text:
Tracking Area 51 site stats. How are we doing?
Area 51 provides a snapshot of site stats averaged over a two week period. How are our stats changing and progressing over time?

Moderators have aggregated analytics available to them via the mod tools. Such data is not available to users. The Area 51 page provides the data at the current time instant but does not show the trend over time. Are the numbers going up or down? By how much?
This post attempts to keep track of the data at different times, thereby providing a general idea of the site's growth. See similar efforts going on at other sites:

https://productivity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/210/4252
https://sustainability.meta.stackexchange.com/q/56
https://martialarts.meta.stackexchange.com/q/316

The point of this post is not to compare us to any other site, and nor to provide an analysis of the numbers (for now). It is too early to start analysing numbers.

A better question would be: how could we improve the current situation which is not very good regarding the number of questions daily (which seems even lower currently, I would say 3 questions/day the past few days)?

Feel free to update this post every 2-3 weeks. Do not remove any of the earlier images.
22 Days

(Full Sized Photo Here)
48 Days

(Full Sized Photo Here)
102 Days

Why did you make two different answers?

Merging both posts may not ease time comparison (that would be mixing graphs)

@Ricardo Thanks for this. I have been told that a few times over the past 3-4 years, but I find it somewhat hard to internalize.

No problem! But it's really up to you. The alternative (that you seem to prefer) is to just get the job done and let your reputation speak for itself :) That's even better. So relax and be yourself.

Feel free to update this post every 2-3 weeks.
CSV Table

Day  Questions/Day  AnswerPercentage  TotalUsers  UsersWith200Rep  AnswerRatio  Visits/Day
 22            5.1                95         504               33          2.3         240
 48            5.2                94         878               67          2.2         403
102            5.9                89        1565               55          1.9         577
144            4.9                87        2025               60          1.9         981

Note: UsersWith200Rep is the estimated value, on days 30-90.

Huh, interesting idea... I may log this data (scrap it from the A51 page) so it's easier to keep track of.

@hichris123 How about maintaining it on Github with code (and here)? That way it can be available to everybody. Once we have enough data points, we can add plots to the repo (and here) as well.

Good idea; I can post the code... how do we add plots to the repo?

@hichris I will handle that part. We will need a few data points before we can do that.


text:
What are some interesting feeds for the chat room?
Chat rooms allow setting up RSS feeds which show up in the room as chat messages or in a ticker (overlay). I think setting up feeds from interesting sources would help towards generating interest in the room and create topics to discuss.
As far how many feeds to set up is concerned, I think there should be atmost 2-3 offsite blogs or sources added.
So, what are some interesting feeds that we could set up in the chat room?

Active Feeds

Main site new questions (ticker)
Meta site active questions (chat)

The Arduino Twitter feed.
They have a lot of interesting blog posts (from many sites including their own). They seem to only post a few times a day, so we wouldn't be overwhelmed with posts. However, I would still recommend using a ticker, especially for Arduino Day 2014, where there will probably be a lot more tweets during that event.
How do we get a feed into our site?
First of all, any moderator from any site can edit the feeds as a ticker or a chat message. (Ticker: dismissible banner at the top of the screen, chat message isn't deletable and is in the main section of the chat window.)
The harder part is getting a Twitter RSS feed. Don't worry, I've got ideas. RSS 4 Twitter is ran on open source software and donations, and is free. So far, it only works for users, not hashtags. Still, we can get the Arduino RSS feed (link to RSS data, not to Twitter). There's no account involved, so it's no big deal to add it into the chat room. The owners claim it is updated every 90 minutes, which may be a lot if you are subscribed to Arduino already, but it's better than nothing, and is the only way to get a RSS feed for the Arduino blog.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Could we get a more interesting favicon?
Some SE sites in beta have slightly customized favicons. They are motifs instead of letters, like for example Poker and Chess. I think 'AR' doesn't really relate to the site. Could it be changed to something like this?
Generic Infinity Symbol

or the Official Arduino Community Logo

or the official logo itself (This is trademarked by Arduino)

The minus is on the left

@TheDoctor Thats in the official logo which is trademarked and, as best I understand trademark law, SE cant use it.

I frequently confuse this proposal with the Arkansas.SE proposal. +∞

We might want to add the outline of a board for our logo, but that may be too small. A LED?

You sure can! A new "infinity logo" should be showing up on computers near you soon.

When i first saw the new icon, i thought, Infinity SE??!!?

Why is it black?  Isn't everything Arduino blue?

@AwesomeUser This is the meta site, where pretty much everything is grayscale. It's standard for favicons to be black here. On the main site, the logo is in fact blue (although that's actually because blue is the default color for Stack Exchange beta site logos).

Why didn't I realize that.  I feel stupid now! :p

@AwesomeUser Don't feel stupid! It's a perfectly reasonable thing to think if you're coming in with an Arduino mindset.

I'm a little late to the party here. Perhaps I should have created a new meta discussion.
I was part of the first(?) Arduino.SE closed beta which was eventually merged into EE and SO. This was the favicon I created for that purpose. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If that license is incompatible with what we do here at Arduino.SE, I'll gladly make an exception. For the record, I haven't determined if the 16x16 likeness of the Arduino Uno is actually something I can license.
Three different versions each having consecutively fewer components:

A preview of the first:

Hopefully someone will find these useful.

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


text:
Does anyone know anybody on the Arduino Blog?
We've already looked at Who are the notable bloggers in the Arduino community, and how can we get them involved?. One blog not mentioned was the Arduino Blog itself, which is a big influence in the community. If we could get a link on the blog, we could get a lot of traffic and new members  because the blog is read by many people.
Do you know (or are) a blogger on the Arduino blog? Do you have a friend who knows the bloggers of the Arduino blog?
A mention on the Arduino blog would go a long way in taking this site forward.

Zoe Romano seems to be the main author on the blog.


text:
Are "code review" style questions allowed?
The beta Code Review stack exchange is doing rather well, with a lot of visitors and questions. It's an in-demand service:
http://codereview.stackexchange.com
Are "code review" style questions allowed here?

Yes, I think they should be allowed if the code relies on some Arduino-specific stuff, such as function calls or something related to hardware behaviour etc. The reason is that those elements may not be familiar or useful to non-Arduino programmers, so the question/answers won't have much value on the generic code review site.

I agree. Code can utilise platform specific features, which is pretty much our scope, and may not be of interest to people outside of this domain.


text:
Vote Early, Vote Often!
This is an observation based on mine and others' experiences across Stack Exchange.
We should vote positively as often as possible! Also, we should encourage others to do the same!
Every Stack Exchange site will eventually end up with a different "base level" of voting --- that is, the expected number of upvotes for a question of a given level of excellence. (This effect occurs because people see a good question, but already with a certain number of votes, and think "oh, I would have upvoted this, but it already has enough".)
It's easy for us to affect this "base level" by encouraging high levels of upvoting now. We're setting the standards, and this really will have an effect.
The rationale for wanting the base level to be high is:

It provides better positive feedback to good contributors.
This generates more reputation in the system, allowing more users to contribute in more ways as they gain privileges across the site.
More reputation also means there is more rep to go around i.e. bounties. These are very good for the site in general, as bounties lead to the generation of even better content.

However, this does not mean that you simply upvote everything you see.

And an important 4th point is that it would help raise the chances of the beta to succeed, as the current number of site users with high reputation is still very low.

I was just wondering about the same topic yesterday. Although generally (on other SE sites), I only vote for questions and answers that I find relevant and useful to ME, I decided to broaden my view and upvote what I judge relevant or useful to someone else.

@jfpoilpret - I went through the same thought process and ended up at the same conclusion. So, I think the broader interpretation is the correct one - upvote the questions and answers that are good quality and belong in your site. Then you are encouraging people to keep up the good work.


text:
New favicon doesn't show up in many places
We got a new favicon almost two days ago that looks like an infinity symbol. Unfortunately, this isn't showing up in a lot of places, including the dropdown:

chat (including the icon on the tab):

and pretty much everywhere on http://stackexchange.com, e.g. here.
This is 100% reproducible on Chrome, Firefox, and IE on two different computers, one of which hasn't even been to Arduino.SE before. I very highly doubt this is a caching problem.

It's probably just a caching issue. Try using a different browser and see if it's any different.

@PeterR.Bloomfield That's what I thought at first, but no. Reproduced on Firefox, Chrome, and IE.

I would wait a bit longer if its a server caching issue. If it isn't fixed by then, I'll try to fix it.

@AnnonomusPerson It's not caching; see my edit.

Yeah, not caching.

@TheGuy I said server side. IIRC there's a lot of caching on the server side.

@Annon I didn't think server-side caching was possible...

@TheGuy I meant like that it needs to be updated on multiple servers and they haven't all been updated yet.

@AnnonomusPerson Nope, that wouldn't be the cause of this. Servers serving up different content would be fixed in ~15 minutes (can't find the source for this). It's not part of the sprites file so that's probably the reason... there may be other places it isn't used, too.

