text:
Requesting further review
Mods - I'm writing this in Meta because the site is limiting me from writing out my full request. Please re-review my answer to this question.: First Arduino Uno - Immediate Problems
A mod wrote "It is a question eliciting further information."
Actually, it is a full answer. I pointed out some missing information that seemed - and was, in fact - relevant, AND I went on to offer the correct solution, as stated by the OP!: to load the missing drivers, which I had also located. I believe this is an/the appropriate answer. So did the OP as he stated in a followup comment. With the OP stating it solved his problem, how is this not an answer?!
You've asked me to review my answer, my flag, and the moderators' denial, and I have done so. Now I am asking you - several of you, please - to review all of the foregoing, and tell me why an answer, accepted in writing by the OP - still deserves to be demoted.
I am asking you restore restore my answer. It deserves a place next to other answers, and it/I deserves an opportunity to be upvoted and/or selected, just as does any other answer that solves a problem does.
On a site with the standing of Stack Exchange, please don't tell me that moderation is considered mistake-proof, is final, and may not be peer-reviewed. Without any intention of blowing my own horn, I ask you to review the all-time standings; I didn't just wander in here yesterday. Your users - my peers - apparently feel that I add some value here. In this case, the OP has stated so, too.
I believe this disagreement deserves an honest and fair review by both sides. I have thoroughly reviewed my contribution and I stand by it for all of the foregoing reasons. I am asking for a similar honest and thorough review of the facts by the moderation team.

write an answer now

The proper sequence should have been:

Ask for more clarification in comments, and make suggestions
The OP tries them and confirms what works
You write an answer that details what turned out to be wrong, why it was wrong, and what the fix is.

What you did:

Write an answer that asked for more clarification, and made some suggestions.

What we did:

Convert your answer to fit the proper pattern.
Fend off your moaning.

Feel free, now parts 1 and 2 of the proper sequence have been completed, to fill in part 3 by writing a proper answer detailing what was wrong, what the fix is, and why that is the fix.

Oh dear. There don't seem to be any winners here. I agree with Majenko that the first sentence of your answer would appear better put as a comment under the question. That is what comments under the question are for.
I don't see any problem with the rest of your answer except that it doesn't really address the "access denied" issue. However answers should not be deleted just because they are wrong. I suggest you make another answer which focusses on answering the question, and also put further queries about whether or not the OP has installed drivers as a comment.
I am going to remove comments which don't seem to be appropriate under our Code of Conduct.


text:
Is it allowed to ask a question if you've already have an solution/answer?
Is it allowed to ask a question if you've already have an solution/answer?
This could be done to get alternative options/solutions for algorithms. But on the other hand may distract from people who are actually struggling with a real problem.
Also, for algorithms/improvements, you have programming or programming puzzle stackexchange which may be better suited. And when talking about algorithms/programming it's not really specific to Arduino anymore, as at this point it's usually C/C++.

My example:
I have an LED matrix of 12x12, but they are connected in an "S" way.
Like for example:
 1  2  3  4
 8  7  6  5
 9 10 11 12
16 15 14 13

Now I would have to map these LED nr's to X-Y coordinates (which is not just x+y*width because it's in an S pattern).
I feel it's not really Arduino specific and I already have (2 actually) answers for it, but I'm really curious to see if there's another simpler solution to it (to the logic to my own solution).

Also, I'm curious if as in code-golf you're allowed to state that the answer with least bytes / fastest execution time (or something like that) will 'win'?

In general, yes, you're allowed. However, the question and the self-answer should be judged on its own just like normal Q&A, meaning they should be on-topic, standalone, self-contained, etc. For code-golf, there's already a site dedicated for it: [codegolf.se]

@AndrewT. thanks for the link to the article about answering your own question, I now see that can also be used to encourage others to come up with a 'better' or alternative solution.

You're kind of in a borderland area there :)
I would say:

If you are looking for other ways to implement something, or
Your code uses the Arduino API or Arduino libraries, or
You have something that "works" but you don't know if it's the "right" way of doing it

then sure, go for it. While it could apply to other environments, if you're doing on Adruino with Arduino libraries (like the FastLED library for example) then I for one have no problem with it.
I wouldn't go for the "code golf" thing though. What the "best" answer is would be very subjective. Readability could be more beneficial than shaving one clock cycle off the execution - especially when the Arduino API itself is not that efficient in the first place.
As far as your example goes, I would submit an answer. It would contain something like:
int ledNumber = (y * width) + ((y & 1) ? (width - x - 1) : x);

Good one. I could ask it on Arduino.SE to get a solution (and possible multiple), or potentially ask help to improve the execution speed if required. But if I would be interested in the more theoretical/mathematical solution, there is other SE's that are better fit. (In that case one could/would strip the "algorithm" from it's implementation, which also makes it not about Arduino)

Also I found a few other LED strip table projects which do have different solutions (such as putting the whole list in PROGMEM) and I myself had the same solution as you (except I used modulo to check for odd/even), but I figure your bitwise-& would be more efficient.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Flagging: "Not an Answer", "Very Low Quality" or something else?
I've had a couple of flags declined which has made me wonder if I fully understand the use of particular flags on Arduino:SE, so I'm going to post this as a question here in the hope of getting some guidance.

Flag: Not An Answer
A little while back, I flagged this answer as Not an Answer since it doesn't appear to make any attempt to answer the question that the OP had actually asked.  The guidance for the flag states:

This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question. It should possibly be an edit, a comment, another question, or deleted altogether.

In this case - in my opinion - the answer posted makes no attempt to answer the question that was asked. A later (upvoted) comment seems to agree.  Yet the flag was declined:

declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

Now, the answer in this case doesn't appear to be 'technically inaccurate', or 'wrong'.  It just makes no attempt to answer the question that was asked!
Now, my analogy here would be if I asked how to get from London to Glasgow without using the train, and the reply told me to catch the 12:42 train from Euston.  Yes, it's an answer, it may not be 'technically inaccurate', or 'wrong', but it doesn't make any attempt to answer the question that I actually asked!
So what am I missing?

Flag: Very Low Quality
Today, I flagged this answer for being Very Low Quality because it doesn't appear to be an answer to the question that was asked, although in this case it does attempt to address an 'assumption' mentioned by the OP in that question.
Now, I would say - again in my opinion - that this should have been posted as a comment on the question, rather than as an answer.  However the user that posted the answer doesn't have sufficient rep to post comments.
The actual question is clearly stated both in the title, and in the body of the question, and this makes no attempt to answer it.
My first reaction was to flag it as Not an Answer since the fact that it should be a comment is explicitly given as a reason in the guidance for that flag.  However, given my previous experience I thought I'd play safe and just flag it as Very Low Quality since - again in my opinion - the content problems mean that it also meets the criteria for that flag:

This question has severe formatting or content problems. This question is unlikely to be salvageable through editing, and might need to be removed.

(Incidentally, the user that posted the answer has since made it clear in the comments that they were addressing the assumption rather than the question)
Again, the flag was declined:

declined - flags should not be used to indicate technical inaccuracies, or an altogether wrong answer

Once again, the answer doesn't appear to be 'technically inaccurate', or 'wrong'. As before, it just make no attempt to answer the question that was asked!
So, was I wrong to flag this as Very Low Quality?  Should it instead have been flagged as Not an Answer (as my first instinct suggested)?  Or should we not bother flagging answers like this at all?

Clearly I am missing something, and some guidance would be appreciated here.

this answers should be closed by voting. the privilege is awarded at 500 reputation points, so you have it

@Juraj That is for questions.  Vote to delete answers is awarded at 2000 rep.

