text:
Should we enable video embedding?
Blender is a visual tool and pure text answers can only go so far at times in explaining something. Alot of the answers so far have links to external video sites such as Vimeo or Youtube etc.
See.. Provide a way to embed videos in answers
Should we enable the embedding of videos here? It could be a bit messy but with proper use could be beneficial in the long run.
Some sites like Music, Arqade and Scifi already have this it seems.

I think we should. As long as we mention in the FAQ that videos should not make up the majority of the answer, we can simply downvote/flag/edit the posts if they get to spammy. I think the Pros outweigh the cons.

@zeffii too high? There's about 100+ people here everyday it seems, but not many come to meta.

if we only get 180 or so visitors per day, we should be worrying about that instead of worry can we embed a video, which for all practical purposes doesn't add much convenience over an inline link.

@zeffii you should go through meta and see what is being done.. we have to address stuff like this from early so we can see if can be beneficial or if people want it, thats one of the purposes of meta

iKlsR, For future reference. it's best to simply ask the question and let others be heard in a open forum where users can be heard with their own answers, rather than posting in this pseudo-polling format. I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but pre-posting all sides of the conversation isn't necessarily the best way to get the clearly-vetted results you seek: Polling is not a substitute for discussion.

@RobertCartaino I approached it wrong from the start and wasted the initial views. thanks for the advice and insight.

I think it'd be nice stay audio free, text's much easier to translate too.
Sometimes step by step instructions are unreasonable/too-verbose. In such cases we can already use APNGs & GIFs, as shown in in this awnser.

mp4, has nice size compared to gifs sometimes. < below 2 mb should be sufficient

If playback (pause/play/rewind) functionalities are desirable for a GIF animation, save the GIF to your local hard drive and open it in GIMP. Then Filters -> Animation -> Playback...

This was bound to show sooner or later so here it is.
Cons

We run the risk of people just posting tutorial videos as answers
Answers with videos as a large portion of their body would be very delicate as if the video is pulled or deleted, so goes the answer
We run the risk of people making full videos of their problems and adding it as a question source
Sloppy answers that just introduce the video with no summary or accompanying instructions.

Pros

Blender is a very visual tool and some people learn best from audio visual content
It could help in explaining difficult or lengthy concepts

I would have expected two answers one for the pros and one for the cons. So that users could vote for a variant

Another point to add is that the content in videos cannot be searched. Good, searchable content is particularly important for a new site. Also, some people might not even be able to watch videos. I personally think that linking to videos is a good way to ensure that they only provide additional, nonessential information.

re: "a very visual tool" we do have the add image feature, which can often suffice.

I want to add my vote to the overwhelming sentiment here that we should not have videos embedded here on BSE. I think that it will not add anything to the site, but may only facilitate the already poor "I'm stuck in this tutorial" type questions.
A video embed (in my opinion) does not fit in SE system, it is easily a link only post. A post could too easily be totally dependent on the video, then there is no content on BSE when the link goes dead.
We have thousands of very good answers, non of which have a video. Animated images are a popular and good way to post a quick explanation when it is difficult to explain something. The benefit of the gifs is that they are supplemental, the text is still there.
I feel a full youtube video embed would go too far, and very possibly degrade the quality of our posts.

Besides all the other reasons already stated as to why we should not allow embedding of videos, there's the issue of edit-ability. If the biggest part of the answer is a video, what happens when there's a little mistake you want to fix? It takes quite a little bit more effort to edit a video than text, IMO.
I think the best thing about SE is that you can edit all the things and having videos would not allow for this as easily.

I don't see why gifs are different, still a series of frames....

Well, gifs are shorter, have smaller file sizes and are intended to be optional; as they're just about only used in the best answers, they tend to be higher quality. I think the problem with video is that there would be video only questions (despite there being no gif only ones, AFAIK).

Yes! We should have video embeding
Cutting features because they may cause abuse isn't a very good idea... We have down votes to stop abuse. Down vote video only questions/answers. Down vote audio reliant posts. That is why that button is there*.  Stack exchange can handle abuse.
Lets look at an example of an abuse able feature that is a positive component.  Comments can be used to be rude and demanding, but overall they have caused a lot of improvement and have been of general assistance. People can politely correct posts or request necessary clarification.
Another one, downvotes! These can easily be abused and people sometimes take them personally. In general they cause quite a lot of upset, but then also keep the quality up and are useful for stopping feature abuse.
And here is an extreme example: one could argue that stack exchange is a bad idea since it begs to be (and is) abused.
Video can be beneficial, so why should we let people who don't know how to handle it from stopping us from reaping the benefits?  Lets have video, it is a beautiful medium to transfer information.
Note:
Gifs have been lauded as an existing and better alternative, and I will say now that they will still be the go to method. Video is harder and slower to produce and share, and will only be used in a few important cases. I doubt that this site will see an significant impact, but the few added videos will be very valuable.
*Internet-ragers may disagree......

As a Bronze 5 league player and average internet-rager I disagree.

@iKlsR A bunch of us internet-ragers are raging in the renderfarm now, if you would like to join in..


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How should we handle questions about features not yet in Blender?
Currently, there are several questions on the main site that ask about features not yet in Blender, either planned, broken or not documented. How should we handle these type of questions, most of them are valid but have no set answers yet. I don't think answering these questions do the site any good at the moment. Answers like:

Probably the first release with Volumetrics will be 2.69 or 2.70.

or

This is in the roadmap and hasn't been addressed yet.

Answers like these do not pass on any useful information and detracts from what this site should be about, we are trying to create an archive of information here, not a list of feature requests or todos. It is also worth noting that most of these are cycles questions since it is still under development..

Rendering smoke in Cycles?
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1296/is-there-going-to-be-the-option-to-mesh-your-sph-sim
How to use the volume socket in Cycles?
possibly Cycles Subsurface shader: GPU compute and CPU compute give totally different results
Is it possible to limit the "Cycles Shadow from Transparency" per Object?

How should we handle these type of questions?

Unless the feature is available in some form...

already written a branch or in blenders trunk.
available as a script / addon.

... I think we should consider it out of scope.
Someone can ask if a feature exists to perform a certain task, but unless its in a blender release, or already implemented to be included in the next release - I think the answer has to be NO.
Otherwise we get too much into speculation and discussing ideas of features don't yet exist.
We could answer: "No but this isn't hard to add", giving some hints on how to add - a script, C files... etc. but this should be kept very limited.
Once we start trying to help them program something themselves the discussion should be taken off stack exchange, or they can format their questions into something that fits into a scripting question in the cases where a python script can solve the problem.

In general terms
B.SE shouldn't be a seen as a destination for feature requests. It's OK to ask if a feature is implemented or where to find appropriate documentation and road-maps for planned or existing features. Better these questions get asked and answered on a public forum than repeatedly in private or IRC.
Asking about missing features / functionality
Sometimes functionality is only perceived to be missing, it might exist as an addon or relatively obscure key combo. (like control-A for skin modifier)
Questions about planned features
What else is there to do but reference the roadmap, preferably link it. Perhaps close it as off topic or beyond the scope?

For the last one, yes, close as off topic.

@zeffii, I don't think world_to_camera_view case is relevant. The question was valid, the answer happened to include a function which was useful to include in blenders utility module. But even if that wasn't the case the answer gave the user what they asked for. Said differently - just because some questions result in features being added, doesn't mean its OK to ask for features.

@ideasman42 perhaps I phrased it in an unfortunate way.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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What should our custom off-topic close reasons be?
Custom close reasons have been live for a while now. We currently have 2 of the (3) given in use but a recent surge in questions being closed has prompted the need for a few more that are more tailored to address specific questions/close reasons instead of writing up why it is off-topic everytime.
Here are some guidelines to work with:

Keep it simple - so new users reading these will understand, especially if they are not familiar with StackExhange.
Give solid reasoning - try to have something that's not too open-ended as to open things up to a debate or retort.
Keep it brief - there's no need to write a book about it so lets aim for under 500 characters, including links and other Markdown tags.
Give your reasoning behind each reason - it helps to reference previous meta posts so we don't confuse users that haven't gotten the chance (or time) to peruse our meta site.

We are currently looking for close reasons pertaining to:

Not even remotely about Blender

This question does not appear to be about Blender within the scope defined in the help center.

