.

Bonus points for:

Moderator or high-reputation on other sites
Area 51 participation, social network referrals, or blogging about the site.
Members who have already shown an interest or ability to promote their community.

To nominate (You are encouraged to nominate you and others)
Please break it down into one section for each item listed below:

Post an answer containing the URLs to the user's main and meta profiles on Arduino.SE. You can also add links to other profiles or to an Area51 profile. Also, if you
Why you think they/you would be a good candidate.
If you are nominating yourself, please add a little bit about you, why you would be a good candidate, and if you really have the time and devotion to guide this community, when it's fun, and when it's a pain in the **********.

Post each user as a separate answer, and add multiple answers if you wish to nominate multiple users. Do not make duplicates of questions.
Additionally, if someone nominates you, please edit the answer to indicate your approval (or declination). If you want to, add a paragraph or two about yourself so we can get to know you.
If you downvote a particular nomination, you are encouraged to share why you did so in the comments, though you are not required to do so. Optionally, you may do the same for upvotes.
For more information, see this blog post.

Optional Template:
## I'm Nominating: {Username OR "Myself, {UsernameHere}"} ##

**Links:** [Main (1 Rep)](www.example.com), [Meta](www.meta.example.com), [Other Sites Here (100K Rep, Moderator)](www.othersite.example.com)

{Put Flair Here if you want}
*****
I am a good candidate because... I do... I want...
*****
{Optional (remove the "****" above if you aren't doing this): Getting to know you here}

That went by fast. I was gone for 2 days and i missed it.

@TheDoctor Yes: it was quick because it happens when we go into public beta.

This is now obsolete because the nominations are over.

I'm Nominating: Myself, Peter R. Bloomfield
Links: Main (~900 Rep), Meta, Stack Overflow (~3k Rep)

profile for Peter R. Bloomfield on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/2918160.png

Why me?
I believe I'm a good candidate because I have past experience of managing/moderating online communities (mostly forums). I also have an academic background, with a few publications in the computing field, so I can communicate well in writing.
I believe in being civil and respectful, and that we should strive to make newcomers feel comfortable here. I always aim to remain objective in the face of disputes and disagreements. With that said, I know that it's sometimes necessary to take a hard line.
I've been a little hesitant to nominate myself for a moderator role, simply because I'm fairly busy already. Realistically though, I should certainly be able to average at least 30 minutes per day without any difficulty.

More about me
I'm one of those weird people who somehow still enjoys programming, despite doing it 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. By day, I'm a professional Software Engineer; hardcore C++ is my proverbial bread and butter. My focus as a research/programmer over the past several years has been educational technology and virtual environments.
I've had to do a little embedded systems work at my job, but electronics is mostly just a hobby. I find Arduino to be an excellent platform, because it can provide a fairly gentle introduction to the area, but it's also very capable for more advanced projects.
I should maybe note that there is actually more to my life than just computers. I have other interests too! I'll stop rambling now though. :) If there are any questions, feel free to ask.

You seem to have a lot of experience with coding, but not much with EE. Arduino needs both: can you adjust to make up that gap?

@AnnonomusPerson experience and knowledge with the subject can be helpful for a moderator and shouldn't be ignored, but you don't have to be an expert on the subject to be a candidate. Judging by Peter's contributions around the site thus far, I think he's a fantastic candidate

@AnnonomusPerson The EE stuff I've done in my job (and am still doing) is actually a sizeable bare-metal AVR project, interfacing with multiple external systems. It really goes much deeper than I suspect most Arduino.SE visitors are likely to need.

@PeterR.Bloomfield Sorry I'm just looking at the EE.SE profile of yours... :P

@AnnonomusPerson I'd completely forgotten that I'd created one! I've never really had to refer to EE.SE as a questioner, and I don't think I have enough to contribute there as an answerer (compared to EE professionals).

I agree with @AnnonomusPerson that some EE knowledge is essential for any good Arduino.SE moderator. As a measurement, I was looking for good answers from the candidates on SE.EE. If he or she manages to post a few great answers there and not getting beaten up much, I figure the candidate at least know what a great answer is when he or she sees it. While Annonomus Person meets that requirement, his last comment doesn't make him a worthy moderator candidate. While Peter doesn't pass that SE.EE requirement, he's got a good amount of activity in Ar.SE and shows he's nice and fair. My vote is his.

I'm Nominating: Myself, sachleen
Links: Main (1200+ Rep), Meta

I am a good candidate because...
I really want this site to succeed. I started electronics with Arduino and I want to help other people, beginners or otherwise, get off to a good start, too. I'm very active on the site, and I like to think my answers provide a examples of what a "good" answer looks like.
Some examples:

Why does my sketch report too many button presses?
Serial data showing up weird

I also make an effort to stay on top of the review queue. I have some experience with this from SO, where I have over 1000 edits and hundreds of other review related tasks. I bring over the same habit to Arduino.SE. I'm on the site every day trying to help wherever I can.
Check out my recent activity on the site to see what I'm up to.

Questions & Answers
Ask your questions in the comments and I'll answer them here.
What sets you apart from the other candidates here? - Annonomus Person
There are a handful of people here that are just as capable as me and would make excellent moderators. I'm not trying to win votes, I trying to help the site succeed. I will continue to use the tools available to me to make the site a better place, moderator, or not.

@AnnonomusPerson, Thanks! I added a response to your question in my post.

I'm Nominating: hichris123
Links: Main (213 Rep), Meta

profile for hichris123 on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/3046327.png

I've worked with hichris on several SE-related things under the Charcoal project, and I have to say that he learns extremely quickly and is fast to understand abstract concepts like moderation. I also really like his activity on this site.

Accept
First off, thanks for nominating me. I'd really like to help this site grow and prosper.
I love Arduinos. I (of course) have one at home, tinker with it, and was very excited to find out this site was launching. I'm active on the Stack Exchange network, on sites like Stack Overflow, Meta Stack Overflow, and Space Exploration.
I know quite a bit about moderation from my conversations with mods. Some stuff I don't know; however, I can quickly learn this from the community team and other mods that I know.
I would love to guide this community with a firm, but gentle, hand. I see a lot of potential in this site, and would like to guide it so that we can prosper. We have a lot of great content, but would like to make sure that the bad stuff gets closed or removed from the site. I'd also like to participate more in editing posts/tag wikis, retagging, and overall keeping the site clean. I'm also going to be active on meta, helping to guide this site, as well as being active in our chatroom.

Pretend for a moment that I am one of those really impatient and annoying users that posts comments everywhere asking for an answer to a question they asked 5 minutes before. How would you respond?

@SantaClaus Well, in what place? Like in the comments sections of posts? Or in chat? Or in a different place that I'm not thinking of? :P (side note, please ping me with replies... Undo gets the notifications automatically for this, but not me)

@hichris123 Assume I am that really annoying user that posts comments everywhere that say Please help:  www.stackoverflow.com/link/to/badly/formatted/question/. How would you respond?

@SantaClaus That would be an annoying user. ;) So what I'd end up doing is deleting those comments, since they're not relevant to the post. Also, I'd notify the user via chat (mods get this nice thing called superpings, letting you ping people who've never been to chat before) that this behavior isn't allowed, and not to do it again. If it continues... probably a mod message, and maybe suspension, depending on how bad it is, but I'd work with the user in any case.

@hichris123 Sounds good. Two quick questions: If you had to compare yourself to a fruit, what would it be and why, and also What is your favorite number. Remember, these are very important questions that determine weather I regret voting for you or not. ;)

@SantaClaus Is this part of being a mod, being compared to fruit? ;P Um... for fruit probably a grapefruit because I love grapefruits, and they're actually really amazing and interesting. My favorite number: 42, of course. ;)

We really haven't seen you enough both on main and meta.

I'm Nominating: AsheeshR
profile for AsheeshR on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/1609527.png

I think Asheesh is a great candidate because he meets all the criteria specified in the nomination, more specifically, those below:

He's got a decent reputation
He participates on Meta
He's well spoken, polite, professional (that includes formatting it with bold and other tags to make it look good and spelling/grammar), and a natural leader.
He can be trusted.
He's already shown that he's got a decent amount of time to dedicate to us (30+ minutes a day has been recommended to this site only for "dirty work.")
He's got high-reputation on other sites
He's got Area 51 participation
He's a member who has already shown an interest or ability to promote our community.
And he's very knowledgeable about Arduinos.