Flag: Not An Answer
Answers should not be flagged just because they are wrong, or even appear to answer a different question, as in your example. "Not an answer" would be something like "I had this problem too, can you help me?". If it looks like an answer, then it is an answer, or to put it another way not not an answer. Voting answers like this down is the appropriate thing to do, as that reduces workload on the moderators.

Flag: Very Low Quality
This flag is for stuff like "nope, that won't work" or similar short, unpunctuated, unhelpful answers (or complete nonsense). I think this particular answer from your example doesn't really answer the question, but it is presented as an answer, and thus is neither low quality nor "not an answer". Again, voting it down, and/or adding a comment disagreeing with it is the appropriate thing to do.

It costs you a bit of rep to vote answers down (this is to discourage people from whimsically doing that) however you have other tools at your disposal:

Make a comment pointing out, politely, that this answer either won't work or doesn't address the question.
Vote up a better answer, that will put the "bad" answer down the list where people will give it less credit.
Make your own, better, answer. Personally I think that answering it yourself, and showing what a good answer is, with explanations and detail is really helping the site out. Merely pointing out that other answers are bad isn't quite as helpful. Other people will then, hopefully, agree with you and vote you up. Then you get rep points for your fabulous answer. Win win!

Fair enough. Although that does directly contradict the guidance for the NAA flag, which states 'This was posted as an answer, but it does not attempt to answer the question'. I'll try to use your definitions when flagging in future.

Sounds like there's always going to be a fuzzy area in interpretation of "is or is not an answer" between something like "Is structured as an answer" to "Does not help the person asking". That is, deciding to consider only the structure and not the textual meaning, or to consider the meaning and structure together.

I suppose it depends on whether you focus on "does not answer the question" or "does not answer the question". These have different emphases. My general attitude is "if it looks like an answer, and is at least vaguely related to the question" then it is OK. We have rep voting and vote-to-close for other sorts of answers. If it looks like an answer, and isn't something ridiculous like "to do that, boil the eggs for another 10 minutes" then that isn't really something a moderator needs to look at.

I think that the Very low quality flag puts it into the Low Quality Posts queue, so if there is an answer that shouldn't be there, then that is how it should be flagged. At least, that is the assumption that I've been working under. This flag appears to result in no required moderator intervention Whereas the Not an answer flag does seem to require mod attention, and this attention would not have been necessary, had the answer been instead flagged as Very low quality. But I may be wrong - I was confused about this for quite a few years.

If there is doubt, you could vote to close instead. That lets the general community decide whether they agree with you.

Just another perspective to add to the discussion:
I look at the answer with the thought of another person having a similar issue who has found this page through a search.
Sometimes it does not answer the exact question the OP has asked or has strayed out of the OP's bounds, I think to myself, if I came across this with my similar issue would I find it useful?

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Formatting and indenting (but not fixing) code in question
With respect to this question, Need help with wire connections and code, I feel sorry for the OP, as their code's indentation seems to get worse at each edit iteration.
There are obvious code errors in the sketch (one of which I pointed out in my answer). However, it's impossible to follow the code now as a lot of indentation has been removed, and I gave up trying.
I thought about fixing the indentation in the question, for the OP, but I stopped myself. However, I've seen that Majenko, on occasion, has submitted an answer (i.e. here), with the code correctly indented, rather than fixing indentation of the code in the question, and without actually correcting the code errors, but pointing them out instead, for the OP to fix.
Is that what I should do in this case (or rather, would that be an acceptable answer)? Or should I fix the indentation in the question itself?
I really only want to just fix the indentation and have it posted somewhere - hopefully after that the error will be a lot more obvious to point out.

In my opinion, it is acceptable to edit the question to adjust what amounts to the whitespace of poorly formatted code, so long as the actual function is not changed (so as not to corrupt the question as asked). This has the benefit of helping those who come along later and find the question -- so they may be able to understand whether or not it helps them.

I don't believe there is any problem at all in editing a question to improve it. If you weren't supposed to do that, there wouldn't be that privilege. See:
Help Center > Privileges > edit questions and answers

What is edit questions and answers?
We believe in the power of community editing. That means once you've generated enough reputation, we trust you to edit anything in the system without it going through peer review. Not just your posts— anyone's posts!
When should I edit posts?
Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so. Editing is encouraged!
Some common reasons to edit are:

to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes
to clarify the meaning of a post without changing it
to correct minor mistakes or add addendums / updates as the post ages
to add related resources or hyperlinks

So that is pretty clear that tidying up a question is not only OK, it is encouraged! New posters may not realize how to format code, for example. So rather than ticking them off, you can improve it for them, maybe posting a comment underneath explaining how you did that, to help them for next time.

As for the specific whitespace issue, sometimes I copy code, run it through the IDE auto-format, and paste it back. The more readable the code is, the easier to fix bugs! You could, again, explain how you did that, and why it helps.

Thanks Nick. I hope that it didn't come across as if I were ticking them off. I think that at the time, I had just got exasperated that their edits had regressed the formatting that I had already done. auto-format, well there's a menu item that I had never ever noticed before - excellent, that is much more efficient. As they say, you learn something new every day :-)

@Greenonline - I'm not suggesting that you were ticking anyone off. I think it is useful, as far as possible :) when replying to, or commenting on, posts to help the poster improve their posts. This answer was intended to be more general than just be addressed to you. These meta posts will persist into the future.

I believe the OP should be notified (eg through a comment) that the indenting has been fixed and how they can do that easily in the IDE.
As jose can u c said;

In my opinion, it is acceptable to edit the question to adjust what amounts to the whitespace of poorly formatted code, so long as the actual function is not changed (so as not to corrupt the question as asked). This has the benefit of helping those who come along later and find the question -- so they may be able to understand whether or not it helps them.

Clearly, fixing the brace problem would have corrupted the question asked, but fixing whitespace does not.
We are volunteers and anything that can save you and me time in answering is welcome - as long as it doesn't change/corrupt the problem.


text:
2019 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
Arduino is scheduled for an election next week, May 13. In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation.  Participation is completely voluntary.
Here's how it'll work:

Until the nomination phase, (so, until May 13 at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.
We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.
If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of [text](link), as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.
This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at currently.
At the start of the nomination phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election.
Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, typically containing 10 questions in total.
This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

If you have any questions or feedback about this process, feel free to post as a comment here.

Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

In your opinion, what do moderators do?
A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?
In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

my question:
How will you handle questions that doesn't require knowledge about the Arduino platform to answer (general coding questions, general electronics questions)?

A question has a lengthy number of comments under it suggesting various possible solutions to the asked problem. Once the number of comments reaches 20 the system (Community) automatically flags it suggesting that the comments be moved to chat. You move the comments to chat as suggested, and then get a complaint from a user that "valuable information is now hidden away in chat rather than under the question where it should be". How do you respond?

A question is flagged as "off-topic" because it only peripherally involves an Arduino. For example "How do I get my Arduino to turn on a motor using a transistor?". Should it be closed altogether, migrated to Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange (where they are used to questions about transistors), or left here as a good beginner's Arduino question? Alternatively would you dismiss the flag and let the community handle the question via down-votes or vote-to-close?

