text:
What happened to the bookmarks?
Yesterday, strangely enough, all my bookmarks were gone.
Instead, a new system was apparently active, where questions and answers could be saved and nested in categories.
This was a great idea, but suddenly all my previously saved bookmarks were lost.
Today apparently the old system was activated again (Why?).
The problem:
Now both the old Boomarks and the new bookmarks are gone.
What happened here?

Strange I had not noticed this, I confess I don't use bookmarks much. If the change was recent maybe they are in the process of migrating things. Give it some time to sort things out

Mines are also gone

According to this post on the main meta bookmarks are now called "saves", and have been temporarily disabled.

Saves is now officially live on Stack Overflow and across Stack
Exchange sites! The migration process will take some time to process
as there are millions of bookmarked questions to migrate over. If
you’re not seeing any questions you previously bookmarked, that means
they haven’t been processed yet.

Do not know how long temporary is, but you will see them again.

OK, wonderful, has apparently been resolved. Now the new system is active and the bookmarks (now "Saves") seem to have been migrated indeed. I was just badly irritated for a moment because at first I thought it was a mistake.


text:
Should I flag comments as no longer needed for fulfilled requests?
I noticed there is a flag No longer needed

Should comments that request something like:

please provide the blend file

be removed after they have been fulfilled with a comment like:

i have added blend file to my post

? Should both of these comments be flagged as No longer needed to weed out comments noise?
In addition I'd like to know if the No longer needed flag punishes the commenter? Because it shouldn't right? As the comment has just gotten outdated.
It would be nice though if these comments were removed by the persons commenting since both comments cancel each other out and only make the comments list too long if they remain.

Sounds reasonable. I would prefer it that way. Unfortunately, these users usually don't add their blend file via https://blend-exchange.com/, but via other cloud services and then add this link as a comment. What should happen with it then?

Yes please flag them, those are usually irrelevant in the long run. Flagging one comment per post is enough. As far as I know it does not penalize the user in any way

Would it be reasonable to delete surplus links to cloud services, on the grounds that they aren't archival, when they can no longer aid answers in the short term?  Ideally the answers would not depend on the links.

Deleting outdated or broken links is ok, migrating them without user consent is not. There was a discussion about file migration to Blend Exchange a while ago, the issue was accepting a different terms of service.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos From my point of view, file links to various clouds should be filtered anyway, because they actually always contain links to files that remain unavailable in the long run. A better guidance on how to use https://blend-exchange.com (possibly via upload icon in the RTE, as with images) would be helpful and would also eliminate any ambiguity from the beginning. Would something like this be possible?

A button in the toolbar would be the best way to ensure usage of Blend Exchange, but that is not up to us mods or even as a community, I think. I think this has been brought up in the past, but that would probably require development from the network staff, and I'm not so sure they be willing to spare the labor for supporting a service run by a third party.

From the main Meta FAQ, comments are *temporary "Post-It" notes. It is more than reasonable to flag them for deletion when they do not add value.

AFAIK there is no flag that harms a user, but you should consider any follow-up action from a community mod for some flags

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
The comment upvote arrow is not working during review; instead of voting, it scrolls up the page
When doing reviews, there are options. The last option, Other action, is grayed out until you do something, like comment or upvote a comment. I'm just mentioning this so we are on the same page.

I noticed that during review, when you try to click the upvote button for a comment, it doesn't always work. Most of the time, the page scrolls up when clicking it. I have noticed this behavior for a month now. Is anyone fixing this or aware of this bug? The workaround is to refresh the page, then it works.

I was here thinking I was the only one, or my browser was acting up, but I guess not, I've been having the same issue for a while now. I'm hoping that selling us off to AI is generating enough funds to develop and improve the platform

On topic of the issue itself, I've noticed that refreshing the review page makes the button work properly on second load

Yes that's the workaround I currently employ when I need to upvote a comment, just refresh the page haha

There seem to have been some recent development, now I get an error message saying something like I "cannot mark the same comment more than once" or similar, and the comment vote doesn't immediately show up. It still doesn't work properly, I have to then refresh the page to see my vote, but at least it no longer scrolls up

Just happened to me outside of the review - I edited a comment, then clicked the up arrow to upvote - the arrow activated but the score didn't update. Had to refresh the page and press the up arrow again...

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


text:
Editing questions that include the tag in the title?
Is it wise to edit the title of questions if they include the (only) relevant tag?

Geometry nodes. How to Separate mesh islands by the largest island?
Arc Between Edge Endpoints Using Geometry Nodes
How can I make horizontal plane instances attached to branches using geometry nodes?

Or other questions where this is not explicitly the case, but where no other conclusion is possible that they must be geometry-nodes because of the already existing tag:

How to base point selection on a distance in a certain direction in Geometry Nodes
Rotate instances to face one object with Geometry Nodes
Relax vertices in Geometry Nodes

Should these questions/titles be edited for clarity or not?

I think that many users ignore the tag system, so I am of the opinion that if it is already in place and the edit adds no other value, then I would probably leave it alone in most cases. Newer users don't know how SE works, and how questions are  typically formatted. Because of this, one word edits may discourage participation because they think they did something wrong. In general though, tags alone should provide this information rather than the title.

@Timaroberts Thanks for your comment! You mean that other users who might be able to answer the question ignore these tags? Because the questioner already knows that they are Geometry Nodes. It might be wise to edit these titles anyway, just to push the tag system a bit, wouldn't it?

Having the "tags" mentioned in the title isn't necessarily bad. I understand they may be redundant, but on the other hand they speed things up by making the title clearer and self contained. It is easier to just read a title that mention them, than having to also go for the "small print" for tags, for example when skimming through the question list .

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos yeap and if you are not a Stack user just looking for an answer to a similar question, is easy to just read the title, because you don't know how the site works.

@Emir But only if you were to browse all questions without noticing the tags. For searching it doesn't matter whether it's mentioned in the title.


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Can you delete a Blend Exchange file after is has been uploaded?
I might have a question I would like to ask on blender stack exchange but I feel to get the best answer it would be beneficial to upload my blend file in its entirety. This question could be beneficial in the long term as I don't see too many answers about the subject. My problem is that if I upload my blend file, a project that I've been working on for months now, users could easily take my months of work for personal gain and I have heard of this happening before. I would like to be able to delete my blend file after the question is answered and I don't want the person answering to be able to upload it in the answer. I have considered just appending specific parts but I'm not sure if that would generate the best answers in this case. If I decided to go through with it, is it possible to completely delete the blend file afterward, not just from the script of the question?

I don't think this is possible on Blend-Exchange.It would be very unusual for a technical problem that is solvable on Blender SE to require an entire, complex project file to represent it..  Can you indicate the nature of the problem; why it can't be represented by a stripped-down, toy example?

You seem to be very protective of your work for someone asking for help for free on a community focused on sharing knowledge and learning together. Maybe stack exchange is not the right place for you then, and you should be seeking professional help, where privacy can be expected.

I think it's harsh to criticize someone for seeking free help to a commercial project - after all, it's perfectly normal to use free software for commercial projects. On the other hand, when someone asks for help, is given an instruction to share a .blend file, and then provides a 100 MB file, I can only be open-minded enough to assume total noviceship of the author and inform the the project should be simplified. I think 99% of cases can easily be stripped down and compressed below 500 kB.