Most of this is just caching. Try doing a hard refresh on http://cdn.sstatic.net/arduino/img/icon-48.png and you'll see the new icon.
The sprite image does appear to be missing the new icon though: http://cdn.sstatic.net/img/favicons-sprite16.png?v=ca9619587f38f6088409bc18c44b605b

Our sprite maps and favicons were out of date. Fixed in build rev 2014.3.17.1464.


text:
Should moderators be censors?
Yesterday I have seen one of my posts deleted by one moderator with one comment to justify deletion.
I don't deny the justification for deletion (my post was little more than a link to a very good reference URL).
HOWEVER, there was no prior notification or warning, hence I was given no chance to improve my post before deletion.
Since I could still access it, I did perform edits on this answer, but it looks definately deleted, is that correct?
Hence my question: should we accept that our moderators exercize censorship so easily, and without any prior warning?
Shouldn't there be rules of conduct for moderators regarding censorship?
For example, I have seen a few answers with rather rude language being there for long before being edited, and I did not understand why moderators took so long to edit it (I had myself commented to the poster that he should edit his post, which he clearly did not care about).
A problem I see with such beahvior is that, if moderators start getting too keen on easy-going censorship, then I doubt the site will be able to keep its participants for long.
Indeed, it is important to keep in mind that Stack Exchange sites are here for people to help each other, and this is "best effort", some people just don't have enough time to write lengthy answers with all details but feel they can still help with their "simple" answers.

If you're ever unhappy with a mod's actions, feel free to ping us from the chatroom to ask that it's reconsidered.

I considered that, but I never go to the chatroom (question of personal preference, I'm always afraid to get addicted and spend my life in there...) But I will force myself to do it if this happens again.

The mods just delete the competing answers to get more rep.

Particularly with the kind of new site that this is, it's going to be necessary to accept that a lot of questions will best be answered with a link to offsite resources which are far more established as parts of the arduino world that this site is - specifically, resources that people should probably be reading before posting questions.

@ChrisStratton - One of the reasons why the main StackOverflow site is successful is because it is the best reference; because lots of users invested the time to write useful, informative, questions and answers that were substantively better than Google's top result. The best answers here would include (if license allows) or summarize the key parts of the off-site information.

If you're ever unhappy with a mod's actions, feel free to ping us from the chatroom @PeterR.Bloomfield - how do you even do that? I can see the chatroom, but I don't see how to address a question to moderators in that way.

Is this how? You go into chat, choose your favourite moderator (heh) and then try to start a new chat room with that moderator?

@NickGammon See the chat FAQ section on Notifications. It's worth noting that the pings don't always work when someone hasn't been in the chatroom for quite some time (which unfortunately is often the case for me these days as I don't have as much time for moderator duties as I used to).

There was nothing there about ping in particular (except typing) but don't worry. Hopefully I won't have to use it. :)

This whole situation from a moderator's perspective:
(I wasn't the one to delete this answer.)
Yes, it does seem like it might have been handled differently (i.e. turned into a comment). However, here are some basic reasons to justify that:

You can get the answer undeleted by either flagging (you have enough rep) or by creating a new answer.
You seem to be an active user across the network, with 6K rep on SO. It would seem like you should know that link-only answers aren't acceptable here.

Code of condut: It might also been an accident. I'll be the first to admit that moderators aren't perfect. Do we need a code of conduct? No. We have superiors that if we need to be removed, we can be removed. If you don't like one specific action, you can bring it up here (Why did this answer get deleted) or ask us on chat. A code seems too much work, and it can't be enforced. It'll have to be a "honesty policy" type of thing, because the mods can't legally release all of the data to enforce something like this.
Your edit did greatly improve the quality, so I undeleted it and removed the comment.

For example, I have seen a few answers with rather rude language being there for long before being edited, and I did not understand why moderators took so long to edit it (I had myself commented to the poster that he should edit his post, which he clearly did not care about).

Why didn't you flag it? It seems like we take care of 99% of flags in the first hour and a half after they are flagged. We can't reread every post every time someone adds a comment. Also note: one of the incidents with swearing were when we didn't have mod yet and couldn't do anything about it. There were several cases of this.

Before flagging the "rather rude language answer", I just recommended its author (through a comment) to moderate his statement, comment which he just turned down with a "no, why?" that I found quite disrespectful, hence I decided to stop there as I did not want to pour oil on the fire.

@jfpoilpret In most cases it's best just to flag it in the first place. If you want to flag and add a comment, go ahead, but with most cases like that so far they required moderator attention.

First off, let's look at your answer:

I think you should really read Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer?, written by Shog, one of the Community Managers for Stack Exchange. In this, he says:

Strip the markup, and this is what you're left with:

i think you should take The tutorial HERE! This will help you a lot

Is there even one tiny speck of information there? No. Even the
title of the page being linked to would have provided something to
go on, but that was entirely too much work.
So let me be clear: this sort of response is not an answer. If
you see this, flag it. Moderators, if you see it flagged, delete it.

Yes, your answer was a bit more than just a link, but not much more. The mod who saw this "answer" realized that, and deleted it and left you a comment. Sure, it could have been left undeleted and just had that comment... but is there really a difference? You just flag for undeletion whenever you've improved it. You see, we really can't have bad answers on the site, and might just be left around for days upon days, making the site look bad.

Hence my question: should we accept that our moderators exercize censorship so easily, and without any prior warning?
Shouldn't there be rules of conduct for moderators regarding censorship?

You have something fundamentally wrong in what you're thinking. Censorship and deletion are two different things. Censorship is when it's material that you think the world should know, but the people in charge think it's bad for the world to know that. Deletion on Stack Exchange is simply saying Oh, this is a bad answer or a bad question. If it gets improved, it can be undeleted. However, it's not a good enough post as of now.
Regarding rules for moderators - there are some rules that a mod has to follow. However, the main thing is just use your own judgment. If a mod mistakenly does something, either another mod will bring it up to them or you can flag it as other to bring it to their attention.

For example, I have seen a few answers with rather rude language being
there for long before being edited, and I did not understand why
moderators took so long to edit it (I had myself commented to the
poster that he should edit his post, which he clearly did not care
about).

Again, there's something different you could have done. You could have edited the offensive content out of the post. That's why there's an edit button at the bottom of every post. There's some things that the community can handle themselves, and editing is one of them. Moderators are supposed to be human exception handlers, not the person who does everything for their site. So, if you see something you can fix, fix it! If you can't fix it, and you need a moderator to do something, flag it for their attention.

I never denied the fact could have had some more content, but I felt this specific article was useful for everyone to know, and I could not just copy its content as that would be called plagiarism. I just complained about the "no prior warning". Regarding the second point, I am against censorship myself so I would not edit that specific part of the answer; I use edit only to improve answer contents (review typos, grammar, or add some more details). For me the best way as to let the poster know about it and let him fix his post himself, which seemed a better way, although it did not work.

@jfp It isn't concidered plageism if you cite your source and you rephrase it.

In the interest of openness, I would like to say that I had flagged the answer as NAA based on an accepted policy for link only answers that holds across the network. I completely agree with the moderator action taken in this case and I do not think there was any overreach here. The problems on letting poor content stay up are far more severe, than the effort that may go into an early deletion and undeletion after improvement.
I flagged it after giving it 12-18 hours, which would have been sufficient time in my opinion to go back and write a proper post. In any case, you are a 6k user on Stack Overflow, so I expect that you would be aware that such answers are considered very low quality and are in general not-acceptable. A recent post by Shog on MSO, reiterates the same.
Moreover, there is an answer draft feature available. Any answers that you are working get automatically saved by the SE editor every 45 seconds. If you intend to improve on an answer later, type a draft, work on it, and then post it when it has sufficient content to qualify as an answer.
I don't mean to be harsh, but there is no excuse for posting poor content, especially if it doesn't even live up to very basic quality standards. If you were extremely pressed for time, and yet wanted to help (as all of us do), then you could have posted your "answer" as a comment, and later come back and formed a proper answer, or let someone else develop an answer based on your findings. After all, the intention is to generate and share knowledge, and that would easily be served this way as well.

Duly noted. Thanks.


text:
Project Showcase '14 is coming to Arduino Stack Exchange! (Updated 3/19/14)

Its been a month since launch and we have had a fair bit of Q&A. We have solved a fair number of problems, and now, its time to see where that has gotten you and us!
To celebrate 10 years of Arduino, we are proud to announce the first event ever on Arduino Stack Exchange.

The logo is a derivative of the Arduino Community Logo licensed under Creative Commons license CC-SA-BY-NC 3.0

Get your boards and soldering equipment out, dig out the ICs and resistors. The first Arduino Stack Exchange contest is just round the corner. We will be looking for interesting projects that are built using Arduinos. The contest is aimed towards sharing, discussing and providing feedback on projects that you and other members are working on.
There may be a surprise in store as well for the best* submission.
To make it a huge success, we need your help! Spread the word, tell your friends and colleagues. The more people that participate, the more fun its going to be!
Keep an eye on this post. More details coming soon.
Details:

The prize is an official Stack Exchange t-shirt (Provided by Pops)
Limit two entries per person. If more than two are provided, only the first two will be considered.
Clones are allowed.
Projects for consideration will be accepted through March 29th, 2014 at 4:00 UTC. The question will still remain open in case someone wants to show off their project they made on Arduino Day 2014.

The rest of the details will be posted on the 23rd in a post on main.

This is being organized by Peter R Bloomfield, Annonomous Person, Sachleen and AsheeshR.
*The winner will be decided at the discretion of the event organizers. The event organizers (obviously) cannot win.
The logo is a derivative of the Arduino Community Logo licensed under Creative Commons license CC-SA-BY-NC 3.0

Does the project have to be something we build from scratch starting on the 23rd?