Too localized

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.

Bug reports

This question appears to be off-topic because it is a bug report and not an actual question. These should be reported to Blender's tracker instead.

Feature requests

Hardware questions

Unrelated programming questions (C/C++) etc

See What questions should be definitely off-topic? for more ideas on what is off-topic here.

We should also have a close reason to handle tutorial requests. This might normally be covered by the standard "no effort" StackExchange reason, but I think the nature of this site deserves a reason that's more clear and less frustrating to people who might not understand how their question "shows no effort."

@Matt I agree, hence the point of this post. Feel free to suggest some below.

The bug report one needs to be updated, that link goes to a 404 now that blender.org has been updated.

We should use all top three. Feature requests off-topic reason doesn't seem that necessary.

@DantheMan We want specific close reasons. Doesn't make sense to close then have to further explain why.

@iKlsR I thought there was a limit to how many off-topic reasons of 3.

@DantheMan We can ask for more. SO has like a dozen or so.

Tutorial Requests
This question appears to be off-topic because it requires step-by-step instructions for a process that is specific to a particular project, and/or demonstrates too little effort on the part of the asker. These kinds of problems have been well solved elsewhere and are beyond the scope of this StackExchange.

Nice, I like this one.

I agree that we need a "Tutorial Request" on-hold reason, but I think there is a big gray area on what is a tutorial. Without doubt questions like "How do I model an animate a character?" is clearly such a tut request (or maybe "Too broad"?). But what about questions like How to make a displacement map from existing 3d geometry or Creating a curved rectangle on outside of a sphere??

This has been discussed to some extent here:
http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/29/what-would-be-wrong-with-tutorials-as-long-as-they-describe-a-reusable-workflow
and here:
http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/62/regarding-questions-and-answers-as-tutorials
These are my main points of reference for this response.
Also, keep in mind that a question does not necessarily have to be placed on hold, closed, or even flagged at first. In many cases, it would probably be appropriate to start by adding a comment recommending improvements to the question, before flagging it.

Source code questions
This question appears to be off-topic because it is about Blender C/C++ source code.
These questions are considered outside the scope of this StackExchange as defined in the help center. Development questions should be asked of the developers directly instead, see the contacting developers page of the blender wiki.

Feature Requests
This question appears to be off-topic because it asks about adding features not yet in Blender. These should instead be posted on the requests section of the blender wiki or in the bf-functionality mailing list.

Would this apply to people asking if such a feature exists in Blender or only if they asking for the developers to implement it?

@DantheMan See http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/177/599 "Someone can ask if a feature exists to perform a certain task, but unless its in a blender release, or already implemented to be included in the next release - I think the answer has to be NO."

Hardware/OS questions
This questions appears to be off-topic because it is about the operating system, hardware, performance, or compatibility. These questions are considered off-topic because there is often no definitive answer, so they tend to require too much discussion to be suitable for Q&A format.  Try asking on BlenderArtists for support instead.

I think we can...

Should this close reason be generalized to include platform/driver related questions?

Yes, it's out of the scope of this site.

Bug Reports for Code by Independent Authors
I think there should be two different Bug report close reasons:

One for bugs in Blender itself: that one should say "report to Blender's Bug tracker"
One for bugs in code from other coders: that one should say "report to code author"

I think this is a very important distinction that OP needs to be aware of, because if we refer bug reports about non-Blender code to the Blender devs, they're going to get upset with us if it keeps happening.

Bug Reports
This can also count for technical support for things like crashes.

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"Meet the Pros" -- Scheduled chat #2 with Campbell Barton
In the same style as the previous interview with Jonathan Williamson, Campbell Barton (ideasman_42) has agreed to take some time out of his schedule for a similar session with us.
For those who don't know… Campbell is one of the lead developers of Blender and we're planning on hosting a scheduled chat right here on Blender.SE. The chat will be a sort of realtime interview where we can ask him questions about his history with Blender, other CG tools, current projects etc. Be creative and come with your questions. :).
We're thinking about doing it this next week Saturday July 27th. We're not sure what time will work best for everyone since we're in different time zones and are still trying to get these events into a schedule. This can be adjusted slightly so comment below stating which time you think would work best for you (in UTC, preferably).

Saturday, July 27th at 15:00 UTC
It should last an hour or thereabout.

You can register for the event here (optional but nice to let us know how many people plan to attend). The room is currently set to Gallery (closed), but will be open for everyone when the event starts.

This event has ended. You can find the conversation here

Awesome. This is going to be great.

Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town on the 27th.


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How can I optimize images and screenshots that I embed in my post?
Uploading 1MB images or even 300KB images in a question or answer is often unnecessary/overkill and slows down page loads significantly especially when viewing on a mobile connection.
Similarly, really large dimensions are often pointless due to real-estate restrictions.
How can I keep file sizes down or adjust the dimensions of the images to reasonable and sensible numbers?
* Thanks to coleopterist over on http://anime.stackexchange.com for originally compiling this..

If you don't have the wherewithal to optimise an image prior to upload, here are a few tips on doing so directly on SE.
After embedding an image to your post using the upload feature on the site, you should see an imgur URL similar to https://i.sstatic.net/FOSov.png (just using this as an example). This should result in a large image (190KB, a relatively reasonable size, but even this can be optimised further):

But this image can now be optimised even further simply by tweaking the URL being used. For example tweaking the URL to https://i.sstatic.net/FOSovt.png (note that the filename now has an t (for small) at the end) will result in an image of smaller size and dimension:

This file is only 3.5KB in size and also smaller in terms of dimensions.
If the dimensions are unsuitable add an m (for medium) or an l (for large) instead. This will result in the following images respectively:

 (9.7KB)
 (25.7KB)

Other options that also appear to work are:

b (square crop?)  (38 KB)
h (high quality original?)  (190KB)
s (square cropped thumbnail?)  (15.6KB)

(I have no idea why the "square thumb" image is ~5KB larger than the "medium" one.)

If you'd nevertheless prefer viewers to be able to view your uploaded image in all its raw glory, simply link an optimised image to it by wrapping the code like this:
[![...my optimised image!][2]][1]

This will link the thumbnail to the original source file, like so:

In other words, those wanting to view a higher resolution [1] can do so by simply clicking on the thumbnail [2].

If these options are too complicated, just blindly add an l to the image filename in your post. This should display it in large dimensions and still load fast.
I should also note that anime/cartoon images generally tend to be more optimisable than photographs, etc.


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Should we allow soft-questions?
Recently, a few questions have been popping up around the site, such as people wanting to try Blender, looking to fit it into their workflow etc. In short, these type of questions don't carry definitive answers so people are free to interpret these as they wish. The most recent being Is Blender the right program for me.
A soft-question is basically:

Questions that don't admit a definitive answer.

Should we allow these in our scope?

It depends on the scope of the question. If the question includes specifics (Eg: Can I integrate Blender into a workflow that includes GIMP and Inkscape?), then it's fine. If however, the question is broad (Eg: "Is Blender right for me?: Is it as easy to use as Fancy3D 10.30"), we would be better off closing it as NARQ.

Said question "Is Blender right for me". is specific somehwat, OP is asking if it suitable enough an animation package for what he intends to do. Off-topic as it doesn't have a definitive answer but borderline acceptable since he is asking about Blender's features.

I think we will have to see how the community reacts to these first but I can definitely see more of these questions coming in the future.

I like the idea of distinguishing between soft specific questions, and soft open questions. I think it's entirely appropriate to answer questions like "How does development time compare between Cycles and BI?" This helps the community learn something specific. But we should be careful to avoid questions like "Is Cycles better than BI," which is non-specific and qualitative.

One older question along these lines. Also IMO "Can I integrate Blender into a workflow that includes GIMP and Inkscape?" is not so much a soft question as an  external applications question.

@gandalf3 I'll clarify what I mean.

I see no problem in allowing these provided that they are made Community Wiki and ask for something specific.
Many other sites on the network have some policy for these types of questions and it could work well for us as well.


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Do we want hats 2014 edition?
For those new to the site. StackExchange has a little winter themed event in December for sites to participate in called Winter Bash (2014 link).