We are not a personal assistance service.
The main goal of this site is to build a high quality database of questions and answers that are above all else expected to be searchable and helpful to future users facing similar problems, rather than just help the individual who posted them.
If your posts has the single goal of solving your individual issue alone, and has no broader use helping other users facing similar issues, then it is probably not a good fit for this site.
Having that in mind, ideally, any posts here are generic, well explained and illustrated enough, in such way that files are completely unnecessary. Otherwise, any attachments shared here through Blend Exchange or any other service, would be essential to understand the question or provide a solution, and as such shall remain available for any future visitors as well.
Depriving other users of the information someone provided for free, seems selfish and not in line with the spirit of this community.
Permanent hosting is one of the founding principles of Blend-Exchange, if not the main advertised feature.
As Robin Betts mentioned, a complete file with a full project is rarely necessary and even undesirable to solve the issue. Generally the process of isolating an issue is a great diagnostic tool itself, not only is it halfway to solving the issue yourself, it also narrows down the scope for potential helpers, while improving the quality of your post. If you can't simplify it enough to share it here, then you might consider getting professional help instead, where privacy can be requested.

Its really just a one off thing and I have already searched Blender stack exchange for answers on the specific subject but haven't found them. Like I said already I think it would be valuable to add to the database of questions knowing that it doesn't exist yet and It would apply to anyone going down the same path. I guess I will just have to take time to try and try to reconstruct it outside of my original file of question. If I could delete my file it would still provide the answer in the end, it would just make it much easier to ask my question and feel safe about it.


text:
Asked a question; actual answer was combination of two answers with some extra info
I asked a question. Two people answered, and each provided half of the correct answer with a tiny bit that was missing. I have no idea how best to select the "correct" answer.
I am totally new to Blender.
The question in question is Move vertices parallel with face they define.
Thanks!

... a very comprehensive answer from @Duarte . In this case, I would approve the solution you found most practical, and  actually used :)

Thank you @RobinBetts for your answer there and comment here. As best as I can tell, it's split down the middle in terms of actual used-ness, and I got myself confused by the other answer through some light EBKACing!

Accepting an answer is not mandatory, though it is encouraged.
See help about what you should do if someone answers your question.

To accept an answer:

Choose one answer that you believe is the best solution to your problem.
To mark an answer as accepted, click on the check mark beside the answer to toggle it from greyed out to filled in.
You may change which answer is accepted, or simply un-accept the answer, at any time.

Accepting an answer is not mandatory; do not feel compelled to accept
the first answer you receive. Wait until you receive an answer that
answers your question well.

Also see What does it mean when an answer is "accepted"?
In short the accepted answer should ideally be the one that fully covers your issue, barring that, the one most closely addresses your question.
If non really answer in a satisfying manner you may also:

Answer your own question with the solution you found or compiled from other answers. After a grace period of 48h, you may choose your own answer as the accepted one. Be sure to write something that distinguishes itself enough from existing answers to justify its existence.
Alternatively, you can also comment on any answers of your choice, or that helped you the most, and encourage the users to include those missing details that really made the difference for you.
Stack exchange also encourages you to edit any posts you find to make them more useful. With that in mind, you may also edit any answer you found useful and add any missing steps you discovered by yourself.

Both last two options would be preferred, since they allow you you to accept an exist answer, awarding the authors the deserved additional reputation they worked for.

Thank you. I've accepted this answer :)

Thanks, made a few changes to make it a bit clearer


text:
how to get 15 rep here so I can vote?
I don't have much questions that hasn't been answered in google already and I don't have answers cuz i'm noob. I want to be able to vote to mark the posts I've already visited.

Hello and Welcome. For Questions about this site, the network, moderation, rules and how they work, please use Meta instead.

See https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation


text:
Allow questions that are potentially bugs in Blender
I've recently witnessed that question regarding potential bugs are put on hold, since they are among the questions consider off-topic.
I'd like you to reconsider this for the following reasons.

Users are asking this question on Blender's StackExchange because they are unsure what the cause of the issue is. It could be a bug in Blender, but it may also be a OS/hardware/driver issue, a misunderstanding of how a feature works, misdocumentation of a feature's behaviour, fringe cases of file format specification, problems with bad UX etc. The reason why they ask these questions is likely because they don't have the technical knowledge to identify the issue themselves, therefore also unable to write a good bug report.

If we can provide guidance to narrow the problem down to its specific cause, we should. Putting these questions on hold on and referring them to the issue tracker just puts the burden on the Blender devs. They have much more important things to do than chase information from a user that might not be a bug. Asking for system information, debug logs, exact steps to reproduce and an MWE blend file again and again takes time. If it turns out that the problem wasn't Blender's fault, they've just spend time on it that they now don't have for relevant issues. Blender's StackExchange could provide a filter for such issues by providing guidance in these cases and stop problems from being reported on the issue tracker that aren't caused by bugs.

Some legitimate bugs may have workarounds. While Blender devs work to fix the issue, we could provide the user with tips on how to reach their goal anyway.

Allowing these kind of posts would help solve similar new problems in the future or at least provide a direction on what to do.

It's not welcoming or helpful. Users are having legitimate problems and are looking for help and they just get send away. It's also discouraging technically knowledgable users from contributing solutions.

My proposal for a policy change would be

Putting on hold is ok for questions that are definitely bugs and there isn't any answer or workaround that can be provided by the community. Therefore putting on hold should only happen after a reasonable amount of time.

Don't put a question on hold if it already has a legitimate answer solving the problem or providing a work around.

If it's clear that it is a bug, provide instructions on how to file a good bug report or let a more experienced person in the community handle the bug reporting, if enough information are available to reproduce.

Perhaps we can discuss this and improve the support for the Blender community.

Nice question, some good points I have raised myself before. Asking for workaround for known bugs can be a legitimate question before they are fixed, filtering for the burdened devs is also a cause I would support, still at the end of the day all bugs should be reported

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I agree all bugs should be reported.

The current policy should stay, but people may need to be a bit more careful about jumping the gun closing before enough info is available.
In general as soon as it is clear that a close reason is appropriate, flag the question, it can always be reopened if the situation changes. If is clear something is a bug, then waiting longer isn't going to change that.
The close reason already links info on how to file a report (Best place to put bug reports?). If you think this is lacking, feel free to edit and improve it.
I think the only clarification that needs to be made is that if a question is phrased in a way that a workaround makes sense as an answer, and one exists, then it doesn't need to be closed.
In response to your reasons:

If the user cannot identify the bug themselves that's fine, we are identifying it as a bug for them with the the close reason. If it is unclear, then closing as a bug is already inappropriate.
If there is not enough information to establish it as a bug, there probably isn't enough information to answer it either (so help the user clarify their question). When there is enough information, you should be able to file a report. There may be further information required in later investigation, but that is beside the point.
Workarounds depend on how the question if phrased. If the question is along the lines of "how can I achieve X" (i.e. there is a clear end result) workaround answers make sense. If the question is just "I do Y and then it breaks", with no indication of what the goal is, it should probably be closed. This is always going to be subjective.
Many bugs are often short lived (in dailies particularly), or not that useful outside getting them reported. I'm not sure what value any of these posts would have long term unless they have workarounds.
The close reason is helpful, it tells them it is a bug and where to raise it, what else should be done with a bug? We can't fix it here. If a user doesn't understand what these close reasons mean then help them understand how this site works.

I've added an answer to Best place to put bug reports? that should help to write good bug reports and identify problems that aren't bugs.


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Why are there only two committers for the Blender documentation proposal?
I noticed that even though there is a vibrant Blender Stack Exchange community, there are still only two committers on the SE Blender docs. Why are there not more? Is it just because no one knows?
I know it isn't a replacement for the main manual, but the Stack Exchange documentation project is a very useful, unique method; I think it would definitely be a benefit. Please go commit to it, so that it can be started!

Current Progress:

2 / 5

5 Committers:

gandolf3
pycoder
?
?
?

I wasn't quite aware of this tbh but stackoverflow is not the place to document Blender IMO. If i'm missing something in the details please correct me.

@iKlsR I disagree. SO has a [tag:blender] tag and code-oriented blender questions (python scripting) are on-topic there. Why shouldn't at least some scripting-oriented blender docs/examples be on-topic? That said, it doesn't seem like scope is all that strict. There's a vim documentation, and even a vlc proposal. Plus, participating in the beta shows enthusiasm on the part of non-SO sites, which should encourage them to expand SE documentation to such sites when the time comes.