I suggested this last election, but I think it is an OK question to use again.

my question 2:
How would you prefer to handle a Question, if the source of the problem is only a typo in the OP's source code?


text:
2019 Community Moderator Election
The 2019 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:

Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase

Most elections take between two and three weeks, but this depends on how many candidates there are.
Please visit the official election page at
https://arduino.stackexchange.com/election
for more detail, and to participate!
If you have general questions about the election process, or questions for moderator candidates, feel free to ask them here on meta -- just make sure your questions are tagged election.


text:
2019 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire
In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.
Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 9 questions.
As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes.Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.
Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.
Good luck to all of the candidates!
Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.
To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):
Ghanima
VE7JRO

A question has a lengthy number of comments under it suggesting various possible solutions to the asked problem. Once the number of comments reaches 20 the system (Community) automatically flags it suggesting that the comments be moved to chat. You move the comments to chat as suggested, and then get a complaint from a user that "valuable information is now hidden away in chat rather than under the question where it should be". How do you respond?
How will you handle questions that doesn't require knowledge about the Arduino platform to answer (general coding questions, general electronics questions)?
How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
A question is flagged as "off-topic" because it only peripherally involves an Arduino. For example "How do I get my Arduino to turn on a motor using a transistor?". Should it be closed altogether, migrated to Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange (where they are used to questions about transistors), or left here as a good beginner's Arduino question? Alternatively would you dismiss the flag and let the community handle the question via down-votes or vote-to-close?
How would you prefer to handle a Question, if the source of the problem is only a typo in the OP's source code?
In your opinion, what do moderators do?
A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?
In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Ghanima

Preface

From my nomination to become moderator on RaspberryPi.SE in 2015 (see here):

I believe in the power of the crowd and cooperation. Therefore it is my firm hope that a mod only has to step in in the rare cases where self-regulation fails. I see the work of moderators as part of the work the community does as a whole - after all Stack Exchange is community moderated and moderators are also just users.
It is my understanding that the community members should define the goals and policies of the site together (e.g. in meta), with the mods aiding to focus this process and helping to implement the agreed upon procedures. As a moderator I would like to act as part of a team on behalf of and to the benefit of the community.

Over the past four years my hopes in community moderation were confirmed to a very large extend. The main exception being that on small stacks collecting five close votes takes forever so I tended to visit that particular review queue quite often to cast a binding vote if I felt that there would be a community consensus for closure.
Arduino's and RaspberryPi's stacks are roughly of a similar size and according to this and that are rather peaceful at that (considering the use of the heavy moderation tools, contacting users and casting suspensions).

A question has a lengthy number of comments under it suggesting various possible solutions to the asked problem. Once the number of comments reaches 20 the system (Community) automatically flags it suggesting that the comments be moved to chat. You move the comments to chat as suggested, and then get a complaint from a user that "valuable information is now hidden away in chat rather than under the question where it should be". How do you respond?

I would try to convince that user how comments are supposed to work - backing that up with positions outlined at numerous posts on Meta.Stackexchange. Furthermore I would suggest that "valuable information" should be either incorporated into the body of the question by editing it or posted as an answer instead.
In short: "under the question" is in fact not "where it should be". All relevant information concerning the question should be part of the question, everything that is an answer should be posted as such, not as a comment.

How will you handle questions that doesn't require knowledge about the Arduino platform to answer (general coding questions, general electronics questions)?

According to this stack's helpcenter those questions are considered off-topic. If they are reasonably phrased and of sufficient quality I would migrate them to the appropriate stack, i.e. Stackoverflow or Electrical Engineering. If in doubt I would try to reach out to a moderator of those stacks before migrating. Sometimes it is more appropriate to rephrase a question and put emphasis on other aspects when posting on another stack, in which case I would use comments to guide the user to do that instead of migrating.

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Clear and open communication with the user is key here. The tools to do so are available - private chats and/or "contacting the user". I have come to understand that the teamwork of the moderators can help to alleviate any interpersonal sensitivities. If talking the issue through is not helping to resolve the problem, even suspensions should be considered, assuming serious infractions.
The be nice policy of Stackexchange applies to all contributors regardless of seniority or amassed reputation (see here).

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

Talk it through in the moderator's chat room. Usually there is no need to rush things and single-handedly reverse another moderators decision. Hear them out the understand their point of view and motivation first before acting.

A question is flagged as "off-topic" because it only peripherally involves an Arduino. For example "How do I get my Arduino to turn on a motor using a transistor?". Should it be closed altogether, migrated to Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange (where they are used to questions about transistors), or left here as a good beginner's Arduino question? Alternatively would you dismiss the flag and let the community handle the question via down-votes or vote-to-close?

I would not cast a moderator's binding vote but leave it to community. Personally I believe in a more inclusive approach as long as this community has the expertise to provide quality answers, i.e. has members that could answer the question. Considering that a large part of the community are hobbyists and/or beginners the listed example is likely to pop up again on this stack so it'd be best to have good answer for it.

How would you prefer to handle a Question, if the source of the problem is only a typo in the OP's source code?

Ha, good one.
As I was saying before, I think that the community as a whole should be making policy not just the moderators. For lack of a solid answer on the topic I have posted a meta question to have the community make up its mind. As a moderator I would then go along with the way the community deems fit.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I like the phrase Moderators are human exception handlers very much. As pointed out above I have come to understand that community moderation works quite well on Stackexchange and I have little doubt that it will be different on Arduino. Moderators should therefore only step in in the rare cases where self-regulation fails, those exceptional conditions that could otherwise disrupt the community.
Most of the light moderation required is actually done by using comments to guide (new) users and point out how things work or could be improved... but then again most of that can be done by any avid user (think community moderation). Communication is 80% of the moderators work.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I am pretty confident that my previous posts here, on the Stackexchange network and my history of moderation on RaspberryPi reflect well on me. If you ever find me cross the line, just give me a hint. I am not above reconsidering and apologizing. I take responsibility for what I have posted in the past and what I will post in the future, so in fact, the potential diamond does not make me feel dizzy.

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Reaching 10k rep would be a matter of years. Gaining mod powers now will allow me to support the current team of moderators and contribute to the main site, meta, and chat more actively.

VE7JRO Q + A

A question has a lengthy number of comments under it suggesting various possible solutions to the asked problem. Once the number of comments reaches 20 the system (Community) automatically flags it suggesting that the comments be moved to chat. You move the comments to chat as suggested, and then get a complaint from a user that "valuable information is now hidden away in chat rather than under the question where it should be". How do you respond?

If the complainant has enough reputation, I would ask them to add the "valuable information" to the question. If they don't have the rep, I would do it for them.

How will you handle questions that doesn't require knowledge about the Arduino platform to answer (general coding questions, general electronics questions)?

Some of these questions can be migrated to other places within Stack Exchange, if an appropriate place exists.
I've noticed some experienced users will answer these types of questions in the comments. Perhaps it's because they know the question is off topic and will be migrated or closed. This may not be what comments are for, but I am OK with it, providing the question is sure to be closed. IMHO, the most important thing we do is help people solve their problems. If a quick comment like "HINT: URL TO THE ANSWER", solves the OP's problem, mission accomplished.

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

If the user's comments are inappropriate, a moderator should delete them. If any person feels that a comment is not relevant to the question/answer, flag it for moderator attention. Users who raise 80 helpful flags are awarded a silver badge, and 500 helpful flags is a gold badge.
Arguments are rare on Ard.SE, but are a normal part of human interaction. A long time ago, people believed the world was flat. Then, people argued about it. Sometime after that, I was born, went to school, and was taught the world was round. Differences in opinion occur throughout one's lifetime.

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I would discuss it with them first. If two moderators can not reach a consensus, the third moderator should decide the final outcome.

A question is flagged as "off-topic" because it only peripherally involves an Arduino. For example "How do I get my Arduino to turn on a motor using a transistor?". Should it be closed altogether, migrated to Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange (where they are used to questions about transistors), or left here as a good beginner's Arduino question? Alternatively would you dismiss the flag and let the community handle the question via down-votes or vote-to-close?