@TheGuy Nope. You can build it whenever, just submissions are open on the 23rd.

The contest post and updated meta post are now up.


text:
Find us on social networks
Social networks are a great way to get the word out about our site, and hopefully attract some more interest. To that end, I've setup a Facebook page for us here:
http://www.facebook.com/arduino.se
If you're an FB user, please like and share the page, and feel free to make suggestions about what we do with it. The page belongs to all of us, although for obvious practical reasons only the moderators will have direct admin rights on it.
To get us started, I've already setup an event on it for our upcoming Project Showcase event.
Please also feel free to suggest other ways we could represent/promote the site on other social media.

There's an Arduino community on Google+. It's not specifically for us, but it is a general Arduino page. Some people also ask programming questions on there, and I think it would be a good idea to point them to our site, maybe even asking a question for them and showing them a link later.

Here's the Arduino SE Twitter, @StackArduino: https://twitter.com/StackArduino. It doesn't have have any tweets yet, though.


text:
Let's customize our tour section!

The Arduino Stack Exchange Tour Page

There are a few fields that we can update and change in that page. Here are the things we can change:
1.)

Arduino Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for developers of open-source hardware and software that is compatible with Arduino. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about arduino.

2.)

How to prevent unicorns from eating daisies

(We can change this to any question with 25+ votes: This one?) We only have one question available: What are the other IDEs for Arduino?
3.)

Ask about...

Specific issues with arduino
Real problems or questions that you’ve encountered

Don't ask about...

Anything not directly related to arduino
Questions that are primarily opinion-based
Questions with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer

There are a few other fields in different locations that I'll talk about later. However, I feel like we should personalize them, making us feel like "not the average beta." What should we change some of these fields to?
Submission Format:
## Update to #[1/2/3]:
> Put Updated Text Here

Please put different fields in different answers. We can then vote on an individual idea, not a combination of them.
Note: Markup is only available on #1.

I'd say #1 should be based off our elevator pitch, which we don't have yet.

Update to #3:

Ask about...

Specific issues with Arduino boards, clones, code, and the Arduino IDE
Real problems or questions that you’ve encountered

Don't ask about...

Anything not directly related to Arduino
Any question that doesn't require knowledge about the Arduino platform to answer (Try Stack Overflow for general coding questions or
  Electrical Engineering for general electronics questions)
Questions that are primarily opinion-based
Questions with too many possible answers or that would require an extremely long answer


text:
Are there any guidelines/limitations for someone that promotes the company he works in?
I noticed today this reply which seemed like a biicode promotion, and after checking the user profile I saw another answer referring to the same company.
A look in the profile details of the user showed that she is working for the specific company, and based on the fact that her only two replies are referring to his company I wonder if there are rules regarding the issue of promoting a company.

Software Engineer at biicode

and in the linked website

I'm Julia S.Simon and I'm currently working at biicode.
Biicode is a spanish startup that aims to lower entry barriers for
  programmers making the hard stuff onf configuring project,
  dependencies and build for them.
Contact me if you need more information, or visit us and try it for
  free!

Do not use signature, taglines, or greetings.
Every post you make is already “signed” with your standard user card,
  which links directly back to your user page. If you use an additional
  signature or tagline, it will be removed to reduce noise in the
  questions and answers.
Your user page belongs to you — fill it with information about your
  interests, links to stuff you’ve worked on, or whatever else you like!
Avoid overt self-promotion.
The community tends to vote down overt self-promotion and flag it as
  spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to
  be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must
  disclose your affiliation in your answers.
If a large percentage of your posts include a mention of your product
  or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our
  advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for
  details. We also offer free community promotion ads for open source
  projects and non-profit organizations.

From the help docs
If you see this, edit it (if needed), and post a comment saying that you need to clarify the relationship in the answer, since many people don't read profiles.

While I cannot see the answers at present, in my experience of moderation over the past year, I have seen that sometimes people really don't know about Stack Exchange policies on self promotions. They are genuinely trying to answer the question, and an answer sometimes does happen to be an off-site resource being developed by the OP. As long as the post isn't blatant spam ("Buy handbags CHEAP HERE!!") and is an attempt to answer the question, the first response should be to comment and then delete with the not an answer flag.
Also, note that the spam flag comes with many network wide restrictions on the user account, along with a -100 penalty, so it should not be used lightly and certainly not be used for something that could be considered a valid attempt to answer, albeit poorly written or sounding like an advertisement.

A moderator can copy/paste the actual deleted reply and add it as a quote in my question if that helps the discussion.

I second this opinion. Yesterday I could briefly see one of these answers to my question, but couldn't retrieve it later on. I remembered the name of the site so I looked for it -I had no time to check it thoroughly though- and that seemed to be a valid attempt to answer my question. I would like to mention that "with great power comes great responsibilities" and moderators should maybe use this power sparingly and open a door for discussion first. In general, I think that "shoot first, talk after" behavior may be harmful to this beta and potentially turn newcomers away.

@jfpoilpret There was no other activity besides a comment, and both answers were advertising her company... only disclosed in their profile (not really read). 1 answer wasn't even a true answer to the question. There's also a policy about not doing all self-promotion. It seemed a little forced. I don't know of a place online where it is acceptable to just promote your product. Can Google place flyers on cars if they didn't know that it was illegal to do so in some areas? No, and the user has 18 SE accounts with 580+ rep on SO. She's not new.

Honestly, do you really think ALL SE users are aware of SE policies? I'd be surprised if this number could already reach 10%

@jfp It's no new concept... It's actually illegal to put flyers on cars. Why could you put ads as answers online? Most users don't know because it's not applicable to them. And 35+% have fewer rep than her.

@AnnonomusPerson My post questions whether the "ads" were really ads. If the ad was relevant, then it could easily be rephrased to look more like an answer and less like an ad. While we don't want bad content on the site, we also don't want to delete everything without giving a chance to the OP. And biicode seems to be a relevant answer to the repo question. If the answer was just a link to a blog listing a set of tools, then that could be deleted as a link-only answer. But, this was? a link directly to the tool itself, which is however lacking, a valid answer.


text:
Would a Tag for Arduino IDE version be helpful?
I've only been playing with the Arduino for a relatively short time, and until recently, it's been very sporadic. I asked a question recently which got the response to try out the latest Arduino 1.5.x as I'm (still?) only using 1.0.5.
Is there enough difference between IDEs to support an IDE version tag? Would it be useful or would it just get in the way?
I know that if it did exist, I probably would have used it already (by looking at questions so tagged) to see what issues those people are having, what libraries don't work, etc etc.

Not really.
Is there a tag for each build number of Windows on Super User? No. That's because there are too many versions.

Is there enough difference between IDEs to support an IDE version tag? Would it be useful or would it just get in the way?

There's a reason they call them "minor releases." They're... well minor. Most of the differences between versions deal with simple bug fixes, compatibility with new boards, and a few other libraries. IIRC the serial library was updated with Arduino 1.0, but I'm not sure. However, that was a major release (i.e. the first number was changed to signify a big change), so it had a few large changes. I'd imagine that nobody uses something below 1.0, it's kinda like asking should we put a Windows ME tag on Super User?

I've only been playing with the Arduino for a relatively short time, and until recently, it's been very sporadic. I asked a question recently which got the response to try out the latest Arduino 1.5.x as I'm (still?) only using 1.0.5.

Overall, it's not really necessary. Comments work fine... even if the OP says that they have the newest version a common response might be:

Double check that you have the latest version (maybe try the new x.xxx beta version?) and try reinstalling the IDE and any libraries you imported.

I don't feel it's necessary, if it's that important it can be in the body of the post or in the comments. One thing people forget a lot is the purpose of tags: to make finding related items easy. If we split them up, people will have to subscribe to fifteen different tags instead of one. I like the idea of having fairly specific tags, yet not too specific so it's that perfect balance that makes finding data easier.

I wouldn't call 1.5 a "minor" release personally. For me a tag could make sense if the question is about a specific feature of version.

@jfpoilpret Yes, it was a bigger release, but still there's no need to add one hundred tags and make every user tag their question with their IDE version, even if it's not applicable. Plus, not many users know their IDE version off the top of their head. You're forgetting the purpose of tagging. It's to help find a topic quickly. If I need to find all IDE questions, I don't want to have to enter fifteen tags in the search bar. Comments, as they stand, work fine when we need clarification.


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Project Showcase '14: Detailed Information

To celebrate 10 years of Arduino, we are proud to start the first event ever on Arduino Stack Exchange. The Project Showcase '14 is finally here! In case you missed it, see the earlier post. We hope you are ready ;-)
This post covers all the information not covered on main. TL;DR is that participate as you would as if this were any other post (within the spirit of the event), and you will be fine.

This contest is about sharing and creativity. Your entries may be anything that you may have recently worked on, the complexity or the difficulty level doesnt matter. What matters, is how much effort you put in and how much you enjoyed the process.
Rules

The contest submissions must follow the submission format (available on main).
Each submission must contain only one project.
Only first two submissions by a user will be eligible for consideration for the prize.
No major changes beyond grammar, punctuation, formatting should be made to a post after initial posting. All major changes will be rolled back, and the post will not be considered for the prize.
The winner will be the submission getting the maximum number of upvotes (downvotes do not count) and will get a Stack Exchange T-shirt*! There will be something for the runner-up as well. The runner-up will be decided at the discretion of the event organizers.
The event organizers cannot win the event.
Decisions of the event organizers will be final and binding.