@iKlsR It is a different type of manual...take a look at some of the other ones, and I think you will see how useful it can be. It should be on the general SE website or BSE in my opinion, but wherever it is, I think that it will be a help because it allows for easy information reuse. Someone can write an answer there, then link to it in the context of other answers so as not to have to write the same thing all that often. Another idea behind the documentation is that it is frequently edited by everyone, and so just about everything that gets voted up goes through many edits.

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/354217/sunsetting-documentation/

I knew about it from day one. I was even very active with the documentation project on that first day. However I quickly got a distaste for it, there are and were problems with the system.
Personally I don't want blender docs on SO. I don't like the documentation system, and aside from coding questions blender is off topic on SO.
I'm sure not going to stand in the way of the blender tag getting its own docs there, but I am not going to commit to writing the docs. The more blender knowledge the better, I guess.
Yet, if there is this much of a struggle just to get 5 people to commit to starting the documentation (gandalf3 brought this very thing up over three months ago), I wonder how good it will be. The last thing we need is another so-so repository of half done blender knowledge.
So to answer your question, yes I knew about it, but the reason I have not committed (aside from needing more rep in the blender tag on SO even to be able to commit) is because I don't want to.

Fair enough, I won't argue about if blender is off topic or not on SO...

https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/354217/sunsetting-documentation/

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


text:
Tags for Issues with drivers

Update
This issue seems to be only on the M - MX family. Desktop GPUs aren't affected.
Due to the influx of the "Blender is lagging" posts, I'm going to pin this on the main site until the issue is resolved, and our close-votes review queue calms down. From what I've seen only 2.78 users are posting but it might affect other versions as well.
See Blender 2.78 with Windows 10 lags when interacting with the UI and the official release thread for the driver is here https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/978895/geforce-drivers/official-376-09-game-ready-whql-display-driver-feedback-thread-released-11-28-16-/1/
DO NOT UPDATE TO Official 376.09 Game Ready WHQL Display Driver (Released 11/28/16).
If you have already, the best "fix" is to rollback to your previous working driver, personally 375.95 seems to be a good version in the same month. If for some reason you can't do this, open the NVIDIA control panel and force Blender to use the intel chipset, if you have that option (not recommended as you might see flickering).

Can we add a tag for these sorts of questions?
It seems like there are lots of questions about strange behaviors in blender that are "driver" issues, but I'm not sure that this tag is sufficient because "drivers" in blender are completely different than drivers in your OS.
Please add your thoughts on what tag (if any) we should add for these questions.

we have a hardware tag.

@david drivers aren't hardware.

true, but most of the question we are getting are asking about the graphics card. It is only after the question is answered does the the OP learn it is a drivers issue.

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


text:
Why are people downvoting my question?
In my question here I asked about an issue I was having with my model but I refused to upload the file itself due to theft in the past:
Rigging my model and the head mesh disappears
Despite this, people have still asked for the model, proof of the past theft and continually downvote my question.
What I want to know is why people are being so harsh on me for asking a question? I thought this website was about posting questions if you needed help and I checked through other questions and I'm not the only one who isn't posting their models online, so I want to know why this question is getting so much bad attention?
Is there some sort of hidden policy or formality that I've missed that everyone else is doing because I'm seriously at a loss here.
I read through my question to see if it looks like a "troll question" but it seems fine to me, so I honestly don't know why this is happening.
The model is for an upcoming video game I'm making and I have had people harass me in the past to try and get info on the game but I seriously doubt these are the same individuals, so again, any suggestions on why this question is getting so many downvotes?
I even asked that on another post when someone asked a similar question and mine was deleted. I mean I've read through the policy and I'm not seeing what I'm doing wrong here.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/why-vote https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/vote-down
Reading this, I still can't see what I did wrong from just asking for help?

Don't give up asking more questions. Don't give up on Stackoverflow either. I was trolled on my first week, but I have stayed regardless.

A downvote doesn't exactly mean you did something wrong, but rather your question was unclear, displayed an obvious lack of effort, or is simply something the downvoter found disagreeable.
In this case, I'd hazard a guess at "unclear" being the primary reason for your downvotes. Without a .blend exhibiting the symptoms, troubleshooting type questions like yours tend to devolve into a wild guessing game at best, especially without even a screenshot to be certain what the problem looks like.
That said, in cases like this, usually someone will suggest creating a simplified version of the problem .blend. I'm not sure why this hasn't been suggested yet in your case, so let me suggest it now :)
If that seems like an agreeable alternative, then this post may be of use when simplifying.

I want to add: It is very likely you discover the issue and a solution while preparing a demo file just by reproducing the problematic situation. It does not only help to protect your content. It let your supporters focus on the issue rather digging through the other content of your original file.

Well...
As you seem to already know downvotes (DVs) do not mean people are being harsh or mean to you. In most cases it is because there is something wrong with the post. For a general overview see the answers: When should I vote? But take DVs and the answer there with a grain of salt.
Try Looking at the title and first two paragraphs of your question as someone else would with no knowledge of your scene, workflow, model, rig, or anything else. Then see if from just those two paragraphs if you could solve the problem. No, nobody could answer your question with so little information.
On top of all that you have a large bold disclaimer saying how you will not upload the blend, so there is no chance anyone can help you that way.
I would say you got the DVs because your question is unclear. There is simply no way to give an answer with the information provided.

(full disclosure, i didn't downvote)
CraftyMaelyss - downvotes mean different things to different people (no matter what the FAQ's or Meta says about it). Getting a downvote sometimes tells you more about the person who downvoted than it does about the reason they downvoted. How people respond to downvotes can also show their maturity.
The reason people ask for a .blend is because it's the single fastest way to see if they know a solution. When you don't want to share the .blend things become more difficult and if the solution wasn't self evident from the description or images then people can only offer educated guesses (stab in the dark at worst) and that's rarely worth anyone's time.
Not sharing your .blend is of-course entirely your right and privilege (and omitting the reason for doing so is also acceptable and you don't need to invest time in justifying your reasons). But you should then provide some substitute of the .blend with parts removed or massively simplified so it offers no incentive to be "stolen". If you can't do that then it doesn't show the fellow site visitors that you've tried to understand the problem conceptually (outside of the current state of the .blend), and that's contrary to the goals of the community.


text:
Unanswered and abandoned questions
I had the same question as Nolan about rendering in blender, Why won't objects appear in motion tracking?
But there is no answer to the question and it is a few months old with no signs of attention. Is there any other way to spark interest in an old question, other than bounties? I have very little rep, and don't want to waste it all. Should I ask a similar question, or will that just get marked as a duplicate? If nobody has seen the orignal question will they bother marking the new one? Perhaps we should push to close them, or put them higher on the unanswered list.

In this case, I'd say it's okay to post your own question with a link to the old question. This is a rare exception to the rule, based off some assumptions:

The other question has no answers (or only low-scoring answers which don't help solve the problem)
The other question is at least a month or two old, and/or it seems unlikely that the old question's OP is readily available.
The other question was not posted by you

If all these are true, then IMO the best course of action is to start afresh. Keep in mind that to answer a "trouble-shooting" question like this, information about the details is of the utmost importance.
A .blend is invaluable. If you don't want to upload your project to the world, take the time to try and make a simple example of the problem in a new file (or go backwards by starting with your project file and deleting unrelated objects).
See Including a .blend file for instructions on actually uploading the file.
Chances are, a lack of info is likely what resulted in the lack of answers to the other question.
With a little luck, you'll get some answers which successfully answer your question. If you do, we can close the old question as a duplicate of your new question, redirecting future visitors.

Sorry if I was unclear but, I did not make the question, I simply had the same question with no answer and I don't have enough rep to edit a question.