Basically, users earned "hats" for their gravatars by completing certain tasks (similar to badges).
Certain actions would trigger the user receiving a hat, which their gravatar could then "wear". For example, editing a post would yield an editor-themed hat (fedora with pen) to the editor.
From previous years:

Users had their entire hat collection on http://winterbash2013.stackexchange.com.
Individual users who didn’t want to participate, didn’t want to see hats, and/or are generally anti-hat had an "I hate hats" option available..
The only visual change to the site itself was the presence of the hats and the "I hate hats" button in the footer.
If we choose to accept, the event will run from 15 December 2014 to 4 January 2015. After the time period, all the hats go away into Last Year's Hat Bin.
We need to decide if we want hats by December 1

This is totally optional so do we want them?
For those who don't want to participate, there will be an option  in the site footer to disable these.

Update:
I submitted a reply, we will have hats.

sure, hats wold be great! as long as I get one that shoots blue lasers. and can melt through other people's reputation

Sounds great to me!

Let's do it! As long as people can disable it, I don't see why not!

One question, will we be able to see what hats are available and how to get them when the event starts?

@NoviceInDisguise yep. There are also mystery hats that you might need a certain activity, login date etc to unlock. FUn stuff, you will see in a few days.

To elaborate on GiantCowFilms's answer, I see no down side to running the event. It is stressed that there is a opt out button, so this is just for blender.se addicts to have a little more fun.
Lets have a great winter / Christmas / New year season, and collect lots of hats.

I totally agree!

Yes, I Want Hats!!!!!!! Please please please... :)

I think that this activity would help promote active participation by all members.
Since people can disable the display and participation in the event, I do not see any issue with continuing. Judging from the overwhelmingly positive response from multiple members, I would strongly recommend hosting the event.

Am not especially a fan of hats, a few times I've noticed people attempting to game the system - eg: https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/563/why-do-my-posts-never-get-downvoted (yes, I know SE is about gamification to some extent... but this can get in the way)
Its fine to have, just don't really take much interest in them and if users are messing around with answers to get hats rather than help people (too much), I would rather not have them.

I agree but the site is run by the community and as an optional SE event, the majority opted for it. It's just for a couple weeks and on the plus side, there are more avid users about the site and spammy content quickly gets flagged. I'm on the lookout for such content and I and some users with the privilege have already deleted several posts that weren't deemed useful. Warnings issued as well.


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Blender is currently unusable on NVIDIA GPUs (M - MX family)
Update 2
Waited a couple versions or so, can confirm issue is now gone in 376.33. Tested on a Dell XPS 15 with a 960M.

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).

What's the correct response to all the lag questions? Close as off-topic because it's a driver issue or answer one and merge all the duplicates into that?

@RayMairlot We support hardware type questions to an extent now remember, the latter is what was done and is recommended. Also there is a new driver out that I should test and see if the issue was resolved.

We support hardware questions? Have you got a link to a meta question regarding this?

@RayMairlot Woops, I meant to say performance, kinda interleaves but yeah as detailed here http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/354/canonical-posts-for-hardware-questions one post for any widespread issue as a canonical post or answer and link to that.

Just leaving this as reference link to the original question in case one needs to close as duplicate http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/68311/blender-2-78-with-windows-10-lags-when-interacting-with-the-ui

To clarify, by M - MX family you mean the mobile GPUs, not workstation-class Maxwell architecture GPUs which are also prefixed with an m.

@PGmath yes, mobile

I am using NVIDIA's graphics driver v376.54, and the problem was still there for me. I removed the driver and Blender is running smooth. The problem is still here guys.

@AfzaalAhmadZeeshan Maybe update to latest? 378 here working fine.

@iKlsR, works like a charm. :-)

the problem is still occuring in 397.93 version, using 2.78b I hope they will deal with this in 2.80, i'm using gt755m

What is this post doing on meta?

@NicolaSap There was a bug in a Nvidia driver and we were getting flooded with questions related to it. It served as a place to point users to since it could be seen in the sidebar on the main site.

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text:
Regarding questions and answers as tutorials
Since I proposed the list of possible topics that should be off-topic, it seems it has been well received and people are working with it. However, there have been several discussions in chat, numerous comments and several other posts about #1.

1. Requests for tutorials

Can anyone show me how to model/rig/animate X?
Can anyone make a tutorial on doing X?

This post is to clarify what is meant by asking for a tutorial and answering a question in that manner.
First off.
Stack Exchange is a network of Q&A sites. From meta stackoverflow:

Tutorials are neither questions nor answers. If a question needs a
  full-blown tutorial to answer, it is likely too broad and therefore
  "not a real question" or "not constructive". Your proposal of creating
  a format that greatly detracts from Q&A doesn't sit too well with
  Stack Exchange, whose very building blocks are questions and answers.
If something needs a canonical answer in our site, it should be an
  answer to a question, not a tutorial.

A tutorial request can be said to be one that would take considerable text or visual aid to properly explain and or clarify (we want concise, clear and interesting questions). These are also quickly identified as they are usually started 'How to'.. and are usually very general, see #3 on the proposed off-topic list.
A tutorial in the form of an answer would also be one that would also take considerable text or visual aid to properly explain and are overly broad or have several different ways of starting and doing. Some generic examples are:

How can I model car X in Blender?
How should I start modeling object X in Blender?1
How can I rig this character?
Ways I make a walk animation?
How does the VSE work?

1Also questions that only ask for half of a solution to a problem should be out too, we want to have complete and concise answers where possible, not discussions, argumentative opinions and or suggestions and then leaving the rest to choice or interpretation.
Here is a question that has been asked as a tutorial or interpreted as such by the community.

How to do a cloth simulation in Blender?

If you look at it you can immediately see that to answer it, one would have to go into depth to explain various settings and options as we don't simply want to throw information out there without properly explaining it. This question is especially vague.
Here is a not so ideal question but valid example for an ideal example question that merits some explaining.
How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?
At first the title is vague but the OP explicitly says in the question he is using modifiers, the scope was immediately set and this eliminated any other lengthy answers that could have been posted such as modeling the object manually, using splines or spinning/lathing etc.
Also see What would be wrong with tutorials as long as they describe a reusable workflow?

Proposal for questions that merit or require a detailed answer.

Try to be as explicit as possible or limit your question to specific areas you don't understand or have problems with. The closer your problem is to whatever you want, the easier it is for someone to give a nice indepth reply. Some examples.

Proposal for answers to questions that merit or require a detailed answer.

In answering a question that merits some explanation:
If it is on-topic and limited to set way(s) of doing so, I propose that we answer but only with a maximum of three (5) or thereabout steps, each of about 5 lines (inclusive of visual aids). See my answer as an example, I do not need to go much into detail as the controls for the modifiers are extremely clear and simple.

All this being said, there has been a post started that will be a reference for users, new or experienced looking for tutorials or introduction to topics in Blender.
NB. Again, this is all off the top of my head and as per suggestions and comments picked up around the site. I can be completely wrong or off in some cases, feel free to leave suggestions and I will improve upon this, but we need a post to draw the line between definitive answers and tutorials.

Wow, I was expecting to have to add something to this, but you nailed it.

very good write up, but I have one question. Are you discouraging long and or detailed answers? It seams to me, that there is still no clear different between, a good but long answer, and a full tutorial.

@David Definitely not, most of this post is now obsolete but having written a few of the long answers here. What I mean is to word the answer in a general way that anyone can interpret rather than step by step instructions (a tutorial essentially). A good long answer IMO would be one with credible links, some visuals (gif or several images), perhaps a demo .blend and links to other relevant questions. The line is thin yes but here is a perfect example.

@David Also worth noting that this was targeted at the "How do I model or animate X" questions that we had popping up when we were in closed beta.

Thanks, I did not think you were discouraging good answers (that would be crazy). Here is another example. A great answer, but both this and your example could be called a tutorial. I guess my question came from the last part of your "question" the NB. Definitely agreed that the "How do I model or animate X" questions are off topic for this site.

This is really counterproductive. You're actively preventing the community from helping itself. It depends on the abillity of the mod to be able to interpret a question correctly which I highly doubt since I've been browsing for 5 minutes and found 2 topics I could have answered already. Sometimes "how do I X" CAN be answered with a tutorial but sometimes it's also a lot easier, if the question is interpreted AS THEORETICAL. "How would I, in theory, do X" should be a fair question.

