text:
New tag for Simulation-nodes?
Now that Simulation Nodes are here.  Should we create a new tag called simulation-nodes like we have for geometry-nodes?

Basically yes, but "it's here", is currently not correct, because it has not reached a stable version yet (15.5.2023). Establishing functions that are only available in alpha/beta versions as their own tags is therefore premature in my opinion.

I just wanted to get ahead of it they announced that it will be in the 3.6 version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yq_2qsv1MI . Things related to Simulation-nodes has been showing up for awhile and getting this stuff tagged / labeled correctly will make it easier to search for things in the future... https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=simulation+nodes

From this point of view: Yes, Since it is (fairly) certain that Simulation Nodes will come sooner or later, it would be good to do some preliminary work here and tag the questions correctly already now (Even though they may not have much relevance in the long run at the moment). However, there was once a tag [tag:geometry-nodes-fields], which was also merged with [tag:geometry-nodes]. Strictly speaking, Simulation Nodes are simply Geometry Nodes. Currently, there are actually too many tags, and it would be better to clean up the mess and merge tags instead of creating more derivatives.

Good point. Given that question about it are bound to come pouring in soon now would be the time to create the tag (or synonym). Whether we actually want a dedicated [tag:simulation-nodes] tag or not is something else that needs discussion. As quellenform correctly points out it seems to me like just another type of Geometry Nodes that doesn't warrant a tag of its own. @RickT Do you think we'd benefit from a dedicated tag for simulation nodes? Do you see any situation we'd benefit from a tag specifically for simulations or would the old tag suffice?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Honestly, I go back and forth.  On one hand simulation-nodes is part of geometry nodes as @quellenform so correctly stated, on the other hand it really is it's own subgroup.  We currently have the modifier tag but we also have the screw-modifier tag  and the bevel tag (should be a bevel-modifer tag also) but we have no weld-modifier tag.  What are the requirements for a tag to be created.  Note this can quickly get out of hand and we start creating a tag for everything (Like putting post-it notes / labels on everything hahaha https://imgur.com/NWzeK6H)

I've been thinking a bit more about this and came to the conclusion that for the time being at least we do need the simulation-nodes tag.
It is true our tag system is a bit inconsistent at the time, we do have tags for some modifiers but not others.
The general (lack of) rule so far has been creating tags on a need-to basis. Users, some times newly arrived, create tags that lay around for a while, and we ended up adding wikis to them making them became more permanent. Some times in retrospect we come to the conclusion we don't need a certain tag and create a synonym after the fact.
I do think some specific modifier tags do have their value, they help us filter for more specific or substantial modifiers (like boolean or bevel), or distinguish between modifiers and their homonym edit mode operators.
As for the Simulation Nodes I'd vote for keeping it as dedicated tag not because they are distinct from regular geometry-nodes, but to help distinguish from legacy physics simulations, which I suspect will eventually be phased out in favor and the new system.
It may additionally be relevant in contrast with regular Geometry Nodes, since unlike the old Fields, (which became an integral part of the broader geometry nodes) physics simulations will always act as "box" inside a more general node tree, with well defined "gated" entry and exit points.
While input can be added at any point in the simulation box, output will only happen with a Simulation Output node. I haven't yet dug into the specifics, but I suspect this will open the door to trying to solve certain issues with the subset of nodes that can be used inside this simulation area, along with any additional limitations that may or may not apply.
For these reasons I'd argue to create a simulation-nodes and maintain tag to distinguish from the old physics simulation both for historical purposes and for any users for any reason stuck with older Blender versions.
Let me know if you have any arguments against it. If we all agree now would be a good time to create it, since questions about simulation are likely to start rising in volume in the near future.

OK, let's do this, I agree for now. I'm not quite convinced yet, since more tags don't make the tags less, but in this case a distinction might be handy for the future. And if the questions are tagged, they can always be retagged afterwards if the decision didn't turn out to be useful after all. I am so free and take care of it right away....

Yes, we can later remove the tag if we no longer see the need for it. It is easier to remove an unwanted tag, then it is to retroactively try to tag a large backlog of existing questions with an new tag.


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A goodbye to the community - iKlsR Moderator Resignation
Most of you here probably don't know my handle or haven't interacted with me personally since I've taken a back seat for a while now. I was the very first moderator here and I'm very proud of that fact and what I've accomplished in my earlier years. This post is being done off the top of my head so forgive the absence of any links or accurate dates.
I can remember the exact summer 2013 where I finished packing and was literally about to head out the door when I got the email that Blender.SE was had left Area51 and was entering private beta. I was beyond excited since I was an avid user of the software so I cancelled my entire summer, created an account and began churning out answers. Not accounting for StackExchange employees I was the 8th user to sign up. Today we have almost 69k (nice) users at the time of this writing.
I was eager to contribute and racked up points quickly (back then it was extremely fun to watch your reputation grow) and got to 4k points where I unlocked some moderator privileges, later on I applied to be a community mod and then was eventually promoted to a full time moderator voted in by the community some years later.
We have 4 (2?) moderators now at the time of writing but I have worked alongside 4 separate others in the past. I also take great pride in knowing that I was instrumental in deciding the approach the community took on how to tighten our scope regarding questions and exercising my privileges to keep the site clean, promote it whenever and wherever I could including getting the creator of Blender to join and organizing several events in the past with notable famous artists in the community. There's a lot more I could drone on about but similar to others I have dedicated a significant amount of my somewhat younger years on this site (I was 19 when I joined).

Now enough of the history. If you care or know what has been happening in the past few months regarding SE you should understand why people are leaving. I won't repeat it or speak on it but if you're interested you can poke around. I'll just say that at the end of the day people just want to ask a question and get an answer and be on their way, nothing more. Anything else is a distraction and waste of my time and others.
To see how SE now treats their "valued" employees and people who have volunteered years of their life for pretty much nothing in return is discouraging to say the least. Therefore as of today I wrap up my involvement with StackExchange completely. I will no longer participate on any of the sites and will not be replying to any messages going forward. This is not me being vengeful, I'm literally just tired, in general... a break is needed.
Cheers and I wish the best for this community, will not forget the friends I've made along the way.
Quick facts

8th user to join
I've asked 0 questions
First user to unlock moderator privileges, first community moderator, longest serving moderator
— Some more I can't remember off the top of my head. :)

Just going to ride David's post silently today and vanish into the shadows. :D. Cheers all.

It feels empty around here now, I can hear the eco of my typing. You guys were the oldest most knowledgeable mods. I'll do my best to fill in your shoes, but I don't feel like I'm up to it. We'll miss you

#BigSad #SadMess :( :( :(

That's the problem with volunteer work on a big site. We're all too small by now to get noticed. Whatever work we do, it basically evaporates, leaving nothing but less time to live. I mostly quit long ago.

Fellow old-timer here (I happen to be wearing my Blender.SE t-shirt today). We'll remember you. Best wishes: take care, and may you find what you're looking for.

Best of luck on your new path. I hope you'll find some project that treats you better and is fulfilling. If you're interested in still being part of the Blender community, there plenty of other places where your talents and effort would be greatly appreciated.

Goodbye and thankyou number 8.  Another achievement of yours David once mentioned: you were the last to sweep the meta review, when more categories were on offer.  Just checked the review and the sweepster himself still holds sway.  Sad times indeed.

Thanks iKlsR for all the amazing work you've put into the site, I wouldn't be where I am without this site as it was source of my knowledge long before I became user and decided to share back.

@MrZak lol I even never got the BSE swag, they forgot to send it to me twice and then I gave up :)

Wow.
From someone who was there when the site was just starting to walk (admittedly I arrived at bit late, 587 users after you), I can personally attest that its impossible to overstate the effort you've put into making this site live and breath.
I am surprised to learn you were that young. Your leadership and initiative was and is inspiring, and I don't think I'm alone in looking up to you. To me you are eternally the cool moderator who always knows what to do.
For some this site is just a helpful search result, for others this site has been a major part our lives. Either way, you made it all possible.
You should absolutely be proud of what you have built.
Thank you for bringing us all together.

I know you and Duarte are more than up to the task at hand which is what will make this transition fairly painless in exiting the community here. You've more than surpassed me now and I've learnt a lot from you guys as well. Will always remember the good times in the farm plus you know where to find us later on. Thanks and all the best oh wise one! :)

Knowing this was coming (us mods talked about all this) did not make reading your goodbye any easier. To quote you "SAD. Bigly disappointed".
The only consolation here is that I will no longer need an urban dictionary tab open when in chat. :)
BSE has lost a true friend. A steward of the first rate. Your dedication to this site at the start is what got BSE off the ground.
From all of us that have benefited, the thousands of users and the millions of others that have found answers here, Thank you. I personally would not know blender anywhere near as well as I do without this site.
If it were not for the great mods we leave behind I know the site would become a #mess without you.
I hope you can now take that vacation you canceled back in the summer of 2013.
I'll always remember you, and what you've done.
Go rek em m8.
PS feel free to swim over to our rock any time.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Merge [loop] and [looping] or make them more specific?
I noticed that there are two confusing tags: loop and looping and the latter has around twice the amount of questions.
It seems that both are used for questions on looping animations, code loop and shape/edge/face loops.
After discussing with Merlin, my suggestion is to make looping for looping animation and create a specific tag for edge-loop. Questions about code loops should have the loop dropped and retagged as python, scripting or something else relevant, this is not a programming SE so there should not be specific coding tags.
I volunteer to help retagging the questions if someone approves the edits (or someone with higher rep could just do it more easily).