It should be migrated. Sure, it's nice to have a few of these Q+As on Ard.SE to "guide" the OP in the right direction, BUT, what if the answer gives bad advise? A question just like this was asked 10 days ago. Four people plus myself voted to close. The question is now closed, but not deleted from the system yet. I have a problem with one of the answers. It recommends using a IRF540 MOSFET. A quick look at the data sheet shows testing was done with a VGS of 10V. That's a big red flag for me. I would have recommended a Logic Level MOSFET such as the RFP30N06LE.
I've been "lurking" on the Electrical Engineering network for 241 days, and see this same type of question asked over and over again. On EE, they can get into great detail about which MOSFET is the best to use with a micro controller, and how to use it properly.

How would you prefer to handle a Question, if the source of the problem is only a typo in the OP's source code?

If the typo is a missing curly bracket or semi-colon, someone will point that out to the OP. If they answer in the comments, I up-vote the comment. If they make a proper answer, I up-vote it. Once the OP acknowledges the problem is solved, I would put the question on hold, which means the system will eventually delete it.
According to this page https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic, off topic is: "If the solution would be the same with or without Arduino, then it's usually a general coding question."
So I guess that means a for or while loop with incorrect syntax is off topic too.
Whats on topic? The same webpage says: "Specific questions about Arduino boards, code…". If the OP includes a sketch with their question, and it compiles in the IDE, then isn't it Arduino code? When I try to compile an Arduino sketch using XCode, it fails. The same thing happens when I use Visual Studio.
Right now, I am one of the few people who is voting to NOT-close most of these types of questions. They are still being closed because 5 people voted to close. What happens if I'm elected as a moderator? Do I step on 5 peoples toes and over-ride their decision? Of course not. A moderator works for the community and aligns themselves the the communities goals, keeping the community within the rules set by Stack Exchange. I don't agree with the people closing these questions, but I respect their decision.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I've read on meta.stackexchange.com that they are "unicorn yodelers": https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/166628

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

That's cool with me.

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Right now, it takes my vote plus 4 more to put a "unclear what you are asking", "too broad" or "off topic" question on hold. As a moderator, I will be quick to click the "Put question on hold" button, if such a button exists. Keep in mind, it will still take time before the system deletes it. The OP can still edit the question which will automatically add it to the "Re-open" queue. If the OP improves the question so it can be answered, I would be just as quick to click a "re-open" button. Sometimes people just need a "nudge" in the right direction in order for them to do the right thing.

Re: the code typo: Help the person, then put the question on hold. Doesn't that prohibit other users from providing answers, some of which may be more explanatory or cover the background of why (if that's helpful to the Q)?

@jose can u c - Thank you for the question. I've updated my answer.


text:
How should questions be handled, if the source of the problem is only a typo in the OP's source code?

How would you prefer to handle a Question, if the source of the problem is only a typo in the OP's source code?

has been made a question on the current Moderator Election's Questionnaire. I could not retrieve any standing policy on that matter on meta nor is it part of the guidelines laid out in the helpcenter.
Given that a site's policy should be defined by its community and not just the moderators (or at least that is my take on it) I would like to discuss the issue here.
Stackoverflow has an appropriate rule:

Some questions are still off-topic, even if they fit into one of the categories listed above:

Questions about a problem that can no longer be reproduced or that was caused by a simple typographical error. While similar questions may be on-topic here, these are often resolved in a manner unlikely to help future readers. This can often be avoided by identifying and closely inspecting the shortest program necessary to reproduce the problem before posting.

So the question is: do we recognize the wisdom of SO's rule or do we consider code with simple typographical errors a phenomenon common enough to the users of Arduino - including questioners at a beginner's level - that might profit from answering such questions?

Many of our users are just starting out in programming. To them, it can be hard to spot the difference between digitalWrite and DigitalWrite, or digtalWrite. Also, there is a well-known phenomenon that we all suffer from called Code Blindness - from looking at the code for so long that you can no longer really see what is there.
In these situations, a fresh pair of eyes is essential to spot little errors like these.
Is it off topic? Possibly. However, that's not helpful to the novice user trying to get their first (non-built-in example) program to compile.
So I say answer the question pointing out (gently) what is wrong.
They come here looking for our help. It's our job to give them that help (as long as they're asking something about Arduino and not C++ programming in general unless pertaining to working on a microcontroller and the restrictions that imposes) - whether or not that question and answer help someone else in the future.
Who knows? These small typos made by novice users are common. Maybe it will help someone else in future. Probably not though. But still, that user went away happy and the overall impression of the helpfulness of this site increased by a tiny margin.
If the question ends up being closed by the community in the future, no matter - the OP is happy and will come back again and maybe bring their friends with them.

FWW, I am currently trying to track down a compiler error and seeing previous answers to the effect of, "you left out a semicolon, idiot" have been very helpful in seeing what can lead to that particular error. it turns out that's not my problem, but I'm reluctant to post it as a question because I don't want a beat-down.

The trouble is, it isn't just typos that are likely to be things that are "one-off" problems. Sometimes we get highly-specific questions about certain code that may have a logic error. Next time it will be a different logic error, so answering the question doesn't necessarily help anyone later on.
This is unlike, say, questions about Linux about how to combine stderr and stdout into one file. This is a question that a lot of people will want the answer to.
Having said all that, I would also agree with Majenko's answer.

I am the author of that question. And I am for the SO approach. Why? Because it is possible to generate endless count of this kind of questions as anonymous user and then answer them. I don't know if an anonymous user can accept an answer, but this answers tend to get upvotes.
A comment can point out the error and the question should be closed as "Unclear what you are asking" in the meaning "it is obvious".

Thank you for presenting your point. If I may ask, did you observe a pattern to that end on this stack, i.e. a large number of question of this kind that disrupts the operation of the site? 1 rep users can in fact accept answers but they cannot upvote. I have never heard of suspicious voting behaviour with this sort of questions so far.

I disagree about closing as "Unclear what you are asking".  If we want to close these questions because they're one-off problems & might generate endless numbers of similar questions, then we should have a custom close reason for that purpose.


text:
Are questions about all AVR microcontrollers considered to be on-topic on Arduino SE?
I have seen questions about ATtiny microcontrollers on the site without anyone objecting. I was wondering where the line between what's on or off topic here is. As I understand it is possible to program a lot of microcontrollers with Arduino IDE even using Arduino boards as programmers. Help Center indicates:

On topic:
Specific questions about Arduino boards, code, and the Arduino IDE. Feel free to ask about anything related to Arduino. ...

Would it be correct to assume that questions about everything and anything that can be programmed with Arduino IDE would be considered on-topic here? If not, where is the line? Are tinyAVR controller questions still officially OK?
I would like to clarify:
I think I kind of get the idea about the programming part a bit better. I am more interested to find out about questions related to ATtiny controllers and programming functions specific to them(more about the electronic side so to speak, than the programming language, that is clearly better suited for Stack Overflow). If at the same time I can ask a more general question about all AVRs and other controllers programmable with Arduino software that is perhaps more useful to the community - even better, but ATtinies are my main interest. Is it OK to ask specific questions about them here even though they might not be that relevant to actual Arduino boards using ATmega chips?

If we turn it around, what is not? If it's an Atmega328 (not Arduino Board), programmed w/o Arduino IDE, w/o Arduino libraries, it's not. In any other case, if the question is somewhat related of the "Arduino side", it's fine to me.

Say I program ATtiny84A, I use Arduino IDE, libraries and all that stuff, but I happen to be interested in for example high voltage programming and setting fuse bits to lets say turn the resset pin into input pin(just an example), that is not really that relevant to Arduino boards maybe, what then?..