My vote is his.

Thanks for the nomination. I would enjoy working on the site and taking it forward. I participate in a few beta sites which has gotten me a fair bit of experience with regards to what works, and what doesn't. I am sure that this experience will help in carrying out the work that will be needed.

Asheesh is also a moderator on RE.SE

@Ricardo Thanks for the very kind words. This post almost made me want to vote for myself :)

@AsheeshR - Well, you deserve them. Too bad you didn't get elected. I guess the problem was the timing: just like regular questions, those who answer first have higher chances of getting upvoted and accepted. But I'm sure you'll keep acting as a moderator, so we are all winning anyway :D

@AsheeshR - Since I nominated you, I could't vote for you because the system didn't let me. So I was counting that you would vote for yourself and that would count as my vote. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Somebody else voted for you, besides you and me, then.

@AsheeshR - Next time, you, sir, nominate yourself right when the nomination period opens. If someone nominates you, you make sure you vote for yourself. In elections, every vote counts. You're young so you will have to brag about yourself to get great jobs, so start practicing ASAP.

Hi, I'm Annonomus Person and I'm nominating myself for this community election started by me
(I'm personally voting for HiChris123)
Links: Main (452 and Counting Rep), Meta, EE (1,235 Repuation)

profile for Annonomus Person on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/1640390.png?theme=dark

Area 51 profile for Annonomus Person http://area51.stackexchange.com/users/flair/76333.png?theme=dark

Why I feel I'm a good candidate (in bullet points for better SEO :P):

I'm fairly active on meta: 6 questions and four answers. That alone isn't that great, I know. I'm almost ashamed running for moderator with that. However, it's what you can't see that makes me stand out. I go the extra mile, with 14 edits on one CWiki post, trying to make our tagging get off to a good start.
I am the only user that has fully participated in any of these sites: Robotics, EE, and RPi. These three sites are the ones that are almost guaranteed to have scope conflict. Moderators shape the community, and moderators need to be informed. I'm definitely informed.
I try hard, and never give up. I want this site to succeed. I was the part of the Arduino beta last time, and I was annoyed when it was shut down. I'll do what it takes to get us through beta. I need to shape my little corner of the world. It's my calling, my duty, and my responsibility.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
  The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things
  differently.
They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status
  quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change
  things. They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the
  world, are the ones who do.

I may be a crazy round peg who sees things differently, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid.

I will rewrite the Arduino engine to use jQuery (just kidding)
You can eat a waffle if I'm moderator any time of the day! MMM waffles... nom nom nom.  Waffles... yummy! Unless you like pancakes better.
I will do a full cleanup of the tags (already kinda messy but that's natural with any beta)
I am a grammar and spelling jerk natzi (not to be offensive to anyone, it's an American English thing) freak loving person.

Read more about me on my profile

Why I shouldn't Be a Moderator*
*Yes, the first time in recorded history I did actually do that in a moderator election.

I prefer pancakes Not really... no need for all the controversy, @Undo!!! :P
I haven't ever used moderational tools or had full edit capability (exception: last Arduino beta for editing without approval). However, I adapt quickly.
I probably might not always have time to put in 10 hours a day. I'll try to do at least 30 minutes daily to empty the queues. I do have a seven page activity log, though. I don't know if I have the patience or time to be in chat 24/7 either, but I'll try. I am now the biggest user of Pin 13 (A.K.A. Arduino Chatroom).

Despite the above, I feel that I would be a legendary moderator. I have vision, dedication, and perseverance. If you elect me, I can almost guarantee that I will make this proposal live. I'm a trustworthy person who will make this site succeed. EDIT: As time progresses I seem like the more ideal moderator.
No Arduinos hurt in the making of this.

-1 Sorry but your comment on Peter's nomination isn't what I expect from a moderator (I quote: @Peter Haha I just saw that and none of your answers so far dig into deep electronics so... Oops! –). You got to be nice and fair to be a decent moderator.

@Ricardo I was referring to his EE Profile. ;) I never intended for it to be rude, but looking back it could be interpreted a few different ways.

Ok. I'll take back my downvote in appreciation for your retraction. Knowing when to apologize is a desired characteristic of a great moderator. Just gotta be extra careful with what you write, especially if you want to be a moderator. One lousy comment here and there is ok for regular users but not for mods.

Nope, can't remove the downvote unless you edit your nomination.

@Ricardo I updated some numbers... you don't have to remove it though if you don't want to. If you would rather have the others be moderators, I would favor the community being better off than me getting moderator.

No sweat! I'm sure you'll be a great moderator, as all other folks who were nominated. We all want this site to be the best it can be. I guess that being a mod has it's own learning curve. This was just one step up the ladder.

@Ricardo Thanks for your support! Note: there are always mod decisions that aren't supported... :D

Nice try, but he is Jeff Atwood, the StackOverflow and StackExchange founder, mod of the mods. He is the Dangeon Master. He has the luxury of being unpopular sometimes. We don't ;)

Next will you compare yourself to Jon Skeet, the Chuck Norris of SO? :P

@Ricardo Yes he is forgiven, but really, -192 votes? That's pushing his luck.

You can have my vote if you agree to not clutter the site with large pictures of waffles that make answers longer than they rightfully should be.

@Santa Sorry about that... I was just hungry! :) Anyway, I won't do that. When I add pictures, they are usually relevant (with an exception of this one here).


text:
Support for UDOO & Integrated Arduino Boards
Should we support tags of specific boards like the UDOO & Raspberry Pi? While a Raspberry Pi is different from an Arduino, the UDOO essentially is an Arduino Due and LInux Quad-core computer integrated into one device with shared processor communication. With that being said currently the UDOO has some issues with their IDE that doesn't allow certain Arduino Due related things to work properly. One of the main issues currently is that floats compile, but don't work properly on the Due and just crash the board.

Are you saying I won't be able to run a UDOO program on Due or a Due program on UDOO?

Raspberry Pi is definitely not on topic... try http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/

These kind of questions can be asked now at: Embedded Systems which is currently in private beta.

@sachleen once the float problem is fixed there will be no difference. Until then due code uploaded to the UDOO through their internal ide might not work. But if uploaded like a normal due it'll work.

I think we could treat the UDOO as an "Arduino compatible" device, as per this question. That means questions about the Arduino side of it would be relevant. However, if somebody is asking a wholly non-Arduino question about it (e.g. about its integrated graphics) then it should probably be considered off-topic.
The Raspberry Pi would seem to be off-topic as a general rule, as it's not trying to be Arduino compatible at all. Admittedly, there will probably be exceptions, e.g. where somebody is trying to program an Arduino from a Raspberry Pi (maybe via Gertboard or something).

What about the specific IDE glitches abs other UDOO issues even attempting to program the Due connected to it.

If it's a problem with UDOO's own IDE, then I suspect it's probably off-topic here.

I don't think most UDOO questions are on topic here... Unless the question is related to only the Arduino part of the system. If you can replace UDOO with Arduino in the question and it still makes sense, then it'd be on topic.
Problems with the UDOO IDE are totally off topic. If we allow people to ask any UDOO related questions, we will surely see some of those, but we can mark them as off topic, no problem.


text:
How to handle bad language?
I've noticed a couple of instances of minor profanity on the site, mainly in comments. It's not been directed at anyone, nor has it been particularly vulgar. However, it's definitely into territory which some people would consider somewhat offensive, or at least unprofessional.
How should we respond to instances like these?

http://codegolf.stackexchange.com/a/22600/16472

As is important in any such discussion, what did you see? It is near impossible to discuss such issues without looking at specific instances.
In any case, the normal policy applies. If directed at an individual or group, flag as offensive, be it a question, answer or a comment. You may edit it out if you so wish, but it is best to bring it to the attention of moderators, so such users may be explained how things work here, and if needed further action may be taken.
In cases of general use of inappropriate language, edit it out and/or flag for moderator attention.
Most of this is very clearly mentioned in the Help Center.

https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/behavior
https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/flagging

I hadn't found the Behaviour article on the help centre, so thanks for pointing it out. The salient part is: "Please note that expletives are not allowed. If you use expletives on this site, you may be issued a warning or a suspension."

I think an important part of our goal is to be friendly and welcoming. As such, my inclination is to edit-out profanity where possible (in questions/answers), or flag it for removal otherwise (in comments).
I'm not suggesting that we enforce a puritanical attitude to language, or that we need to censor people or ideas. Rather, I think we should strive to be professional and mutually respectful, which sometimes requires a diplomatic choice of words.