Code loops are basic flow control in programming, having a tag for them here would be redundant.  The more imperitive split would be between edge-loop and animation-loop. Depends on your philosophy, here's Stack Overflow's tagging rules which would suggest that anything with loop in it is a meta-tag

@Merlin According to the rules [edge-loop] would not be a meta-tag. The concept is different from a code loop and questions would benefit from this separation.

Yes, edge-loop is an operator in blender so it should exist.  I would argue that anything referring to code loops should be retagged python,api and scripting or similar and that loop be dropped as a reference to coding.

I can't do much until someone approves some of my edits / I gain more rep, but I'll try to at least fix the tags on the coding questions.

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


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When should an opinion based question be flagged?
Some questions post an image and ask: How can I make this effect. Is this considered an opinion based question? There will always be many answers, many right answers, and really there is no right and wrong as an answer for this kind of questions, which makes them opinion based. Yet, they are quite informative, you get to see how different people approach different ways to make a model, rig, create shaders..etc. My question is, should these be reported? And if not, doesn't that create a bias, and make the whole thing depend on luck? I've seen this happening (not to me, this question is not personal) and it's not fair, some questions were reported and removed immediately, others were lucky enough to get the interested person before the flag person, and got many answers and votes, which kept them open. Considering that the target of BSE is the good of all, shouldn't we be more tolerable?

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/476/should-we-expand-our-scope-to-allow-simple-howtos/

ok, take two :)
(if you want to read about "How do I do X" type of questions see my first answer.)
Lets start with the close reason:

primarily opinion-based
  Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise.

As stated on the main meta it partially exists just so there are standard close reason across the SE network.
As you alluded to, that does not fit blender and our hugely diverse workflows very well.
A question that is asking, for example how to model something, absolutely don't close it as primarily opinion based just because there are several different ways to do it. (1, 2, 3, 4)
I would use that reason any time the question is more of a open ended discussion then a real answerable question. Or it is something along the lines of "What is the best ____?". However just because best is in the title does not mean it should be closed.
Here are all examples of questions that have been closed as primarily opinion based, and rightly so.
Switch from Mac to PC?
What are the benefits of the different cylinder caps?
Do I need to even use blueprints?
Is Blender right for me? - A photographer creating 3d renderings (this one here is of particular interest, it is, in your words a "well presented question" yet how can we answer whether or not it is the right choice for him?)
In short, CV as primarily opinion based when there can be no definitive answer, anyone who answers will just be sharing his idea or "opinion."

First I do not consider "How do I do X" type of questions primarily opinion based. If we are going to say that for example this is primarily opinion based, then nearly every question that is not asking what a specific button does would be closed as such. (You could make the argument that it is too broad, but more on that later.)
I too have seen some ambiguity in how these "How do I do X" questions are handled.
We have many that are well received, and get good, helpful answers - great!
I assume you want to talk about the others that get closed.
I think the difference comes in what are they asking.

Does the OP know what they are looking for? (example 10k link)
How "big" of a topic is this? (Is the question asking how to make a cycles shader, or how to make a movie?) Question have to be targeted, a huge open ended questions off topic, and will be closed as "too broad."
Is this topical for our site? (Is the question asking how to import a fbx made in blender into ogre?) Hint: answer for this example is no, CV it.

So if you think it is or could be a good question maybe after an edit, then UV it. If already closed cast a reopen vote, (you need 3000 rep for that privilege).
Yes, there are some cases where I really have no idea why a question got closed, we should welcome them to BSE, not insta-close their question.
However there are many cases where we are very, very nice to new users, with questions that are so unclear, or show no effort yet expect not only to show exactly "how to do X," but a blend file too (who needs to read the answer when you can get somebody to just do it for you.); that I can not possibly say at this point that we should be more tolerant.
Yes, lets try to get rid of this ambiguity and treat all the "How do I do X" questions, that really are of the same quality the same.

Here are some examples:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/40069/2217 That is a bad question on many levels. Link only, no effort, and unclear. It rightly should of been closed.
How to achieve this effect (screen tearing glitch) in Blender, and what is this effect called? This question, may appear similar to the example above, is substantially different. While the OP does no know what to call what he is trying to make, he make a good effort to describe it, not just simply a link or a picture. Also it is targeted, we know this is limited to post production.

I agree with everything you said, you still haven't answered my question though, what is considered opinion based? Why is this category an option, my point was that, this reason is too vague, it could be largely misinterpreted. Check this question for example: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/52521/timothy-reynolds-low-poly-mountain-terrain

ok, (I'm actually editing my answer now) I some how missed that you were asking about the CV reason, I thought you were asking about "How do I do X" type of questions. (I do have this problem of missing the title sometimes.)

I agree again, but you still haven't answered my question, let me put it this way: A user just joined BSE, he read carefully the rules, one of them is "Don't ask opinion based questions" flag them, what he would understand of this? I'm not questioning people's behavior, I'm questioning this category, since it's not understood, the difference between the examples you added, is the difference between a well explained question, and a lazy link based youtube question, the link to the question I have in my previous comment, is obviously opinion based, I won't vote to close it, others might.

I understood from your first comment, and am writing another answer. Just I had started that first answer, may as well finish it. (still not sure how I missed your whole point, Oh well :) )

Thank you for taking the effort @David my point is that, I don't think that opinion base "well presented questions" should be removed, on the other hand all "bad presented questions" should be requested to be edited, or removed.

it's either that, or I don't understand what "opinion based" means, so I asked the question :)

I was about to ask another question when I saw this one. My question was "when is it justified to give an answer that suggest another approach for the problem ?"
This kind of answer is subjective surely.
As an example, I have seen several questions about boolean modifier which may later leads to "hey... now..." "I cannot use subsurf or edge loop" or "I have a bad rendering due to ngons"...
So... is this needs to be another question or is it part of the opinion based subject ?

Why you think it wouldn't be justified to provide another approach to solve the same problem? anyways I guess you should start a new question in the meta, since you just posted a question as an answer ;)

@Georges you are right, but two points : concerning the subjective answer which can be "I dont answer directly but I give another way to do it" : how to know if the question is not simplified and hide a more complex problem ?... for the aspect to ask another question... yes... I will do it even if I think this is nearly the same subject. ; )

This is why I usually ask the OP to provide more details before I post an answer, unless the problem is obvious, this is why you see many answers that are not related to the question, usually the question is edited after the answer is provided to give more details. Anyways, almost every process in Blender has many ways to do it, some ways are better than others, some are just different, with no preference, so why wouldn't it be justified to have many answers to the same question, when they are providing different approaches?

even answers that seem to be the wrong answer, can be the right answer to people reading the question later

@Georges, I have posted this http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1119/how-subjective-may-be-an-answer

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


text:
Add option to partly reject an edit, or give a warning instead? Should editing guidelines be available on a user's homepage as well?
An edit I proposed was turned down with this explanation: "edit did not correct critical issues with the post". After revisiting the post, I saw that the individual (other user listed as "community") who felt my edit was not beneficial, changed only the way in which a link was displayed and deleted the word "blender", but included the edits I made.
If you look closely, you can see we both missed correcting the last word of the post. I feel this speaks to a need of leniency for rejected edits, as even reviewers miss mistakes.
My edit:

Other user's edit:

Without the edits I made, the question is uncomfortable to read. If I hadn't caught the mistakes, the question would have had less traffic, since the natural inclination is to steer away from an uncomfortable read.
Since both edits are useful, wouldn't it make most sense to award partial credit? Maybe one point instead of two? Or perhaps, instead of a rejected edit: the edit is accepted and no points are awarded, but the user receives a warning with synthetic rejection reason, and a link to guidelines? In this way, the user is not discouraged but learns for next time.
In addition, I almost edited the post to include a word-link as well, but decided against it since I felt my edit might be rejected for changing redundant features. This brings me to my second question:
Prior to editing, I did a search to find some guidelines, (since I couldn't find any on my home page), and gathered an idea of beneficial editing. However, none of the pages I read suggested changing the way in which a link is displayed. I've edited over a dozen questions since then, and every time I missed seeing the helpful sidebar (displayed while editing) with guidelines for editing. I now realize this is because my attention is immediately drawn to the post in need of editing, since my mind is holding the editing ideas as the page loads.
To remedy this, wouldn't it make most sense to have a "Guidelines for Editing" page which can be accessed on a user's homepage? I feel not everyone will know to look for the sidebar while editing, as it did not occur to me.
My primary question is my first question though, since I feel not all users would struggle with noticing the sidebar while editing.

Note that users with the privilege to review edits do not receive reputation upon editing. So it's not especially in their interest to reject and re-edit suggested edits.