@SammySwanson Ah, my mistake. In that case, I'd say it's fine to post a "duplicate" question of your own, perhaps with a link to the abandoned question. (IIRC closing as a duplicate of a question with 0 answers isn't even possible)

Just a side note: When the user doesn't want to or can't upload the original file, one very interesting benefit that may rise from the user trying to recreate the problem is that he often finds the solution to the problem himself.


text:
Should I be flagging "thanks" comments?
I've seen a lot of "thanks" and "me too" comments (even though whenever you add a comment BSE tells you to not leave such comments), especially from the OP.
Should I be flagging these as "not constructive" or "too chatty"? Or are these supposed to just be silently ignored as long as we don't see too many? One could argue that they are serving some purpose by showing that the OP's question has been completely solved, but that's what the accept button is for.
Here is an example:
How do I create a reflective white material?
Another two examples from today (same question, same comment, OP accepted neither answer):
Mesh artifacts only on render
Mesh artifacts only on render

I think it's good when someone says thanks/+1 and makes a comment why they're thankful. Not in the sense of 'thanks you solved my problem' or '+1 for finishing my homework assignment,'  rather, more along the lines of 'thanks [for answering X], I was having trouble also understanding the related Y & Z.'

Should +1 and thanks comments be a declined flag?
Should a "thank you" comment be flagged?
Should “Thank you” comments be flagged? (really is a separate post)
If you read some of the posts on the meta, you will quickly see two things.

Yes you can flag a "Thanks" comments as Too chatty.
"Thanks" comments are not a big deal.

I personally don't going around deleting many comments.
However when you flag any comment that really says nothing about the post, and is just "thanks" I will definitely delete that.
I make a distinction in "thanks" comment where it goes on to say more. A comment like that (examples below) can really mean something to the poster, and can add value. It is different, and I think should be left.

Gandalf, when I posted this I didn't realisticly expect to get such a helpful answer so soon and in such a clear way! It solved my issue exactly as intended and I am impressed how fast you solved it, you got good blender logic I guess! Thanks a lot, I will definitely keep coming to this forum for future problems. I would upvote your answer but I need 15 reputation, which I don't have yet :) Anyway, thanks so much and good luck with your own projects!

- Eegs
However this comment (I did not delete just for this example) adds nothing and certainly could be deleted.

thanks that is also very helpful

- Farhan Anam
Another consideration to take in to account is whether or not the comment is blocking more useful content. If there are other comments, especially if there is a Show more comments button, then it gets a much higher "Should be deleted" value.

I just flagged such a comment that provides no instructional information, but the flag was declined.

@pycoder sorry, that was me earlier. At the time I was thinking I would leave it there until the post author saw it, but I now see that it was you. Again sorry, I'll delete future "thanks" comments.


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Medium size images with alpha
When answering a question, I've wanted to include large images that have an alpha channel, but not necessarily at their original size. When I append an m to the image URL to shrink it, the alpha channel disappears, and it looks ugly. Example:
Original: https://i.sstatic.net/vAsYY.png

Shrunk: https://i.sstatic.net/vAsYYm.png

Can I fix this?

This is because imgur provides a jpeg for the smaller version (yes, it still has the .png extension, but don't let that fool you). Jpeg doesn't support an alpha channel, so imgur replaces it with a solid color.
The only way around this is to resize yourself and upload two pngs, then link them like this:
[![Blender logo](https://small/image.png)](https://large/image.png)

Example:

That wasn't the answer I was hoping for :-( , but thanks!

Nice, I didn't know that despite compiling the posting images post years ago. Heh.


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What are the constraints on how loose a comment can be?
I know that Answers have to remain on-topic and relevant to the question, as well as attempt to answer the question asked. I'm not entirely clear on the boundaries on comments though. For example, in this question I answer the question fully, however afterwards I have kindof a casual mini-discussion with the OP (the discussion remains on-topic). Is this behavior fine or would it be better if I avoid interacting with people like this?

Yes, discussion and social conversation are great! The only thing is to consider moving it to a chat room if a particular discussion is getting lengthy with no sign of slowing down. This keeps the comment section tidy and allows other comments to be more visible. (There should be a prompt to do this automatically after a certain number of comments have been exchanged)

Comments are disposable. Small conversations are probably fine, however, the comments are not a chat room. If there are more useful comments, the ones with upvotes will stay, while the ones without upvotes may be deleted


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Documentation second opinion?
Is https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/ask a good place to get second opinions on changes being made to documentation?

Also note that part of the reason patches go through a "review" process on phabricator (developer.blender.org) is for exactly this purpose. You'll likely receive some feedback there as well.

But that is if you are new and submit patches. I have access to push the .diff files myself without external permission. Besides, I have a feeling that the developers have better stuff to worry about than grammer/ minor documentation edits.

Even with push rights, it can be a good idea to put large/potentially controversial changes through review anyway. Anyone can pitch in with the review process, and there is a special "documentation team" (with a number of non-developers) who look at submitted patches. For smaller stuff of course, a quick question in #blenderwiki on IRC or in B.SE chat can't go amiss..
There's also the bf-docboard mailing list, which is useful for calling attention to something or to get an authoritative opinion, e.g. if you have a proposal for drastically changing the structure of the docs or something.

No.
BSE and our meta has no connection (aside from whatever users contribute to both) to blender's official docs. Posting a change to blender's doc on the meta here will never make it into a change.
Instead if you found something that needs fixing, just edit it yourself.
Gandalf wrote up a great post on how to get started
Improving the Blender manual.
Even if you don't want to go through the whole process to edit the manual yourself you still should not post your changes on the meta here. You can report problems here: https://developer.blender.org/project/board/53/

If you just want a quick second opinion to a change (not too large) I would recommend you head over to our site's main chat room or more appropriately the Manual Project room (the reason I say the renderfarm first is because there is always somebody there); and post your change in there.

im looking for a place to get feedback for things im changing in the manual. I know how to make the changes, but im not always sure that they are good changes.

@eromod take a look at my edit

just what I was looking for, ty

I would say one of the main places to contact those in charge of documentation is via the bf-docboard mailing list


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Where should we draw the line between an answer and a full-blown tutorial?
when I came to Blender Stackexchange three months ago I realized quite fast that I could provide more answers than I had questions and providing those answers developed into a new hobby quite fast.
I realized that there was already a discussion about the topic "tutorial" in general (Should we expand our scope to allow simple howtos?) but I feel that we should still draw a line between "tutorial" and "Could you do a whole scene like this for me?"
I'm referring to this specific question How to Model Low Poly Nature Terrain in which I also participated.
My point is that this might become a trend in the future, where Blender beginners are expecting us to do full-blown tutorials for complete scenes or game models with rigging and animations that contain 35 screencasts and screenshots.
It feels a little pointless to me, part due to StackExchange's limitations regarding the layout, part due to the fact that we would create redundant information here that has been provided a couple of dozen times on other Blender-related pages.
Should we draw a line? Should we link to other tutorials? Youtube, vimeo and also blenderartists.org might not be the best choice, since video channels can vanish for whatever reason and links might change.

'How to Model Low Poly Nature Terrain' is, in my opinion, more than an ask for a tutorial. This is much more 'I want to see if someone can enhance what I already know'. But this is a particular case... look at the comments of the very very complete answer of Shady...

@lemon, I disagree. "I can't seem to figure out how to model low poly nature terrain." aims directly at modeling. That's great. One topic. I honestly find Shady's tutorial quite useful, but difficult to follow. That's definitely not his fault, it's because stackexchange is not the best medium to do extensive tutorials.

Metaphor understand me well. Shady's work is great and awesome. But I am wondering about the OP here

If readers come to expect full-blown tutorials here, then I guess they'll just have to be disappointed. As for whether answer authors should post extensive answers - it's at their discretion. The answer will be rated by the community, so if it's too hard to follow it probably won't be well received. Conversely, if it goes into detail in an appropriate and on-topic way, then it could be a helpful answer.