For example this For example this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8810/bge-sway-effect-for-fps is a question that needs to be answered with the description of the concept of tweening. But you locked it because "hurr durr he's lazy". So stop locking topics and question you don't understand.

@BNewmark I assume you are talking to me. Firstly, I had no action on that post. Secondly, if you actually read the close reason you will see why it's closed. Questions asked must demonstrate minimal understanding of the problem at least. This is practised across all SE sites, please take some time and browse the help pages and site rules.

@iKlsR "Questions asked must demonstrate minimal understanding of the problem at least." and you decide whether that understanding is there or not? All problems are trivial if you understand what's going on and have read the manual. I found answers to mathematical questions on other SEs all the time and they are limited by nature to "tutorial answers" as you put it. Also "because it requires step-by-step instructions for a process that is specific to a particular project" No it doesn't and no it isn't.

@BNewmark You are making me out to be a bad guy here. This site is community driven, no one person decides what is the norm around here. Regarding your statement, there are exceptions all the time, not everything can be caught. Kindly refer to this list put together by the community.

@BNewmark You have 3 accounts across SE and you've been around here for a few months at least with hardly any activity. As "harsh" as it may seem, these are the rules. SE is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum, homework site, or do this for me because I need it but have no idea how to do it. You should visit some more sites such as SO where on-topicness is enforced even more. And as I said, it is run by the community. I hardly think 5 people can be wrong about deciding to close something.

@iKlsR alright just be aware that this could be a major problem if questions are locked too easily. I totally understand why this policy is in place but the examples I've seen don't really fit the spirit. Also thanks for your quick replies.

@BNewmark Glad we reached a mutual understanding. Of course, if you see something that seems off, flag it! Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes (even 5 people).

Heh . . . Gandalf3's black hole post . . .

@NoviceInDisguise We've let down our guard a bit over time.. ;), this was primarily to prevent people from turning the newly launched site into a tutorial ground. That being said, we are looking at a redefined scope soon.

@iKlsR OK, good idea


text:
How do we promote our site?
We recently entered public beta and while it's still very early, our stats are a bit lacking compared to what they could be, they could at least correlate with the number of users. At the time of writing Area51 is reporting.
173 visits/day
This site has amazing potential for becoming The Blender Resource. It's fresh and is a refreshing take from IRC and confusing threads in forums. We need everyone to start help promoting the site. This site is geared towards anyone who uses Blender, be it a professional, enthusiast or complete beginner.
Taken from my answer on How can we ensure Blender.SE doesn't share 3DGraphics.SE's fate?

There are several variables involved but the major one is publicity.
  Even in our commitment phase which took nearly a year, I myself had no
  idea of it until I randomly stumbled across it. What we need is
  publicity. IIRC every Blender release totals around at least 200k
  downloads which means that there are lots of people out there, people
  who want to learn.

Some of us have the resources but lack the general know how to go about it.

Several users have already pledged to helping to promote this site to their fanbase or specific community. This is a good start, users like Jonathan Williamson from BlenderCooke and CharlesL from TheSpasticKangaroo on Youtube. You might not be as popular as them but every bit counts.
Let's make this a great community. We are already doing very well with over 100 questions and over 200 answers!
All that being said, What are some good ways that we can actively promote our community and spread the word about this site?

i'm a little confused as to why this hasn't appeared in Blender Nation or on Ton's twitter feed :)

@zeffii hence the post.. we need shares! :)

@Charles just posted it to Blender nation.

“Meet the pros” scheduled chat with Jonathan Williamson

One little thing we can all do is put a link to blender.SE in our signatures on other Blender sites, like BlenderArtists. It's not major publicity, but it'll draw people in over time.

Ton just tweeted it. Take shelter!

@zeffii Who's Ton?

@DantheMan He's probably referring to Ton Roosendaal, one of the core devs and project lead for Blender.

@greatwolf Haha. Yeah. I just found out the other day.

I created a video for TheSpasticKangaroo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWUSJUpGTv8 telling about the new Blender.SE site. I plan on mentioning it at the end of future videos for a while also.

@CharlesL excellent!

Actively tweeting interesting questions and answers, I also submitted a story to /r/blender over on Reddit's Blender subchannel. (wonder how many downvotes it will get ;)
Also from my answer on How can we ensure Blender.SE doesn't share 3DGraphics.SE's fate?

My main suggestion is to share the site wherever and whenever you can,
  tweet a well written question or answer you found useful and or share
  a new tip or trick you learnt via your social and personal pages.
  Invite or tell a friend.

Update:
Spoke to the guys over on reddit in /r/blender and we are now featured as the goto site for technical help etc.

we might also change all blender tags on different SE sites to inform users that there is a blenderSE site

@miceterminator its in planning, we should have a meta post fron GraphicDesign.SE soon for questions we can take, the rest will come in time.

It might help a little that it is now on blender's front page!
It is in the Official Updates from Blender Foundation, which means it will probably be there awhile.

Yep, for anyone curious. http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/138/12 and https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/343383578836615168

that is how I found this site, this post on BN

I have been trying my best to get the word out there.
Creating filters and sharing on social networks
http://stackexchange.com/filters/93031/blender-python
Posting rss feeds on Facebook pages, for example
https://www.facebook.com/LearningBlender2.5
Adding Flair badges on blogs
http://learningblender3dsoftware.blogspot.in/p/about.html
Note: The former is a page that I administer and the latter is my Blender blog. I hope in this context it is fine for me to post my own links..

nice! :) Our stats have significantly increased since then! See http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/40377/blender but every bit still is helping!

:) Interesting link. Nice overview of stats.


text:
2015 Community Moderator Election Results
Blender's first moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the 3 new moderators are:

They've replaced the pro-tempore crew — please thank both teams for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with the new crew as they learn the ropes!
For details on how the voting played out, you can download the election results here, or view a summary report online.

Congrats to the new moderators.

Thanks to all the pro-tem mods who helped get this site to where it is today!


text:
Custom off-topic close reasons: 2014 in review
The last new off-topic reason here was added on January 14, 2014 - one year ago today. So now is a good time to review how these have been used over the past year, and consider if changes are necessary. I pulled together some basic information to further this discussion:
Off-topic reasons
Active OT reason excerpt              Created By Created   Approved  Deactivated
------ ------------------------------ ---------- --------- --------- -----------
*      it requires step-by-step instr iKlsR      12/8/2013 1/14/2014 null
*      is too localized in its curren Gwenn      7/8/2013  7/8/2013  null
*      it is a bug report and not an  iKlsR      6/26/2013 6/26/2013 null
       does not appear to be about Bl Community  6/24/2013 null      null
       belongs on another site in the Community  6/24/2013 null      null
       Other (add a comment explainin Community  6/24/2013 null      null

(6 row(s) affected)

Outcome of questions closed, by close reason
Name                                       Closed     Closed->Edited Closed->Reopened Cl->Ed->Re
------------------------------------------ ---------- -------------- ---------------- ----------
duplicate                                         471         68             29               17
off-topic                                           4          1              3                1
off-topic - Other (add a comment explainin        112         13              8                2
off-topic - it is a bug report and not an         156         11              6                1
off-topic - it requires step-by-step instr         64         14              6                3
off-topic - belongs on another site in the          7          0              0                0
off-topic - is too localized in its curren        109         13             12                3
primarily opinion-based                            26          5              2                1
too broad                                          61         15              9                7
unclear what you're asking                        215         49             28               21

(10 row(s) affected)

Outcome of questions closed, by close reason, percentages
% of Closed Name                                       Closed->Edited Closed->Reopened Cl->Ed->Re
----------- ------------------------------------------ -------------- ---------------- ----------
 38.4%      duplicate                                   14.4%           6.2%            25.0%
  0.3%      off-topic                                   25.0%          75.0%           100.0%
  9.1%      off-topic - Other (add a comment explainin  11.6%           7.1%            15.4%
 12.7%      off-topic - it is a bug report and not an    7.1%           3.8%             9.1%
  5.2%      off-topic - it requires step-by-step instr  21.9%           9.4%            21.4%
  0.6%      off-topic - belongs on another site in the   0.0%           0.0%
  8.9%      off-topic - is too localized in its curren  11.9%          11.0%            23.1%
  2.1%      primarily opinion-based                     19.2%           7.7%            20.0%
  5.0%      too broad                                   24.6%          14.8%            46.7%
 17.6%      unclear what you're asking                  22.8%          13.0%            42.9%