The number of "points". Points are called reputation

So one can assume that an editing user with a reputation of at least 2000, does not gain reputation points for their edit? It might be helpful to include that in the privilege to review edits page.

That's correct (there are a couple of other considerations as well)

Thanks. I've edited my post to reflect this info.

I'm the one who reviewed your edit, and I will chalk it up to a mistake.
I think what I did was when switching back and forth between the markdown and normal views (in the review page), and looking at the question (something I do when reviewing) and the review page; I got confused at what was your edit was and what the old question was. I recall after hitting the "reject and edit" button that it did not look quite as I expected it should.
I apparently then proceeded to correct the post putting back many of the same changes you made, and I had just seen. ("reject and edit" rejects your edit and then opens up a place to edit the question)
Here is the revision history for the question we are discussing. If you click on the "side-by-side markdown" button, you will see I actually did cahnge a bit more then the inline view makes it appear.
As for the rep, sorry this edit review was my bad. But don't worry you will gain way more then 2 rep!
Keep up the good edits! (and I'll be more careful reviewing them)
I like your "Guidelines for Editing" idea. Maybe we can get something like that up on the meta.

Here are a few tips on editing. (and things that can be changed in nearly every post)

good image alt text. That is the text that describes what the image is, it goes where the "enter image description here" text is usually in images in questions. ![enter image description here][1] is.
wiki links, back around Jan of 2015 blender switched from using the wiki, to the new manual system. That broke nearly all the wiki links, and many on BSE are still broken.
This is a little delicate, but cutting out useless info (this includes things like "thanks" at the end). Say there is a whole paragraph that adds nothing to the question, (we don't really need to know that somebody spent all week trying to figure out their problem) then delete it.

Thanks, that helps clear my uncertainty. The additional editing tips are useful, i'm still trying to navigate the "cutting out useless info."

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


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Could we brush up the Help Center, please?
As I said before, some (many) points in the Help Center are quite vague and were probably written for Stack Exchange in general.
With all the new users pouring in due to Blender 2.80 Beta and the imminent release of the first RC, it's getting quite tedious to repeat the same comments over and over and over again, so I'd like to propose a little brush-up of the Help Center's most important points.

How do I ask a good question?
(in addition to the already existing points)
Give us something to work with. One sentence makes rarely a good question.
Blender is a complex software with many different options and it can be used for many different tasks. In order to give a good answer, we need to have as much information as possible.

Tell us about the purpose of your model. Creating a Model for render purpose is quite different from creating a model for rendering, animation, 3D printing or creating assets for a 3D game.
Show, and tell. Add meaningful images to your question, so we can see what you see. Think about which mode (Edit, Object, Render,...) could be possibly useful to underline the main points of your question. Please host your images only on imgur by using the provided tools and not anywhere else. Your questions and our answers might become useless, once the link to the image breaks.
Sometimes screenshots don't tell the full story. If you want to upload files for us to check, please use blend-exchange (30 MB max.) and not dropbox or other random file sharing sites. Your questions and our answers might become useless, once the link to the file breaks.
  If your file exceeds the file size limit, please try to reduce the size.
If you have problems running Blender on your computer, we need to know as much as possible about your system.

Computer or Laptop?
How much RAM do you have?
Exact model of your graphics card?
Your GPU driver version?
Which operating system do you use?
Which Blender version do you use?

Leave out unnecessary text (especially any form of internet slang like lol, idk, jk and so on, but also "Please help", "Thanks in advance", "sorry for my English"...) or other unnecessary information. We don't see Memes, Pokémon, Minecraft, FNAF, Roblox or Anime characters, we see scene setups, models, materials and topology.
Try to ask coherently without repeating yourself. Also, "I tried everything" is not specific enough. Instead, write down exactly what you have tried so far.
Please try to write your question as if you would write an essay and not a post on social media or any random forum. Blender StackExchange is neither the first nor is it the second. It's a Q&A site. If you put effort into your question, people are more likely putting effort into their answers.
Making use of the built-in tools creates structure. Paragraphs and punctuation create basic structure, headlines, numbered or bulleted lists help drastically to improve step-by-step guides.
Don't use the comments to expand your question. Instead, use the edit link below your question and add the information right where it belongs.
Don't write link-only questions. Leaving Blender StackExchange and reading an extensive document or watching a video for 10 minutes is time-consuming. If you need further explanation to a specific video, please use timestamps. Besides, links can go down, web pages, documents and videos might vanish over time. In all cases, your question and possible answers might be useless, if this happens. Instead, try to explain to your best effort, what you want to do.

How do I write a good answer?
(in addition to the already existing points)
Answer well-asked questions...

...are already flagged as duplicate or off-topic.
Show, and tell. Add meaningful images to your answer, so people can see what you see. Please host your images only on imgur by using the provided tools and not anywhere else. Your answers might become useless, once the link to the image breaks.
A single sentence rarely makes a good answer. Even if the immediate problem would be solved by just a single sentence, try to explain what exactly went wrong and how to avoid the problem in the future.
Making use of the built-in tools creates structure. Paragraphs and punctuation create basic structure, headlines, numbered or bulleted lists help drastically to improve step-by-step guides.
Don't write link-only answers. Links can go down, web pages, documents and videos might vanish over time. In all cases, your answers might be useless, if this happens. Instead, try to explain to your best effort, what you found in those external resources. (Good read: Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer? )

Of course this proposal is far from being complete. I am probably missing some points. But it would be a start.

The /how-to-ask help article is generic and can't be changed. Mods can change /on-topic though.

Good proposal, mostly agree. A few suggestions: "Show, don't tell" should be "Show, and tell", so we don't get the typical "How do I fix this" questions with a vague screenshot and no text. Those can't be searched for or indexed. To the extraneous text I'd also add the way too common "Please Help" and "Thanks in advance"

@Duarte - good point, needs to be changed. Thanks for the input

YES! the "help" pages have been sorely lacking for far too long.

So what should be the course of action for this? This seems like a really comprehensive and well written post, would be a shame if it went to waste. I didn't find a way to add new pages to help, did I miss something? Help Main page does have an edit button though, where you seem to be able to write some introductory text. Would you deem this "canonical enough" to be written in such prime space?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos - according to AndrewT. many of these pages cannot be changed, which is really quite an oversight, because not every site has the same requirements. I for my part have nothing against the Help Main page. Most new members won't read it anyway until we redirect them there. It would be great if a native speaker could take a look at it, though...

Yes, shame help center can't be more customized once size doesn't always fit all. Probably to avoid loss of main points or editing beyond recognition. It has my vote for going into the main page, lets see what others think. A proof read from a native speaker would be welcome indeed.

the "If you have problems running Blender on your computer" section shouldn't be there. Whenever someone posts a question where they dump their computer specs and say Blender isn't working, it is either too localized, or off topic because it is about hardware, or a bug. Extremely rarely are hardware-dependent questions good. (The whole point of a good question is to not only be useful to the person asking it, but to anyone who might have the same problem in the future. In a case where the OP dumps their hardware specs, It is unlikely that multiple people will have that identical setup.)

@X-27thefluffyunicorn - I agree on "hardware is OT", when it comes to recommendations and very specific topics like "Why won't my random graphics tablet work?". The initial question is "Why won't Blender start?" and that's not entirely a hardware question. What if it turns out that Windows 10's UAC is responsible for the problem? Combine that with the fact that many people try to use the Steam version of Blender, which tends to break easily. Where would you draw the line?

@X-27thefluffyunicorn - Besides - hardware configurations aren't really that unique (I have 25 years of experience in the IT industry, 10 of which I spent in hardware design), when it comes to Blender. It's almost always a problem with either the GPU (wrong OpenGL version), the driver (too old) or a dual GPU setup in a Laptop.

We have a couple "how to ask a good question" guides written here on meta. It'd be nice if they were better known and linked more often (instead of the un-editable help center page)

@metaphor_set Related: https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2621/599

@gandalf3 - I agree with you on the point that there are already (partially) useful guides on meta, the only point is that many new people tend to ignore them even if we link them. Why? Because they are not "official". Recently I had two "discussions" with new users within two weeks and they all ended with "That's your opinion how things should run here". It's not only a trend on the internet, I experienced those things in the past IRL especially with young people and thankfully that part of my working life is over.

@metaphor_set Sorry, the notification slipped past me somehow.. Anyway, partly that's on us moderators to use "the diamond" to lend some official weight to our opinions as a site, but also I think presentation can help. I don't know what your discussions looked like, but I suspect more people are likely to heed the guides on meta when it's "Welcome to the site, here's a guide on the best ways to attract good answers" than something akin to "Please follow the rules". Don't get me wrong, I wish we could edit the "how to ask" page, but that's currently impossible.


text:
Why does no one vote?
Has anyone else noticed that seeing a question with 0 votes is becoming common?
Seriously, we need to get our act together. If you like a question, or in particular, feel a question asks a good question that could be beneficial to other users, vote up! If a question is completely irrelevant, or formatting/spelling is so bad it is completely unintelligible, vote down!
It drives my crazy how many questions get absolutely no attention! And this includes answers too.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZDD7oDkcyOU/hqdefault.jpg you vote on my question i vote on urs? http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1158/documentation-second-opinion

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/812/5705

I've noticed this trend over the last few months... which I suppose leads to  "If you like this question...Vote" nag screen.  Haven't seen it here yet.