@Paul,do you think it is OK to consider ATtiny controllers as Arduino-like controllers and therefore questions about them to be on-topic on Arduino SE?

if you're programming it with Arduino language, and the question is about Arduino language, it's fine. If you're uploading the code with Arduino IDE and the question is about Arduino IDE, it's fine. If the question is about ATTiny84 and not related to Arduino IDE or Libraries/Code, it may fit better on electronics stackexchange. (I kind off miss the Embedded Systems Stack Exchange, would be perfect)

Yes, it's fuzzy. "Related to Arduino" could easily be considered to be something using the same processor as one of the many Arduinos.
There is a school of thought that the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange is a more appropriate place to ask general questions about the AVR processors, and there certainly are some knowledgeable people there. This would be especially so if such a question has a related complex electronics component.

Are tinyAVR controller questions still officially OK?

I don't see any problem with that. You can program them with the IDE.

As a moderator here, I wouldn't be closing questions just because they involve tinyAVR processors, or any of the Atmel ones, really. You might be better off asking complex questions which don't really involve the Arduino IDE in any way on Electronics SE* however there is no requirement to do so.
That site also has quite a few questions directly about the Arduino. Some of them get migrated over here, many do not. There is a bit of cross-pollination between the two sites.

* Electronics SE and Electrical Engineering SE are the same thing.

Thank you. I think this answers my question as much as it is possible.

It seems to be a fuzzy line separating that. Observation seems to reveal that anything that is or can be programmed with the Arduino IDE, or more specifically, the "Arduino API" (for lack of a better term; meaning the device setup registers, Port I/O and similar actions are abstracted away from the coder) is acceptable.
However, questions that an Arduino user (that is often a relative newcomer to C/C++ and/or embedded device programming) might ask, but which are merely questions about the programming language/structure and do not touch on an aspect of embedded computing or Arduino and Arduino-like platforms are closed as off-topic.
There are some who advocate that even pure programming questions are acceptable as long as the user is in the realm of working on Arduino and its friends, but it would seem that those kind of questions have no problem getting the required number of close votes.

I wrote a response to this answer in a comment, but then decided to move to the question as it probably clarifies it a bit. Please see the updated question.

There are boards like the DigiSpark which are part of the unofficial arduino-like family, with board definitions in the Arduino IDE, and which use ATTiny chips. I would not see that ATTiny vs ATMega makes much difference to the relevance of a question here, all else being equal.

Thank you. That is what I want to know. I guess there is nothing very different about ATtiny controllers when they are off those boards and programmed with an Arduino as ISP, so I assume they could be called as you nicely put it - Arduino-like family.


text:
2019 Community Moderator Election Results
Arduino's second moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied and the new moderator is:

They'll be joining the existing crew shortly—please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes!
Also, please join me in thanking Anonymous Penguin who will be stepping down as moderator.
For details on how the voting played out, you can download the election results here, or view a summary report online.


text:
Any answer to a question automatically upvotes said question - FEATURE-REQUEST
I find it contradictory to the concept of upvoting that someone finds a question worthy of an answer, yet unworthy of an upvote.
I get the impression that it is a bit egotistical to not even care to upvote.  I also get the impression that these are point seekers, who care little about evaluating and awarding credit where credit is due.
As a longtime SO user, I believe that it would be only fair to award 1 upvote per answer (and deter the answerer from downvoting the question, naturally).

That sounds like a fundamental change to the underlying code. Nothing that we can do about that.

In what way is that a fundamental change? Not to the code, surely? if (question_is_answered) UpVoteQuestion(); However it might cause unexpected consequences.

This feature is not specific to this particular branch of Stackexchange but to the whole network. A change to that mechanism is very unlikely to be implemented on this stack only. The question therefore needs to be taken to Meta.Stackexchange, like Nick's answer suggests.

The upvote button tooltip has "The question shows research effort; it is useful and clear". Usually it is easy to answer a question without research effort. It only takes the research effort.

that is for OTHERS.  anyone who answers a question automatically deems it answer-worthy, therfore upvatable.  Otherwise one might argue that the answerer is only after points...

You raise an interesting point, although the concept would probably belong to every part of the Stack Exchange network, and thus might be better put at https://meta.stackexchange.com/.
You might argue that someone might answer a bad question, so upvoting a question just because it gets an answer might skew the results a bit. In fact, if every question is automatically upvoted by an answer it might conceivably push people to not answer, or answer in a comment, which could change existing behaviour.

one might argue so.  but a bad question does not deserve answering if it cannot be fixed.  if it CAN be fixed, then it becomes a good question and deserving of answer(s).

@tonygil Hmm... I have seen bad questions that have shown little work on the askers part, which I have then answered (perhaps wrongly), maybe because I felt sorry for them or to get them on their way or it was a commonly asked question (but couldn't find the duplicate), but didn't feel that the question was worth upvoting (for a range of reasons: obvious answer, little forethought on their part, poorly worded/presented etc.)

but, in general, that is not the case

It bothers me too that there aren't enough upvotes on Arduino SE. I am yet to come up with a good solution.
As well as upvotes, bronze badges (eg. Student) are used to encourage good questions.
One thing that doesn't work in our favour is that we have so many new users every day who ask their question, get an answer and then never stick around to pay it forward. And because they are in and out they don't read/learn the guides that SE is founded on, resulting often in poor questions. The users who do stick around are great.
To answer your question, I'm not sure if your proposal is the silver bullet to get more upvotes happening. Perhaps it is something Stack overflow could test and evaluate. Like others I suggest you post the idea on Meta.Stackexchange.
However, we all could put more effort into upvoting (me included). It was other people upvoting my first answer that inspired me to come back to the community and contribute more.


text:
What tags have syntax highlighting enabled?
As per How do we get syntax highlighting?, only the programming tag has the feature enabled.
But I'm seeing that the tag arduino-uno also is highlighting the code, for example this question.
Are there more tags out there that have syntax highlighting? I edited a couple of questions to add the programming tag but maybe sometimes it won't be necessary and it's a cool feature that all answers follow the question highlight.

I think the C++ tag also has it enabled.

The short answer to your question is to use this syntax: <!-- language-all: lang-cpp --> right above the first block of code.
Here is an example of a question with the syntax highlighting "not working".

Paste in the "html style" syntax as specified in the next image.

Add 4 spaces.

Give it a few seconds, then the highlighting should start working.

Using this method, all of the following code "blocks" will be treated as C++.
The long answer to your question is here: How Do I format my Code Blocks.

I was wondering specifically about the tags on the main site that provide syntax highlighting. Does using the HTML language syntax on the Question automatically enables it on Answers? Because that's what I think it's the cool feature of it being associated with a tag, any post on that question will have it enabled.

More to the point, can moderators see the list of tags with an associated syntax highlighting?

I'm not sure if tags on the main site provide syntax highlighting. Time for me to do some testing. Here is a question with no highlighting: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/30312/high-rate-of-transmission-errors-50-using-xbee-radio. Let's see what happens if I add the C++ tag...

It worked :) Keep in mind, there is a limit of 5 tags per question, so if there are 4 or less existing tags, adding the C++ tag fixes the syntax highlighting issue for a question with one block of code (I haven't tested it with multiple code blocks yet). If there were already 5 tags set, which one do you "remove" to add the C++ tag to make the syntax highlighting work? You don't remove any of them, just add the HTML type syntax I've shown you in my answer, and it will apply C++ syntax highlighting to every block of code in the question.