Guidelines

This is about showcase and critique. Post feedback on others' submissions via comments. Suggest improvements and changes. We are here to help each other improve and grow.
Please keep the environment positive and encouraging for everybody. Any rudeness will not be tolerated, and may lead to disqualification.
Do not engage in strategic voting or sockpuppeting. These may result in site bans.
Most importantly, have fun!

Also, don't forget to spread the word! Tell your friends and colleagues. The more people that participate, the more interesting its going to be!
Return to main post.
Questions & Clarifications

Do projects using bare AVRs count? Official boards, clones, and derivatives that utilize at least the main Arduino library are acceptable for entries. This means your ATTiny with Arduino bootloader is okay, but your ATMega328p running only AVR C or Assembly is not. It must involve Arduino!

This post may be updated during the event. Any major changes will be announced on main.
*Certain restrictions may apply. International shipping may take a few weeks.
This event is being organized by Peter R Bloomfield, Annonomous Person, Sachleen and AsheeshR.
The logo is a derivative of the Arduino Community Logo licensed under Creative Commons license CC-SA-BY-NC 3.0

What are the specific requirements for qualifying as "involving" Arduino?
There is a LOT of latitude there.

What if a project just uses the optiboot bootloader?
What if a project is compiled using Stino
What if a project is compiled using the "Bare GCC" Stino option I implemented, which disables most of the default arduino interrupts, and requires that the programmer implements int main(){} themselves?
Note: You can still use the Serial libraries without the default interrupts via this option. Does that qualify?

I have lots of project that are basically what I describe above. Optiboot bootloader, compiled with Stino, the only "arduino" thing I really use is the Serial library, and then that's just for debugging purposes. I think I could probably reasonably argue this is within the bounds of the rules, and yet I don't think it's realistically eligible.

For that matter, what about editing the arduino source files? I could make a project that looks exactly like a simple arduino project, that does something completely different by modifying the template folders. That would satisfy the "use the main arduino libraries" requirement. You should probably clarify that the arduino files have to be stock.

Realistically, I can't really see this contest even really working without any hardware requirements. I think a much better contest would require the use of one of the actual arduino boards.

Thanks for the feedback! We had initially started with only Arduino board based projects, but considering this was the first time and we weren't completely sure of the response, we decided to keep it fairly open. Also, most of the competition was thought of assuming good faith on the part of members of our community, which is why the submission criteria are quite flexible. If there is a next time, feel completely free to participate in the  organization and formulation of the rules regarding the event.

Another question:
Does adding better pictures (by replacing the existing pictures) count as a "major" change? I'd like to take a better camera to work tomorrow and get better images of the boards in my post.
The images would be substantially the same, just with less blur and glare.

If they're pretty much the same, sure.


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Do we want a blog?
Many Stack Exchange communities maintain site-specific blogs like

Sci-Fi
Information Security
DIY

These are intended for topics that are part of the domain but don't fit well in a Q&A format. I think there are many interesting topics we could cover in a blog if we have enough members interested in contributing posts.
This provides some guidelines regarding community blogs. So, would you like to see an Arduino.SE blog?
Would you be interested in contributing to the blog? (if yes, comment on this post)

No. Definitely later, but it's too early.

We will need at least 4-5 regular writers (who can function as reviewers), and keep the blog going at minimum 1 post/2 weeks. Plus, of course, anyone would be welcome to join in to submit ideas, posts, tools, projects, etc, that we may cover, or even submit full fledged articles that could be published as-is. All of this depends on whether there are enough users interested in contributing, in the first place :) –  AsheeshR 9 hours ago

One post every 8/10 weeks if we have 4/5 people isn't so bad. With us three moderators, and maybe another user it's doable. I'd even be open to organizing and proofreading all of the content and uploading it as long as I have the content two days in advance. However, will people really read it? The Facebook page has only 7 likes. I know not everybody likes liking everything they see, however, it does seem like we won't get many readers per post.
I'd estimate we might get 50 a month if we're lucky at this stage. I'd say that that seems too low. The point of the blog is to expand the community's scope beyond the actual site and generate regulars, but we still need to get a little more users to make something like this worthwhile. In the meantime, share links to our site, friends us on Facebook, or even tweet one of our questions. Try the approach that if someone asks an Arduino question online to ask it here and give them a link when it gets lots of high quality answers. They might join us and then promote us.
I may be total wrong, but not many of the smaller betas have blogs. We're the third smallest community on the site, and I think we need to grow a little more to add something like this to make this effort successful.

I get 100-200 pageviews per month on my blog and I post less than once a month plus I dont publicise it; so your 50 views estimate seems rather pessimistic. Plus, a fair part of what we are doing is an investment a few months down the line rather than for now. Any useful content out there, irrespective of numbers, is good for us and the community. While I agree views are important, that should not be the sole driving factor here. The sharing aspect that you point out, goes without saying.

We should be sharing irrespective of the blog or other initiatives. Also, [islam.se] got its blog roughly 6-7 months after launch. I agree that this is fairly early, and I had voiced the same opinion earlier. However, we are a rather active and enthusiastic community and I think that a blog may just work out.

@Asheesh True, it might work out with us being active. For the Islam thing, we're a month and a half not 6 months. I say wait a few weeks before starting something and try to get a little more users.* For views... I guess we should keep the focus more on Arduino than on the site to gain viewers. | *It seems like we shouldn't start out with a post tomorrow, but we can start now and figure out a system.

I think a blog could add some value to the site.
One thing off the top of my head is a question like this: 'Basic electronics' resources [on hold] as a blog post than Q&A.

Could also be a place to present projects/libraries (something like the contest showcase but maybe more detailed)?

I think it's a good idea. But how will it work? (Specially in terms of when this community grows) Maybe a system of posts proposals and a group of reviewers or something like that? Or are you thinking more about having a reduced set of commiteds writers?

We will need at least 4-5 regular writers (who can function as reviewers), and keep the blog going at minimum 1 post/2 weeks. Plus, of course, anyone would be welcome to join in to submit ideas, posts, tools, projects, etc, that we may cover, or even submit full fledged articles that could be published as-is. All of this depends on whether there are enough users interested in contributing, in the first place :)


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Project Showcase '14 Winners!

Thanks to everyone for submitting a project to our first Arduino Day Project Showcase. With 14 submissions we think it was a success! Here are the winners:

Energy saver for the absent minded PC user - jippie
Stateful questbox - hithwen

The winner (jippie) will receive an official Stack Exchange t-shirt and the runner up (hithwen) gets the 100 rep bounty.
Congratulations to both winners! We would also like to thank everyone for participating!

Hope summer comes early this year ;o)


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When does a question ask for too much information/too specific, making it useful to a limited number of users?
This Arduino SE community has a more laid back scope than most sites. We have a fair number of shopping questions, which aren't allowed on most other sites. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't close a question if it's asking for too much information. I don't mind helping people out, but I hate when a question gets focused on such a small audience that it's only useful to the OP and one other person.
For example, Creating a wireless remote was asked a few minutes ago. Should we refuse these questions and require the OP to break them down into smaller groups? It's asking about:

Does this board fit my needs?
What should I use for Bluetooth?
How would I code this?

That seems like it's useful to only one person: the OP. I feel the OP has good intentions, but we don't want to get a lot of questions that are this specific. I personally feel that this should be closed and then either split or edited by the OP to focus the question. I didn't want to close it because I felt that closing this might spark a little controversy, and I wanted to get the community's input.
How should we handle this? I don't know if all of the parts would be a good fit for our site, but I don't know how to really tell the OP that in a nice way. They need help, but this doesn't seem to fit the theme of other SE sites. Should we allow this type of question on our site? It would help gain newbies, but other sites have abandoned this practice for practical reasons a long time ago. However, it seems like we need to allow some of this type of question so we don't "scare" off new users.
Another question that might have a limited audience is specific board recommendations. IMHO the consensus was that you can't which board would fit [insert purpose], but you can ask what differences between boards.
Edit:
There's no debate if that question should be closed. It needs to be broken up. What I really want to discuss here is if such open ended questions would be good for the site. We shouldn't leave them open just to get more questions. If we feel these types of questions, such as "would this board be good for my purpose?", would be constructive then they should be left. I, personally think they are too specific, and the how to ask page even says to make it applicable to more than one or two people. Like I said earlier, I want to know what the community thinks (and document the policy here if any confusion were to arise.)

I've used SE for some time now, but only signed up when the Arduino section was established. In my opinion there is the official Arduino site which caters for the advice and recommendations type of question, and SE has built up it's reputation by being a straight forward Q&A site. Look at the 'Hot Network' questions down the right hand side of the screen, all precise questions and not a lot of latitude (embellishment maybe) with the answers they will receive.

So you're suggesting that we don't allow these questions? Where do you think we should draw the line You're right: we have built up a reputation for being straightforward, but that doesn't mean we can't do this in a straightforward way...

I don't think questions where everybody who is signed up can give a different, yet valid, answer should be allowed. The questions need to be specific is perhaps what I'm trying to say. In the initial example, the questions are too vague. What I think is a good piece of hardware you may have had a nightmare with...

Honestly I find the arduino site poor in terms of recommendations; it looks more like a list of stuff you may use, with not much further explanations or experience. If you want deeped insight then you need to check the forum which is very big mess in general.