Tangent, but it feels related:  Why do people downvote without useful comments. (Old gripe) See my recent: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1159/why-does-no-one-vote?cb=1

8 years later, it feels like this is still a problem on this site. Lots of new questions have 8–10 views, but no votes up or down on them. Some answers are happening via comments instead of actual posted answers.

I certainly have, and in the past have said that more people should vote.
I 100% agree that as a whole our site should be voting more.
However, I can not agree with your reasons for UVing or DVing.
After reading the voting pages:
Why is voting important?
vote up
vote down
It is abundantly clear the voting should not be based on some whim, or whether or not you liked the picture, or if the guy is famous on this site.
Vote up:

Whenever you encounter a question, answer or comment that you feel is especially useful, vote it up!

Vote Down:

Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy, no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps dangerously incorrect.

(quotes form the respective SE help pages linked above.)

Bottom line, yes vote more (don't be afraid to max out your daily limit.)

Thank you! That's exactly what I was trying to say, I just didn't get there.

Speaking for myself I don't upvote question very often. It's not because I'm bitter, or in some personal vendetta to withhold points from other users; nor because I don't read them or don't care.  I just think upvoting a question should be reserved for actually good questions.
Most questions that show up here show absolutely no effort from the user, no research, incomplete information, poor language (I know many users first language is not English but the worst offenders often seem to be native speakers), walls of text, duplicate questions asked over and over again; or the large majority very simple or very basic beginner questions.
Not sure if this is correct from my part but, the most frequent reason I do not find a question upvote worthy though is because most just seem too localized or specific to the users project or work, and with very narrow applicability outside that very question.
Not that the question is bad in and of itself, doesn't justify downvoting either, but it feems like using SE as a personal helpdesk, rather than a long term knowledge database, making them unlikely to be useful to anyone else.
I would consider the best questions to use the most 'generic terms', like 'how do I solve general problem X' or 'how to achieve certain effect Y'; instead of 'how do I do specific thingy from my project' or 'how do I fix my problem in this screenshot'.
Now I rarely see a question getting closed for being Too Localized, and since this is very large majority of questions here, if we don't answer those BSE would quickly become a pretty empty desolate place, failing the basic mission of helping users; but I just don't find those questions upvote worthy either.

Surely if a question leads to a great answer (like so many of yours ... probably all ... all 8^)) it's worthy of at least one UV? My policy: there's a distinction between a 0 to 1 upvote, eg "this q is worthy of an answer" and UVing above 1.  Voting IMO fuels the site.

My guess is the numbe of up votes ends up reflecting the question quality after all. I also think we have such talented and knowledgeable senior users here that even mediocre no effort questions some times get fantastic well constructed answers after all.  I will try to upvote more often then.

Especially if the question has passed the "Spanish Inquisition" (aka review)... hmmm someone said not to mention that.

in the some cases what you described I would DV. Now I'm using my own questions as examples, just because I'm familiar with it them. How do I rig a BB-8 robot? is a very specific and rather localized question (how many others are going to make a BB-8?), but I think it is a well formatted, clear and answerable question. All three are reasons to UV. Now What is the warp modifier for? is a still specific, but is more general. So you would UV this one, but not the first?

Would never go as far as downvoting, as I said I do not consider them as a bad questions at all, but I do tend to regard more general or 'generically asked' questions as well formed and more useful as future reference. It's probably just even a simple matter of wording. For example  'How do I rig a BB-8 robot?' could probably be worded as 'How do I rig a fixed object on top of a rolling one' or something along those lines, so it still poses a great and useful question. Then again thinking about it now one is more likely to search for "bb8" than what I wrote... I may be wrong, I dunno :)

@cegaton would like to edit that to:   Upvoting questions helps all ...

The Blender Stackexchange might have a lot of users (18k) but I strongly believe that most of them are

one-timers
people who have never used stackexchange/overflow before,
and of course people who don't vote on answers where they aren't sure if
they are actually good, because they haven't yet entered that area of
Blender's big exciting world.

One-timers don't bother to choose a user name, some even don't bother about learning how to ask questions. They drop in, ask (well... more or less) whatever they want to know maybe receiving an answer after endless comments about improving their question and then they are gone (that also becomes a trend irl). Certainly they don't bother with things like "how does StackExchange work", "what are the customs here" or "maybe I can participate as well".
People who have never used SE/SO might accustom to things like voting or even accepting answers. If they visit more frequently one might drop them a line and they actually might have enough interest in that little red box with the number, that pops up under "recent inbox messages".
The people who aren't sure if the given answer is actually a good one might vote, if they stumble over the same task somewhere in the future and find the answer then helpful.
I for myself have no problems with votes (I don't even have a facebook account). What troubles me, are the many many questions that actually received a good answer but that answer was never accepted. Those questions will get pushed up by the Community bot every now and then until they get "flagged" as unanswered and because of that they might disappear.

I agree with you! (neither do I have a fb account) To correct your last point, a question with a good answer, even though it is not accepted, is not an unanswered question. Any question with just 1 positive vote will never be removed by the community bot.

David, thanks for clarification. I recently found an older question that really helped me with one of my tasks but had 0 votes on it. Of course I upvoted but then I feel that there are more of those in the drain...
I also was referring more about the upvotes of my answers...

@metaphor_set you're right, according to BSE 18,471 of our users only have between 1-199 rep. Only 1,095 have more than 200

I'd love to vote but my reputation is below 15. I assume a portion of others might be not voting because of the same problem.

Only a small portion of active users are below the up vote privilege. There are about 8465 users with 15 or more rep. PS don't worry you will gain rep quickly.

I'm here because I'm a Blender Bumbler who staggers through Blender's amazing array of settings, and quite frankly don't feel qualified to "Judge/vote" another's question or reply.

So while staggering, you never found a useful question with a useful answer then? I doubt that. It's not about your current level of qualification, it's about how qualified you are after reading an answer that was actually helpful to you and your task.

I didn't even suggest that I'd not found posts or replies useful.

@Edgel3D (replying to your comment)  you kind of did suggest that you did not find any posts useful. To quote the reason for up voting  "Whenever you encounter a question, answer or comment that you feel is especially useful, vote it up!" So whenever a post helped you, vote it up.

Thanks to these comments David I have been up-voting since, in order to signal to the poster that his/her effort was helpful to me at least.  As for your interpretation, what I said there is plain enough.

People give many votes, but often (too often?) to comments. And I think it's Q's and A's that should be voted up or down. That's the goal of this site, isn't it? I suggest voting for comments should be abandoned. If it can't be done, downvoting should be enabled to discourage folks from going too much into commenting. And comments could be highlighted as the font used is small. The other day I answered a question and then I saw it was "answered" in the comments.


text:
Should we migrate all future .blends not on Blend-Exchange to Blend-Exchange?
At Blender Stack Exchange if someone wants to share their .Blend with us, the community-preferred method is through Blend-Exchange, kudos to GiantCowFilms, Gandalf3, TenShrike, and mhsjlw.Whenever a new user, or any user, asks a question including a .blend and ISN'T on Blend-Exchange we almost always request they do so. So why not do it for them? To clarify: Whenever a new question is asked that includes a .blend NOT on Blend-Exchange we auto-migrate it.
Cons, yep I'm starting with Cons

Privacy - People may feel a little invaded if we switch their .blend hosting site without consent
It's not legal
Insert more cons here

Pros

No more asking to move .blend, just doing
This is just a guess, but it may encourage more people to download the .blend
File preservation - .blends won't expire
Insert more pros here

Of course, if the question-asker doesn't want their .blend on Blend-Exchange they can always remove it from their question.

Some times, files won't fit under the imposed size limits. Other than that I don't see any real advantage, that would be a tremendous amount of work. And if a file is not easily downloadable, the users won't download the file and the asker wont be getting any quality answers. IMHO that should be incentive enough to move the file themselves

The only pro I think really matters is preservation. At the moment we have a bunch of dead pasteall links which is pretty annoying. It'll be a bit of work indeed but I'm not against anyone volunteering their time to help future readers. However, anyone who chooses to share a personal blend falls under stackexchange.com/legal so some legal issues start coming into play. Also, the most important thing I think is that this should be done sparingly at times for "useful blends", those not demonstrate some technique or fix a problem (answers) as a problem blend is hardly useful to anyone really.

Licensing. We can't just take someone's file and put it on another site.

Possible duplicate: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/827/599

Is there any info where to upload files in the first place? I've just looked at Take a Tour and searched Help Center for 'blend file', 'blend', 'file' and 0 results. I'm pretty annoyed myself by constantly telling users to upload a file to Blend-Exchange.

@LukeD As Blend-Exchange is third party, it is not included in the Help Center. However, I think it would be better if it was included

@SammySwanson It's third party, but everybody (including mods) encourages people to leave blend files there. I've asked question couple minutes ago and another drawback is that you can't paste question link in Blend-Exchange until you ask question :) So you need to ask it and edit to do this properly.

