text:
Answering vague support questions (once)?
There are certain questions that don't fit our criteria very well, eg:

Why is blender crashing?
Why is blender's viewport so slow?
Why is blender running slow?
Why am I running out of memory?

The question that prompted me to ask:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1330/blender-is-lagging-when-i-am-using-it
In every specific case the answer will be different,
but it may be good if we have broad answers to these questions which list likely causes and things for the user to check.
At least in this case we can direct any further questions here (and mark them as duplicates).
Does this sound worthwhile?

Yes, absolutely! Answer them (once).
The ideal way to handle endless variations of the same trouble-shooting questions is to create what we call "canonical answers" — comprehensive guides about what users should do when they hit these commonly-asked crashing and performance problems.
Users keep asking these same questions in various ways because it is difficult for the author to know exactly what they are asking about… much less how to find the solution on the site. So they become numerous (and somewhat annoying) because you find yourself asking and answering the same basic set of followup questions ("Did you try X,Y,Z; could it be L,M,N,O or P?").
When answering these canonical questions, do everything you can to really overkill it. Write a detailed, step-by-step, ultra-clear guide with screenshots and examples. Those questions will become ultra-popular, brining in lots of traffic from search engines as folks search for this stuff. And every question you close as a duplicate of the canonical answer, you create yet another entry point to the site covering all the variations of how these questions are asked. If you continue to have great answers like you've provided thus far, you stand a good chance of attracting some great new users who will add value for years to come.

This rings quite true, we already have such one such question, albeit not 'once' and not really technical, it is our most popular question so far as it has many different variations.

This is a sensitive matter as we don't want to encourage too many of these questions as it isn't and shouldn't be in our scope. I also think we are already being very lenient by allowing .blend files. Eventually people will find ways to use these special cases to abuse the system and we are not a support group per se as opposed to how most forums operate.
However, there is a way that we can approach this for the time being. It would also be in the best interests of the site if we don't alienate new users. We can handle cases like these just as Gwenn dealt with Undo and Redo on Macbook not functioning.
Since we are very likely to get these questions again in the future, we can answer but lock it afterwards, doing this allows it to serve as both a useful part of our compilation of answers and also a firm example of what is and what is not on-topic here. This is only if the question is answerable and makes sense rather than some wild localized issue.
Additionally, SE will be rolling out new changes for handling questions soon, some of which might better assist us in making decisions and be more straightforward and obvious. An example is:

Questions will display as [on hold], rather than [closed] for the first five days after closure. (new)

The goal is to better convey that questions can be improved and
  re-opened during the period where they have the best shot at that
  happening
Questions put [on hold] will still not accept answers, and
  will behave identically to [closed] questions
The language will change
  to [closed] if the question is not re-opened within five days, to
  continue to serve as a clear long-term signpost

See all of these here on meta at Closing changes: on hold, unclear, too broad, opinion-based, off-topic reasons, bye-bye to Too Localized

As an alternative, We could add a Troubleshooting FAQ to blenders wiki and link users there.

That's a valid point about the alienation of new users, have a canned response that is clearly intended to inform and provide suggestions rather than 'this is not what B.SE is for'. The first few reviews of a new user post should pick up on that, and send them merely on their way.

I hope I'm just reading your answer wrong. How can technical support of Blender not be a part of this site? Unless I'm misreading your answer, you're envisioning a "how to use Blender" site... until you run into a problem; then you're outta here. I'm not sure that makes sense. You're going to be progressively alienating a larger and larger portion of your use base just as they need you the most. And I'm not sure putting questions [on hold] is designed to be the solution you are envisioning here. See my answer. I think it provides a better balance to handle all types of questions.

@RobertCartaino more of the former. Technical support is a very large part of the site but we have to take a firm stance on what we allow in our scope. I am aware of canonical answers, we have several of those and encourage them. Nearly all of the questions closed could not or rather still cannot be reasonably answered in their current form at all. Questions that pertained to graphics hardware and other sites that weren't even directly related to Blender or where the OP gave very vague or limited information on their problem. Those are what I am talking about in my answer.

@RobertCartaino We have discussed these extensively on the site leading up to public beta and after, nearly every question we see in danger, we leave a comment asking for clarification or try to see if it can be edited or possibly answered. Some are just dead ends however and cluttering the site with extremely localized or poorly asked questions is rather bad. Questions like this and this to list a few.

@iKlsR That sounds reasonable. Thanks for the clarification. I was reading this from what an outsider might read into this answer, and I wanted to make sure we weren't saying this site was only for "how to do things in Blender... unless you have problems."

All questions should be allowed only once (hence the duplicate feature). So the only question is are these topics, off topic? If they are users should be directed elsewhere.

At least in this case we can direct any further questions here (and mark them as duplicates).

You can mark questions as duplicates of closed questions, so there's really no need to make exceptions.