As you allude to, this is a topic that is some what open for interpretation (hence why this is now the third question about it and no definitive answer).
As I once said:

It seams to me, that there is still no clear different between a good but long answer, and a full tutorial.

When you read Regarding questions and answers as tutorials and Should we expand our scope to allow simple howtos? they are contradictory; but note the dates, BSE has somewhat changed its stance on tutorial type of answers.
Obviously there are some very good, long answers, some are "tutorial" type other are just very detailed.

Creating a Black Hole in Blender
How could I place objects on a flat surface in the BGE?
Render with a wider dynamic range
How to Model Low Poly Nature Terrain
How can I create space ship click based controls in BGE?
How do I “parent” objects? self plug :)

They can be broken down in to two categories, info (like my parenting answer, and troy_s' answer) and step by step. I think everybody will agree that the first category is not a tutorial, and there is no debate about those answers.
The grey area comes from the step by step answers.
First off, I think the question has more to do with the answer being a tutorial then the answer. While you could (I guess) write a tutorial for something like this, it is much more likely that a tutorial will result from a open ended question (like you linked to), then a pointed topical question.
I'm not saying that "larger" questions do not have a place here, but that we need to decide, and make it clear what is too broad and what is on topic.
Step by step answers are an important part of the answers on our site.
Now to answer your question - what is a tutorial, and what is a step by step answer - I have no idea. :)
More seriously, if you feel it would be easier to record a youtube video, then to write your answer, it is probably a tutorial and you should rethink your answer, and the question should be revised.
A bunch of steps does not make it a tutorial, say you are answering about drivers, there are a lot of steps before you even get to write the driver expression.
That example is a case for omitting non essential parts of the answer. I have done this when talking about addons, I do not want to explain how to install a addon every time.
Out of the list of answers I linked to I would say that Shady Puck's is the most tutorial. (I bet you did not know that "tutorial" could be an adjective) In that answer (sure it is a very good answer) he covers everything: loading in images, modeling, materials, lighting, camera settings, rendering, even composting. That is a tutorial.
Now gandalf's famous black hole, or X-27's bge answers are hugely long and have countless steps, but only cover one specific topic. (In each case the question asked a was pointed.) I do not consider them tutorials but that is up for debate.
If I even try to sum up the difference between a long step by step answer and a tutorial I would say, how much does it cover? Is it just about how to model something, or is it how to make that same something and then render it to a video so I can use it on my youtube channel?

So I would say, keep writing good answers, don't worry too much about the length (concise is always better), and if you find a youtube video, or you wrote a expanded post on your blog, of course add a link (just don't let the link be the only thing in your answer).
Until the day comes when BSE has a clearly defined too broad rule set, we will keep having this type of "hmm, I wonder if I should write a tutorial for this question."
PS this long answer is not a tutorial on how to write answers. :)

David, thanks for the answer - again, I guess... ;-)  The difference between Shady_Puck's and gandalf's tutorials is exactly the line that I would draw. One topic makes not only questions but also answers easier. And on top of that, additional information could be used in different answers. One link instead of one link and an explanation like "go down to where the guy starts writing about how to rotate the sun...".

David, have a close look to the comments following Shady's answer for http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/58507/how-to-model-low-poly-nature-terrain . This question is a particular case... have a look to https://www.google.fr/?gws_rd=ssl#q=timothy+j+reynolds and to https://guillaumekurkdjian.com/ then to https://dribbble.com/alexsafayan... I dislike this approach...

@lemon I don't really follow what you are trying to say. What approach do you dislike?

As someone who has been very strict about tutorial type answers from day one I see what you mean. Our scope has changed quite a bit on the past 3 years. I'm not a fan of hand holding and would ultimately prefer if said posts were condensed to the bare essentials as opposed to 30 images and step for step details. It's a gray line and as David says, we're not sure exactly how to enforce this. By all means we don't want to limit or discourage people and often times some stuff cannot be summarized if you want to get the know-how across. It's not a trivial problem but it isn't bad per se.

@metaphor_set I feel that the short answer to your question will be "nowhere". If the answer is useful then, as it appears to be, it can be as long as the answerer decided. It isn't desirable to discourage people from answering with any limits except for clear ones, of course, so there isn't any norm.

@Mr Zak: Again, this is not about long and detailed answers to specific questions. Those should be as long and as detailed as it requires to answer the question. It's about tutorials that span many different topics.

@metaphor_set the question you refer to (about low poly terrain) is request for tutorial (yes, it's specific. Too much). The answer is as detailed as it could be and looks very much like toturial as well, including not only one topic, but several, from importing background image, setting up lighting and up to optimizing render times, including tiny details like HEX colors and so on. That's why I say - it's practically impossible to draw that line and provided that it's not good to avoid any useful answers probably that line no longer exists.

First sorry for my bad english. This kind of answers is much more difficult to write for me than technical one.
Also, I may be sometimes out of scope of the question here. If you find I am, please forgive it, but I think we are more around a 'subject' here than only in the 'scope of a question'.
I am still quite new here in BSE. But as you said, metaphor_set, all this became a "hobby quite fast".
To me, there are two aspects here: the general one and the specific question which have motivated this question.

About the referred bounty question (maybe out of scope and opinion based chapter)

We don't have so much here the usual comments like 'this is a bit broad, what do you want to know exactly ?" or "what have you tried so far ?". Except from Cegaton, who in my opinion was right.
But the question about this question (or many others) is "what is the question exactly ?". What the OP means here ?
To enlighten a bit (in this particular case), google about the OP. And so you'll discover that the question is surely not about creating trees or even about how to give the good lighting to the scene (or am I totally wrong here ?).
So, what is the question, and why the OP did not react to the comments saying "here is what I exactly want to know : ...".
In fact, he commented once, in response to Shady's (really great) answer. And to tell the truth, I dislike a lot this comment, because I interpreted as "look I can do the job without your answer". Subjective interpretation ?
Here is the comment from the OP :

This was the image I put together without your tutorial:
  s32.postimg.org/6lli8dzet/edited.png

Well... To summarize, I still don't know what is the expected answer for this particular question. And in my opinion, the given (again really good) answers will be much more useful to people in general than to the OP in particular.

More generally

I think this kind of site needs mainly two things : enthusiastic (more or less) answerers and moderators.
But I see no mean for the moderators to say something like : "hey, enthusiastic answerer, I will remove/moderate/cut your answer which is too long. This is quite a tutorial and this site is not for that". Or the answerer will be no more enthusiastic, and maybe he/she will be no more an answerer... don't you think ?
So the subject could be addressed in another way : Blender is a so huge tool for which a lot of learning and experiments are needed to use it.
And answers (short and long) are here to enlighten the various possibilities offered by Blender.
In that way, BSE is a mine (a repository) into people can dig, find these various possibilities and choose by themselves what is the more appropriated to their need.
My opinion is "let the answerers do what they want so far they really respond to the question and write a qualitative answer".
If the answerer wants to spend time for a long explanation, let him do.

BUT, other aspects

1/ Writing an answer is sometimes painful. Making it in Blender, take some screen captures or gif, mark the pictures with indications on it with another tool, putting that on disk, going back to the answer redaction, Ctrl+G (I hate 'kbd'), back to disk to drag the pic...
Really better tools may be needed (or they exist but I don't know them ?)... but in the other hand, this is a way to shorten the answers (!).
2/ Duplicates are hard to find.
3/ We are often forced to rewrite the same things. In particular Blender's shortcuts or for basic operations (add, extrude, scale, ...).
Some kind of catalog may be useful, so that the answers could be shorten a lot.
4/ For many questions like :
"I am new to Blender, but I have uploaded a complex model, and I am following this tutorial and I WANT this result but using this complex model but now I am stuck, so help me"...
The best and shortest answer could be "if you really want to learn, start little" !

lemon, thanks, great thoughts. Regarding 4/: It's quite difficult to deal those kind of oneliners to people who show real determination by creating big models. or scenes. The least we could do is explaining to them that we have experienced these kind of setbacks ourselves - many times. People getting angry and disappointed quite fast, these days...