SE sites are supposed to be experts sites, hence even if someone has a specific question that may be useful only to him, this question is worth answering as any other question (this is my personal viewpoint).
Also, how can you be so sure that a given question would be interesting to just the OP and nobody else? No one ever knows.
I would also like to add that, given the current number of new questions created per day, the time has not come yet when we should wonder if we must limit this number further.
Since Arduino.SE beta is still far from the expected achievements, I would rather avoid too much censorship on questions or answers: we must attract people here, both people who have questions and those who can provide answers should not be turned away for some reason that may sound obscure to them (at least to newcomers).
Make no mistake: I don't say any question or answer can be left as is even though it may be not "good", but I just say that we should relax a little bit our expectations on questions and answers "quality", given that such "quality" assessment is really much subjective in general.
For me closing a question is like using an H bomb to try to cure a pandemia; there are many other ways to make a question (or answer by the way) better:

add comments to suggest changes to the OP (a lot of us are doing that already)
based on comments, directly edit the question if the OP did not do it yet (I do it sometimes)
downvote the question if its quality does not improve after several days
threaten the OP (in comments)
close the question

Please note that I find it pityful when I see comments where a moderator says "welcome" and then a couple of hours the same moderator requests to close the same question.
My conclusion is that this site needs a graduated response to poor quality.

we must attract people here... [don't close things that aren't allowed on other sites] I totally disagree. If we have to allow lower quality content to get new users, then we're doing something wrong. We won't graduate if we only get the expected numbers by allowing low quality content. That'll never happen. Sure, I don't think we should turn off as many users as possible, but now that I look at it more, it seems too broad and partially opinion based. Part of the how to ask is make it relevant to others.

You did not read my answer carefully, I said quality is subjective; my view of qualit for questions and answers is obviously lower than yours; it seems YOU are always overreacting to all questions and answers that may not be of topnotch quality. As a moderator, I think you should be more... moderate!

Dully acknowledged; you're right. There are other tools that could be used. However, other members of the community agree with me. It got closed recently. Also, the community has powers to close/reopen at will, so we should use it.


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Why isn't our Twitter account tweeting?
So we have a Twitter account, @StackArduino. However, it hasn't tweeted, has no profile picture, and isn't linked to anywhere. Why is this, and can the account be "activated"?

There are more upvotes on this question, than there are followers on the Twitter account :)

Ah, that would ultimately be an oopsie on our end. We had it configured properly (yay), but almost immediately something happened to un-configure it (ugh), and we didn't re-configure it (d'oh). It has just been fixed, and should be working soon!


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Do something about [optimisation] tag?
I just noticed the optimisation tag, and two possible problems with it.

"Optimization" is far more common than "optimisation" in both American English and British English, so it should probably be optimization instead of optimisation.
It is vague. In this case it was used for code optimization, but it could be used for for energy use optimization, circuit simplicity optimization, etc.

What should we do with this tag?

Now it's status-completed.
Changes:

Edited question and renamed to code-optimization
Added synonyms: code-optimisation → code-optimization

I've declined to do anything with the vague optimization tag. Since the question was edited, it's an orphaned tag. If there's another type of optimization that comes up (i.e. energy), we can change add synonyms for the different spellings.
The reason for that is if I would've added optimisation → code-optimization and optimization → code-optimization, any time a user adds either of those tags, it will, without warning, replace the tag to code-optimization. IMHO this is a major flaw in the system. It should warn the user.
A quick note: from searches, it seems like spelling it with a z is the most common way, but is still widely used. However, since SE is a US based company, we'll stick to US spelling. I know that Stack Exchange has users and countless countries, but it's simpler to stick to one version of English spelling, the one that's built into the engine/code base.

Adding a synonym for [tag:optimisation] --> [tag:optimization] shouldn't result in it being re-tagged as [tag:code-optimization]. It may suggest it as a possible existing tag, but it shouldn't automatically change it (unless there's a pretty serious bug...)

@Peter Haha, oops editing it now. I meant [tag:code-optimization] for the second tag in the paragraph. See updated post.

I would just retag that question to have code-optimization. optimisation could be made to be a synonym of optimization, but that seems unnecessary to me.


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Expiring 3rd party content
Check this question: How to compile code for the Arduino Due?
Now look closely at the referenced pastebin documents:

http://pastebin.com/EK9bmc1Q expires in 6 days
http://pastebin.com/2GCXP0L1 expires in 6 days
http://pastebin.com/t8dcYy8q expires in 6 days

Attributed as "too big for the question".
This renders the question useless for new visitors in 6 days. What can we do to prevent valuable content rotting away within a week?
For me it is reason enough to not look into the details of the question, I don't want to go through the effort of figuring out what is going on / how to solve it if the question is rendered useless for new visitors.

For me it is reason enough to not look into the details of the question

I agree. It's the responsibility of the OP to give only as much information as necessary to explain the issue. This question is a little different than most that we see like this, but still full output may not be necessary. In this example, there are a lot of duplicate lines that can be removed.

I am especially concerned about the fact that the majority of the question content will disappear in little under a week, rendering it useless to others. If the expiration was unlimited or the content was available on a platform SE can control, then the issue would be entirely different.

I think both issues are related: if the OP has made a minimal investigation, then he should be able to limit the amount of input to put into the question, thus he should not need pastebin.

I would suggest we set up a policy regarding use of pastebin or equivalents:

comment to the OP requiring to reduce code/output size to a correct amount and edit his question accordingly (within some early deadline, e.g. 2 days)
[optional] if someone can help with the question then he could edit and paste back the necessary code into the question
if after the deadline, nothing has changed, request to close the question (with maybe an additional comment to clarify why)
after the pastebin code is not available anymore, delete the question (moderator)

How have the people at stackoverflow solved this?

@jippie - StackOverflow requires example code in the question itself; not at PasteBin, JSFiddle or some other site. There are programmatic checks and close reasons for questions which don't contain their own example.

First of all, we as a community should guide our beginners. The past few weeks I've been wondering if a guide to formatting and asking good questions. The help center only goes so far. We should be able to post this whenever a new user doesn't follow these "standards."
One thing that we should teach is how to use coding conventions. White space helps out reading if done correctly. We should teach how to use the site formatting tools and enable syntax highlighting. We can help them along the way with most of this with edits. How this relates the the question is: we should add a section to it explaining to post code inside the question.
If a question that has too much code, we should add a close reason to the system for no prior effort for not locating the part of the code that isn't working. This close reason would apply to the question you mentioned. It is not acceptable to post one thousand lines of code and then expect us to fix it.
However, I do not believe we should delete these questions with lots of code. We should first move the code to the question, and only delete if it expires and we don't have code.  The OP could still debug the code and go through the process of reopening if they wanted to. Deleting will just scare away new users. We can create guides to help them, but we shouldn't scare them away, nor shoold they make us do all the work.

"One thing that we should teach is how to ..." I'm so happy that for once it is not myself who sounds like the grumpy old man ;o) I do think you have a good point though.

The OP has improved their own question by putting the PasteBin content directly in the question - this is exactly what should be done. The internet will be a better place with code examples and explanatory text in the same place.
StackOverflow requires example code in the question itself; not at PasteBin, JSFiddle or some other site. There are programmatic checks and close reasons for questions which don't contain their own example code.


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Are questions that are only related to Arduino by the parts used on topic?
Mainly referring to this question: Which voltage regulator should I use? [on hold]
Currently it's put on hold (by me) and has 3 re-open votes from the community so it's obviously worth a discussion to determine what direction the community wants to take this SE in.
The fact that it's an Arduino clone is not relevant to the question. The question is what voltage regulator should I use to get the most out of this battery while still being able to supply X volts and Y current.
When phrased this way, it's obviously off topic. But why does it become on topic if I mention the board I'm trying to power is an Arduino? Take a look at the answers to both Arduino.SE question and the EE.SE question. None of them mention Arduino, at all.
We've had a couple of other discussions regarding other topics but they all have the same theme:

Are questions about serial communication using third party software on-topic?
Are questions about IDEs other than the official IDE on-topic?

My policy is this:

Ask "What does this have to do with Arduino?" and if the answer to
  that question is not significant enough, then the question is probably
  off topic. https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/a/52/11

Although I tend to agree with the policy you mentioned:

Ask "What does this have to do with Arduino?" and if the answer to
  that question is not significant enough, then the question is probably
  off topic. https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/a/52/11

That policy is still quite subjective (how would you quantify "is not significant enough"?) and allows for different interpretations for a given question.
In the specific question aforementioned, I would keep it on-topic for the following reasons:

some answers may be Arduino-specific (or in this case, RFDuino-specific), e.g. there could be some specific way to provide current to the board and keep low-power consumption
the answer may require specific Arduino knowledge, as any datasheet only generally specifies min or max values; but nothing values real-life experience on the board to determine actual power needs
people who can potentially answer this question (i.e. people who already used an RFDuino and have faced the same decision in the past) are more likely to be found on Arduino.SE than EE.SE; as a matter of fact, that's my personal situation, although I do have an account on EE.SE, I almost never go there.