(10 row(s) affected)

(Note that the last column is the % of closed questions edited that were then reopened - if it isn't significantly higher than the second-to-last column, something is badly wrong)
"Other" values used by multiple people when closing questions
Questions Custom OT Reason (other)
--------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10        it is not about blender.
6         it asks about adding features not yet in Blender. These should instead be posted on the [requests section of the blender wiki](http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Requests) or in the [bf-functionality mailing list](http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-funboard).
4         it is about Blender C/C++ source code.
These questions are considered outside the scope of this StackExchange as [defined in the help center](http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). Development questions should be asked of the developers directly instead, see the [contacting developers page of the blender wiki](http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Contact).
6         it is not about Blender.
2         This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network: Video Production
5         it is a feature request.
1         This was a feature request plain and simple.  I should not have posted it here.
1         it seems to be about hardware manufacturing.
1         it isn't about Blender.
1         it is not about using blender.
1         it is not about blender. Possibly moved to graphic design.
1         it is not about Blender usage itself. You should post to the Blender forum here : http://blenderartists.org/forum/
1         it is about unity, and not blender.
1         it is about Unity and FBX, not blender
1         it is about Ubuntu rather than Blender. It could be any application that you would like to manually install.
1         it is about software other than Blender.
1         it is about python module / package organization and nothing blender-specific.
1         it is about pure Python.
1         it is about operating system configuration and driver setup, which is not fit for this StackExchange. Try asking on [Unix & Linux](http://unix.stackexchange.com/) or [Super User](http://superuser.com/).
1         it is about licensing. See https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/q/422/599
1         it is about legal/licensing issues.
1         it is about legal advice, which is "banned" because of issues it can cause. see:http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/25363/is-there-a-stack-exchange-site-for-law-questions-if-not-why-not
1         it is about installing missing dependencies.
1         it is about hardware issues/a bug.
1         it is about GPL license conditions. Better ask a lawyer for a profound answer.
1         it is about general file I/O in Python, not Blender.
1         it is about general 3D business, not about creating things inside blender.
1         it is about extracting tar files in linux, not blender.
1         it is about DirectX, not Blender.
1         it is about compiling blender. See https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/q/399/599
1         it is about compiling Blender
1         it is about building Blender.
1         it is about an OS/environment issue which doesn't relate to blender directly.
1         it is about an issue in Unity.
1         it is about an error with a three.js script.
1         it is about adding normal maps in Unity.
1         it is about a survey
1         it is about a kitchen implement, not the software package.
1         it is about a hardware/driver configuration issue.
1         it is about a feature request
1         it is about a 3rd party addon. Please report to Three.js bug tracker: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues
1         it is about a 3rd party addon. Please refer to Three.js bug tracker: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/issues
1         it is about .net
1         it is a job offer and to a question.
1         it is  about operating systems and not in scope.
1         it belongs to Blender Meta Stack Exchange
1         isn't about Blender.
1         duplicate of http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/13655/how-to-render-texture-image-with-object-in-opengl-es
1         Described behavior couldn't confirmed, see [T39798](https://developer.blender.org/T39798).
1         Closed because unicorns...

it is not a real question. It was a Apirl first joke, and there is no unicorn primitive operator in blender.
1         it should be on another SE:
Video Production
1         it is too long for this format for a scripting question.
1         it is not about blender.. Anyway, [he's using licecap](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/8888?m=14935365#14935365) :)
1         it is not about blender specifically.
1         it is not about blender
1         it is mostly about linux, not blender
1         it is about unity, and the settings in unity.
1         it is about the Three.js addon, which is not developed by Blender coders.
1         it is about Autocad.
1         it is way too general
1         it is very low quality and a duplicate of http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/23199
1         it is not specifically related to blender, rather a compiler issue.
1         it is not about blender as defined in the [help center](http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic)
1         it is in French, not English, and seems to be about an installation problem which is off topic.
1         it is does not pertain to blender.
1         it is asking for a model and not about blender
1         it is about non-blender issue.
1         it is about hardware problems and should be asked on the blender artists forum or the ubuntu stack exchange site.
1         it is about DVD mastering try http://video.stackexchange.com/
1         it is about downloading a specific model, not about using blender.
1         it is about compiling blender.
1         it is about building blender.
1         it is about Adobe Premier Pro.
1         it is about a community project.
1         it is about a community addon.
2         it is a localized technical question.
1         it is a known issue and will be fixed in the new manual.
1         This question appears to be off-topic as it does not fit into the site's scope as defined in the [help center](http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic).
1         Hardware question, this belong at blenderartists.org
1         doesn't appear to be about Blender
1         Welcome to the site :) it is about the operating system, hardware, performance, or compatibility. These questions are considered off-topic because there is often no definitive answer, so they tend to require too much discussion to be suitable for Q&A format.  Try asking on [BlenderArtists](http://blenderartists.org/forum/forum.php) for support instead.
1         This questions appears to be off-topic because it is about the operating system, hardware, performance, or compatibility. These questions are considered off-topic because there is often no definitive answer, so they tend to require too much discussion to be suitable for Q&A format.  Try asking on [BlenderArtists](http://blenderartists.org) for support instead.
1         This question is old and low-quality
1         it resembles a feature request.
1         it is outside the scope of this site as defined in the [help center](http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic).
1         it is not about it's a limitation of current Operating Systems.
1         it is does not appear to be an issue with Blender.
1         it is asking others to write their code.
1         it is asking multiple separate questions, which should be asked individually.
1         it is asking if a website exists and not about blender.
1         it is an incorrect use of the tool, not an issue with the tool itself.
1         it is about video editing procedures and not Blender.
1         it is about using git, which is not specifically about blender.
1         it is about the mathematics and timing of rendering in general, not specifically Blender.
1         it is about something other than the blender software or python for blender.
1         it is about php, and not about blender.
1         it is about outside of the scope of the site. It should be asked on StackOverflow instead.
1         it is about licensing, see: https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/422/are-licensing-questions-off-topic/423#423 and http://www.blender.org/about/license/
1         it is about hardware.
1         it is about general game engine terminology and technology. This may be better suited to a Stack Exchange like http://gamedev.stackexchange.com
1         it is about downloading someone else's blend file instead of a question related to the functionality of Blender.
1         it is about developing blender, not about using it.
1         it is about compiling Blender.
1         it is about an issue relate to specific hardware/driver/configuration of the operating system unrelated blender...
1         it is about acquiring resources and not about Blender.
1         it is about a problem in second life.
1         it is a tutorial request.
1         it is a request for help on a project. The 'Volounteer work' forum on blender artists is a better place for this: http://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?53-Volunteer-Work
1         This post appears to be off-topic because it is not a question
1         Source code questions
==
it is about Blender C/C++ source code.
These questions are considered outside the scope of this StackExchange as [defined in the help center](http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic). Development questions should be asked of the developers directly instead, see the [contacting developers page of the blender wiki](http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Doc/Contact).
1         It's about the operating system and should be migrated to [http://askubuntu.com/](http://askubuntu.com/).

(111 row(s) affected)

My thoughts

The "too localized" reason suffers from poor guidance. The asker is instructed to "broaden the scope" and given a link to... the default How To Ask page, which has about one sentence relevant to this. The stats reflect this: questions closed as OT->Too Localized are rarely edited and even more rarely reopened.
The tutorial reason suffers from trying to cram too much into one reason. Is the question too specific? Too broad? Both? Unclear which? A duplicate? The actual guidance linked to on meta is pretty good, clarifying that the real meaning of this reason is roughly the same as "Too Broad" - but this calls into question whether this reason is needed at all. Note that the Too Broad reason is used almost as much as this OT reason, while the proportion of questions edited and reopened are noticeably better.
Bug reports and "OT->Other" questions are almost never reopened, which is fine considering most of them are likely questions that cannot exist here in any form.

My recommendations

Better guidance for "too localized". If, as the reason currently suggests, the goal is to motivate askers to break out their problem into something that can potentially be re-used, then offer some instructions for that. Stack Overflow has MCVE, TeX has MWE, you need... Something to succinctly express what your expectations are here.
Get rid of the tutorial/"step-by-step" reason. Too Broad means the same thing, is more effective, and one less click.
Go through the 100 or so "Other" reasons listed above & see if you can identify a common problem that could save a bit of effort for closers if it was written up as a site-specific OT reason.