Sadly, That is not possible
At least not without consulting a lawyer. The problem is that when people upload to blend-exchange they agree to the terms of service which give blend-exchange the rights to distribute their file however it wishes. Only the owner of the copyright of that blend can do that.
That might not be entirely necessary, but a legal expert would be needed to determine that.

Due to legal reasons, we probably can't do this automatically.
But we can do it semiautomatically
We can make uploading and migrating blend files as easy for the user as possible. Possible ways (ignoring how easy/difficult these are to implement):

Add an upload button to the question editor. Right next to the "upload image" button.
(optional) Automatically detect links to blend files while writing the question and put a note next to it saying that we prefer Blendexchange hosting.
Normally, users can edit a question. The question owner then has to approve the edits. Users can flag questions as "Blend file uploaded at third-party host" and the question owner will receive a notification and when he opens the question a big "migrate" button shows up.

See, it's not fully automatic. But we make it as easy as possible for the user since the easier the action is the more users will use it that wouldn't have before due to laziness.

That would be great, yes, but stack-exchange hasn't helped thus far in blend-exchange, unless we can actually get them to add these things they are just hopes


text:
Way to accept multiple answers, or designate answer as valuable and distinct alternative to accepted answer
Sometimes I notice that there are multiple ways to address a problem or model a complex shape that have their own advantages and disadvantages. For instance, when modeling a corkscrew, there might be one user who manages to find a very modifier-centric method, which can be easily modified and adjusted, versus a very quick yet less malleable solution, such as teaching the asker how to save the object as a primitive.
Both solutions are valuable, and, while we don't want people to answer questions purely for upvotes, this system may encourage a knowledgeable user to add a second, distinct answer that could be just as useful as an already accepted answer.
We're denying our community of valuable answers, and we should either allow multiple accepted answers, or find some other way to honor second answers.

Related https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2272/add-feature-for-high-reputation-users-to-manually-mark-as-answer

From the Blender.SE Help Center (emphasis added):

Accepting an answer is not meant to be a definitive and final statement indicating that the question has now been answered perfectly. It simply means that the author received an answer that worked for him or her personally. Not every user comes back to accept an answer, and of those who do, they might not change the accepted answer even if a newer, better answer comes along later.

The purpose of accepting an answer is for the asker to reward the answer that worked for them personally. While StackExchange encourages askers to accept answers, since accepting encourages participation, gives rep benefits, and (usually) pins the most helpful answer to the top, accepting an answer does not mean that the other answers are bad, or incorrect.
The usefulness of an answer to the community is signified by voting, not by whether or not it has been accepted.
In some cases where there are multiple, well-received answers, and each answer was similarly useful to the asker, it may be appropriate to not accept an answer.
You said:

We're denying our community of valuable answers, and we should either allow multiple accepted answers, or find some other way to honor second answers.

StackExchange has already provided a way to "honor second answers." Regardless of whether an answer is accepted, you should always upvote answers that are useful. This is the best and primary way to show appreciation on StackExchange.

I doubt this has any chance of being implemented any time soon. It has been asked before on Meta.SE and answered by the StackExchange community managers with a definite "No":

I think it's a terrible idea. Good, useful answers will be rewarded, by the voters who find them good and useful.


text:
Why is this answer considered a proper answer without solving the question, even partially?
I wonder, why is the answer given to my question here from dr. Sybren a valid answer? I flagged the answer but it has not been removed. I argue that this is not proper way of answering a question. I believe that a person who wants to answer a question needs to make sure that his/her answer really works, at least to some extend. However, the answer to my question not only does not work but the author of the answer argues with me on why I did not appreciate him. I just told him he needs to make sure his answer work and that's it! I was thinking that compiling Blender and using it as a module might be causing some weird issues on my side. That is exactly why I asked him to make sure his code works and I provided one obj file for him to do that (he could have done it via copying the obj file many times. dr. Sybren's answer might work in another context or question where someone might have asked a question like how to remove blocks more efficiently or properly? but definitely not for my question. He could have instead posted a comment about what he posted in length, as an answer.
Although I appreciated him answering my question but I just got a bit upset cause he was literally sure that his answer is the answer to my question, without testing his code. He says I wrote things using my mobile phone but again, this is his fault not my fault. He needs to make sure his answer works (again, at least given the information provided) what does writing an answer on a mobile phone has do to with me? (how come he was write such a long answer on a mobile phone anyways, that I don't know)
Anyways, I thought I should bring my case to the judges here :) I already flagged the answer and my request has been rejected I think. Of course, I totally agree that people have different biases and opinions (including admins) but I'm not sure if one of the admins up-voted dr. Sybren's answer after I flagged it and not mine; my answer clearly solves the issue and his does not in any way and even partially. If that has been the case, then I believe that this also undermines the quality of the way admins review things and they should pay more attention. This does not help improve the quality of the website in the long run :)
Thanks for consideration and sorry for my frank tone; I absolutely do not have any bad intentions of writing these things here.

Well, let's look at what it means when you flag an answer as Not an Answer. The flagging dialogue reads:

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

It appears to me that this answer does attempt to answer the question. Even if it didn't provide a solution for you, it is still a valid attempt to answer. This is why this answer should remain up.
From Meta.SE:

Do not use this flag when:

The answer makes an attempt to answer the question, even if it is wrong or inaccurate or you disagree with it

Basically, it comes down to the fact that Stack Exchange answers are on the internet forever. The questions and answers on a Stack Exchange site aren't just for the asker, they are for anybody else needing help who might find it in the future. In general, even if an answer didn't work for you, as long as it is good-quality, it may help someone else with a problem that has similar symptoms, and should remain up.

I think I was wrong about what an answer means then. Thank you so much for clarification and I apologize if I made anyone feel bad in any way. Although I'm pretty new to Blender but my intention was only and only to help the community and as noiseless as possible

For the record I did not vote on any of the posts in question - your question, or dr. Sybren's answer. (I did however UV your meta question here).
An admin did not handle your flag, because we are mods. :)
Really though, none of the three mods touched your flag. When you flag something as "not an answer" it goes through the review queue, and if handled there a mod will never see it. Look for yourself. Neither of the users who rightly said it "looks ok" are mods.
Now on to what would of happened if a mod got to your flag - we would have declined it.
Flags are not for "wrong" answers. You down vote answers that do not answer the question, or are unhelpful.

Any post that attempts to answer the question—however badly—is still an answer! Do not use the "not an answer" flag for wrong answers. Moderators do not judge the technical correctness of answers.
You can downvote such answers as a signal that they are bad answers and not useful, but they are still answers, so you should not flag them.

meta and SO.meta

Yes things are clear for me now. I had the wrong assumption about how an answer should be. This might be because of the bad impression I have got in the past from StackOverflow. I got punished a couple of times for posting an answer which was not solving the issue, at least to some extent .

I did not mean that moderators reviewed my flag. I actually did not know that Mr Zak and batFINGER reviewed my flag either. I apologize them if I conveyed anything bad.

@Amir SO can seem ruthless to new users. As much as I wish every answer were 100% helpful, that is just not the case, and that is why we have the UV and DV buttons.


text:
Why a 2 day wait on bounty's?
I asked a question on BSE, I have no clue what to do next. It is for a work project that is do in 3 days, yet I have to wait 2 days to put a bounty on it. Why is there this waiting period? I would like an answer sooner than later.
Makes no sense to me, kind of defeats the purpose of getting an answer in a timely manner (I understand a bounty doesn't guarantee an answer but it usually happens much quicker).
Thoughts!?

I was able to add a bounty this morning, within 2 hours I had an amazing answer. I feel this setting should be changed to allow bounties at any time if you have enough points.

Related question on SO meta: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/255995/2730823


text:
Reputation for new users
I was trying to understand how the reputation works and I don't quite get it. It is not the first time, that I see users who ask their first question, don't have other activities (like answering questions) and having 100+ reputation. Is transferred from other websites like stackoverflow?

Extra 100 is only awarded to the StackExchange Rich and Powerful Elite (tm) ;-P

Kind of.
Reputation isn't shared between sites, but once you've earned 200 reputation on one SE site, you automatically receive an "association bonus" of 100 reputation on any SE site.
This includes sites you are already a part of (including the site where you earned the 200 reputation), and sites you join later.


text:
Front page changes from "answered" to "modified"
I answered a question last night, then the OP accepted a different answer which was edited by Ray Mairlot 12 hours ago at the time of this question.
After I answered, I looked at the main page again and noticed answered by JakeD... next to the question as usual. However, this morning I looked at the main feed and saw modified 11 hours ago JakeD for this question, but I never edited any answer or the question.

did you edit your answer in the 5 min grace period?

@David No, I did not...I didn't know that existed for answers and questions, but I didn't make any edits.