"Duplicates are hard to find" this is quite debatable. Use google search and restrict it to B.SE (by writing it in search field too); it's hard sometimes, although it's quite easy often.

@MrZak, I should have said 'hard to find or to identify'. But maybe this is because my english vocabulary is not good enough to catch the good keywords to identify the duplicates.

For me, it depends partly upon the reputation on the site of the person who asks the question, on the one hand, and on the other, on the skill set level of the topic. For example, my response to a question from a user with very low reputation, asking how to do something for which there are already multiple tutorials in various locations on the web, is likely to be a comment directing the user asking the question where to find such tutorials. This is an application of the aphorism, "give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime". In the case of a more advanced user, as measured by reputation on the site, I am much less likely to answer the question, as I feel the more advanced user should have some sense of how to find such information on his or her own.
On the other hand, I am going to be much more accepting if and advanced user asks a question which might result in a "how to" or tutorial if the answer seems to lead to new techniques advancing the use of Blender in an area where there are not yet good tutorials available.


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images in discussion forum?
I am unable to see the image that appear inside a question
Using scenes and render layers to composite an object isolated on white background with shadow

Are you on a mobile device?  Sometimes images appear broken for me when I am on the mobile site on my phone.  They do have a mobile app though where I can see images fine, it has other problems though.


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Why is this question off-topic?
The question is exactly about blender not recognizing my keyboard. Why is it off-topic? If it's not about blender... then it's about what?
No hotkeys working at all in blender

There's reason added in the closing description - "This question appears to be about an issue caused by a bug in Blender" and link to answer for handling bugs because chances are this problem is caused because of this reason.


text:
Contacting Moderators
I have now been on BSE for a month seriously and haven't seen hide nor hair of any sort of direct message system, a la the one on Instagram or other types of social media. I am aware of the chat feature, but it does not seem tailored to two-person interactions. I think it would be useful to have a way to contact the moderators. That's the end of my question.
However, it did occur to me that both gandalf3 and David are quite active on Meta, so I will just say what I wanted to say to one of them here. There is a question I was answering recently: Add different textures to front and back of plane with solidify? At first glance, it seemed to bear a great resemblance to the well-known How can I make a material only apply to a side of a plane? Infact, the former was marked as a duplicate of the latter. However, as I looked into it more deeply, I realized that it did not talk about the Geometry > Backfacing feature, but how that feature is rendered inert when a Solidify modifier is used. I posted my answer, which was accepted, and edited the question to bring to light the actual problem.
My point is, would one of you consider voting to reopen it? I don't yet have 3,000 rep...

Drop by chat, our avid users are usually there if you want to reach someone quickly, you can nearly always find at least one of us.

Also, FWIW thanks to my timezone if it's urgent, spammer or something, you can summon me in minutes with a ping as David said below. I'm pretty much always here.

First you can't privately contact a SE user.
To get in touch with a mod you could:

ping them in chat (both gandalf and I are always "pingable," did I just create a new word?, in there). It is ok if you don't want to say it in public, there are ways of creating a private chat room for serious issues.
Write up some question on the meta explaining how you have been using the site for a month, but still cant find a messaging system, then explain the problem. < /jk> Really, the meta is a good place to bring up concerns with the site. We have had this kind of thing here before.
Flag the question "in need of moderator intervention" and write a custom reason explaining what's up (kind of like you did in your question).

It sounds like for this case, casting a reopen vote should of been your first step, well after you get another 106 rep. That would bring the question to the Reopen Votes review queue, where other users can vote whether or not is should be reopened.
In any event I reopened the question, so you know at least option #2 works. :)

+1 for the infinite recursion :D

@David Thanks! Exactly what I needed.

@cegaton bummer. but as the saying goes, your never first on the internet.


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Excess Moderators
As far as I know, we have three elected moderators: gandalf3, iKlsR, and David. This begs the question, who are Gabe, Oded, Robert Cartaino, and however many others that I've missed? How are they moderators?
It did occur to me that since some of them seem to be big personalities on Meta and Stack Overflow, maybe they are moderators on every site? But then shouldn't they have the  badge?

There are 490 moderator across all the SE sites. (so you are bound to see a diamond or two.)
Yet only the three BSE mods (gandalf3, iKlsR, and me) and SE employees will have diamonds attached to our name on this site.
The three users you linked to are employees of SE (and have mod+ abilities on every site.)
Oded is a dev at SE.
Robert Cartaino is a community manager (CM). CMs have more power then mods, they over see all the sites and come by when help is needed.
While I personally don't know Gabe, his profile says that he too is a Community Manager.

About the badge, no they should not have it. From the description of the badge.

Served as a pro-tempore moderator for a year or through site graduation.

Which means you were appointed by SE and served as a mod on a beta site.
None of those guys asked about fulfill criteria one. (None of them show up in our mods list.) While they have mod abilities, they were not appointed as BSE mods. (Now if SE had appointed one of there own employees as a pro temp mod on BSE, then they would have the badge here.)

Also, kudos to mod -1

@iKlsR Francesca doesn't count as she is a bot. (no offense Francesca)

When was this Francesca coined?

links in my question here (to answer your question August 2009)

How come they are called mods when they could easily implement another title such as "Employee" or something similar?

@Lukaash Good question! There are lots of discussions about this on the main meta, including many feature requests to have them differentiated. I think this answer sums up quite well why SE wont have a different category for employees.


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Question Template for better question structures
We are often faced with questions that are incomplete or unclear. There are alot of prerequisites for solving those issues. Should we not include a simple template so that individuals who ask questions can make sure they include all the important informations.
I would request that these short simple text should be designed to be included in the question entry text box as a visual checklist as to improve the chances of questions and answers being more accurate.
Eg Template.

** Attention Delete the template text as you fill in your questions. The template is only meant to act as a checklist.
1.System - OSX / Windows / Linux ... version
2.Blender version
3.Describe the problem.
4.Describe the solutions you have already tried
and did not work.
5.Describe of the purpose and goal of the question.
-- Add images or gifs to give further example to the problem.
-- Add a simplified blend file that produces the problem.
-- Add code snippets if the question requires.
-- Format your questions so that it's easy to read if it's long.

I like this idea, it's similar to how bug reports should be structured and this would actually help a lot. I'm not sure how practical or feasible however, I'm sure this has been suggested before. I'd check meta.se to see and I'll poke around.

Your concern is valid, however it works as a checklist for the person asking the question. In any case the template will be deleted after the OP have filled up the text box with his question. Maybe we could add a line of text suggesting to OP that it's a checklist and remove those text as you fill in the answer. I have updated the example Template.

@cegaton Every point need not be ticked but rather could be used as a guide, maybe some bolded that must be in the body such as blender version.


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Add a "Closing > Off-Topic > Not about Blender" reason
There seem to be a considerable amount of questions that pop up from time to time that are off topic because they are not specifically about Blender.
They are often about 'accompanying' software ( like GIMP, Inkscape, Photoshop), third party game engines (Unity, Unreal, etc), problems importing file formats in other software or 3D packages (3DS Max, Cinema4D, Maya, etc.), or feature requests.
Lately even general Python programming, simply lost users from other software like Sketchup, or Cinema4D, or some times totally unrelated.
Here are a few random examples of late

https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/66731/python-debuggin
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/66708/blender-3d-interactive-car-model-for-online
How to make custom logo for published bge game
Can someone make a plugin for .nif like 3ds max has

These don't quite fit in any of the other Off-Topic reasons, and might happen often enough to warrant adding the option there by default.
What do you think, would it be worth adding the pre-defined off topic option? Is it even doable?