Thoughts?

Good suggestions, I think we will be able to condense the most used ones into more specific but general close reasons. As it pertains to Blender, I'm not sure how we could go about getting users (seeing as most of our users are new to SE) to ask Qs that can be reused for the most part as yet, it was never a huge issue as most these were either heavily edited to conform or closed as localized. Nevertheless, this also touches on a feature we will probably want in the future in the form of prompts when asking to encourage users to add visual aids and or their working files etc.

I totally agree with all three, especially the first two, recommendations.

The top three reasons I see in the Other list (aside from not about blender), are 1. Feature request 2. legal/licensing 3. Source code. (These results were gotten mostly from just looking, no real scientific analysis..) Perhaps a close reason could be made which covers both 1 and 3?

I also agree that more site/scope documentation is needed. I've been unable to find anything B.SE specific in the help center except for the first sentence on this page. I've certainly noticed a lot of inconsistent use of the Too Localized close reason, to the point where the same question will end up with close votes for both Too Localized and Too Broad. I agree with recommendation number 2, I never really thought of that..

We are revisiting these, expect updates soon!

Under "Outcome of questions closed, by close reason", "curren" is not a word.

@AnsonSavage that is only part of the message, the entire close message is: "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."

@David Oops, sorry, I didn't even notice that all the lines are cut off.  I'll be more careful before I make a comment like that next time.

FYI: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/257449/new-10k-tool-question-close-statistics

Too Localized
You are quite right, the too localized close reason seems to be used in all sorts of cases.
I've even seen the occasional question with close votes for both too localized and too broad.
In my opinion, this close reason is best suited to very specific questions unlikely to be of much to use to many other users. For example:

How to generate texture image for home interior and how to use it in OpenGL ES?

What's the difference between official builds and GraphicAll builds?

It's a little hard to find examples, as the community bot deletes a lot of these sorts of questions once they are closed.
I'd say some of these questions might be okay if they were answered or upvoted, but given the amount of time they sat without any answers (or even comments in some cases), it suggests that they are about very localized and specific
problems not shared by many others.


text:
2018: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

While there certainly are Moderators here, a significant amount of the moderation is done by ordinary people, using the privileges
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.
As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together.
To that end, here is how the moderation done here on Blender breaks down by activity over the past 12 months:
                 Action                  Moderators Community¹
---------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                  2         14
Users destroyed                                  26          0
Users deleted                                    11          0
Users contacted                                   6          0
Tasks reviewed³: Suggested Edit queue           326      2,324
Tasks reviewed³: Reopen Vote queue              103        220
Tasks reviewed³: Low Quality Posts queue        719      2,998
Tasks reviewed³: Late Answer queue              272      1,096
Tasks reviewed³: First Post queue               792      7,222
Tasks reviewed³: Close Votes queue            1,021      6,171
Tag highlight language set                        1          0
Revisions redacted                                5          0
Questions reopened                               35         11
Questions protected                              26         39
Questions migrated                                3          4
Questions flagged⁴                               10        702
Questions closed                                950      1,390
Question flags handled⁴                         210        502
Posts unlocked                                    0          1
Posts undeleted                                  98        148
Posts locked                                      0         41
Posts deleted⁵                                1,239      4,495
Posts bumped                                      0      8,716
Comments undeleted                                4          0
Comments flagged                                  0      1,766
Comments deleted⁶                               745      4,375
Comment flags handled                           329      1,437
Bounties canceled                                 1          0
Answers flagged                                  19      2,929
Answer flags handled                          2,421        527
All comments on a post moved to chat              3          0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Blender without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 3 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 3, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁴ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁵ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁶ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Wishing you all a happy new year...

Nice wrap up post. Is this a new thing you will be doing, or have I just forgotten, or missed it?

I've done it ad-hoc in the past, but never before had the temerity to hit 160 sites at once

Should've been 162, but I may have missed something, @user12855. Those three were just last in the queue.

Good eye, @user12855. Removed that one, will do another pass tomorrow & see what else got missed.

For the curious, What is the difference between a deleted user and a “destroyed” user?.

Ok, Spanish is up @user12855. The other two missing ones were Emacs and SFF; I had a bit too liberal a check in place to prevent duplicate posting, so tightening that up allowed the rest to go through.

Shog9 and @user12855 I'll add that there is also some discussion in chat about metas where such post is missing: https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/1292/2019/1/1 https://chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/1292/2019/1/2

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


text:
"a job offer and to a question" typo
Looking at this question, the close statement (shown in the comment) has a little typo:
"This question appears to be off-topic because it is a job offer and to a question."
Should be:
"This question appears to be off-topic because it is a job offer and not a question."

That's not a close notice - it is a custom close reason, which someone made a typo in, and others have selected as well.
The actual notice, now that the question is closed says:

This question does not appear to be about Blender within the scope defined in the help center.

The comment with the typo is there as well.
There is nothing to fix it, except from the typing skill of the original closer that wrote that custom close reason.

Alright thanks, I don't really know how this system works :)


text:
Let's get critical: Aug 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Blender Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

What is the order of transformations when exporting to Collada?
Net Score: 9 (Excellent: 9, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

How can I control the viewport without a mouse?
Net Score: 9 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to make lamp visible to camera in cycles?
Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)

Baking AO and Shadows into one image?
Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 1)

Can I confirm knife action with mouse, or other key than Enter?
Net Score: 10 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

Is there a post-finish operator hook in the python API
Net Score: 9 (Excellent: 9, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

is it possible to make a setting enabled by default?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 5, Needs Improvement: 1)

Visual programming with Blender Python
Net Score: 0 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 2)

Console vs scripting python constants
Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 1)

Can I use an image sequence with offset frames as a texture on array items
Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 3)


text:
Let's get critical: Nov 2013 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Blender Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

How to iterate over material index using Python
Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

How can I make a camera the active one?
Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to select even/odd keyframes with python?
Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 0)

How can I render an edge only mesh as solid lines?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Is it possible to generate an image based on edges and corners?
Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

Capture a partial screenshot in the BGE
Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Digits of precision of vertices coordinates
Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Is there a way to overlay two similar UV islands with identical vertex count?
Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 2, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 0)

Stream of mist between objects?
Net Score: -2 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 3)

How to set up custom controls - Pan using Mouse 4 + MMB
Net Score: -2 (Excellent: 0, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)


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

The site is coming along really nicely, our community is dedicated and growing. There are some well written questions and answers here and I think we are well on our way to becoming the official goto Blender resource for definitive answers.

is there a purpose in communicating with this bot?

@Vader I'm not sure what you are asking. This post is automated, but the actions it drives are for your benefit and Community Team looking on; a bit of self-reflection and a way to take stock in how you are progressing and where you can improve.

@Vader No, but it's ok to leave your thoughts here.

Final Results

Applying numeric input attribute changes on multiple objects at the same time

Net Score: 7 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

How to make a circular array using offset object as center?

Net Score: 7 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Is there a way to have one material for cycles and the BI

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 2, Needs Improvement: 1)

unexpected reactions in a quiet simple rigidbody physics simulation

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 6, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)

Walk Mode in 2.69?

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 0)

Blender Object keeps moving back to 0,0,0

Net Score: 4 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 0)

How do I clear the render border?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 2)

Use Python to add multiple colors to a NURBS curve

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 1)

Exporting tiled texture?

Net Score: 3 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 1)

custom color property in panel draw layout

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 3, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 1)

what does Net Score mean? which is best: high or low?


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

Final Results

Motion Tracking. What do the graphs represent and how are they useful?

Net Score: 15 (Excellent: 15, Satisfactory: 1, Needs Improvement: 0)

What causes odd deformations when using Subsurf?

Net Score: 12 (Excellent: 12, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)

Get list of operators in a menu layout

Net Score: 9 (Excellent: 9, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 0)

Is it possible to make a modifier with a python addon?

Net Score: 8 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 7, Needs Improvement: 2)

Calling Python Function from Console

Net Score: 8 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 0)

How do I animate a character with dangling chain

Net Score: 8 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)

Create HDR map from render?

Net Score: 7 (Excellent: 9, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 2)

Create and export bounding boxes for objects

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 4, Needs Improvement: 2)

Moving a Linked Library

Net Score: 5 (Excellent: 5, Satisfactory: 9, Needs Improvement: 0)

Child of Constraint creates strange glitch?