The relevant documentation on this is confusing at best.
The behaviour page has the notice: Please note that expletives are not allowed. If you use expletives on this site, you  may be issued a warning or a suspension.
However, the may be issued a warning or a suspension. portion of the page is a direct link to a meta question about "profanity" on stack-exchange in general that directly disagrees with the linking text. In response to the question  Are expletives allowed on SE sites?, the highest-voted answer is Yes, but keep them to a minimum.
As far as I can tell, I would assume the behaviour page is out of date, since it seems the community consensus disagrees with it.

I've spoken to the other SE mods, and the Help Center article apparently takes priority. The expletives issue is basically a rule across all SE sites, rather than a community-driven decision.

@PeterR.Bloomfield - In that case, where is the threshold? Shit? S**t? &%$&?

Generally speaking, the rule seems to be no expletives at all, in any form. Personally, I'm not intending to chase after the milder stuff like "hell" or "crap" (unless it's getting flagged a lot by users, or it's used somewhere very visible like a question title). Anything stronger than that will have to be removed though.

@PeterR.Bloomfield - It seems to me like you're reading a lot into those rules. Again, Is S**t ok? #$%!?

Partially- or fully-censored expletives are still expletives, so please don't use them. They shouldn't be necessary for communicating anything constructive (and anything not constructive shouldn't be posted on the site).


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User rep discrepancy
I have noticed for several users that there is a difference in rep between the personal profile page and the Users overview page? I have noticed it for different users, one of which is myself. The difference is alway 101 ('Association Bonus'+1).
What is the cause and will it be solved?

+1 noticed that as well with my account.

The Users page shows reputation gained from participating on the site in a given period of time (by default, a rolling month).
The 100-point association bonus and the initial 1 point everyone starts with aren't included in the "reputation gained in the past [week|month|quarter|year]" views, but is included in the final "all" view:

Still the Arduino stack is less than a month/quarter/year and these numbers are incorrect. Only 'all' shows correct numbers. My association bonus is dated Feb 12, I'd expect to see it in the month view. Good news is that the rep is not entirely lost.

@jippie As I said, the association bonus isn't included (on purpose) in the views that aren't "all".

Ah I missed that sentence. Thnx for explaining.


text:
User reputation leagues broken?
It looks to me as if the user reputation leagues are broken. To access them, one would go to the user list and hit the link labelled "weekly / monthly / quarterly reputation leagues" at the bottom.
Is that something that should already work at this point in time, or only once the Arduino SE community becomes a permanent one?

I think it's just caching... seriously though, I don't think it has data right now, as [softwarerecs.se]'s reputation leagues are up... so maybe wait a day/days/week?

The link is now there!

@TheGuywithTheHat The link was always there, it just doesn't work so far.

The reputation leagues are now up and running.
http://stackexchange.com/leagues/288/week/arduino/

Private beta is not the best time to concentrate on reputation and other competitive things. They are meant to build a critical mass of questions, answers, and users with a bit of experience in the site. I would imagine that the leagues won't start until public beta. As far as I know, we've only been in public beta a few hours, so I would give it a bit more time.
When they do start, though, they should be at http://stackexchange.com/leagues/272.
Edit: The link is now there at the bottom of the Users page. It goes to http://stackexchange.com/leagues/288/week/arduino, which does not currently exist.

Of course, those things are not very relevant, neither now nor later. This was not meant as a complaint, but rather I simply wanted to bring it to everyone's attention (or more correctly the people taking care of those matters) to ensure that once this community becomes permanent, it is fixed to prevent others from "real" complaints. And yes: We are officially in public beta since a few hours.


text:
What should the chat room be called?
To make the chat room interesting both for visitors of Arduino.SE as well as other users within the Stack Exchange network, I think the chat room should be renamed.
The (new) name should be something related to Arduino which any enthusiast would understand. It could be something esoteric or something based on popular culture.
This would help in attracting users from the Network to the room, as every time a new post is made, the room goes on the active tab of Chat.SE, where it may  get a fair bit of attention, if it looks interesting.
So, what should be the new name of the chat room?
Also, what should be the room description that goes with it?
Copied from my post on PP.SE

A couple I thought of off the top of my head:

Pin 13

Pin 13 is a symbolic pin, mostly because it is the first pin ever used. You did want to be friendly to new users and attract them.

#define HIGH LOW

Good luck debugging!!!

digitalWrite(13, MEDIUM);

Who said that we had to have rules in the chat? :)

Some bad ideas:
What we shouldn't do.

Hacker's __

Arduino users are more than hackers only. We are artists, designers, hackers, hobbyists (like me!), and more.

If this post didn't help, at least we established that I should not be put in charge of naming anything. However, the point about "hacker" in the name (or any other name that suggests geekyness) should be avoided at all costs is pretty important. Sure we are geeks, but the whole Arduino community is a lot more.

I kinda like pin 13

I think 'Blink!' sounds nice as well.

You should make these separate posts so we can vote on them!

@AsheeshR If we call it Blink, people might think we're a Doctor Who fan group. :) (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

I have chat admin for that room so I renamed it Pin 13 and made the description a little better.

How about something named after the Serial library? E.g.:
Serial.begin

Putting it without the parameter list seems a little nicer.
Or something a little more on-the-nose:
Serial.print("chat");

It's the kind of thing that any Arduino user is likely to recognise, but it's also not totally alien to anybody else who's done any programming. Admittedly, it's maybe less likely to hook EE folks though.

How about Serial.begin(chat)?


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Are questions about serial communication using third party software on-topic?
The serial interface provided by Arduino can be utilized by many software packages that feature serial communication libraries. Are questions on setting up the serial connection, from such software with the Arduino, on-topic?

I would say no. Arduino really has nothing to do with it. It's all configuration in the 3rd party software to match the Arduino's configuration.
This may be on topic:

How do I configure my Arduino's serial port with the following
  settings?

This is not:

How do I configure this software to communicate with a device which
  uses the following serial configuration?

See how I said "device" instead of "Arduino"? Changing Arduino there doesn't change the question in any way.

I realized you may be referring to questions like How can I communicate Arduino to Matlab. Still, the underlying question is how to interface a serial device with MatLab, which really has nothing to do with Arduino specifically.
Even in that question, the first comment is

Do you need help writing the code for the Arduino, or help writing
  MATLAB code to read data input from the serial stream?

In general, I'd agree. If it's clear that the question is nothing to do with Arduino then it's off-topic. Judging by Arduino questions on SO though, the distinction may not always be clear. E.g. a lot of hobbyists seem to like connecting Android or Processing to Arduino via serial, and when they have a problem it may not be obvious (at least to them) where that problem actually lies.

I was referring to this as well..

@sachleen - here's one force-migrated here from SO that is ultimately another example of "how do I write a program on my desktop to talk to my arduino" that thus probably belongs there rather than here. http://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/1358/arduino-serial-communication


text:
When to close a question or to give it a chance?
I was reading this question (Arduino as USB HID) and was surprised that it already had two votes to close as being off-topic only after a few minutes of being asked.
I started discussing with @AsheeshR that although I would agreed that the question is in the frontier of being on/off topic, we should give it a chance as it someone knowledgeable could add facts that could reveal that the question is on-topic.
I just thoght that we are repeating the same mistakes as SE.EE (see my related question there), which sometimes compulsively try to quickly close on-topic questions.
Although putting a question on-hold is a useful quality assurance tool, I think it was misused in this particular example, as putting a question on hold also discourages knowledgeable people from answering it, and I would like very much to know the answer to it even if the answer is just what you are saying (on the windows side).
Instead of voting for closing, the reviewers could have edited or answered the question so that us readers would understand better why the question isn't related to Arduinos and why it's being closed. That would have been much more constructive than voting for closing it.
So, my general question is: Where should we draw the line for closing votes in this particular case?

I won't come as a newbie on a forum and give lessons to the people who built it, but that question, should not be closed because of what it is asking, because what it asks is definitely possible using AVR only code, cf my comment.
I guess I'd need to do a little bit of research on how to guide the OP on actually implementing that, because I guess most of the people doing USB HID devices use the leonardo, not the uno.
The only thing that would be wrong about the question, is how it looks like, and maybe encourage the OP to edit and improve it by giving him time and advices.