This error has been reported on the main meta already.


text:
what to do with Yes or No questions
Often (especially in the unanswered list) there seem to be question which are seemingly answered with a yes or no.
I'm not talking about not answerable question, buts valid question which appear to in scope, (almost) an generally valid questions.
This is a good, relevant question, but the answer could be a simple "No, Blender doesn't have this feature." But according to How do I write a good answer? "don’t do that" is understandably discouraged. Should the answer be unanswered untill Blender gets this feature or a valid workaround?
Even worse with "Can I do A with method B in Blender?". The answer would be "Yes." and since the OP already is aware of the method, he is probably able to do it without a tutorial answer.
In a very specific context of this, this and this question: Should they get bumped untill someone comes along with a crazy workaround? (The last one even already mentions the workaround in the question itself.)
More context (yeah, my own stupid questions):
Yes > "Nothing to worry about, this doesn't affect performance that much."
Yes  > "This is the best workflow, there isn't anything faster."
No and No > "Blender doesn't have this feature (yet)."
Note, that in the No cases, a future answer like "Blender 2.8 has gotten this feature now." is not that useful, since the question was about the workflow not working. At the same time, a missing feature is not a bug. Or my three question have been closed as too localized as well, I seemed to think others could benefit from the as well.

If OP knows the method and still feels the need to ask a question, they are probably coming from another software, in which case some elaboration on the "how" still seems in order. In the case of a "no such feature" answer, one could elaborate on the "why not" or the "when will it" questions. I find it hard to imagine a realistic question to which there is absolutely no useful (even if peripheral) information which could be added to its answer.

Should the answer be unanswered until Blender gets this feature or a valid workaround?

It is perfectly acceptable to answer that Blender doesn't yet have said feature or just leave it. A helpful workaround if possible would be great as well. For example - Is there a way to acces external .blend file's data with python script?

Even worse with "Can I do A with method B in Blender?". The answer would be "Yes." ...

I tend to find that if a potential answer can't meet the minimum required characters then the question itself might warrant some looking at to see if it itself is on-topic or useful to anyone else really. So if your judgement deems the question to require minimal effort for OP to figure out themselves (as in simply pressing a button or two and seeing the result) and can be condensed to a simple yes or no, you can leave a comment and these might be falling under the localized close category and could potentially be flagged as well.

This question is too localized in its current form and is unlikely to be applicable outside of a very narrow context. Consider broadening the scope of this question in order to make it more useful for future users of the site.

In addition to the specific questions you pointed to I would go with

It's not possible currently in Blender, you could say that and that would be fine.
Also not possible, fine to say that as well. Would also be worth mentioning that the game engine will be gone in the next major release.
The last one is a bit borderline but it seems there isn't a better solution available, would reaffirm their workaround and leave it at that for now, also seems that they could just map the cache location to a bookmark as a suggestion.

For your questions, I agree with your judgement on those, I would also just leave it if there is really nothing to say. Here is an example of a question that had no definite answer for some 5 years. Will Cycles eventually replace Blender Internal?. An answer can always be updated. It's also worth noting that the community bot will bump dormant stuff to the front page over time.


text:
Questions that just get Closed
I find it common that people ask for ideas for their project.  If they ask it on Blender.stackexchange, they get closed for being "to broad" or "off topic".  Then there are times when people ask for help, say, for a project.  They want a modeler, or an animator, to help them with their project.  These questions also get closed.  It's understandable why, but is there a place where we can get these questions answered?
Is there a separate place on stackexchange that allows users to ask so-called "off topic" questions?  It would be nice to be able to get ideas or help from people off of stack exchange, without having to find another site.
Thankyou

Ideas, suggestions and artistic input are subjective and opinion based and don't have a "right answer", and as such are not a good fit for our site. For that you can try the chat or other forums like https://blenderartists.org or various communities

I was afraid of that.

got yah, thanks for the response


text:
A moderator is vandalizing questions and removing parts of questions he doesn't want answered. How do I report this moderator abuse?
As the question says, an abusive mod is vandalizing my questions because he is "offended" by them, removing important parts of the question to ensure they can't be answered. How can I report this mod for his behavior?
When I try to revert the question so I can get them answered, this abusive mod then locks the question so his abusive edits are preserved.

Firstly, please consider taking a look at the [tour] and learn how the site works. We edit posts here to improve them. however, the community does have some standards, and things should should be on-topic. The initial revision to your question is not one that would be well accepted without some refinement anyhow. There is nothing being done as an attack against you.

I removed parts from your question because they violated the code of conduct of this website. That is part of my duty as a moderator. The intention was that the edited version of the question could remain on the website and receive answers. The question was temporarily locked after you reverted it to its original state. This was done to give the moderation team time to look into this case.

I'm sure he was being neither abusive or vandalizing. Looking at the original post it would appear to me that he was simply trying to make it more friendly and less inflamatory - and so more likely to get attention and a meaningful and helpful answer. This site is generally a friendly, helpful, welcoming environment and the tone of your original post didn't fit well with that.

The edits were to remove negativity, not alter or vandalize the content of the question.  Although the question was written with a bit of a negative vibe, I just figured it was the result of hitting a point of frustration (We've all been there) so I attempted to "skip over" the rudeness and simply answer the question, hoping that having an answer would relieve the frustration. I also noticed Robert's edit to make the question more site-friendly, which made it A-OK in my book. There was no need to come back and re-edit the question to be insulting. This is a professional Q&A site - not a forum.

If you have issues with moderation or questions about the site working, those should be posted here on Meta https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com , not on the main site.
Moderator Robert removed all inflammatory parts from your post which were extraneous and not strictly essential to answer your question. Edits happen all the time to make questions clearer or conform to site rules. Don't make them personal, it is not about the user, it is always about the post.
Insults, personal attacks and aggressive language besides being considered rude go against the site rules and will not be tolerated here.
Likewise rants about features or showing distaste about the software is considered off topic. This is neither the place nor the tone.
This is Q&A site run by volunteers for answering questions about Blender. We are not programmers nor in any way associated with the Blender Foundation, decision making or roadmaps for development of the software. If you really dislike Blender that much you are free to use any other software that better matches your needs.
Otherwise, for constructive suggestions and feature requests use https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/ or Blender Artists Forum.
Before doing so consider that ideas are a dime-a-dozen. Every single one of the millions of Blender users have their own personal requests, wishes and desires, while comparatively very few people have the skills and knowledge to actually implement them.
I have restored the missing part of your question, that I'm sure Robert inadvertently removed during the cleanup process; all of which could all have been avoided in the first place if you refrained from infringing the rules.


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Are these ads excessive?
I've noticed that ads in blender.stackexchange seem to be unusually aggressive and intrusive lately (or maybe it's always been this way and I only just now noticed).
Specifically, at this moment every question on this site seems to have three Microsoft Azure ads, all saying the same words.  Two of them are on the right side panel, which I can usually successfully ignore, but one of them is between every question title and body, which I find very intrusive and cluttery, and it interferes with my ability to read questions and navigate the site.
This seems excessive.  Is it intended behavior?   Other stackexchange sites (e.g. stackoverflow, math) don't have it.

Also of note: the way that third ad appears is particularly low-quality and jarring: the question title&body look fine at first, then the question body jumps down (FOUC) leaving an inch of blank white space between the title and body, for a couple of seconds (on my slow connection), then eventually the unwelcome ad fades in to that space.  Not a good look.

I'm not seeing those, so I can't quite comment for a fact. Even disabling my ad blocker on a private window is not showing any at the moment. It may be a regional thing, not visible everywhere in the world, or maybe SE is tight on money and is trying to increase revenue from ads. Either way there is a privilege that grants users above a certain reputation the ability to see fewer ads. It is earned at 200 rep, you seem to be on the verge of earning it. Answer just one more question and you'll be able to unlock the achievement.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Indeed, my experience suddenly became dramatically less garbage-y the moment I crossed 200 (except in incognito mode).  Thanks for heads up on that, I don't think the connection to rep would have occurred to me otherwise, and it would have been even more mystifying and chaotic feeling.


text:
Old duplicate, poor problem description and no helpful answers
I wanted to ask a question on how to import colors (materials) from .stp files. A query brought up a similar question with answers (Want to import an STP file to blender with colors), that contains virtually no information. The question doesn't cover the topic well inmho, and maybe this is why there are so few answers.
The question also is over 1,5 years old. So: is it okay to post a new question? Knowing that it is definitely a duplicate?
When I would edit the question, in order to cover the topic, I'd rewrite the whole thing -- that doesn't sound right.
As this is a primarily opinion based matter, I'd suggest to drop your thoughts in a one-line answer and vote for one another, after a few days I'll select the answer with most upvotes.
thanks & bye,
yann

I'd recommend that at any point you find an old post that matches the criteria you described and you are positive that your update is an improvement then go for a new post while linking to the old one.
Explain what you found lacking and detail your post around its shortcomings. It doesn't hurt to refresh an old topic and possibly bring more attention or attract better answers. It could possibly be marked a duplicate of yours in due turn.

Thanks for asking on meta :)
I'd say yes, it is definitely fine to post a new question.
The main purpose of closing duplicates to redirect information on one topic to one place, but if the information in the one place is stale and no longer suffices to answer the question, this means new information is needed. It makes sense to keep this separate from the old information (but linked).
I would link the old question in your new question and give your reasons for asking it anew to prevent hasty close votes and getting the same answers as the old question.