Adding the C++ tag to a question will not automatically highlight all the code in every answer. As far as what moderator can and can not see, I am not at liberty to say, but I am confident saying I have never seen any tool, or page, or anything else that gives me a list of tags with their associated syntax highlighting. People often mix C++, Python, HTML, Processing, etc, code in their question/answers, so applying syntax highlighting based on one language is not always desirable.


text:
Why there's so many down votes in question list?
I know people questions are not clear, demanding etc etc...
It's the first question for most of them and they might even don't know how to use the stackexchange and just seeking help! i think stackexchange code of conduct is not really followed by some in Arduino stackexchange...
Is it because people want to get that "badge" related to down votes and just looking for something that is a bit wrong to press that down button?

Critic is the only badge related to downvotes and is awarded just once per user for the First down vote. It's been awarded 379 times on this stack. So it really does not explain downvoting... but downvotes do serve a function as Majenko's answer outlines. Whether this goal is achieved best by downvotes or something else has been discussed for year. Half of Stackexchange's meta is full of it...

No, it's usually because those questions really are generally terrible. A step away from being closed, and two away from being deleted as gibberish.
Down-voting is a way of saying "This question is terrible. It needs work." but it's not so bad that it's worthy of closing as "unclear what you are asking".
Whether someone knows how to "use" Stack Exchange or not is no reason to ask questions like "I did this but it don't[sic] work. Here's my code". Wherever you ask a question it is surely just common courtesy to explain your problem clearly and succinctly. Here is no different to any other forum in that respect.
It may be possible, if you take the time and effort, to reformat the invariably "dumped on us" code and work out what his problem is (often the code is just gibberish), but most people just go "Nah, stuff you" and down-vote it as a bad question.
Another situation is where you have the same user asking basically the same question in different ways, where an answer has been given earlier and the new question is a slight modification of the original one as a kind of answer to the answer. Not strictly a duplicate, but still should really have been done as an edit to the first question.
Note that you can't go below 1 reputation - so down-votes to a new user really have no effect on the user. They only serve as an indication to those passing by that the question is probably not worth wasting your time reading.

yes they can't go below 1 rep but the down vote with comments like: "where's your code?" or "what's not working?" just gonna disappoint them. i think as you said: "most people just go "Nah, stuff you" and down-vote it as a bad question." is what actually happens to those questions.

Another reason for downvotes is the common "Here is my code [link]" making people click through to another site to see the code (or images, or whatever). They can't be bothered to even include the code (even badly formatted) in the question. Downvote.

my point is; it's better to guide them to " post your code. use code tags" or "explain the problem clearly" etc and if the OP didn't do any of that then give the OP an down vote...

Like newbie, I too feel that there is an undercurrent of negative voting. I've seen questions that I felt were reasonable - it could be argued that they were not great - but they weren't terrible - and yet they attracted negative votes. I've even seen an answer which seemed reasonable that had attracted 2 down votes (with no comments explaining why). Someone eventually posted a comment saying that a possible reason for the down votes was that they did not start their sentences with "capital letters". IMHO, there are some who may have forgotten what it is like to be starting from zero knowledge

Stack Exchange is aware that it can be unfriendly to newbies, and indeed as I write this there is a message directly above where I am typing:

newbie is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct

I know very well that when you have a problem you want a quick solution and you don't really want to muck around reading about how to format your question, blah blah, you just want an answer.
However there are quite a few people here who are basically here just to help. Just as an example Edgar Bonet has asked one question but answered 745 at the time I write this. There are lots of other users like him, who look at the site every day and try hard to be helpful.
So sit back for a moment and imagine what it is like to try hard every day to help people with their Arduinos, and then see questions which are so poorly written it is almost impossible to help. I don't mean dumb questions (there aren't dumb questions) but just insultingly badly written questions. For example:

There is no obvious question, or even a question at all. Perhaps just a dump of an error message followed by the word "help!". Or, worse, just the comment that they "got an error" and "how do I fix it?".
The code is unreadable because the poster hasn't taken the time to find how to format it (ie. selecting it and pressing Ctrl+K). Not only that but after making their post, and seeing it look like gibberish on the screen, they don't make an effort to find out what is wrong, when something obviously is.
We are told there is an error but the error isn't actually quoted. As you know, compilers generate lots of error messages, so just being told "I got an error" is virtually a useless thing to say.

I've done a Meta post about How to ask a good question and I sort-of hope that newbies will read it. However judging by the sort of questions asked, I doubt that many do.
So, at the end, our regular users (the people who answer questions) can sometimes get a little terse when confronted with a question that seems to show that the poster hasn't really tried very hard to help him or herself to start with (such as searching for the solution before asking).

Is it because people want to get that "badge" related to down votes and just looking for something that is a bit wrong to press that down button?

No, I don't think people are motivated to get that badge. As Ghanima pointed out, the badge you are thinking of is "Critic". You only get that once, and I suppose the point of it is to encourage you to down-vote bad questions. I mean, if you don't tell someone that they have done something wrong (hopefully politely) then they will continue to do that wrong thing, won't they?

Your question is a good one -- it can be frustrating to be down-voted, but it also can be frustrating to see a really badly formatted and incomprehensible question. It would be great if everyone followed the Code of Conduct and also if people asking questions read How to ask a good question.

not just frustrating to newbies... I just had a question unceremoniously closed without voting by a moderator for being unclear.  I've been around SO since before beta, and am in the top 0.06% of users, and I still dislike feeling like a victim of what I perceive to be incorrect, heavy-handed moderation.

"Do you sleep yet?" is indeed a dump question ;)


text:
CircuitLab Broken?
I mean, it's slow at inserting a schematic at the best of times - but for me the schematic editor just won't work today. It just sits there spinning its wheels when you try to insert the schematic into a question or answer.
Is anyone else able to insert a schematic today, or is it just me?

Looks like it's working now :)

Indeed. I just used it.

Based on the network logs in KingDuken's answer over on EE, it appears that CircuitLab's server was having some issues and providing a response that the front-end didn't know how to handle.
It appears to be working now. Hopefully it stays that way...

It's broken for me. I did get a "Your browser is not officially supported..." message before I could use CircuitLab to draw a circuit. Clicking the button to insert it into the answer just turned the "spinning wait graphic" on.

I don't get a message - just the spinner.


text:
Toxic moderation harms the community
Building community and fixing toxic communities have been a theme this past year on the network.
I thought I would share my recent experience regarding this.  I've been around SO since the beta, so I think I've got (a) a bit of experience in the community aspect of SO and (b) a relatively thick skin.
I just had a rather unpleasant experience with a preemptively closed question and the subsequent moderator interaction.
I stopped engaging when this comment was made, not because I'm a snowflake who can't handle the language, but because it was obvious that I was not being taken seriously.

This is the first time in 11 years that I feel I've been treated unfairly or disrectfully (a key aspect of "toxic" communication as I understand it) by a moderator, so I would just like to bring this to everyone's attention.  It's possible of course that the moderator was just having communications difficulty, but tone as well as content and context does matter in terms of showing respect.
As a practical thing, It's better that arduino.se depend on member voting for closure than having moderators preemptively close (excepting of course spam, abuse, etc).  Perhaps the moderators can coordinate amongst themselves and reconsider their closing strategy.
FWIW!

Just for context this appears to be the question being discussed.

@NickGammon, I deleted that question and replaced it here, with (a) the answer and (b) mentioning that the executable was generated via Arduino.  I made it CW since the most important part of the answer is from Majenko.  I also corrected my mistake of assuming that anyone familiar enough with executable uploading would understand that it applied to Arduino and non-Arduino executables equally.