In this specific example, I really can't see how this is "on the line". The question is specifically asking how to develop a software layer on Windows to utilize input being sent using the serial connection.

it's actually not, only part 1 of the question is, but part 2 of the question is open to suggestions.

we should give it a chance as it someone knowledgeable could add facts that could reveal that the question is on-topic.
    Yes, there is. But the OP is not interested in trying that out, as is clearly mentioned in the comments.

the OP only said in the comments that he is afraid of flashing using DFU because he may brick his stuff. That's because he does not know he can actually build a cheap ISP board using another arduino to reflash it in case everything gets wrong!

[...]
    A question about Windows APIs would best be answered on Windows development forums. That is not a question for Arduino.SE

though the OP asks whether it's possible to do it using Windows stuff, wouldn't it be the role of an Arduino community to tell him that he actually can do using the Arduino hardware and no windows code? Which would make that an even better solution, as it would be portable!

I explained albeit in few words, as to why the question was off-topic. I do not think this was at all a problem in this case.

I do not agree a question that definitely has an answer should be put on hold for one week in a few minutes after posting. If I could, I'd definitely vote for reopen, and guide the OP to understand what's wrong in his question.
Question closing/holding/rerouting is for keeping the knowledge base sane by keeping track of dupes, moving questions where people might get an answer or delete questions that are offending or just totally un-answerable.
That question applies to non of those cases, it can be answered and is definitely interesting for future readers of the forum.
HTH

All of us here are newbies as far as [Arduino.se] is concerned, and everyone's opinion is welcome. However, I disagree with your answer for reasons mentioned in my post.

I strongly disagree with your post, because you assume that the OP wants to do windows stuff, whereas he only says he prefers to use windows stuff and he's afraid of bricking the arduino doing DFU updates. As a community we shall guide the OP through that to show him that he's wrong and should'nt be afraid! Au contraire, putting his question on hold only shows him that he shall get on the wrong direction and will try to implement some terrible windows hack that is very likely to never work.

Just a note: The bricking concern is very real. It is pretty hard to get hold of Atmega chips and other components depending on where you live. For example, in my city, there is just one shop which keeps Atmegas in stock. Online purchases can take a week or more, as well as, can turn out to be expensive.

the bricking concern is not real. The only way you can brick an AVR is by fooling around the fuses, and reset all the programming fuses, and even that can be solved by using HVSP. Otherwise, you can always reflash a firmware using the ICSP headers and an AVR flasher, whether it is an arduino or an atmel one.

@AsheeshR and zmo - While I agree with zmo, let's cal it quits and agree to disagree? What I think we should learn from this case is that, if there's controversy like in this case, let's give the question and the OP the benefit of the doubt and leave the question open, shall we?

Here's a question I posted on EE.SE 2 days ago  that's a good example of what I'm talking about. Right after I posted it, it quickly got a few votes to close as off-topic. Then a fierce discussion ensued (see comments). In the end, the question was not closed (but still has 3 votes to close), it's got 15 upvotes, and got 1k views in 2 days. It even figured as a hot question of all stacks (continues below...)

So, the question was now considered on-topic, but it ran the risk of being closed by some that quickly vote to close them. I'm not arguing against closing obviously off-topic, shopping recommendations, opinion based questions. Those should be quickly closed. But if there's any doubt as to whether the question is on-topic, specially if it is because the question concerns only programming (or not), let's give the question a chance.

Since we now found somebody more knowledgeable (than me) to argue in favor of that question being on-topic, I'll accept this answer as it agrees more with my beliefs.

Questions that appear to be borderline off-topic should either:

Be edited and improved to be made on-topic (by the OP or any user that understands the problem well)
Be voted to close (put "On Hold")

The first action is preferable of course, but when not possible, we should not  hesitate from voting to close. The entire closing interface was recently redesigned to be far more simpler and easier to understand with greater emphasis on editing and reopening. The current behavior is that the question stays "On Hold" for an initial period of 7 days, during which it can be made clearer, edited and improved; and automatically get pushed into the reopen queue. The "On Hold" status clearly signals that it is a temporary state and can be lifted after improvements
In this specific example, I really can't see how this is "on the line". The question is specifically asking how to develop a software layer on Windows to utilize input being sent using the serial connection.
Lastly, to answer point by point.

we should give it a chance as it someone knowledgeable could add facts that could reveal that the question is on-topic.

Yes, there is. But the OP is not interested in trying that out, as is clearly mentioned in the comments.

Although putting a question on-hold is a useful quality assurance tool, I think it was misused in this particular example, as putting a question on hold also discourages knowledgeable people from answering it, and I would like very much to know the answer to it even if the answer is just what you are saying (on the windows side).

A question about Windows APIs would best be answered on Windows development forums. That is not a question for Arduino.SE

Instead of voting for closing, the reviewers could have edited or answered the question so that us readers would understand better why the question isn't related to Arduinos and why it's being closed. That would have been much more constructive than voting for closing it.

I explained albeit in few words, as to why the question was off-topic. I do not think this was at all a problem in this case.
Moreover, in general, the new help center consists of extremely well-written content accumulated from community-generated posts, which does not necessitate the need for comments explaining whats wrong with a question, every time a question is closed.

You're really good at picking up technicalities, aren't you? Are you a lawyer, too? But really, I wans't specific in my question about who nominated you, so I think I still included why you didn't nominated yourself. XD

By the way, I mean no offense to you or the lawyers. All of you are great people :D

To answer my own question, I think we shouldn't vote to close a question unless it's glaring obvious that the question must be closed (as off-topic for example).
If it's not obvious, then the reviewer MUST explain why the question must be closed in a comment. Link answers don't count here. There must be an explanation. If you want to close the question, you must show effort, too!
If the post is too large to fit in a comment, just give up, answer the question and leave it open. If it takes that much effort to explain why the question must be closed, there's got to be something about it that involves Arduinos that is of interest of this community.

I think I did explain why I voted to put on hold (if that was directed at me).

@AsheeshR - don't get me wrong, I'm not directing this at you. My complaint is more general. I wanted people to think twice before quickly voting to close a question and reflect if they could instead make a better contribution by either editing the question to make it on-topic or to just answering the question.

Generally the first action would be to comment the question, mentioning the fact it look off-topic and challenging the OP to edit it to make it clearer that is can be considered on-topic.

@Ricardo For most cases it's fine to close it if it's too vague. If edited within a few days, it's automatically reviewed. There's no reason to leave a vague question open just because it could be edited. Questions that aren't fixed should be closed and reopened if needed so we don't get many open ended answers or answers that are opinionated. Plus, links are fine if they sum it up in a few sentences.


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Should we have events in Pin 13?
Hi everybody! I'm the owner of the chatroom Pin 13 (formerly Arduino). It was automatically assigned to me after my record of high activity on the chat room. Anyway, there is a option to add new events that show up.

I don't have to schedule a event, but this is our main chat room and I think it would be cool to do something. Additionally, the chat wouldn't be any different except a few notices to remind people about the event. Everyone can chat about normal topics, if they choose. It should last at least 24 hours for different timezones.
Should we have anything on our chat room? If so, what should we do? Please include a title for it and if it should be a regular occurrence.

Pin 13 doesn't support external interrupt events.

We should call our events vectors, after the interrupt vectors on the AVR CPU

During the last iteration, we had a weekly meetup lasting half an hour every week for about 2 to 3 weeks in which there were 5-10 people participating. It usually went on for almost an hour however. That was, in my opinion quite successful, and I think we could try something similar.

Weekly Meetup

The discussion can be kept open and spanning a range of topics. It does help if a single person takes the lead, and develops at least some sort of list of topics to discuss, and prevents the discussion from getting fixated on a single issue. It is likely that if we end up discussing a single specific issue for 30 minutes then, it would be better suited to a meta post than a chat discussion.
The event could be called Setup() && Chat()

Could you recommend a name and a when to do it (Sunday, etc.) please?

@Annonomous The time needs to be discussed and decided collectively by the people interested in participating. My suggestion won't help if no one is available at that time.

Or void setup() { chat(); }

Something that I thought of:

Site Improvement Day

Anyone anytime can improve the site, but we should focus that day on how we can make it better. Be it retagging, cleaning up comments, or even just asking some new questions if the site suffers inactivity, let's get working!
This could be a bi-weekly or monthly event. People can always do things like above, but we can use the room to chart our progress and maintain our site, as well as review the healthiness of the site.