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People posting their answers on comments
I've noticed, specially the high rep users, are putting down answers in the comments that might not be very complete. What is the point of that? Either fully answer the question in the answer box or ask the user for more information to make it answerable. Is this a possibly abuse because they want to keep their precious rep points?
Should we be able to flag an answer in the comments?

Sure , that answers why people do it but shouldn't this be flagged?

It's mostly because people are too busy or lazy to write a full answer. I'd say high rep users do this more not to protect their rep but because they care less about it, and writing a full answer stops becoming worthwhile. And yes, I answered this in comment form just to be obnoxious.

I've noticed, specially the high rep users, are putting down answers in the comments that might not be very complete.

I think you just answered your own question there a bit. Remember, the point of this site is to help people, doesn't matter how you go about it.

What is the point of that?

I do this all the time and my main motive is that I'm usually busy and don't have the time to construct a proper answer (one with fancy gifs, links to wiki or even screenshots, maybe I'm at work or I'm tired or I'm not 100% sure of what I'm suggesting etc) or just can't be bothered really. I can come back to it later if I want to... or not.
At the end of the day, it's your time you're volunteering, you're not obligated to answer or acknowledge every post you see.

Either fully answer the question in the answer box or ask the user for more information to make it answerable.

A helpful or useful comment is more valuable than nothing at all.

Is this a possibly abuse because they want to keep their precious rep points?

Straying a bit from the topic at hand, higher rep users are more trusted so reputation has little if anything to do with this. I can't speak for everyone but reputation quickly becomes trivial once you've amassed enough to become a trusted user. If anything I'd say it's more to protect the user from blindly following some haphazard or bad workflow. John Doe has 30 million points so he must be correct, right? In the cases I've seen comments are more used for suggesting workarounds as opposed to being an actual solution.

Should we be able to flag an answer in the comments?

No, I would instead go with https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/a/437/12 that says...

I would try to notify the user first to give them the opportunity to answer the post and get the reputation. If they don't respond in a few days then answer it.

If you can't wait and you see the potential of the comment, by all means answer the question! Again, we are all here to help in some way and if you can confidently pen a proper answer based on a comment, go for it!

+1, these are exactly the reasons I do this too.

Is this a possibly abuse because they want to keep their precious rep points?

No offense, but that is laughable. NO.
As you pointed out, it is high rep users doing it more. I, speaking for my self as a high rep user, do not care about the precious rep points. So I can assure you we are not writing a so-so answer as a comment to protect our selves from DVs.
There have been many times I answered in a comment, just because I did not feel like writing a whole answer.
As iKlsR pointed out, this is a Q&A site. In this context, at the end of the day does it make a difference if the user gets his answer from a comment or a real answer?
As cegaton stated, a lot of question are very low quality - as in "I have no idea what you are really asking, but here try this."
If I had to guess I would say that this is what you are looking at when you say there are "answers in the comments that might not be very complete."
Well if I'm not sure what the question is, then no I'm probably not going to take the time to write a full answer, when the OP will just come back and say "thanks, but no that is not it what I mean is..." (has happened to me before, and that kind of thing does not lend its self to be repeated.)
In my mind, there are two main reasons to "answer" in the comments.

The question is unclear, and any answer is just a guess.
I do not want to write a full answer, especially when one line will do.

Now as to whether or not  you should flag them. Lets examine the comment flag reasons.

rude or offensive
Flag any comment that is something a normal and reasonable person would not post.
not constructive
If it adds nothing to the post flag as this.
obsolete
Common example on BSE is a comment asking for the blend, where the post has been edited to include the blend.
too chatty
often used on comments like "Thanks" or one of Iklsr's memes.
other
any time there is some problem that a mod needs to act on. Examples include a whole string of comments that should be deleted, or maybe an argument between users.
There is no comment flag reason that states "This is a guess answer. I feel it should be a real answer so it can get DVed."
Thus no, there is no reason to flag an "answer" in the comment. Either it helps get to the answer, or it will prod the OP to make it clearer.

Well, I was saying maybe it should be an added feature.


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A Selectively Helpful Community
I've been on this site for quite a while now, but there's something that keeps bugging me. This might sound a reminiscent of the reform of the whole StackOverflow site that happened a while back.
It seems like, with so many restrictions on what people may ask questions about, and what questions are considered "good", that many people really aren't getting the thought they deserve. For example, one fellow earlier asked some basic, but a bit naive questions about 2.8. Instead of being answered in a constructive way, or asking for clarification, this person was responded to in the comments simply with "Please put this in a bug report. We do not deal with experimental versions of Blender." This is just a drop in a much bigger ocean of... unhelpfulness that I see here. Now - I'm not saying commenting asking for clarification, or explaining nicely why the question is unconsequential is a bad thing. But,
It feels like some of this community's guidelines encourage pushing questions away, rather then answering them, which is the exact purpose of this site. In the previous example, why does blender 2.8 need to be completely shunned? Why shouldn't this fellow have gotten at least moment of our thought? There's nothing inherently wrong about many of the "don't do this" rules out there, and there are people who get rejected because of this. Obviously, some 2.8 questions are indeed out of our reach. But not all are, and trying to use 2.8 and being confused shouldn't make a user inherently less deserving of our help.
One of the things about this site that is attractive to this site, for newer users, is the quick and efficient way to get assistance and knowledge. They don't have to invest time into other, more thorough communities. I believe there's a beauty in that. But, a lot of people here don't have other places to ask. Many are working in isolation - except for this site, and YouTube videos. Nowhere else to go, nowhere else to ask. For a long time, I wasn't aware of other blender communities. This was it. And to see some people seen as rabble on this site, just because they don't know what's "appropriate", or have nowhere else to ask, is saddening.
So, how can this community be helpful to more people? Rules are good, and a necessary asset for any community. But I believe helping people should be priority, rather than using rules as an excuse to not help people who might have no other sources. For some of things, it would actually be faster to give a quick 4 word answer, rather than say: "I'm voting to close this as off topic because"
What are your thought's on this? Can we be a more positive community? Is there anything we collectively can do to become a more positive, inclusive, and helpful group?

Hello leo. Let me just comment about the very example that inspired your post, as a clarification (since I'm involved). I was the one saying "maybe a bug report is more appropriate" because after having tried to give an helpful workaround to the user, I realised that they were indeed right: the feature they needed wasn't there. I did answer the question showing my findings and experiments (even if the question was already voted as off-topic by other users) and I said: "you're right in considering this a broken feature, so you should file a bug report". I really was trying to be helpful

(And I've answered several 2.8 related questions in the past week. I've agreed that that one was probably off topic because -- after investigation -- it looked like a bug to me)

No hard feelings towards you, that post is really just what had gotten me thinking and helped me put a finger on what

TL;DR This site is not a support forum, its a knowledge base. Therefore, restrictions on what is considered useful content need to stay. However, users feelings should not be hurt during this process.
The reason there are all these strange rules to what can be posted and not posted is that the primary purpose of StackExchange is not providing answers for questions askers. That might sound a bit crazy, but bear with me.
I don't know about everyone else here, but for every question I ask on StackExchange, I find at least a hundred existing ones that are useful to me. For example, I have posted only a handful of times on StackOverflow, yet I use it daily. The point is I use it as a place to find knowledge, not so much as a place to ask questions. It serves as an encyclopedia, not a support forum. This is key. The purpose of posting questions and answers is to build that encyclopedia for posterity, for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, or in some cases hundreds of thousands of people who will find your post when they search the web for knowledge.
In fact, the original problem StackExchange was designed to solve was that answers were hard to find traditional discussion forums aimed at support. You had to dig through pages or rambling back and forth to find information. The curation and ease of access to information is the entire reason this network exists, and must not be sacrificed.
Seeing StackExchange as an encyclopedia for future readers diminishes the role of the actual poster. A question is simply a statement that a topic needs to be covered in this encyclopedia. When you view questions as such, you can see how so many questions are viewed as "bad." For example, questions about pre-release builds such as 2.8 can quickly become clutter that makes searching the encyclopedia difficult to search. Many answers will rapidly (within days in some cases) become out of date1, meaning that users will have to click through them to find up to date information, wasting time. Long term, these entries are not valuable in our encyclopedia.
The point is, close votes, and downvotes are a way of curating the entries in this encyclopedia, to try and filter out the clutter and keep the knowledge base lean and relevant. All those restrictions are helpful guidelines as to what will be useful to posterity. The curation processes, and posts that go unanswered are part of the price that is paid to make this information easy to accesses.
However, I do strongly agree with you that an effort should be made to be nicer during the curation processes. To much curation appears to be a criticism of posters themselves, rather than a statement that a particular question will not be a good fit for the knowledge base. Too many question askers are not directed to support forums better suited to assisting them, or worse, rudely brushed off. This requires an effort in the community. The rules help keep the value and focus of this site, but users's feelings are not a price we should be paying for this.
footnotes
1 At this point 2.8's design is stabilizing. I think once the first release candidate is finished, it will be safe to permit 2.8 questions. The first RC is scheduled for release in 10 days, so this will be soon.