Net Score: -8 (Excellent: 1, Satisfactory: 3, Needs Improvement: 9)

When i try to go to the Site Self-Evaluation review queue, then i get this message:
You need at least 15 reputation to review site self-evaluation.

And when i try to add a comment instead of an answer, then i need 50 reputations.

See http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/privileges. You need a certain amount of reputation on the site to perform certain tasks.

I thought of people who do not have enough reputation to answer the self evaluation, but have enough skills to give answers to the list of questions mentioned above...


text:
Let's get critical: Feb 2015 Site Self-Evaluation
We all love Blender Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.
The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter.
Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.
Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

Final Results

Linking the color of one mesh to a second mesh

Net Score: 19 (Excellent: 19, Satisfactory: 6, Needs Improvement: 0)

Error extruding loop selection along individual face normals

Net Score: 13 (Excellent: 15, Satisfactory: 9, Needs Improvement: 2)

Can't find the palette to alter new objects

Net Score: 12 (Excellent: 14, Satisfactory: 8, Needs Improvement: 2)

Mesh displayed as dots

Net Score: 10 (Excellent: 12, Satisfactory: 9, Needs Improvement: 2)

How can I control where smoke and fire are emitted from?

Net Score: 10 (Excellent: 11, Satisfactory: 16, Needs Improvement: 1)

Animate object on arc trajectory

Net Score: 7 (Excellent: 10, Satisfactory: 14, Needs Improvement: 3)

Importing time-dependent mesh

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 15, Needs Improvement: 2)

Moving animations between computers

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 8, Satisfactory: 13, Needs Improvement: 2)

Alpha image or model?

Net Score: 6 (Excellent: 7, Satisfactory: 16, Needs Improvement: 1)

Add a ''glossy'' material for Blender render?

Net Score: 2 (Excellent: 4, Satisfactory: 17, Needs Improvement: 2)


text:
2015 Community Moderator Election
The 2015 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:

Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase

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


text:
2019: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
  -- A Theory of Moderation

While there certainly are Moderators here, a significant amount of the moderation is done by ordinary people, using the privileges
they've earned by virtue of their contributions to the site. Each of you contributes a little bit of time and effort, and together you accomplish much.
As we enter a new year, let's pause and reflect, taking a moment to appreciate the work that we do here together.
And what could be more festive than a big pile of numbers?
So here is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Blender over the past 12 months:
                 Action                  Moderators Community¹
---------------------------------------- ---------- ----------
Users suspended²                                  1          8
Users destroyed³                                  8          0
Users contacted                                   6          0
Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue           430      1,849
Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue              145        190
Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue        527      3,003
Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue              183      1,467
Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue             2,004      7,870
Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue              983      3,262
Tags merged                                       2          0
Tag synonyms proposed                             3          0
Tag synonyms created                              3          0
Questions reopened                               79         11
Questions protected                               8         48
Questions migrated                                9          3
Questions merged                                  4          0
Questions flagged⁵                                1        817
Questions closed                              1,657        869
Question flags handled⁵                         358        463
Posts unlocked                                    0          2
Posts undeleted                                  34        218
Posts locked                                      4         49
Posts deleted⁶                                1,422      6,411
Posts bumped                                      0      7,843
Comments undeleted                               11          0
Comments flagged                                  7      2,082
Comments deleted⁷                               619      5,194
Comment flags handled                           220      1,869
Answers flagged                                 164      3,193
Answer flags handled                          2,779        580
All comments on a post moved to chat              8          0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Blender without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? I posted a similar report here last year: 2018: a year in moderation...
You can also check out this report on other sites
Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing you all a happy new year...

Posts bumped    0      7,843 can mods bump posts?

Naw, just the Community bot.

Thought so. So then that 0 should be a "N/A"


text:
Can we have all our site tweets fall under the #b3d hashtag?
For those who don't know, every StackExchange site gets an automated twitter account. All these basically do is

…publish the most interesting content on each Stack Exchange site every
  three hours — without ever repeating themselves.

Ours is @StackBlender and it is starting to attract some attention.
Blender already has a massive following on twitter under the #b3d hashtag which was accepted as the standard ~3 years ago and twitter is a community we haven't really reached out to yet.
Currently, the tags that are added to the tweets are next to useless as they are very vague and don't have any scope per se. Tags like #pythonapi and #nodes to name a few. Can we dismiss appending those tags and just use one tag for all our site content?
The #b3d hashtag is very active so I don't think we will be spamming anyone who follows it and this might help give our site a boost in visits etc.. One we could use at the moment.
* credits to zeffii for the idea.

Yes! I really like this idea. I'm on twitter a lot and the only blender related tag I ever visit/tweet on is #b3d. In my opinion, Twitter would be one of the best sites for promoting Blender.SE posts, as tweets are obviously short, quick messages (and won't really spam twitarians).

I like this idea. Also, this site is doing very well from what I can see. 600 visits per day is actually pretty good for not even two months old.

@Luke yeah, might be expecting too much, but we were at 1k some days ago. :)

Ok, this is done - all new tweets here will include the tag #b3d and no other tags whatsoever.

Maybe we can use a minimum up-vote count before getting tweeted, this might minimize attention to questions that are beyond the scope of B.SE.


text:
Moderator Election Coming Soon
I'm happy to announced that this site has been cleared for graduation… congratulations!
Unfortunately, there has been a long backlog of sites waiting for their custom site design, so rather than waiting for that backlog to clear, we are going to start moving ahead and hold the first community-based election of moderators sooner rather than later.
This is just a heads up to let you know why we're having the election before the graduation and design is ready. The election should start sometime in the next week or so, so watch the announcements on the sidebar for the notice.
Congratulations again… and enjoy!

@Yes No, just the election. Everything else will happen with the design.

Are you aware of or able to release an approximate timeline?

I have nothing to say but i'll just put a comment on this great announcement  : )

We already have some custom themes that might contribute to giving us out custom site.

@NoviceInDisguise Unfortunately with this backlog, sending a site to the "graduation queue" and getting a design published are currently two different things. We recently hired some fantastic new designers to help clear the backlog, but there is a still about 9 sites waiting for a design, so anything I can report here would be wildly inaccurate and subject to change, Designers are working on getting these design out amidst all the bug reports and feature requests, so which sites are completed first simply depends on who is available. Sorry I don't have anything further to report.

So great to see we made it! Hope to see our new look soon and that our suggestions will be taken into account.

@RobertCartaino I understand, and sort of expected that would be the case. We will be eagerly waiting :)

So the moderator elections will be running while the site is still in Beta? Weird - but AWESOME!!!!

So how do you achieve moderator anyway>?

You have to run during the election and meet requirements. Voting will then occur, and the users will pick the moderators. Generally voting occurs once per year, just so that if a mediocre mod gets elected, they can be switched.


text:
Would I be allowed to give Bitcoin tips for answers?
Often times I'm really impressed by the quality and detail of answers given. I'd love to show my appreciation in the form of a tip, either directly to someone's Bitcoin address or via something like changetip: https://www.changetip.com/how-to-send-tips/
Changetip already works on quite a few sites including Github, Reddit, Twitter, and Youtube.

You could ask them in the chat for an address

Many people don't hang around or are even aware of chat. Does stackexchange even have a private message system? Can't seem to find it on profile pages.

there is no PM system but if you use @ username in the chat the user will get the message in there notifications bar

This is just a bit different than
Is it okay to ask for money donations in an answer?
but not by much. There are a lot of intrinsic motivations for why people contribute their time and their knowledge to this site, but receiving payment or "tips" isn't one of them. While I appreciate the gesture, it really is not warranted or even particularly helpful to this site.
There's also the issue of user solicitations in general (which are not allowed). Asking people for contact information can get ugly fast. There's this whole realm of "I'll send you free stuff for your contact info" spam that would not be allowed on this site. So we just don't allow these types of solicitations at all.
So while I cannot control how you interact with user off this site, I do not think it's a good idea to encourage or allow users to solicit contact information for the purposes of payment or anything else.
Interesting question. Thank you for bringing up the issue.

Thanks for the detailed and clear reply. Still a bit surprised that GitHub, which I thought had a similar philosophy, does accept tips.