Just to clarify, by "bi-weekly" you mean every 2 weeks, right? In some places, it can mean twice a week.

@Peter Yes, two weeks (~2 per month) not every 3.5 days...


text:
When should we use the C++ tag?
I've noticed that a new user (who admittedly has lot of rep on other SE sites) has been re-tagging some programming questions to include the c++ tag.
These are the questions so far:

Last element of a struct disappearing on write/read
sprintf() to assemble String and float pieces locks up
Is it better to use c_str or toCharArray?
Is it better to use #define or const int for constants?

Given that the vast majority of programming on Arduino is in C++, it seems like a somewhat redundant tag in many cases. With that said, I am sure there are cases where it actually is relevant though.
When should we tag with c++, and when is the programming tag sufficient on its own?

I approved an edit to my question as it was very specifically about a difference between C and C++.

@Cybergibbons Likewise, I approved it on my question about c_str and toCharArray, because it relates back to the standard C++ language. I'm not sure about more general cases though.

I think most questions will be fine with just programming. However, there are some cases where giving it a C++ tag would be appropriate:

When its a question on the C/C++ language. The answer will be in the details on cplusplus.com or AVR Libc something.
When it's something that the Arduino language differs from standard C++ since you can't do everything.

If it's a question about code not working due to logic errors or not knowing how to write something, that's a programming question.
Only a handful of questions should be tagged C or C++.

I usually add the C++ tag when I get the chance for one simple reason:
It activates syntax-colouring for the code.
(assuming there is code posted)
It also activates syntax-colouring for any code in replies.
There is a way of doing that without the C++ tag, which is to paste this in your question or reply:
<!-- language-all: lang-C++ -->

Syntax colouring makes the code much more readable, and is useful to have when browsing someone's code in the question, and someone's code in the answer.
By the way, if you have done this and want to post something which is not code (like serial monitor output) you can also disable the colouring like this:
<!-- language-all: lang-none -->

Using a language tag merely for highlighting is a violation of basic SE guidelines - tags should reflect what is a question is about rather than what it contains.  If people did not abuse the C++ tag for every question that merely happens to contain some C++ code, the issue of this page would not exist, and the tag could properly be used for language questions.  As you point out, there is a correct way to do syntax highlighting - additionally syntax highlighting is hardly essential.  Last I checked the arduino IDE did not even support it :-;

That was a while ago, right? It would make more sense if SE automatically switched on C++ syntax colouring in code in the Arduino section. Newbies won't know about the tag to turn on colouring (nor care, probably). And what other language would code be in?


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Please welcome your new moderators!
First off, thanks to everyone who participated at the Provisional Community Moderator Nominations meta post.
I may eventually be contacting additional users to fill more moderator slots, but I wanted to get the folks below activated before things really started to take off.
Throughout the beta, we need members from this site whose focus is to engage the community, both in community-building issues and site management. That's why we select a few members from each community to act as temporary, provisional Moderators. You can read about the program here: Moderators Pro Tempore.
I am pleased to announce that these members have stepped up and generously volunteered their time to help us assure that this community’s issues are properly addressed:

We want to make this site a huge success, and these members are great examples of exactly the type of people we need to make this site succeed. Please welcome them for the hard work and time they contribute.
Did I overlook anyone?
Yes, almost certainly. At the nomination post alone, there were more great choices than positions available. There are members who are actively involved and very deserving of recognition. My inability to account for everyone this early on is in no way a slight against them. Ideally, Moderators are elected by the community and that's why you'll have your elections several weeks after graduation.
Most of all, be respectful and understanding of the Moderators Pro Tem. Members of your community are volunteering their time and learning on the job. It’s a learning experience for everyone.

Congrats to all! I'm sure you'll do a great job!

That was quick! Congratulations to everybody!

Congratulations, folks! Use your new powers wisely. We'll be watching :D

Thanks everybody!

I would be interested in being a Mod. Please contact me so i don't miss another nomination post (i was only gone 2 days)

@TheDoctor What does being gone two days have to do with it? It was up for a week. I do however agree that the nomination post should have been more prominent. By the time I saw the post, Peter, Sachleen, and Chris already had so many votes that I had no chance of catching up when I nominated myself.

@TheGuywithTheHat - i never saw it until it was over :(

@TheGuyWithTheHat What are you talking about? It was make [tag:featured] on the 24th, a day after the nominations thread had been posted. This is five days after the nominations thread has been posted.

@TheDoctor See my comment above this one.

@AnnonomusPerson Featured != Always noticed, and it's been a lot longer than five days since it was posted

@TheGuy I always notice the featured questions, but I also notice things that others don't. :) But I was refering for the five days from when it was posted to when this was posted.


text:
Who are the notable bloggers in the Arduino community, and how can we get them involved?
We have established a repository having some excellent questions. Its now time to get the word out about Arduino. There are many people in the online world who manage very active and productive blogs. These individuals have a lot of referral power. They can help us reach new audiences and gain more members for our community.
If you're a blogger, or if you know a blogger, who may be interested in picking one of our most interesting questions, blogging about the topic, and then referring the readers to our site, please mention them below.
Also, share any ideas you may have about how to get them interested in the site (if they aren't already!)

Did anyone contact Massimo Banzi about promoting arduino.SE or even participating to it? There's no better referrene than he, I think.

@jfpoilpret Maybe, we should try to get the attention of the people running Arduino.cc and other related blogs before we go directly to the founding team. It makes sense to bring good content to the table when you bring it to the attention of the main Arduino team.

Here is one way:
Helping the Experts Get Answers

In A Recipe to Promote your Site, Robert provided a great set of guidelines for organically growing your Q&A community. Buried within was this observation:

Reach the right kind of publications and bloggers. Make sure that the key experts in every field know about the site; not just the “Martha Stewart” big names; we want to talk to the people who go to these conferences.

But how do you reach writers, bloggers, and other notable experts in the field?
Help them get answers to their questions, too!

When a blogger or other publisher/expert has a problem, say to yourself, "hey, there’s a site for that!" — then go ahead and ask the the question on their behalf… and send them what you find.
If you continue to provide excellent answer like you have been, you have a pretty good chance of adding a valuable member and evangelist to this community for a long time to come.

I wonder if anyone here follows Arduino on Twitter. This might be a good way to promote our site. Unfortunately, I don't have a Twitter account and haven't bothered creating one.

I use Twitter occasionally. I tweeted about this site just now, and tagged the official Arduino feed in it. Hopefully it'll get re-tweeted and word will spread. :)

There's Jeremy blum, JeremyBlum.com, I'm an arduino newbie, I searched on Youtube for tutorials, and his videos are HUGELY popular. This his channel
He seems to be a member on element14.com, there seems to be a good experienced arduino community there, I don't know for sure, I'm not a member there.
I don't know how to contact them, try using the contact form on Jeremy's site and introduce this site. I am not qualified to contact him on behalf of this site, I'm not a mod, I just signed, and I am a newbie when it comes to Arduino.
By the way, on arduino.cc forums, there are some very good people, if you can get them to visit this site.
I wish you guys the best of luck, I really was angry when the arduino site went down the first time. I really love arduino, I hope you guys can get the best of the best in the Arduino community. Best of luck!

There doesn't seem to be a "respected" Arduino individual that I know of*
*There are a few blogs with a lot of respect but are managed by multiple people. If there was one, single respected person, he/she would probably be posted here already.

Hack a Day: They post about many fun and creative projects, from automatic flame throwing pumpkins, to DIY heat cameras. I don't know if this is the thing that they would blog about... it's more of a "hard core EE" site. Some beginners that know a lot in other areas but not in Arduino might come here if anything's posted. Also, we might be able to gain some more advanced users and/or questions. EDIT: We were mentioned on this blog!
MAKE: They post a lot of beginner oriented projects and tutorials. They also have a store and a magazine. Again, they wouldn't probably won't just put a link in.
Lifehacker: They post mainly tips for the geeky person. If you don't read it, I would recommend it. This one would be hardest to get a link only: but I have an idea to get it on one of this sites...

How do we get a link on a site that big?
We don't, really. We need to generate great content of how to do something, find a clever solution, and send it in to one of those. For Hack a Day, the toilet paper question might get mentioned if it generates a great answer. Make probably would need a good tutorial on how to do something that they could rewrite with pictures (and throw in a link). Lifehacker?: Anything that would make your life more productive and is fairly easy to DIY, even for a software kind-of-guy.