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How can we encourage new users to narrow down their problem? Could we improve the help center to fix this problem?
We've been getting a lot of questions recently when users dump hundreds, or even thousands (yes, this has happened) of lines of code into their question without even narrowing it down. This is simply not acceptable. We have lives, too, and we can't always find the problem by skimming code.
Some things that they could do:

Create many methods so everything flows and it's easy to read
Follow one coding convention throughout all of the code... this code is hard to read (not that it really does anything) because it has different styles:

void setup () {
one.function();  }
void loop ()    {
delay ( 500 ) ;
digitalWrite (5, HIGH);
}

Although this one is minor, it seems only helpful to possible answers to stick to one coding convention. Also, if no convention is followed, it sometimes shows that the OP copied a bunch of code and mixed it up, and when it didn't work, they copied it to our site. Don't get me wrong, not all of these questions are this way, and I'm not saying if they followed a coding convention that it would be a good question. Unless I'm wrong, it's usually expected to show prior knowledge of what you've tried, and not doing anything doesn't follow that practice. We're a site targeted at newer users, and I can see these questions becoming common. I may be overreacting, but I just am genuinely concerned about the quality of some of these questions.

With many methods, they could send data to the serial window between each function that's called in main() printing out variables. Then, they could narrow it down to a few lines of code that mess everything up.

It's hard to explain this to a new user, but SE's expectation is to include in your post what you've tried. I don't want our site to turn into a wasteland of questions that're unanswered. Even 200 or 100 lines of code IMHO is too much... even if it's a 40 line sketch it would help a lot to narrow it down to five or ten lines. If a user can't narrow it down to a portion of their code, then they are probably talking a too big of project.
So what can we do about this? I've been thinking that we could add this to the help center somewhere, or create another meta post tagged faq, and show new users it. We could add a few examples to that post explaining how to narrow down a problem.

Lets not force a specific set of coding conventions on people. I personally follow BSD style, and would not like to be asked/told to use a different style philosophy.

@Asheesh I wasn't saying we should enforce a specific coding convention. I (although I didn't emphasize this as well as I though) meant that people change coding conventions in one sketch. An accident is an accident, but really, four different styles? It seems sometimes like they copied code, edited a bit, and when it didn't work they dump 300 lines into their question and ask "how to fix this code." I may be being too critical, but as far as I know you're supposed to show prior research on SE, and many of these questions just don't.

Personally I'd like to see comments on people their scripts. That way we'd get an idea of what it should do right at that moment and we can see if someone misunderstand a command.


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Tons of new arduino questions in SO
If you search for arduino in SO, you'll see there are tons of new questions in there. Should we flag them to be moved to Arduino SE?

Be careful with the migration - unless something is highly specific to unique aspects of Arduino or too indistinct to survive there, there are a lot more experienced embedded engineer eyeballs on SO than there are ever likely to be here, so moving questions can easily lead to fewer and lower quality answers.

I've been noticing that too, and we're getting an increasing number of migrations already. I'm naturally a little hesitant to move everything, since we're still in beta. Increasing the number of good questions here though may actually give us the momentum we need to graduate.
On balance, I'd say any new questions which are clearly Arduino-specific are probably worth flagging.
We just need to be careful to avoid moving stuff that's actually more appropriate on SO (or somewhere else).

I've always been overly critical in sub-sites, I think there are way too many with very similar charters and often find myself asking ubuntu questions in linux/unix because I know I'll get a better answer there (and it's not specifically ubuntu related). I often post OS-X and apple stuff anywhere but AskDifferent for the same reasons unless it's VERY apple specific. Arduino tends to questions in EE (if it's not microprocessor related, but they often shift it back to somewhere else). I've read many arguments both for and against a more unified SE set of sites, I personally would prefer to see a better tagging system between the sites, but there's meta discussion on that as well.
I think SE and SE sites do a fantastic job, but it's grown too big and needs to become more refined (that's just my personal opinion, and I know it's not shared by others, I do NOT mean to offend). I will still be sticking around here for my "go-to" answers. In fact, the SE sites are ALWAYS my first preference because I think more seasoned users DO do the research and make this a much more valuable tool.
If only lesser rated forums had the same level of quality control, well, I wouldn't be here so often lol
To more specifically answer your question, my view is "where is the question better answered?" Just because it has an Arduino doesn't mean EE is a better fit for the electronics side, but then again, SE-A is a much better fit where people haven't comprehended the datasheet (which we all know is hefty).
My personal view, think about where YOU would ask that same question.


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When should we close electronics questions?
One question that has paticuarly caught my eye is Using multiple laptop battery packs to power everything. It seems more like about batteries than Arduino. The OP doesn't even mention if he's using an Arduino, just that he's building a robot and his question was rejected on EE.
Although the OP never mentioned it is using Arduino, he probably is to post it here. Still, why would it be acceptable to make it on topic by saying it's for an Arduino project? On SO you can't ask about an Excel spreadsheet if you say "it's my budget for buying hardware so I can code."
This is not to decide the future of that post, it is to make a clear policy of when an electronics question should be closed. This is an essential part of our scope and I feel like we need to get this clarified before moving on to more important issues. What should we do?

It can be a tough call - in the course of writing an answer for http://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/1490/calculating-location-with-4-piezos I was very tempted to flag it as unrelated to arduino.  But ultimately, I realized that the ATmega A/D would be a serious limitation - so in a way it does.

For that specific question, the OP mentioned he asked on EE first but it was deemed off-topic there 5I really wonder why by the way). You're wrong when you say the OP does not mention Arduino, he did it in his very first sentence where he mentioned he's building a robot with multiple Arduinos.

Some people treat Arduino as the hobby/amateur electronics SE so anything that wouldn't belong in EE but mentions Arduino goes here.
We need to make a decision:
Accept the fact that not every question is appropriate in one SE or another. There will be questions that do not belong anywhere. Questions like this would be closed as off-topic because they have almost nothing to do with Arduino.
OR
Let this community be amateur electronics where we help with all aspects of projects that involve Arduino.
I'm in favor of the first option. I think we, as mods, need to draft a "What topics can I ask about?" post and let the community make suggestions on changing it.

For the post, it's in the help center, but ideally we should have one large thread where people can suggest scope changes as an answer. Also, for option number one, where would the voltage regulator question stand? Off topic? I kinda like this rule of thumb: "If you don't need to know anything about Arduino, then it's off topic." However, that might be a little too tight of a scope...

Yeah, we have to limit the scope while ensuring we aren't restricting it too much.

There is a place for embedded electronics questions, Embedded.SE or EP&D for short. Perhaps you can add us to your migration path. Questions about embedded hardware and software are on topic. Questions about user space software (for ex., Android and iPhone 'apps') are largely off topic.
That being said, the specific question the OP referenced would be on topic at EP&D, even though the (as of now unedited) questions does in fact state that he is using 'multiple' Arduinos to control the robot. It has been a debate on whether or not certain questions are on topic at EE.SE, but the fact is the community there only wants certain types of questions on their site, hence the need for EP&D.


text:
What is the status of Arduino.SE Public Beta
Now we've been in Beta for 90 days.
If we take a look at the latest metrics, we are still far from SE expectations on almost all aspects.

So what's next?
Is the Beta going to be extended (how is that decided and by whom?)
What will happen if the Beta is not extended?
If the Beta is extended, how can we improve Arduino.SE achievements to meet SE expectations?
I know these are several questions in one, but I guess the time has come to take stock of our situation as I believe several people here are wondering the same.

TL;DR everything is going to continue as normal.

So what's next?

Nothing special.

Is the Beta going to be extended (how is that decided and by whom?)

Yes. Sites may stay in beta for 2-3 years before any decisions may be taken. The Community Team reviews every beta site every 2-3 months, and looks for any problems or issues. If there aren't any ominous posts from the CM team, that usually means the site is doing fine, and is progressing towards a graduation.

What will happen if the Beta is not extended?

This will be a long time away, if at all it gets to that.

If the Beta is extended, how can we improve Arduino.SE achievements to meet SE expectations?

The statistics are not absolute criteria. A site may be kept in beta, even if it meets all the criteria; a site may be launched even if it meets 3/5 of the criteria. The numbers are there just to guide the community on some generic goals. The CM team knows and understands that each site is different, and they look for continuous stable growth, rather a set 3-4 parameters. The graduation process is very fuzzy.
However, sites should try to stay in the green on atleast 3 to 4 of the 5 parameters shown on A51.

Thanks, this looks to be good news! Is there some location on A51 (or elsewhere) where I could find out more about this?

@jfpoilpret There are a few posts by Robert around many other metas. You will have to search around to find more. I will link back if I come across anything recent.

@jfpoilpret I've been watching these parameters for a while now and it looks like things are picking up now. Visits a day is steadily growing - it just went over 500 from Needs Work to Okay. Great new! Right on!!


text:
Wire tag vs. wires tag
Wire is useful. "Wires" as a tag is not. I've edited the question that has wires and removed it (admittedly its replacement, wiring, is almost as bad a choice) but I still can't attach wire to a question about Wire. I believe someone may need to nuke wires directly, but is there any way to prevent this from happening in the future?

No one really can nuke wires. There is a system background process that is ran daily that cleans up tags without any questions.

Tag it wire-library so you can get it past the system (and it's much less ambiguous)

As far as what to do to prevent this from happening, I did this this:

Synonymize wires ← wiring, because someone wouldn't type "wiring" when referring to the library. The system will automatically rename everything tagged "wiring" to "wires."

This way, if someone types wires or wiring, they will get wiring. If they type wire, it will have an option for "wire-library" and "wiring." This will fix the problem.
We should leave wire alone. It's way to ambiguous to be synonymized to one of the two types of wire.