Would it be acceptable to provide links like these on our profiles?

@DantheMan Yes, we provide a lot of latitude for what people can put in the 'about me' section of their profiles (i.e. not patently offensive, abusive, hate speech, illegal, etc). So a bit of self promotion or contact information is perfectly acceptable in a profile; it's not part of the main Q&A. But that doesn't mean posts ending with "Go read my profile to tip me" are any less a solicitation.

The idea with ChangeTip is that you pay what you want if you like something or appreciate the answer.
It is not a way to ask for compensation. (or at-least should not be used as such)
If ChangeTip where supported, and anyone asks for a tip - then that would/should be grounds for a ban or similar action. But if I really like a answer, question or even a comment, it would be nice to express that with a small tip.


text:
Should all "Ask A Question" pages encourage the poster to upload their blend?
Should the "Ask A Question" page encourage the poster to upload their blend and also provide a means to do so? So often we have to ask OP to post their blend somewhere, but I think it'd save OP & us a lot of time & energy if we made it obvious that seeing the blend is often essential in solving the issue. If we need a file host, developer.blender.org has one so maybe we could use theirs.

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/297/can-we-have-a-service-for-uploading-blendfiles?rq=1

Are you asking for comments and feedback about an idea, or making a feature-request? ...because the context in how the 'answers' and voting go (and how it is handled internally) are very different. I removed the [feature-request] tag for now, but feel free to edit your question or tags to pose your question as intended.

I just didn't know how to tag it...first discussion about what others think, then if people like it, it could be a new feature.

Not all questions require a .blend, however for most trouble shooting questions (e.g. "Why is X happening?") a .blend is the easiest way to go.
I don't actually have any demographics (I couldn't find a good way to search for trouble shooting questions), but I think that less than half of our questions are trouble shooting questions worthy of a .blend.
I think that if we do add a notice to the ask question page, then we should say that it's probably only important if they have a trouble shooting question.

My only other concern is that it might deter users who can't or don't want to share their .blends.

Yes, I think that was what I was thinking: suggest the poster upload the blend if they think it necessary and suggest troubleshooting as a typical scenario when it is usually necessary.

That is why I think a HELP!!!! tag would be useful, you could easily determine when a user is asking "Why is this happening??-Can-Not-Fix"

Well, on a per-question basis it's already pretty easy to tell (in most cases :P)

I think this would be a great addition to Blender.SE. But as Gandalf pointed out, it's not always relevant to the question. But maybe we can make it very obvious that uploading is optional. (Maybe only give the option for certain tags. Or have the uploading-field grayed out/opacity reduced)
Or maybe take a different approach. What if we can have a "vote for/ask for .blend"? So the people that are answering can request a .blend. Then the OP will be notified and given instructions on how to upload (or encouraged to upload more info/screenshots, if he can't upload blend).
That way, we can automate the process. It'll be easier for us to give a solution when we need a .blend file. Also, it'll be easier for OP to upload(especially if the uploading process is similar to uploading images. Just choose blend from computer, but you don't need to redirect to pasteall.org. Blend-file is automatically added to post, at the bottom.)

In my opinion, yes. If for no other reason than to cut back on all the images that get uploaded in the process of troubleshooting a problem.
I personally wouldn't make it a requirement, but i would make it an obvious and highly encouraged possibility (perhaps even a pop-up prompt)
EDIT: the only major drawback would be that blend files can get large if they include alot of textures / sounds / videos


text:
Tag synonym request: [.blend-files]->[blend-files]
.blend-files should be synonymized into blend-files as they are fundamentally the same and non-aplhanumerics-or-hyphens should be avoided  in tag names whenever possible.

[feature-request] tags are for adding new functionality to the site.

@iKlsR It depends on the site; on AU tag synonym requests were often tagged as feature requests and left as such.

@ObsessiveSSOℲ, lets not do that here.

I think they should be synonymized. Otherwise, you'd have two tags that mean the same thing instead of one tag that the other points at, which is messier. Personally, I'd prefer to see .blend-files synonymized into blend-files; it looks nicer.

I think the alternative to synonymizing them is to somehow delete or blacklist the one we want to discourage.

@Gwenn: The advantage to synonymizing is that if someone starts typing ".blend", then they will see the "blend-files" tag in the choices.

Don't think it should be synonymized. The correct form should be agreed on and left to rule. Not any typing error/off standard is reason for a synonym. They are basically the same thing minus a period (.), we should focus on keeping tags clean and maintainable.

@iKIsR, Thank you, but perhaps a comment would be more appropriate than an edit in such a case

I had initially planned to answer, merely added my two cents.


text:
What constitutes an "expert" question, and what quantifies being an expert?
I (and many other long time Blender users) may get accused of not asking expert questions, or not doing enough research, because we simply don't know that Blender can for example, make your tea in the morning.
Not everyone has read every iota of documentation or followed every tutorial out there, of course. However, how do we know what constitutes an "expert" question?
What makes someone an "expert" vs "intermediate" vs "newbie"? Just using Blender for x number of years is not enough, of course.

I think it's better to define what is not an expert question. "How do I make a game in blender" is not an expert question. The site should be welcoming to newbies, but we should still hold a quality standard for their questions.

@Luke that's actually a good answer.

There are many things that constitute to how a question is perceived. Your grammar, choice of words, formatting and what you intend. Here is an article that goes into how one can write a 'perfect' question.
A key point is

Question title
When a reader first sees your question, they're likely to be scrolling
  down a list of snippets. The most eye-catching part of the snippet
  will be the title - so use that text wisely.

and another is

The Golden Rule: Imagine You're Trying To Answer The Question
Once you've finished writing your question, read it through. Imagine
  you were coming to it fresh, with no context other than what's on the
  screen. Does it make sense? Is it clear what's being asked? Is it easy
  to read and understand? Are there any obvious areas you'd need to ask
  about before providing an answer? You can usually do this pretty well
  however stuck you are on the actual question. Just apply common sense.
  If there's anything wrong with the question when you're reading it,
  obviously that will be a problem for whoever's actually trying to
  answer it. So fix the problems. Improve the question until you can
  read it and think, "If I only knew the answer to the question, it
  would be a pleasure to provide that answer." At that point, post and
  wait for the answers to come rolling in.

Nothing specifies being an expert, while there are professionals on the site, how can you tell them apart from say someone who started using Blender a few days ago? It's all in how you phrase your question and deliver it. Research your question before asking it and make sure you understand what you are asking so you can better explain it.

I'm pretty familiar with what works and doesn't on SE, so I'm more specifically looking for what will work on Blender SE (especially now as we define the site). Professional is a subjective word, as I could be a professional UV mapper and never once touch modelling, for example.

@RolandiXor does it really matter? As I said, it's all in how you deliver the question. No offense, but a few of your earlier ones were a bit sloppy and showed no research effort.

Also, I'd like to point out, as happens on Ask Ubuntu where I moderate, users don't always come to ask questions that Google can't answer. Sometimes they simply don't know how something works, and it is honestly easier to get real people to help directly than to go to Google and dig around for something. We should not shut such people out.

@RolandiXor I know what you mean but how would the site turn out if users were asking extremely simple questions that could be found via a quick google search or a peek at the wiki.

I disagree on not showing research effort. They show a lack of knowledge, which is exactly why the questions were asked. Just because something is documented on the Blender Wiki for example, doesn't mean we should respond "Do your research" and close it. Remember, even "professionals" will have grey areas on certain subjects that some other people (even the majority) will be totally clear on. We should not treat such cases as though they are simply "Sloppy".

@RolandiXor it's a broad topic, once we get some firm mods in place some of these downvoting and closing issues will hopefully desist.

There are some things that are obviously too simple, like "How do I grab/move an object." But someone might ask "How do I scale an object along two axes and not the third?", for example, and that would be a fair question because even though it is basic to us, it's not something obvious and clear cut.

'Expert' questions usually come in the form of a very exact and narrow problem definition, they might also take the time to present alternatives and reasons for not using them. These kinds of questions rarely invite answers that are obvious, but can (in the case of blender) lead to developers modifying blender, or provoke others to script a solution.
'An expert' is someone who masters one or more fields. In blender.stackexchange this will probably start to bubble up as a person who gives valuable answers to difficult questions (that aren't immediately apparent from the documentation).