I doubt that we could get a mention on all of the sites above.
You wanted a list of "prominent" blogs in the community, I gave you what are read often. (Making it a wiki: edit this list if you want to.) But I think if we work hard, we can get something on a popular site.
But wait... there's more!
One thing often overlooked is Wikipedia. Seriously. Sometimes, Wikipedia comes before the actual site in Google. We currently aren't ranked on Google. If someone was Googling something along the lines of, *arduino forum site***, Wikipedia may come up on the first page due to its high SEO. I think we should try all of the above sites, but Wikipedia doesn't need any real approval to be posted about. It has great SEO, and we might even get up into Google sooner than without (with cross-linking sites). Note: I'm no expert at SEO, so correct me if I'm wrong anybody.
**Although I hate this, we should probably put some mention about being a forum in the Wikipedia article. It'll get better ranking in Google. We could probably even do:

Arduino Stack Exchange is similar to a forum, but it is categorized as a Question and answer site. Foo bar blah blah...

Are there any SE sites other than the trilogy([so], [su], [sf]) that have Wikipedia posts?

@AsheeR Yes, Ask Ubuntu. I'm surprised the pages aren't better maintained... or at least for all sites out of beta. Even the main Stack Exchange page is pretty dull.

@Annonomus Person: regarding "form" in "Arduino form site", "being a form in", and "similar to a form": Do you mean "forum"?

@PeterMortensen Yep.

For what its worth, I added a link on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino a few day ago and its still standing. (It took me a few days to build up enough points to comment here)

I don' know if Nick Gammon is a "notable blogger", but I've just discovered his blog (actually it seems to be a forum but posts in it are more akin to blog posts) yesterday and found it full of interesting stuff about Arduino, in particular the interrupts post which is what brought me there, I found this post incredibly complete about all one would want to know about Arduino interrupts.
He also has a GitHub repository with a few interesting utilities for Arduino.


text:
What should we do for Arduino Day 2014?
From the official Arduino site:

Arduino Day is a worldwide celebration of Arduino’s first 10 years. It's 24 hours full of events – both official and independent, anywhere around the world – where people interested in Arduino can meet, share their experiences, and learn more.
Who can participate?
Arduino invites all Arduino user groups, makerspaces, hackerspaces, fablabs, associations, teachers, pros, and newbies to participate. Let’s make this the biggest birthday party yet!

Arduino Day is on the 29th of March. What can we do to join in on the worldwide event?

possible duplicate of Project Showcase '14 is coming to Arduino Stack Exchange! (Updated 3/19/14)

Project Showoff Day/Week!

Arduino hackers are almost always working on creating something interesting. Lets have an event inviting users to post pictures and descriptions of their coolest  projects, and we could drool over discuss them.
To participate, the user must post:

Atleast one picture (necessary)
Video link on Youtube (optional)
Aim of the project
Basic breakdown of components
Short description or video^ of working

The projects can be anything but must utilise an Arduino board.

This could be done on either main, meta or chat. After a discussion with Peter, we are leaning towards holding this on a single question on main.
The timeline could also be longer, encompassing a week starting from 23th and culminating on 29th.

Having discussed this on chat, I think it sounds like a good idea. It would hopefully be a good way to encourage new folks to sign up and post their projects.

I don't really know about the must utilise an Arduino board. It might be better to say it must use any microcontroller that an official board contains. Size may be an issue with an official board.

ok say I participate and created something original, how would I know that  someone here won't steal my idea? can we have some copyright?

@Fischer http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/225488/200868

Kickoff of the Blog / Project of the month?
This is similar to AsheeshR's answer. With this we might be able to:

Generate new visitors
Gain network-wide attention (possibly)
Generate much quality content (in one post, I know)
Rally excitement for our site from the current users.

It seems like a great way to celebrate Arduino's 10th anniversary.

Partner with Instructibles.com. The people there are CRAZY for the Arduino!

Why the downvote? I don't think is a bad idea, and if it is someone should say why


text:
What should we do with the Arduino.cc promotion link?
A while ago, when i proposed this site, i put up a link on the Arduino playground to the Area 51 proposal of Arduino:

Now that we're public, should i change it to link to he actual site? Should i delete it entirely?
Note: i will make the necessary changes once we arrive at a conclusion.

Definitely change it to the main site now. Don't delete it as it's good promotion of the site.

It's down at the bottom in small print. Should i change this also?

@TheDoctor Yes, definitely. (As long as you don't get in any trouble) It is good advertising and we need traffic, especially since currently we're not in Google.

OK, edited! http://playground.arduino.cc/

AskUbuntu was launched by Stack Exchange and Canonical and is now linked to prominently from the top bar of Ubuntu.com

Ask Ubuntu is also linked to from the installation GUI. This is beneficial for the site as it generates a lot of traffic.
I think we should also aim for more visibility within the Arduino platform.
We should be here:

Also, if you open the Arduino IDE, it links back to Arduino.cc from the Help menu. We should be there as well, alongside Arduino.cc
Both of these however, are more long term goals, and will most likely require the support of Stack Exchange, due to Arduino trademark issues.

That's outside my range of edification

Found this question again, but the reason it's there is because Canonical had a special agreement with SE. I'm sure if Arduino SE permitted, we could get that, but (as of now) we aren't any official support.


text:
Q&A Series Ideas
We had a discussion in the Pin 13 chat room after this question was posted about starting a Q&A series.
This question is asking a very broad question that can't (and shouldn't) be covered in one answer. AsheeshR suggested the following:

For the library case, we could broadly cover:

How do i create the files? (done)
How do convert a sketch into a C library?
How do I convert a sketch into a C++ library?
How do I package a library and share it with others?

The second question could further be broken down to:

How do variables interact amongst a .cpp and .h file?
How do function definitions in a .cpp and .h file work?
How do I hide local functions in my .cpp file?

etc.

chat transcript
How interested would you guys be in doing a series like this?
What are some other ideas for a Q&A series?

Don't do things covered in many tutorials. Try to stay away from resistors or LEDs; those are everywhere on the web. If you want to go into a rotary encoder or a LCD display, go ahead. Try not to duplicate basic content.

Yes, I agree entirely with @AnnonomusPerson . We should do these in cases where the available tutorials are poor, and we have some value to add (i.e. write a better guide, or maybe fill in gaps in existing tutorials).

The second question seems clearly outside the scope of arduino.SE since it is purely related to C++. The first question is more related to Arduino (IDE in particular), although bullets 2 and 3 would be more about program design (and OOO-design for bullet 3)


text:
Can we get a way to accent Yún?
The Arduino Yún board, has an accent in it's name.
Unless you're using a modified/Spanish/Italian keyboard, it's hard to add the accent. It obviously isn't a huge deal, but I thought it might be something to think about. Could we:

Just ignore it? (Note: I didn't tag it feature-request if we wanted to ignore it)
Add an accent symbol on the toolbar?
Have some sort of script that automatically renames the instances of "Yun"

Technically, we're misspelling a board's name on purpose. Is this even a big deal?

I don't think it's a huge deal. I don't know how hard it is to add a toolbar button but I still don't think it adds too much/any value.

This is probably not worth the effort. It is unlikely there will be any confusion without the accent on Yun.

I don't think it is a big deal, but it is nice to get things looking right... regardless, we have three excellent examples, in the answers below, as to how to obtain a "ú".... :-)

If you're working on Windows, try holding the left Alt key and type 163 on the numpad (the cluster of number keys at the right-hand side of many conventional keyboards). That should give you the accented ú character.
It may only work on American/British English systems.
For laptops/notebooks, you may have to enable num lock or similar to use part of the main keyboard as a numpad.

+1; works for me.

If you are using Mac OS. You can get the accent by pressing

alt+e followed by u.

I don't see a special need for an extra icon in the toolbar.

on OSX Lion+ (i think), hold u and then press 4 when a menu comes up

I wonder if HTML entities like ú pruduce Yún in stackexchange markdown? ... it seems they do.
This is handy if you have a tenkeyless keyboard or can't remember decimal numbers for every accented character.