I have tagged the question [tag:wire-library] and have edited the tag to provide some useful information.


text:
Can we nukify the "programming"/"sketch" tag(s)?
Okay, here's the problem: programming is really vague. I'd think it would be much more beneficial to use either c++/c/etc. Additionally, do you think we should keep the sketch tag, as it seems to be very similar to programming (with an exception of sketch size, which is its own tag)? However, there still might be some applications that would be appropriate to use sketch...
Take a look at some of the tagging I've seen that use programming:

programming, c++, (other tags)
programming, java, (other tags)
programming, (other tags)

The programming tag seems very ambiguous. In some cases, you have to assume which language they're using.
So the solution that I feel appropriate:

Edit the sketch wiki to say something like this:

For questions about coding your Arduino, please use the language tag (c++ is the official language for Arduino). Use this tag when talking about the concept of a sketch, such as the actual file, not the code.

programming: retag all non-c++ questions, perform a merge (i.e. automatic mass retagging), and edit the wiki like this:

For questions about coding your Arduino, please use the language tag (c++ is the official language for Arduino). Use this tag when talking about Arduino coding in general.

With the merge, we might have to move a question or two back to programming, but that shouldn't be a big deal.

So what is your input on this? Any suggestions? Is it fine as is?

Closely related question: http://meta.arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/111/when-should-we-use-the-c-tag

@Peter Yes, I did look at that one before I posted this one. The tag seemed fine then, but it seems like now that it's used pretty much whenever it's not electronics. IMHO tags are designed to be specific enough that someone can subscribe to a tag and get a small range of questions that they're interested in, but not too specific that they have to subscribe to twelve different RSS feeds for hardware interrupts. I think that separating topics like C++ and [insert another language] make the feeds more useful, especially since I'm not that interested in coding with Java.

One problem I see is some people may program with Arduino IDE without even knowing they use C or C++. Also, for beginners, the difference between C and C++ is not always obvious.

@jfpoilpret Yes, that is a good point. I kinda feel like we should rename the "programming" tag and use that for standard IDE code (i.e. setup()/loop()).

Here is the way it makes the most sense for me:
programming should be for questions that require a knowledge of Arduino-specific methods and other code, like delay(19), TCNT2, and void setup(){}. It might need to be renamed to arduino-code or something similar.
c++ should be for questions that

involve pure C++ code, e.g.
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    std::cout << "Hello World!";
}

involve advanced C++ coding techniques that a mediocre Arduino programmer is not expected to know, (e.g. pointers), or
can be answered by someone who knows C++, but has absolutely no experience with Arduino code, e.g.

Whai dosnt dis codez werk?
void setup() {
    digitalWrite(2, HIGH)
}

Other language tags, like matlab and r, should be used in any question that is related to those languages.

But then people still will be tagging a matlab question with "matlab" and "programming." I kinda think we should rename programming to make it clear it's for standard IDE code... ideas?

@AnnonomusPenguin Is that necessarily bad? If I want to see all coding-related questions, I don't want to favorite [programming], [matlab], [r], [c], [c++], etc.

True, but I think we should add another just tag for the code with the standard Arduino bootloader and libraries. That way someone who wants only standard Arduino code questions can favorite that tag and someone who wants all code can favorite just one tag.


text:
Redesigning Help Docs/Tour - Part Two: Full Site Scope Definition
This post is on behalf of all of the mods.
This is designed to be a sequel to this post:

Let's customize our tour section!

To be a successful Stack Exchange site, we not only have to ask good question and have a good user base, we need to make it easy for new users to grow our community. The easiest way to do this is with help documents and other faq posts on meta.
The biggest problem (besides question quality) is off topic questions. Site scope is fairly easy for most people, but there are a couple of grey areas that are complicated for me. I can't imagine how confusing it must be for a new user when asking a question in this 'grey area' and learning SE's policies on duplicates, accepting, comments, and scope in general.
Moderators have special tools for edtiting certain parts of the site. We can edit the tour (as specified in the "part one") and one page of the help center. Here's what it says:

What topics can I ask about here?
Please look around to see if your question has been asked before. It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question.
If your question is not specifically on-topic for Arduino Stack Exchange, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.

That's the standard cookie-cutter template. It's not really that descriptive. I think we should preserve it, or reword it. it seems to be a
The following is a draft of what we should change the help center to. You can submit an answer if you would like to suggesting changes. I'm no wordsmith myself, but us three mods feel it's pretty good. You can also suggest other things to add (a meta link would be fine with a little text) or, if you disagree with a bullet, feel free to either: a.) post an answer or b.) ask another question on meta and link it.

Before you post a question, please look around $SiteName to see if your question has been asked before. If you've already asked this on another site, please don't ask it again. Either flag it for moderator attention and request migration to $SiteName or delete it on the other site and re-ask it here. Also note that it’s okay to ask and answer your own question.
Here at $SiteName we have specific criteria to determine if a question is fit for our site. If after reviewing the following list you're still not sure, visit Meta $SiteName, a site to ask about $SiteName.
On topic:

Specific questions about Arduino boards, code, and the Arduino IDE. Feel free to ask about anything related to Arduino.
Questions about other IDEs, clones/counterfeits/derivatives, and other coding languages for Arduino. Feel free to ask about any language for coding Arduino.
Board recommendations. Make sure to include detailed information about the project you are doing and your requirements. If your question is too vague, it may be put on hold.
Library recommendations. Make sure to include detailed information about the requirements. If your question is too vague, it may be put on hold.
Code review: Use the tag project-critique for advice on how to improve your code/project.

Off topic:

General Coding: If your question is about coding not related to Arduino, try Stack Overflow.

If the solution would be the same with or without Arduino, then it's usually a general coding question.

General Electronics: If your question is about making electronics or other electricity questions not related to Arduino, try Electrical Engineering.

If knowledge of Arduino would improve a question, it's on topic. Otherwise, it might not be a great fit for our site.

If your question is not specifically on-topic for $SiteName, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area51, the place of where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.

Upvote this if you agree that we should change it to the draft posted (original post).
Downvote this if you agree that we should not change it to the draft posted (original post).
This is just a community wiki post designed to get an unbiased consensus of what you think we should do. Some people might upvote the main post just because they agree that it should be changed, but want a revised version. If you disagree, either add another answer or vote on an existing answer to bring up why you want it to be changed. If any major edits are made, I'll delete and recreate this post so we can reset the vote.


text:
Questionable question: book recommendation
I just came across this question:

Can anyone tell me the best books for studying UAV?
It's kind of hard to get full guide from the internet. I just wanna buy a book for UAV guide. I gotta make DIY drones. I'd appreciat it if you recommend good books.

and I honestly don't know what to do with it. Is it a good question, deserving of upvotes? Should I Downvote it? Delete it? Close it? What should It be closed with?

I closed that question. Why? A few things:

The title is asking for the best book, which is very much based on opinion
Even if we did allow book recommendations, they should be more specific. This question, as it is, is quite subjective.

I do agree that we need to better define what recommendations we allow. However, this question could, and should be closed as either primarily opinion based or too broad. Both would fit.
As far as a recommendation that's clear and specific, I'd say it should be allowed. A lot of questions currently are "recommendations" because they ask for libraries/parts/software. This is a list here (adding to another post for CW).
I don't think it should be upvoted, deletion isn't used in this case (and is automatically done by the Community ♦ user after a while), but you can downvote if you want to. I'm not going to advise you on how to vote. :)

The most obvious point I see is that it's not about Arduino. A UAV could certainly involve one or more Arduinos, but it sounds like most of the relevant subject matter is more general than that. The best course of action seems like closing it, with the potential to re-open if it's made more Arduino-specific.
That issue notwithstanding, I'd say it's also too broad at the moment, and possibly too opinion-based. It seems a shame to close questions like that, because it could genuinely be interesting and helpful to many people. However, it's not what Stack Exchange is designed for. We want questions and answers which address specific, tangible issues.

This post is a community wiki dedicated to posting questions that are recommendations. Feel free to edit: just don't vandalize or change content to reflect personal views.

Serial data plotting programs


text:
Can you use Circuit lab in the Arduino forum
The Electronics Stack Exchange has a built-in button to a free version of Circuit lab. It's not a bad little tool for creating simple circuit diagrams. I don't see a way to do that in the Arduino Stack exchange, at least not directly. I had to cheat, create a throw-away question in the EE Stack exchange, export it to a picture, then post THAT, which is quite convoluted.
If not, could Stack Exchange add that feature to the Arduino boards? It would be very useful and appropriate.

This is a duplicate... Personally I don't think the SE team will do anything until we graduate out of beta or show a real need for this. I'm not quite sure if we will get this or not... :/

You can start a question or answer in EE.SE, then draw the circuit, then copy the text insert to arduino.se, without saving the EE.SE question. Disadvantage is that you can't save the circuit. I am quite disappointed that Arduino.SE doesn't get a C/lab module (or similar.

Why is the Arduino SE in beta, and what does it take to graduate? And given that the Arduino is a hardware development platform, it seems obvious that circuit diagrams are a necessary tool.

@AnnonomusPenguin, the thread you linked is not really a duplicate. It was a question on "How do I create circuit diagrams on the Arduino SE." My question was specific to wanting Circuit Lab. I marked it as a feature request, and I think it has merit as such.