Yes I whole heartily agree.  In fact we have talked about this before, yet we never got around to changing all three of our custom messages.
I too think that a "not about blender" or something like that would be useful.
I even suggested something slimier before, here. (But that idea was met with a good bit of resistances, so some other wording will have to be worked out.)
Here is the same wording as I suggested before (just to sure up discussion):

Blatantly off-topic (this question has nothing to do with blender, or is off topic for this site).

That'd be a welcome addition. Also, for Opinion Based closed questions perhaps include a link to a forum like Blender artists or alike :)


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Is it possible to get notifications about comments?
Short version: Is there a way to get notifications about any comments or edits to a random question question?
Long Version
I know you can get notifications about answers on a random question by marking it as favorite.
I've also read that there's a bit of an involved process in getting notifications about certain comments, like mentions (pings) or being the sole commenter to a question.
Some times I take particular interest in a certain question and would like try to answer it in the future, but often happens questions are incomplete or lack the proper information for a full answer in the first round
The natural course of action is of course asking the user for more info, screenshots, often post a blend file etc. So is there a sure way to get notified about any further edits or subsequent comments the user may make to his question, should the user add more information to it, so one may eventually revisit it or provide a proper answer?
They often get buried in the new questions stream and finding them in the Active pane is not always easy. Asking the user to mention us in a comment may work but not very reliable especially for newcomers.
EDIT
Just for the sake of completeness here is an instance where it actually happened. The question remained unanswered for quite some time, the user responded and commented on it but no one actually noticed until he luckily pinged one user and got some due attention.

It sounds like you already read up on this, so there is not much more I can tell you.
Nope, you can not get notifications about activity on a question that is not yours.
You know about the favorite system (the best option SE offers now, still not great for this kind of thing, but I have used it for exactly this.)
You seem to know about how SE decides who to ping in the comments. In regard to your question comment pings are useless, unless the OP replies to your comment saying "see my edit" or something like that.
This has been discussed on the main meta before, and the same few answers come up: favorite list, RSS, your own list.
If you are hoping that an edit will notify commenters, that is very unlikely. As stated on the main meta, there are too many cases where those pings would just be noise.
I for one would vote for sortable favorite lists, where there are folders. That woulds sove a few issues that come up across SE.

Ah i see, this would make a fine feature request for SE then. RSS might be a nice workaround for me since I do use a reader daily, but your suggestion of organized favorites would sure be great. This would allow for powerful categorization like a folder for 'true' favorite questions, one for saving frequent answers or references for duplicates that pop up often, and one for 'temporary' favorites that you just want to get back to.

Curiously an occurrence of this situation happened just yesterday. Added a reference link just for completeness sake.

good example case!


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Dealing with dead manual links
I have noticed that there are quite a few links to Blender documentation that have gone down since the Manual URL was changed recently.
Since this change, it seems that some of the older documentation links are not redirecting, and instead give a 404  error like below.

Some examples:
How to illuminate the darkness inside glass objects in Cycles?
What is the difference between a UV Sphere and an Icosphere?
Creating a Black Hole in Blender
Make a gold reflective object
How to change to spherical Axis
While I have read through this question and agree with the points made, since these links are the documentation for Blender, it seems to me that it would make more sense to fix them if possible rather than to just remove them.
My main question is, is there a way to search the site specifically for the wiki links/ older documentation links? Then one could update as appropriate if so inclined to ensure that links go to the correct place, and that there is current and correct information. Or would it be better to just update them as they are found?

For old wiki links, you can view their original content by inserting?title= into the URL after index.php and before Doc:2.6. For example, https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual becomes https://wiki.blender.org/index.php?title=Doc:2.6/Manual. Can be useful for determining which manual page would be most appropriate.

That's a useful tip, thanks. I always read through the URL and do my best to judge which page is the correct one based on the content for the ones I have changed. Sometimes, not so easy though to find the right page though.

Excellent incentive. I applaud you on seeing a problem and working towards getting it fixed. I myself still have ~60 posts to fix.
(I thought sure there was a meta post on this before, but alas I can not find it.)
Anyway, yes fix them when you come across them. Or if you find yourself with a free hour or two, edit a whole bunch of them (990 as of this writing).  That link answers your main question.
It is rather a bother because you have to go and find the new manual link. This cross reference can help when trying to find the new link. There is not direct correlation between the old links and where they put it in the new manual. (Some things are hard to find.)
As you alluded to, please do not simply remove a wiki link, change it to the manual's link.


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Deleted question following an answer
Well... just now, it is a bit irritating to tell the truth... but maybe that's life!
I just spent around an hour to answer a question and following that the question has been deleted.
Was my answer bad, or any other reasons? Understanding the cause is the main point to me.
What are your experiences about it?
The dead link: Parenting mesh with armature deformation problem

Just FYI that is not a dead link. any user with 10,000 or more rep can still see deleted posts.

@David, yes I know. For my information is there anything in my answer that leads to something bad for the OP (my way of writing or other)?

I have no idea why the OP deleted that question. There were no down votes, nasty comments, or anything that would make them want to delete it. (Maybe they just realized some stupid mistake.)
The question was deleted by the OP at 2017-02-21 08:43:01Z, your answer was posted at 2017-02-21 08:03:49Z some 40 minutes before the question was deleted.
In those 40 minutes, did the OP read you posts? I have no idea (my guess would be that he did see it).
This has nothing to do with you, or your answer. It looks like a good answer.
For whatever reason, the OP just deleted the question.
I will talk with Tak, explain that deleting posts is not helpful (in many ways), and ask why he deleted this one.
One way or another, I expect this post to be undeleted.

Thanks David for the answer. Don't spend too much time about that. Yes as I said, this is a bit frustrating, but not the end of the world. I was in hope to give some general indications (as far I am able to do), so I hoped it could be useful for 'many'. But again, I was much worried about something like 'my way of writing is not good' or something like that I may need to change myself

FYI I have talk to Tak on chat. All is OK... thanks David


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How subjective may be an answer?
This situation may happen. The context : ok I see your question but also I see where you are going and the question is not the point... the point is : take another approach (many beginer questions).
But surely, it is subjective to "know" or "understand" that the OP needs this kind of answer.
How to behave in this kind of situation ? Giving a "two level answer" (answering directly and also give another direction) ?
Example : boolean modifier usage and its consequences concerning ngons, edges loops, subsurf modifier, ...
Related : When should an opinion based question be flagged?

In this situation I usually ask in the comments what the user is really trying to achieve. Are you actually doing X or are you really trying to do more common task Y.

This is known as the XY problem.
While the true nature of the OP's question may be a matter of opinion, that's certainly not what the OP is asking about. In other words, a question asking about solving a broken solution is not inherently an opinion-based question.
If you suspect the OP is trying to solve something other than what they're asking, I'd suggest leaving a comment asking for clarification. Perhaps even include a link to the meta.se question linked above.

thanks. So an answer formulated like this can be ok ? "here is the answer of your question <... the direct answer...> but if I was you I dont do that because <... the arguments...>

@lemon Absolutely, I don't see anything wrong with that


text:
Can 'asking for duplicate confirm' be a better approach?
Looking at this, for instance, I am wondering if we could proceed a bit differently :

Ask the OP if it is a duplicate (that needs to be mentioned clearly as a question in the comments, for example "Can you confirm this is the same subject as this ?")
Let him/her 24 hours to give a reply (considering the timezones)
Mark it as duplicate after this delay and explaining/commenting how to reopen it if he/she consider this is not a duplicate (if possible)

In my opinion, new BSE users can difficultly understand what is happening when their questions are closed.
I had recently a previous example where the OP indicated clearly that the link indicating a duplicate question was not an answer for him. But despite of that, his question has been closed... and so he deleted his question (this was about the pokeball if some remind it).
I don't know if the process indicated above is possible considering the vote mechanism. But I am quite sure that closing a question involves some kind of frustration (sometimes) that should be avoid. Ok, these kind of situations are obviously rare...