I still feel that heavy-handed preemptive moderation detracts from the community and the overall quality of the site, though.  Muh Feelz!!

@MarkHarrison by doing so you also removed the context which is inherently needed for the discussion here. The original one was absolutely off-topic in my opinion while the re-formulated new one might not be. After this manipulation one will likely second your accusation, which is now neither objective nor fair to the moderator you accuse. After all: is this really about your actual problem?!

@SimSon, Sorry... if your reputation is high enough you can see deleted posts, or you can request a moderator to undelete it. You can blame the original problem on me, for (incorrectly) assuming that everyone understood that once a hex file has been generated the answer is the same no matter what was used to generate the binaries.  So I generated another hex file with Arduino-specific gcc options, and re-asked the question referring to the second hex file rather than the first.  Speaking for myself, I'm satisfied that all moderators have presented their opions well here...

@SimSon ... and that they may take a "lighter" touch towards moderation, which I feel will decrease bad feelings.  I learned something interesting from Majenko (I had to tell him he didn't understand programming for him to say it, haha!), and the site has a potentially useful question for people that typically work with command line tools rather than IDEs.  If you can't get the page in any other way feel free to send a note to my email address on my profile page and I'll send it to you so you can let me know what you think.  I'm interested in your opinion, I could be very wrong after all!

Getting even the most basic of information out of you was like getting blood out of a stone. I guess from your point of view, since you already have all the information, that you can't understand our frustration.
When we had finally got some basic information out of you to make any kind of sense of your question it turned out that it had nothing at all to do with Arduino anyway.
If you had:

Had a problem with creating the software for your board using the Arduino API or the Arduino IDE, or
Were asking how to manually upload a hex file to an Arduino board

then it would have been on topic and we would have been able to help you.
As it is, you refused to tell us what the board is that you are using (eventually we got the manufacturer of the chip out of you, but still no clue what the board is) despite being repeatedly asked.
If we ask you for information it's not just to annoy you. It's because we need it to be able to answer your question!

"Getting even the most basic of information out of you was like getting blood out of a stone."  -- Thanks, I feel respected now!

"When we" -- I seem to be having problems with an individual moderator, so the Royal We form of pronoun shouldn't be used.  This is all about you. ;)

"If we ask you for information it's not just to annoy you. It's because we need it to be able to answer your question!"  -- I'm doubting that a little bit because for most of the discussion my answer was included in the question (since I couldn't answer a deleted question).

Finally, the tone of your answer seems to indicate that you don't "get it."  My suggestion remains that, if you're concerned about community, the moderators should meet and try to iron out an approach that focuses on the community taking action and doesn't focus on an individual moderator closing question and engaging in toxic dialog.

Regarding the on-topic nature... it is exactly the tool to use for uploading an Arduino binary to an STM32.  I don't know how much you know about software, but once you have a standalone binary the subsequent portions of the toolchain are independent of that.

I have spent my entire working career in software. I am the author of an IDE that is far superior to the Arduino IDE. But that's beside the point. The tool for uploading code from the Arduino IDE to a board using the Arduino API is the Arduino IDE. There may be a stand-alone command line tool in the background doing the work, but if you're not using it from within the Arduino IDE or a similarly Arduino-centric IDE that is configured to run the binary for you, then that is nothing to do with Arduino.

And it is you who does not get it. There are (at the last count) four different tools for communicating with the same chips. Which tool you use depends to a large extent on the board (NOT the chip) and which tool the board designer chose to aim the board at. Be that dfu-util through an FT232 adapter, stm32flash through serial, micronucleus through the Micronucleus bootloader or stlink through an STLink programmer. Which tool is the right tool to use for your board is not dependent on just the chip.

I think you're incorrect regarding there being a single tool for uploading binaries, as exemplified by https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/20978/is-there-a-way-to-upload-precompiled-code-to-an-arduino .  But keep in mind that this post is about the toxicity of arduino.se.  I think the tone of your comments is enough to demonstrate the point.  Note that you have provided an excellent answer in your comment of three minutes ago.  If my question ever undeletes, you should post it as an answer... I would definitely upvote it!

@MarkHarrison, Majenko was elected as moderator despite saying in the questionnaire "Would I make a good moderator? No, probably not. Should you vote for me? Heck no! I wouldn't vote for me.". He was elected because of his broad knowledge in Arduino and surrounding topics

@Majenko what's that IDE name which you are working on? sorry ik it's unrelated to Q/A of this topic.

@newbie UECIDE - uecide.org

I wholeheartedly agree the Arduino:SE should be more welcoming.  However, it is also true that it can be difficult to get people to update their questions with information and/or improvements that have been requested in comments.

In this case, as far as the question itself goes, I've read through your question, and the comments and I still can't see how it is on-topic for this site.  If it hadn't been closed by a moderator, I would probably have voted to close the question when I saw it in a review queue.
As regards your interactions with others in the comments, I'll just note that you are fairly experienced in using SE sites, so I assume you are aware that if you think that something has been said that violates the Code of Conduct you can always flag it, and/or report it to SE Community Managers.

As to your last point, I'm a moderator on another site, and I'm a great believer in the idea incorporated in the Theory of Moderation that moderators should do "... as little as possible".
I try not to use my super-vote to close questions if possible.  That is what community moderation is meant to be for.
That's not to say that I don't participate in the review queues.  I'm happy to be the 5th-vote to close a question, but (apart from spam, and other posts that violate the SE Code of Conduct), the community decided what is on- and off-topic for that site, and so it should generally be the community that votes to close posts.
On that site, the community has agreed that they prefer a lighter touch from moderators.  It works there, and I suspect that it would probably also work here.
In my experience Arduino:SE has enough members who actively moderate via the review queues that moderators really shouldn't need to preemptively close posts quite as often as they currently appear to.
But, at the end of the day, the fact is that it should be for the members of this site who need to decide what it is they want from the moderator team.
If the consensus is that we want moderators to decide what is on- and off-topic, and preemptively close posts that are off-topic using their 'super-vote', then that's fine.  It wouldn't be my choice, but I'm happy to go with the consensus view.

"moderators really shouldn't need to preemptively close posts quite as often as they currently appear to." - I quite agree... of late, questions get closed with just one or two votes...

You raise some interesting points. There are two main issues here:

Is there "toxic" moderation on this site or not?
Did your question deserve to be closed?

Stack Exchange has been wrestling for a while with their "be nice" policy, and if you go onto meta.stackexchange.com you will find all sorts of posts about this, for example here and here. There are lots of posts. :)

As for your question, well it was pretty brief, see below. There was no mention of Arduino, or any particular Arduino board. It could conceivably have gone to electronics.stackexchange.com where they are used to dealing with microprocessors in general.
Your original question:

I've compiled a program (betaflight flight controller) via a Makefile and have the resulting hex file.
From the Mac command line, how do I upload this hex file to my Cortex M3 board?

So, I think some votes to close were not totally unwarranted.

Having said that, I agree with the theory of moderation.
We moderators should be able to sit back and let the community handle problem questions and answers, thus keeping our workload light. :)
As Jeff Atwood said in the above post:

Even with active community self-regulation, moderators occasionally need to intervene. Moderators are human exception handlers, there to deal with those (hopefully rare) exceptional conditions that should not normally happen, but when they do, they can bring your entire community to a screaming halt — if you don’t have human exception handling in place.

Note the use of the word "occasionally". If something is egregiously bad, then a moderator steps in and deletes the spam/insults/harassment. Otherwise, the community (non-moderators with reasonable amounts of reputation) deal with it as a group. That way you know that five people agree that your post is bad, not just one or two.