@DuncanC the other question is also a feature request. I'll still poke someone higher up though, if that would make you feel better. However, since we're still in beta, they usually don't grant us features like that unless we show an extreme need for those tools. We're in beta because, to add new SE sites, it goes through Area 51 where users can post and vote for new proposals. When it meets certain requirements, they use a template and launch the beta site. There really isn't a real set of requirements as it is determined on a case-by-case basis: SE wants the site to not fail.

@AnnonomusPenguin In the discussion at the time I wrote my question, I was strongly adviced not to pick a specific solution (called Circuitlab) but make it a generic request for a circuit editor.


text:
What to do with my question which contained a wrong premise, as shown later?
I have asked a question:
What happens to the sketch / memory when Arduino is powered off?
In one comment a likely solution was found (DS18B20 returns 85 deg C after power up), which mostly turns the question moot. The question did not contain enough details (it did not mention at all DS18B20), it was "loaded" with my assumption the issue is with the Arduino memory.
I am not sure what to do with the question now. Should I delete it completely, or is there some way to salvage it - to edit it so that it contains enough detail so that the solution related to DS18B20 is more apparent? Or should I keep it, as it is, as even in current form it is not that bad, and ask a new question about DS18B20 after reset behaviour?

Should I delete it completely[...]?

No. Technically, you cannot delete it since there are answers.
First of all, do you have your question solved? If so, accept an answer/post an answer/comment, upvote the answers, and move on with your life. If no, then edit it. You're just adding some small details...
If you're worried about the existing answer, I'd say maybe add a comment if you feel like you should. It's still a valid answer to the question, although it didn't exactly solve it. It did tell you that a normal board should be fine and that it is something else.
I think adding a new question would attract a lot of similar answers.


text:
Let's get critical: Aug 2014 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Arduino Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

MCU Type ATmega16U2 not avaliable in Eclipse AVR Plugin

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

How to use two Sonar's

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

What is the frequency of PWM output on Arduino

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

Is programming the ATTiny85 possible in 1.5?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

Disable Boot Flash completely on ATMega

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

How can I make my Arduino code work?

Net Score: 1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

nRF24L01+ (RF24) radio with Arduino Micro

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)

Arduino UNO USB not recognized

Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Can I control analog IO pins using Yun Linux

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 3)

Need some help with controlling a fan through PWM

Net Score: -1 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 2)

Nice eval, everyone!

First impressions:
Positive:

We have a lot of great answers that provide useful information.
For some questions, I could use basic search terms for a subject and see our site as the second or third item on the list.

Negative:

I noticed that the quality of the questions could be improved. We don't have a lot of edits
Our tagging could be improved. For example, a lot of scenarios there is either no board tag or there are multiple board tags when the question only relates to one board. Plus, there are some questions that only use the tag "Arduino-Uno"

Other thoughts:

Although this isn't directly related to the quality of the site, I noticed that a lot of questions were hard to find online because they were primarily code based, thus it is very hard to have an identical situation. I think this is just a flaw in the SE benchmark system, not with out site quality.

Other than that, I thought most of the questions selected were quality. I do think we need to have more users working to edit, close, and retag questions to improve the general grammatical elements and the appearance of the content. We might have to establish better tagging guidelines (using meta).
What can you do?

If you see a bad question, edit it. If the tags are wrong, retag it! (If you don't have 2K to do this, try doing something else with the post or just leave it).
If you're not sure what should be done but know that it isn't right, don't be afraid to ask in chat or in meta. Meta is the foundation that allows the rest of the site to grow.


text:
We need a way to create symbols in the Arduino meta
I posted a question to the EE stack Exchange on how to put a horizontal bar above a character.
The answer I got was to use MathJax, which I had never heard of. The markup in that post works perfectly in the EE SE, but not in the Arduino SE.
Can we get something like that for this forum? We're always posting about digital pins, and frequently need to interface with chips like ADCs, flip-flops, and clocked logic chips that have inverted pins like (not)enable, (not)busy, or (not)q (where all of those things should have a bar over them.
Seems like a facility for math markup would be a boon on this Arduino board.
Here's the latest thread (on 16 bit ADCs) where I needed this.

https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/13/is-there-an-easy-way-to-enter-formulas-in-questions/2446#2446

https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2445/as-we-get-more-advanced-in-our-use-of-arduinos-in-ever-more-complex-ways-it-wou

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/216606/which-stack-exchange-sites-use-mathjax/216607#216607

https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2445/as-we-get-more-advanced-in-our-use-of-arduinos-in-ever-more-complex-ways-it-wou


text:
Should we make a canonical "How to send data using serial?" question?
I have noticed that there are a lot of questions that are like "How can I make my Arduino send data to my R program?" "How can I make my Arduino send data to my C++ program?" "How can I make my Arduino send data to my Processing program?" "How can I make my Arduino send data to my Matlab program?"
Because the Arduino part of the question is almost always the same (How can I make my Arduino send data to a computer), should we make a canonical "How to send data using serial?" question, and close others as off-topic?

I think we could really benefit from a one-stop list of how to interface with Arduino's serial output in a variety of languages.

Related: http://meta.arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/1245/can-we-get-some-canonical-questions-going


text:
Let's get some free advertising for our site!
For those of you who are avid Stack Exchange users you'll know that most graduated sites have a place for free community advertising for stuff like open source software, other SE sites, and other stuff that the community is interested in. Obviously we can't get it on our site since we are still in beta, but we could and should get some ads for our site.
They're refreshed every year, and they are just getting started up again so it's a great time to start. This post is to brainstorm where and what we want to advertise on the SE network. Feel free to add some sketches and ideas.

Electrical Engineering.
We have a similar scope to theirs, but we cover slightly different areas. This could be a great way to drive traffic to our site.
Edit: it seems like someone has already done this. Cool!

I have seen several "migrated rom Electrical Engineering" I believe that it is a good site to advertise on

Robotics
Quite a number of Arduino related questions are already being asked there, so there is a lot of overlap in scope.

That isn't a graduated site yet, otherwise it would be a great candidate.

What if we created more of an application based photo.  When I need to wire, I go to Electrical Engineering, when I need to work on motor control and algorithms I check Robotics, and when I need to program I use stack overflow and sometimes Arduino.
I mainly think of Arduino as a site which helps in applying the Arduino to specific applications.  Does that make sense?
We could feature some type of cool hack or apparatus that someone has built.  Or a meme of an Arduino controlled project that gets people interested.


text:
Can we modify the highlighted questions color?
I found pretty difficult to distinguish between an highlighted and a non-highlighted question on the Arduino site. Is it just me?

Unfortunately we can't change that. All Stack Exchange sites use the same design during their beta phase. If/when we graduate to a full site, we'll get a custom design.
With that said, the difference between highlighted and non-highlighted seems reasonably clear to me. Perhaps you need to adjust some display settings on your system?
Alternatively, you could use a browser add-on which lets you write a script to modify the design automatically on-the-fly (e.g. GreaseMonkey).

I don't know, maybe I'm too used to the Stack Overflow bright orange. Thank you for the info btw.


text:
Should we have an IOT or internet-of-things tag?
That's pretty much the question. Would it be useful to have an internet-of-things tag?

I don't see a huge long term benefit for this tag.
I often think that tagging is overused and stuff is often not tagged correctly. In this case, an IoT tag doesn't really define the question (it'd be like a toaster tag). It defines the type of project, which isn't that helpful.
Tags like Ethernet, WiFi, Arduino Uno, programming, etc. are much more descriptive and they seem more useful and worthwhile to me. This tag would replace the more helpful tags on some questions.

Yes ! It's very used, and specific !
Because some softwares are dedicated to IoT and some protocols are mostly used only for that,
 so adding this tag can help people to find some new possibilitys that they didn't know like to (to be continued ... )

Can you please edit your post to indicate why this tag would be useful for our community? Thanks!

Then tag the specific protocols involved.


text:
Should we not allow questions asking for tutorials?
I am starting to wonder if we should close questions that are asking for tutorials.
These questions often lead to either link only answers or an extremely long answer. Should we close these questions?
Example question: Using NodeJS, socket.io and Adafruit HUZZAH CC3000 breakout board to control Arduino wirelessly?

Just wondering, what is considered (extremely) long answer? 200 words long? 400?

@Avamander I don't think there's any formal size; more than a page or two on the screen would probably be pushing it (excluding images/one word lists that have low screen space to information density). If you need more than two pages or so to completely answer question, that's too long. Now, if it's a page or two elaborating on stuff, that's an entirely different matter.

I've noticed quite a few questions of that style, where people are basically asking for links/resources. I think that kind of thing is outside the scope of the site, so it should be closed as Too Broad or Off Topic (whichever is most appropriate in the context).
(As a side note, perhaps we need an additional Off Topic reason to cope with such circumstances. Currently, the only Off Topic reason is "not about Arduino".)
The aim of pretty much any SE site is to become a resource in itself rather than a collection of links to other resources. Links may be included for background information or further reading, but they shouldn't form the primary content of any answer. We also shouldn't be posting long-form tutorials, as that doesn't fit the Q&A format well.

I'm going to start closing some of these questions tonight in batches of 1-2 questions per night. If an edit is possible, I will edit them to make them on topic, although some of these questions might be way too broad. I'm not touching the ones asking for a library (since I think we've pretty much decided that they are OK). If anyone wants to help, these questions are the ones that aren't closed (and include the word "tutorial").