Good suggestion. I don't think HTML entities will work everywhere though, e.g. in question titles and comments. For example: ú


text:
Blog / Project of the month?
It might be a bit early for things like this, but (since there are so many interesting and surprising things being done with Arduino) how about some kind of rolling community interaction and showcasing a bit like photography.SE's photo of the week, where people post interesting Arduino projects they've made or heard about, and the most upvoted every month / fortnight / week gets showcased in, say, a short blog post where the project's author or a volunteer explains why it's interesting?
Something like this done right could build traffic and activity that turns into better questions and answers, and more loyal enthusiastic users.

There might be loads of blogs and showcase sites out there that do this sort of showcasing really well already which we might not want to compete with - in which case, this question might be a good place to drop some links.
If there are a few but they're inconsistent or infrequently updated, doing something like a "project of the month" based on a continuously open place to post submissions could be a nice way to focus attention on this site as a hub, while also promoting other sites with (hopefully popular) links through.

While I wholly support the idea, it may be too early to direct attention on a blog before we even establish a core community of users for the site itself. The site is about Q&A first and foremost, and that needs a fair bit of focus for now.
Even the Photography contest you link to was started almost 2 years after the site went into its public beta.
A once a week or month event in chat would be a good starting point to move towards a full-fledged vote and blog event. In fact, I posted this idea on another discussion.

I like the idea of a one-off event with plenty of build-up time, which could evolve into something regular if it goes well. I might suggest Meta rather than chat to start with as it's easier to link to, easier to browse/compare entries, and better shows off the SE format for any experienced Arduino people who aren't used to SE (i.e. ideal new users).

What's the point of linking users out of the site? Why can't we hold a contest?
I love the idea. However, I don't really know how valuable it would be to link users out of the site unless we just wanted recurring visitors. Not to mention, it'll be link-only answers galore. A better solution would be to have a user to interact with the site, giving the user interest in the site and the content.
One thing that we would have to think about is the logistical standpoint. To do such a project, it might be a little non-SE style to make many posts that are too localised. We'll have to draw a definite line on how far is too far. For example:

How do I make a robot that is 5x2x3, follows only green light, and plays a song when it can't find any green light? Way too pushy.
How do I mobilize by robot? Much better.

A "series" might be better. (See Q&A Series Ideas.) That way, it won't be too localised, it won't be able to be a link-only answer, and it would generate valuable traffic, not just someone who visits the site once a month. However, it is up to the poster to decide on it it's too localised or not.

One note: we should open another thread on the logistics if we want to start this.
Maybe we could start this on Arduino Day 2014?


text:
How relevant is Arduino SE?
I know this may seem as a troll, while the beta is going on and the community is building up, but I'm sincerely wondering how relevant is a site such as Arduino SE (same question applies to the Raspberry Pi Q&A site). The SE network has begun with Q&A sites oriented by "concerns" not by technologies: SO is all about programing problems, SU is about computer/application usage problems, SF is about system/networking problems.
Then you got a Q&A about apple iStuff questions, another about Unix questions (but no MS/Windows Q&A, though). And now, we've got a RPi Q&A and an Arduino Q&A community... So in my point of view the whole Knowledge Base aspect of SO is being diluated and redundant.
So let's get to my point, most of the questions I saw on the site could be moved elsewhere:

Why can I not use pointers instead of array with PROGMEM is a perfect example of a SO question (and is actually a duplicate of that answer) ;
Digital IO pin as ground is a good example of a EE question
What are the FLASH_ARRAY/FLASH_TABLE macros in this code?, SO again
How can I sense very high temperatures with Arduino? is again a topic for EE SE
How to trigger an alarm when toilet paper is low? would be a good question for EE SE, or maybe it could be a good example of the need of a "DIY"/"hacking" Q&A community site. Somehow the "opposite" of the reverse engineering site.

In the end, when I get through the list of all the questions I see no questions that are really 100% pure arduino topics. The questions could have been asked either on stackoverflow, on electrical engineering, on programming, and if we were closing the beta, I'm pretty sure we could move 99% of the questions on the other existing sites...
Maybe the only Q&A community site that's missing is a general abstract "DIY/hacking" community that given a problematic suggests a hardware and software solution to solve it, giving the best options to solve this problem.
In the end, Arduino is a nice prototyping tool, but it's far from being the only one, and it's not good at doing everything. The ST, PIC or MSP boards have their strong points as well, and shouldn't be excluded by the name of the Q&A forum. The only way I'd consider an arduino Q&A site, would be to turn into an arduino-tag aggregator from the other existing sites.
Reading this topic, makes me feel that SE/EE has a problem in the way it is working (when they downvote/offtopic arduino questions), where actually the tag system can be used for filtering out or favoriting the newbies/arduino questions. And I've been answering questions on SO about arduinos, and saw no real problems over there.
And the shopping questions gap should not be filled by a product-oriented site (because the problem stays with the ST, PIC or MSP prototyping boards which also have their own environment of shield-like/accessories), but with a "DIY/hacking" community that would actually fill the void between EE and SO, and be a good place for the "varied" audience a site such as this one here would get. And in the same time I fear that questions for embedded design will be made offtopic on SO or EE to be moved on other product sites, whereas questions about 100% alternative hardwares to arduino or RPi will still be offtopic on those sites, while not gathering a community big enough to build a product Q&A community.
And with new Arduino board like the Due, the Yun, or Intel's Galileo, the gap between Arduino and RPi/cubie/beaglebone boards is getting more and more blurry.
So, here am I asking your opinion:

how relevant do you think is Arduino SE?
don't you think it'd be a better idea to create a "hacking/DIY/inventing" community to talk about ideas and suggest paths to build a solution to a problem and fill the gap that product-oriented sites like RPi and Arduino do?
how to deal with alternatives platforms, like MSP/STM/PIC for MCUs or Beaglebone/Cubieboard/Gooseberry/OlinuXino... boards?

In the end, I'm here to share my knowledge, and that's my main motivation in participating to whatever Q&A site, the hackerspaces ML I'm on, or even on IRC. But I strongly believe that a concern-oriented Q&A site is way better than a product-oriented Q&A site. If the arduino community want to build a support forum, they can make their own Q&A site like the Jolla community did using AskBot.

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/65915/diy-hacking?referrer=dLTDSpB0SFUTXhZRMWFTrw2

@TheDoctor http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/64785/making-and-building

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/55835/home-automation as well

Out of curiosity why do question the relevance of RaspPi.SE?  That site seems to be rather popular/active.

I'm not participating at all on RPi.SE, and I don't like the RPi for many educated reasons. But I'm a user of the beaglebone, the cubieboards and a few others which makes me "an expert" (I mean a guy who can answers lots of questions because it's my daily job), for which I still have to ask/answer questions on SO, SU/SE and EE. And now that the latest high end Arduinos are leaving the MCU world to the OMAP world, making them RPi-like boards.

and the "paper roll" question is a good example of a bad XY-problem question. I have a problem, I want to solve it, it's hardware+software, so I ask on Arduino.SE. What if the best solution is using a RPi-like board? or another MCU platform..?

@zmo But if I own an Arduino board, then I am constrained to a platform.

it's not because I own a screw driver that I shall use it as a hammer!

Yes, I don't understand this splintering either. The original site, Stack Overflow, was specifically not split into a Java site, a .NET site, a Python site, a Scala site, a COBOL site, a Forth site, a PHP site, an SQL site, a jQuery site, a JavaScript site, an Android programming site, a C++ site, a Ruby site, a Perl site, a Flex site, etc., instead relying on tagging for some degree of separation (e.g. excluding the horrible PHP questions from view).

http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/questions/13763/can-we-make-a-general-diy-site

zmo: That's like saying that someone should be open to using a CNC machine instead of a drill press. If one user wants to know how to do something with one platform, then they should do it with that platform if it's possible. //cc @asheesh

@AnnonomusPenguin - often times an experienced operator of a milling machine is precisely the person to explain why trying that operation on a drill press is highly dangerous.  Problems are frequently general cross vendor technologies, and by in effect "hiding" questions here, lower quality answers tend to result.

@Chris I agree totally that if it's not possible to tell the OP that. For example, if they want to do a true AI bot with Arduino, then we should inform them that that's simply too much for a little AVR chip. However, if they want to do a simple web page with Arduino (which is very possible and fairly simple) and already own $100 worth of Arduino parts, there's no reason to make them use a RPi

anyway, I think we can correlate the spread of stack overflow topics on other Q&A forums having an effect on the lower quality of questions and answers everybody is witnessing on the main site.