I know from personal experience how frustrating it is to have a question you have asked, on other parts of Stack Exchange, to be closed within 30 minutes by a couple of people, one of them being a moderator. It has happened to me more than once.

I am having trouble understanding your complaint. Your question title says "Upload a hex file to a Cortex M3 from the Mac command line? [on hold]" and the title of this meta post is "Toxic moderation harms the community". It’s sounds like you are the judge, jury and executioner. To be honest, the meta title you have so carefully "crafted" reads just like a Main Stream Media Fake News headline.
Regarding your comment:

"…It's better that arduino.se depend on member voting for closure than having moderators preemptively close…"

Your question was not closed, It was put "on hold" because it’s off-topic. Arduino.SE is a small community, and as such, we do not always have enough users with the required reputation level to "vote to close" questions.
A question "on hold" is waiting for the person to, for lack of a better term, "fix it’. It is not "closed", and won’t be until a period of time has elapsed. During the "on hold" phase, if the question is "fixed", any Arduino.SE moderator, or the required votes from the community can re-open it.
If the question is not re-opened, and a period of time has elapsed, the system will mark it as "closed". Does that mean your question is gone? Deleted? Never to be answered? Not necessarily. You can see "closed" questions by using the following text in the "Search on Arduino…" text box. Something like this: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/search?q=closed:1
Google also seems to be able to find the "closed" questions, because I have used Google to search for Arduino related "things", and Google has provided me with links to Arduino.SE Q + A’s with the following text in the question title: "[closed]". Don’t worry, the planet can still see your question, and will be able to answer it for a long, long time.
Regarding your comment:

"I seem to be having problems with an individual moderator, so the Royal We form of pronoun shouldn't be used."

I agree with Majenko that your question is off-topic, so "we" is the correct word to use. In other words, if I had seen your question before Majenko put it "on hold", I would have put it "on hold" for the same reason.
Regarding your comment:

"…But keep in mind that this post is about the toxicity of arduino.se.".

You are trying to "spin" your Cortex M3 "off-topic question" issue into an accusation that all of the Arduino.SE moderators are "toxic". The only thing making our community toxic right now is you.

I've long aspired to a lucrative career in fake mainstream news headline writing, so thanks for the vote of confidence!

"Does that mean your question is gone? Deleted? Never to be answered? Not necessarily." Sorry, I think you're not very familiar with how on-hold questions are dealt with.  Nobody can answer an on-hold question, so when a moderator preemptively puts a question on-hold it means the question will never receive an answer.  You can read about this over on the main meta: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10582/what-is-a-closed-on-hold-or-duplicate-question

Nobody can answer a question after 5 people vote to close it either. You are assuming a moderator puts the question on hold and never revisits it. I keep a browser tab open for every question I put on hold. Once it meets the Arduino SE guidelines, I reopen it. If the OP doesn't "fix" it, the system closes it. The fact that an on hold or closed question can't be answered until it's "fixed" is good thing. We don't want answers to questions that are un-clear, to broad, etc.

In your case, the question is off topic so it should be closed, regardless of how many people voted to close it. https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions. As far as having a bunch of closed questions "hanging around" forever, I don’t like it either. To combat this problem, I have been editing/improving a dozen or so every day. Once edited, the system moves them to the top of the Arduino home page for everyone to see. This usually results in an answer, comments to clarify the question, and sometimes, votes to close.

There are over 2100 closed questions, so it’s going to take some time to get through them all. The next step is to delete the "Closed questions that are of no lasting value whatsoever should be flagged and deleted." https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools

Notice that instead of responding to your incorrect understanding that an on-hold question can't be answered, you pivoted to a new claim regarding questions closed by five people. As a moderator, you should have the maturity to recognize when you've made a mistake or didn't understand the procedures. Nobody expects you to be perfect!  But you should really take some time and contemplate the fact that you pivoted (in a state of cognitive dissonance) to other issues which I never brought up, and totally refused to contemplate the issues that arise when moderators act disrespectfully. FWIW!

I was correct. They can be answered, but first they have to be "fixed" and re-opened by several votes or a moderator. Your question was off topic, so the chances of it getting the required votes or a mod to re-open are some where between slim and none. I see you have deleted the question and created a wiki instead. Good job :)

Over that past 11 years I've been a good sport on SO, and am happy to change my posts and thoughts to conform with the site.  Sorry, but you were wrong in what you stated, and your disrespect for the source of my original frustration (that I could not answer my own question when I found the information elsewhere) is not appreciated.

The remainder of my comments were just in no particular order, but were for your information so you could learn more about the meaning of on hold and closed question. Here's another page about what the Arduino community considers off-topic: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic. This page is excellent because of all the useful links in the right sidebar.

If the root cause of all of this chatter was "that I could not answer my own question when I found the information elsewhere", why didn't you title this meta question as such? Your title "Toxic moderation harms the community" accused me, the other moderator not involved, and Majenko as being "Toxic", which I find very rude and not true. Next time you have an issue, please use a flag to get a moderators attention instead of arguing publicly about it. Thank you.

I'm still curious as to why changing the wording from "uploading hex file" to "uploading Arduino binary" suddenly made the question on topic.  Maybe I had assumed a level of understanding regarding uploading code to microprocessors that people didn't have?  Although I don't think so, because Majenko provided a great answer, although he only did it when I implied he didn't understand computer programming very well! :)

You mention that my first step should have been to flag the question for moderator attention.  That's exactly the first thing I did, and that's what kicked off the comment thread that I perceive as being disrepectful.

Have you ever been a moderator on any of the Stack Exchange networks? If you have been one in the past, then you know I can see every flag you have ever raised here at Arduino SE. This comment can be seen by the public so I can’t go into details, however, no flag was raised regarding your "STM32 Cortex M3" question. There were several edits.

hmm, then that's my mistake.  I thought I raised a flag, perhaps I made a comment instead?  My apologies for the mistake!

No problemo : )

sweet, thanks for listening so patiently to so much rambling! :)


text:
Old questions appear in "active" question list
I sometimes get questions in my "active" question list that obviously aren't active. From what I can see with my reputation level those questions haven't been edited, answered nor are there any new comments. In the question list they are tagged like they were only few minutes old, but when I open them, all date tags are outdated.
Why do they appear in my question list?
Latest examples (part of top 20 in my list):

Safely enabling voltage divider on a 12V battery
help compiling code for flora project
Sending servo position data from one Arduino to another

I agree with VE7JRO - the bot "Community" does this stuff. It is a bit annoying because you see a list of old questions for no obvious reason. Community is trying to either get an answer, or get someone to upvote an existing answer. Questions with no answers, or no answer with upvotes are considered by the bot to be open, and it is trying to jog us to do something about them.
The take-out for users in general is:

Answer questions in an answer, not just a comment. See here.
Up-vote answers to indicate you agree with them (when appropriate) - don't just nod your head without reaching for your mouse.
If you asked the question, "accept" the best answer. Don't just silently accept the help without feeding back into the system that the answer worked.
If no answers seem to be particularly good, answer it yourself.
If it's an old question (and the OP probably has forgotten about it by now) then vote to close it.

If it's a question that you know has been asked elsewhere and got an answer vote to close as dupe

Regarding the first question "12V battery...", Gerben edited his answer, so the question became "active" again.
The second question was modified by "Community". Community is a automated process that goes through old questions with no accepted answers and makes them active so they show up on the Arduino SE "home page".
If you find an answer in one of these "reactivated" questions that solves the problem, please consider accepting it. This should stop Community from making it active again.
Keep in mind that it's OK to answer your own question and accept it as the solution.