If a question doesn't have all the votes needed to close it as a duplicate, it will ask you if the proposed orginal question solved your problem. I think people won't see that very often because usually everyone agrees if a question is a duplicate or not. http://imgur.com/a/14nB6

@SammySwanson, ok thanks. I did not know that. But do I understand you well : this message can be seen only if the vote is not closed ?

I believe this is a bit about sensitivity. In the given example, I found it a bit too early to close the question as well, because the OP never mentioned 'Freestyle'. He was just looking for an idea on how to get outlines via DAE format to another software. I remember a tutorial where someone achieved this effect for the Blender Game Engine by creating an instance of his character, fiddling with shaders and normals, and displacing it out. A bit complicated, but it worked well. Maybe the moderators just need to give a question a little bit of time in such a case, and comment on the duplicate?

@lemon yes, the message can only be seen by the OP if the question has anywhere between 1-4 close votes (maybe 2-4). A question needs five to be closed as a duplicate.


text:
What leads our reaction regarding a question?
I am wondering...
Regarding this question, our reaction is first, to ask about more precision, etc., then to close it (and for now maintain it closed despite the edit by the OP).
Regarding this other one, let's say, we have a neutral reaction.
Objectively, I don't see why. For both :

Question about a method or how to
No real proof of an attempt to have done or tried anything
Based on a simple internet image

Surely the second one needs much more technics (or addon or work...) than the first one. But is that the reason ?
My own reaction was for the first to think "... again more or less a 'simple' modeling task" and for the second one "... interesting, I am curious to see an answer for that".
But I really think, my reaction is very subjective and not so good indeed.
Finally, one can still be answered and not the other one... fair / unfair, justified / not justified ?
What is your opinion ?

3 months later, 1st question has 9 UVs and 2 answers with 10/8 UVs. The 2nd question has 24 UVs and 2 answers with 23/16 UVs... That's why a community is amazing, what you (or me) think is bad or useless, someone else has something to say about it, and other people are interested in the details...

@Bithur  Very well put, Bithur. +1 comment. The COMMUNITY has spoken and has upvoted the questions. 'Nuff said.

When I look at the second (Techniques for modeling a network of blood vessels) I think it should be closed. It does seam way too broad. I expect now that you have brought more attention to it is will get closed. (I would close it now, except that I want you to get more responses here first.)
The first question is definitely answerable, it just needed to be cleaned up a bit (see my edit). I went ahead and reopened it.
In this case, I think it is more about who has seen the question(s) rather then some difference in quality.

I think both may stay open. But I still feel it subjective. A question like "how can I extrude?" can lead to model a "network of blood vessels"... so...


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Why are "simple" questions so often answered in comments?
all is in the title... but also related to Unanswered and abandoned questions
So : is it good to give "clues" in comments as this will lead (probably) to unanswered questions ?

Well, speaking for myself at least, some times am not sure of the answer I am providing (like right now my stance is not at all "official") so I comment instead, either expecting further info from the user, or to encourage others to give full answers as well. Most often though I just do it because the solution is either so obviously simple or common that either I fear I am missing something fundamental or it doesn't even warrant a full featured answer. Maybe someone else cares to take the time to elaborate a full answer bellow. I'd also like to hear more opinions from other users.

I cant speak for why everybody does it, but this is what I've seen, and done myself.
I leave an "answer" as a comment when I don't want to write a full answer, simple as that. There can be many reasons why I don't want to write a full answer: I don't have time, or don't feel like writing a full answer; I may not be 100% sure that what I'm saying is correct; I may not be sure of what the OP is asking and on and on.
Now "simple" questions may get answered in the comments because (people like me) don't want to take the time to write a proper answer when we can just say in one line what the OP needs to do. Yes I know we would be forfeiting the easy rep. (That may sound crazy to you now, but after you have used SE for a few years you'll see what I mean.)
Along those same lines, people may answer in the comments because it is so simple, they can't think of what more to write to make it a full answer.

It is completely up to you whether you leave "clues" in the comments.
Do bear in mind even if you "answered" in the comments and are coming back later to write a full answer your comment does not "reserve your spot." It is perfectly ok to write an answer off of somebody else's comment. (there is a lot on the SE metas on that topic)
The super short of it:

A comment is different then an answer, as such it is a courtesy to wait for the other user to come back and answer. When you answer it would be nice to mention the comment.

I would highly recommend that you do mention the comment if you wrote your answer based off of that comment. (but that is a different issue, count all that last part a bonus.)

Considering the main interest of all these Q/A is to provide a way to find an answer in the future, maybe my question is not so important if the future user notices the comments. But there is the "avoid to answer a question in the comments". Of course I understand nobody will keep interested or will have time to do that for years... A solution could be to have the ability to tag a comment as "short answer" (or to tag an answer as short answer) ?


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Is it allowed to ask if a behavior is a bug?
As indicated here, reporting a bug is not allowed or not the aim of BSE.
But is asking about a behavior in order identify if a point could be a bug is allowed ?
What I mean is the question could be a way to avoid misunderstanding of the OP or validate (or enhance) the way the (maybe) bug can be reported to the tracker.

Well yes, but you have to be careful...
I don't think there is a good defined line here, so there is a tendency for questions asking whether or not something is a bug to get closed as a bug report regardless.
(I have seen way too many questions closed as "bug" when there is no bug anywhere.
Partially because I have seen so many bad bug CV uses, I'm predisposed to not close something as a bug until it is very clear that it is really a bug. sadly many other users, will vote as a bug as soon as it sounds like blender is not doing something like expected.)
However, this type of question is something that could be very useful. For example when asking about how a tool should function, or is ______ normal, yes I would say ask.
Here is an example:

Why does the grab tool (G) have lines and only move on edges? Is this some kind of bug? It only happens sometimes.

Tell me in the comments below what you would do with a question like that. (wow that sounds like something from a youtube video)
Ok, for one the question is unclear (like many that are insta-closed as bug) but it sounds like blender is messing up. We all know that pressing G should let you move anything anywhere.
Yet this is not a bug, but rather a (possibly a) new user not knowing what double pressing G will do. That OP entered edge slide
 without realizing it. Thats all (in my fictional example) no bug, everything is working as it is meant to, just a new user not knowing what is really going on.
Is that type of question allowed? definitely. (Just please ask a better question and make it as clear as possible.)
Would that type of question get closed? probably. If not as a bug (incorrect reason) then as unclear, at least until somebody edits and makes it better.

I would prefer if the title said "Is it allowed to ask if a behavior is normal?" Then it would be a 100% yes, but for some reason you stick "bug" in a question and that changes how people see it.

Yes, i could have asked "Is it allowed to ask if a behavior is normal?" or "... as we should expect?", but telling about bug seems much more clear about the point here. This question in the Meta was inspired by this one in BSE http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/57520/mirrored-object-stays-in-the-same-place as a concrete example ('bug' here is not so simple as lamps have a specific geometry). We can talk about an expected behavior (?), or a regress (if we could find an earlier version which does not behave the same). ... (see below as too long here)

(following of the previous comment) ... If we think about a better accuracy for reporting (or not) such a thing, and avoid to pollute the tracker with unneeded reports, which is the best place to do it (BSE, Meta, others) ? Thanks @David for this answer, I prefer to have some other opinions before accepting it. Please feel free to tell if the question needs an edit for a complement about the idea behind.

I couldn't agree more with that 3rd paragraph!

@lemon meta works a bit differently then the main site. You don't ever have to accept an answer here. For some questions (say discussions on how the site should look) there is no answer that should be accepted.