Posting this as an answer as it is too long for a comment, and I don't feel like re-iterating the same points again. A fair part of this debate occurred on the previous proposal page and has been going on for a year.

https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9084/whats-wrong-with-ee
Will a site proposal that covers a subset of Stack Overflow work?
https://electronics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2656/what-will-be-the-benefits-in-having-a-separate-arduino-site
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9112/what-should-be-the-scope-of-the-arduino-site
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9969/differences-with-ee
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9218/if-this-isnt-a-duplicate-of-ee-might-want-to-consider-elevating-fewer-electron
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12390/why-not-just-combine-the-arduino-proposal-with-the-existing-raspberry-pi-site
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12432/why-is-arduino-a-proposal-separate-from-embedded-programming-and-design
https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/12891/allowing-general-avr-microcontroller-questions-on-arduino-site

I completely disagree with you. There are plenty of questions that wouldn't fit on any other site:

Arduino Lego Robot Shopping question!
Serial data showing up weird

Serial data showing up weird is not a real question, even though I do not deny it could be useful, I'm not sure the way it is being asked will actually help people looking for answers: this is an example of "serial data showing up weird" question on another topic which shows how differently things can be asked. ~zmo

This question was asked a while ago and it seems like it was to set good examples for good formatted questions. By the way, there is no problem with answering your own question, it is even encouraged.
Where can I find a central repository of all available Arduino libraries?

is totally borderline imho, and even on arduino.SE I would tag that question as "too broad". And btw, there's the new library format being worked on that will lead into a pypi/apt-like registry for arduino libraries. This is being discussed and will be ultimately solved ~zmo

Borderline where? Not here... you must mean on SO. Exactly my point. We have a little corner of the web that we shape, we don't need to follow the typical site pattern. Also, it's not solved now, which is when users need it.
Are there any signal smoothing libraries for Arduino?
Are there any good and maintained libraries for using DS2482 I2C to 1-Wire bridge?

well I would tag that as too broad/primarly opinion based… Because in the end the answer to the question is where the OP went: update other's code or write it yourself. ~zmo

There's no harm in the user wanting a library that he/she can't find and then, after finding out there's none, writing their own and posting it. You don't close a question because they solved it themselves.

These are some borderline ones that may be acceptable if they're worded correctly, but they wouldn't get nearly as much attention as here:

What are the steps involved in porting an Arduino library? (Borderline)
What are (or how do I use) the power saving options of the Arduino to extend battery life? (Borderline)

that one would be a perfect fit on SO, or maybe because it may need some datasheet reading, on the embedded developers Q&A site still in proposal ~zmo

On any other site it'd probably be downvoted until the question falls to the center of the earth. One more comment... You expect a new user to be able to read a datasheet? I'm not saying everyone couldn't, but many can't. Sure, a datasheet is easy to read when you get used to it, but there's no reason that users should be left in the dark because they don't know how to read a datasheet.
What are the steps involved in porting an Arduino library? (Borderline)

A couple more responses:

but I don't see the coherence of multiplying product sites on Stack Exchange, whereas we're not addressing all the concerns.

SO it getting so big that it's surprising it hasn't turned into a wasteland yet. Even some SE folks have said so. Our network needs to expand and attract new users.

But the Arduino stack [exchange] is full of overhead and boilerplate, to make it nicer, but that in the end makes it difficult to move from the "funny hack" to something used more "seriously". There are other frameworks that are worth being included in the Q&A realm the same way you guys do for Arduino, and there are other platforms on which you can run the Arduino framework that are not 1:1 copycats of the Arduino.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. There are other frameworks that are worth being included in the Q&A realm the same way you guys do for Arduino Why don't you propose some on Area 51? Are you saying that this should be expanded? It's hard to create a focused site with so many broad topics included: especially with many different levels of users (i.e. beginner vs advanced).
[Edited 4/4/14 to update questions and add new content]

Another note, there was a lot of decision making at SE whether to allow this or not. Last Arduino beta, it failed for a reason you're proposing. We would've gotten shut down way before this if there wasn't unique territory here. Of course, there's going to be overlap on other sites... EE and SO have some overlap. That's inevitable. A better question would be how can we avoid overlap.

[Comment by me earlier.]

ok, let's answer to your opinions and elaborate on my point:
@AnnonomusPerson: I can't disagree more with you when you say There are plenty of questions that wouldn't fit on any other site:

Webserver On Arduino Even though this question includes the keyword « Arduino » which makes it specific to that platform, it could be asked on a non existing Q&A about hardware and software hacking that would be a balance to the proposal of the "embedded dev" proposal ;
How can I communicate Ardunio to Matlab that question could have perfectly been asked on SO, even though it would have been closed by lack of reseach of the OP and because there are dupes:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5003548/interfacing-arduino-with-matlab-for-image-processing/5004931
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18795171/matlab-and-arduino-does-anyone-know-how-to-establish-a-connection

Serial data showing up weird is not a real question, even though I do not deny it could be useful, I'm not sure the way it is being asked will actually help people looking for answers: this is an example of "serial data showing up weird" question on another topic which shows how differently things can be asked ;
Where can I find a central repository of all available Arduino libraries? is totally borderline imho, and even on arduino.SE I would tag that question as "too broad". And btw, there's the new library format being worked on that will lead into a pypi/apt-like registry for arduino libraries. This is being discussed and will be ultimately solved ;
Are there any good and maintained libraries for using DS2482 I2C to 1-Wire bridge? well I would tag that as too broad/primarly opinion based… Because in the end the answer to the question is where the OP went: update other's code or write it yourself.
What are the steps involved in porting an Arduino library? it would be, imho, a borderline but acceptable question on SO ;
How can I adapt the DallasTemperature library to accept another 1-Wire class? that one would be a perfect fit on SO, or maybe because it may need some datasheet reading, on the embedded developers Q&A site still in proposal ;
What are (or how do I use) the power saving options of the Arduino to extend battery life? basically, this question is laziness of reading the datasheet where all that is well explained, though it could be asked on the non existing hardware and software hacking Q&A, or the embedded dev Q&A that is to come, or even on EE.SE.

it took me more than two minutes to get to the point, and yes, it can be fun to create an arduino Q&A, but I don't see the coherence of multiplying product sites on Stack Exchange, whereas we're not addressing all the concerns.
@AsheeshR, I hope that you will be able to build a community here, and maybe become the official Q&A of Arduino, I'm not trying to mine your project, guys… But I think that Arduino is just a trendy and nice brigde between hardware and software world.
But the Arduino stack is full of overhead and boilerplate, to make it nicer, but that in the end makes it difficult to move from the "funny hack" to something used more "seriously". There are other frameworks that are worth being included in the Q&A realm the same way you guys do for Arduino, and there are other platforms on which you can run the Arduino framework that are not 1:1 copycats of the Arduino.

to value more my point about this forum, what to think about that question which is talking about the PIC32 using the Arduino framework and pin compatible with arduino, but asking something about sleep modes which is not handled by the Arduino framework. It's not a good fit on EE or SO, but it's neither on Arduino.SE! It deserves the embedded dev forum proposal.

First of all, calling our site a forum is insulting to many users across the whole network of Q&A sites. That's like calling an espresso machine a drip coffee maker. :) Another note, there was a lot of decision making at SE whether to allow this or not. Last Arduino beta, it failed for a reason you're proposing. We would've gotten shut down way before this if there wasn't unique territory here. Of course, there's going to be overlap on other sites... EE and SO have some overlap. That's inevitable. A better question would be how can we avoid overlap. (Edited my answer a few times)

well, coming from a strong usenet background, where many forums are dign ancestors of SE's Q&As, I can't consider calling a Q&A site an insult. The web-only php-bb like "things" where an insult to the whole concept of communication! I'm not going to fight against a moving train, I think I made my point quite clear, and I don't think I'll be able to accept any answer, except if there's one answer that gets a lot more points than the others ;-) About the how can we avoid overlap I think the answer would be to keep on separating Q&As by concern and improve the tag filtering accross sites! :-)

Hey! I'm not the one who get's offended by that... although most people just like users using the technical term. Your point IMHO isn't clear. There is a ton of overlap between SO and EE. SO is getting to big: half of the Arduino questions are about circuits and they aren't closed or answered. They "fall between the couch cushions." There's still unique questions here that can't fall into any other site (including, but not limited to shopping questions). Also, SO isn't focused on programming errors, it's about coding in general.