Thank you for posting this; you've highlighted something I've been trying to put my finger on for a while now.
Most of the time when a question is outside our scope, it's usually possible to point the OP in a helpful direction, even if just with a comment. For example, if the OP is looking to pay someone to model something for them, we can link to blenderartists.   Sometimes this is a bit harder when the topic is rather far from our average users' expertise, but even here there was an attempt.
I try to give the OP somewhere to go if their question is closed, even if just by linking to the resources question and/or suggesting they search for tutorials on $xyz. I'm certainly not alone in this practice, but I feel like it has gotten less common over time, no doubt partly due to the number of questions we get now (many from new users).
Beyond that, perhaps some aspects of our scope could be re-evaluated, or better defined. There are a few points which have come up already:

Source code questions in 2016
Should we expand our scope to allow simple howtos?
How should we handle questions about features not yet in Blender?
What is our criteria for a minimum effort?

But in practice not all those have effected much change (especially source code questions). If we want to change our scope, we have to find a way to communicate those changes to question askers (which will be harder to do now that we have a reputation of being picky answerers).
Regarding 2.8 questions in particular, I personally remain opposed to their being considered off-topic. Perhaps now — with the 2.8 beta approaching — would be a good time to re-evaluate that policy?

But I believe helping people should be priority, rather than using
rules as an excuse to not help people who might have no other sources.
For some of things, it would actually be faster to give a quick 4 word
answer, rather than say: "I'm voting to close this as off topic
because"

I 100% agree with this and I usually try to stick to this philosophy (which is also the same outlined in the code of conduct.
For instance, I believe that the automated comment that is added when you flag a duplicate

Possible duplicate of [...](...)

should very rarely be left alone (only if the questions are clearly identical in scope). Sometimes it's necessary to add information to the user, something like "The other question is about meshes, but the answers apply to curves as well".
Unfortunately, people will massively downvote trivial mistakes (like a good, 200 character + picture answer, where the low-rep author has mistakenly written "million" instead of "thousand"); or they will flag as "unclear what you're asking" questions by new users where some details are missing but the problem is clearly evident in their screenshots.
I don't know if the badge system (e.g. civic duty, deputy) somehow leads the users to "be the first to flag/report/downvote" stuff, without encouraging friendly help. I thought of them as balanced but they may have some downsides.
As for Blender 2.8:
I am happily answering several questions about 2.8 (this gives me the opportunity to learn it better).
(Eevee & particles: hide mesh emitter at render   -   2.8's Grease Pencil: Is it possible to scale several frames at the same time?   -   2.8: Is it possible to Scale up the Grease Pencil object symbol?)
These are about features that are clearly going to stay, since they are stable, well integrated in the new workflow, and covered in the Blender Developer's blogs and videos. I'm 95% sure that the answers will apply to the final release.
In the rare cases where they are about bugs, I believe it's healthy to tell the user they are likely dealing with a bug (and, if possible, draft a workaround in the comments). Unfortunately though the bug tracker is now only open to crash reports, so the users really don't have a place to go to get feedback.
[Disclosure: I was active in the question that Leo is referring to. I have both answered and agreed that it was likely to be about a bug, thus off-topic]


text:
Can a punishment be implemented for using the word "vertice" in a Q/A?
<sarcasm>
Of course, the problem is also pervasive within the Youtube tutorial world.  But it would be nice, even in this this small bastion of BSE hope, if we could change the modeling world for the better.
Just a few possibilities:

Automatically deduct 5 points until the mangling of language is removed.
Lose asking/answering privileges for a week as a way to contemplate the grievous nature of your error.
Be required to type "Vertex, not Vertice" into a text box 100 times before being allowed back on the site.

I realize this may seem a bit harsh but I think the potential rewards are well worth it. I understand that English is not everyone's primary language, but then again, neither is Latin.  That's simply not an excuse.
Is this a feature that can be implemented?  If so, what would be the method of chastening? </sarcasm>
[Just trying to add some humor to your day :D ]

Just a thought - :)

So there should be  tags somewhere around here?

@MrZak - I couldn't get it to work

Oh my... If this gets built then I think the next feature should be something to do with sarcasm on the meta.

@MrZak - mine too

Yep, I guess tag for comments should be added as well. Sarcasm again.

@David - I totally agree

*looks for offended people* *only sees sarcasm and apologies* I think it's fine :)

We must use the one true spelling: Vertexyishthingymajiggies.

Oh my. And I thought "Vertexes" was bad.. Anyway, this isn't going to be implemented (it's up to SE to add features, and I doubt this is one they'd be interested in).
Instead, please feel free to edit posts to address things like this.

Hehe, I know.  I can't for the life of me understand why this wouldn't implemented :)

@cegaton I know, but I still don't like it..

Bit harsh don't you think? There are probably more pressing concerns than typos in questions and points should reflect post quality not grammar correctness I think.
It is a common mistake even among native English speakers which are probably not even a majority here, and with no overall discernible gains to site quality or usability, other than language correctness. I mean everyone understands "vertice" and "vertices" even though they mean vertex.
Community user might possibly be programmed to automatically fix that, it already fixes some common mistakes and typos here and there, but I don't know if it is user configurable, nor if can be assigned custom tasks like this.
However making it do proofing on all stack exchange posts might not be a sensible use of server load resources, and that is the task of spellcheckers after all.
Anyway my suggestion is that you edit them yourself, the original author generally gets notified and shown a diff, thus achieving your objecting of improving overall grammar.
You can also leave a comment with your edit pointing to the mistake, and downvote the post if deserved.

But seriously, I was 99.8% kidding

Sure eheh It has been suggested before, there should be an official sarcasm font


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Tag creation suggestion
I'd like to ask a question about teaching Blender but can't find a suitable tag. Could we have something like learning, training, or any other that would seem relevant to the tag creator (I don't have that privilege).
[Edit]
So if answers must absolutely be objective, I see how this could be a problem. I'm seeking help on how to teach Blender (namely I have a one-day course to prepare and I'd like to seek the community's help on what's the most important part to teach) and there may not be one right answer to that question. I figured tutorial makers would be interested in asking advice on methods, content, etc.
In any case thank you for considering my request.

What's an example question you would ask? Also what kind of response would you expect? Be as specific and thorough as possible and feel free to edit your original post.

Such a tag would be too general since in a sense every post and answer combination is basically teaching Blender. I know that's not exactly the same but we do have a scope and try to stick to that. Also any such question would probably be deemed open ended and subject to opinion. https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask.
I would instead recommend breaking down your question into an actual subject matter then take what you will from that and apply it in whatever way you want after. For example if you want to say teach about modifiers, form a question around that.
Don't treat this answer as law however. I don't quite know the nature of your intentions so leaving a catch-all as to what it reads like and if you disagree a discussion can ensue.


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Can we ask for render critiques?
I'm new to blender and completed my learning section, and now I play around with blender mostly rendering objects/scenes. Can I upload my rendered images here for asking critiques?
If answer is "No", is there any other SE site for this?

The answer is "No." That type of question is off topic and would be closed as such.
Point six on our off topic list, "Critique and Showcasing."
If you think of BSE as a collective resource that will help future users, a question like "what do you think of my render?" probably will not be useful for anyone but you who made the render. That is part of the reason for having them be off topic.
Now you can come by our main chat room, there is almost always somebody there.
However for an even better place, I would recommend you try the Focused Critiques thread on blender artists.


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A question form
Maybe a question form, with the Image Link field required, should be introduced to the site? It must be wearisome to ask for screenshots all the time. I noticed these requests are pretty frequent here.

It is already changed which made uploading images from external resources even harder than it was so maybe doing this easier is not what is meant to be done

On a site like ours where we have such a broad range of questions. I've always been against any kind of question template. The reason being that no matter how you craft a template you will have good questions that do not fit the prebuilt question pattern.
If we go and "require" screen shots what would happen to all the questions where images are not really needed?

What is the NLA Editor used for?
Can Blender render pngs with the background transparent?
Is there a way to have one material for cycles and the BI
What's the quickest, easiest way to point the camera somewhere in blender?
Controlling the "strength" of cycles' Bump node
Precisely move the 3D cursor
What is non-manifold geometry?
How move object between scenes

and on and on.
Not every question needs a picture.

The reason asking for screen shots is so common, is because we have a lot of "I have a problem with blender, can you fix it?" and we need a lot more detail to answer.
If everybody asking such questions took the time to narrow down their problem so they could ask a specific question, we'd be in a whole different boat. Lots of things would be different, and better. But as it stands we get a deluge of low quality, and in many cases plain unanswerable questions.
So instead of forcing everybody to include a picture, why not just try to get people to write better questions?

For some time I wanted to have kind of cast-vote on the question but instead of closing there would be crafted comment added with "add images, see how etc". This however doesn't really fit with site model, just a thought about easier handling with lots of "pls add images" comments

@MrZak believe it or not that is very similar to an excellent idea from one of the CMs I saw on the meta. Lets hope SE management lets something like this happen.

If so, questions could be read before they`re published. In case of bad quality a message like"Question rejected. Be more specific." may be sent.

I go over some tips here from wayback -- https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/608/how-do-i-ask-a-question-that-is-hard-to-describe/609#609