The hold feature
After reading through the post on the blog.stackoverflow.com/.../the-war-of-the-closes I think this hold option provides us with a much friendlier tool to get better information out of a question.
The fact remains that some questions will be stated very poorly with inadequate details to give a straight answer. Generally if someone is able to describe  their problem concisely then they have already reached a level of understanding about the problem. These can be interesting puzzles, and rewarding to answer.
As long as B.SE is alive we will get people who are inexperienced with most or some of Blender and 3D, and it is unrealistic for us to expect that they will posses the right words to explain the problem. In these cases they must be prompted until the problem is clear, and phrased in a way that the Questioner understands and accepts. Once we understand the question we can release the question to accept answers.
So while we might not like the repeated back and forth to get closer to a good problem description, if we do an OK job then this person is more capable of asking better questions lateron.
I urge people not to modify the phrasing of weak questions until they have engaged with the OP and arrived at a fair understanding of the question, otherwise this site will be a time sink.

I wholly agree, closing seemed so final at times. Alot of our users aren't very good with English which also rings your last point very well. I often refrain from editing a badly worded or vague question as I fear it might lose its original intent or meaning, it's a very good point to note. Not everything can be saved but it at least gives people another chance.


text:
Command line arguments (short/long), preference?
When answering questions about command line arguments, should we prefer long/short command line arguments?
Short example:
blender -b file_name.blend -x 1 -o //file -F AVI_JPEG

Long example:
blender --background file_name.blend --use-extension 1 --render-output //file --render-format AVI_JPEG

Long example wrapped:
blender --background file_name.blend \
        --use-extension 1 \
        --render-output //file \
        --render-format AVI_JPEG

Reference questions:

Is there a way to batch render multiple scenes?
Can Cycles renders be done from the command line?

The obvious advantage of long args is they are more self-documenting (you don't have to explain what -F does in every answer for eg). The disadvantage is they don't fit so neatly on a single line.
Wrapping command line args is an option but also makes it tricky to copy & paste out of the answer.

I think any variation is fine provided that it answers the question and explains what each argument is doing rather than just slapping a cryptic string for the user to copy and paste.
For example, in this answer, the short argument names were used but each argument was explained in a separate block.
Also, in both answers you linked, the answers link back to the Command Line wiki where the parameters that were used could easily be looked up but I think we should try to keep users on this site as much as possible (this also correlates with our policy of entertaining self contained answers) so the long self documented arguments should be the preferred choice here. For readability purposes, these can always be wrapped as you demonstrated.
Regardless of how it is presented, this shouldn't be a problem as long as it answers the question but an ideal combination might be having it on one line for easy copy and paste and another wrapped copy (if it is rather long).

re: provided that it answers the question and explains what each argument is doing, Perhaps we should encourage just linking to docs explaining arg meanings seems a bit redundant.

It's a really trivial decision at most since as I said any variation works provided it does both so either is fine IMO.

I would say both are acceptable, anyway I would prefer the long command line arguments:
blender --background file_name.blend --use-extension 1 --render-output //file --render-format AVI_JPEG

The one who asked the question should be eager enough to lookup details. In case someone else searchs the site for an answer he could quickly decide whether or not the answer puts him on the right track, because the long variant is self-explanatory.
In case the short version is used at least a link to the manual page should be added.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Should questions about 'customized' Blender 'mods' be considered off topic?
There are some customized Blender distributions.

https://blendersensei.com
http://www.microvellum.com/products/fluid-designer

And a question about one of them here:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31917/blender-sensei-format-select-deselect
Should these be considered off topic?

I'd say it depends on if there are users here who can/will answer. Not sure if there are or not

Anyone can make a branch of Blender and make arbitrary changes, I think there is some limit to what blender.stackexchange should handle. However we could treat this the same way as we do very old blender versions. "It's not off topic, but YMMV getting help."

I guess maybe the best strategy for the time being is wait to see what happens (do such questions get answers, and are more such questions asked), then decided based on that.

When I just saw the title in the side bar, I though mods.

I'm thinking that questions about mods like fluid designer should be highly discouraged. If you look at the interface of fluid designer, it's a ton different than stock Blender. Most of the things that someone would conventionally use Fluid Designer for, don't really use much of Blenders original UI.
Something more like the Sensei format should be allowed with the understanding that a question might not get answered if it has something to do with the added features.
The reason why I make a distinction between Fluid Designer and Sensei format here, is because Fluid designer has much more changes to the internal code, while sensei format is basically just an addon with a custom theme.
Also, what do people think about the support for the Fracture Modifier? My personal standing on this is that it should be supported. Mainly because the developers are still aiming to get it into master, weather that happens or not, and because I'm biased and I like the tool.
It's still a lot like Fluid Designer in the fact that it's a major addon. You can use all the normal features of Blender in those builds, but when you come to the real reason of using it, it's quite different than Blender.

I think we should (at this point) be open to questions about these modified versions of blender.
There is nothing to be gained as of now to setting a hard and fast rule banning all questions that are not about the "stock" version of blender. We just do not have enough time or data about those questions on this site.
Like gandalf said, if it turns out that the community here does not answer them, or there is not enough activity to warrant them being on this site; then we can come back and make those type of questions off topic.

yeah people will get the message if zero/few microvellum questions get answered by us, i'd expect them to have a reasonable support mechanism anyway since it is a paid product.

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


text:
Using tags to denote 'unsupported' features?
There is a class of questions we get, which are perfectly valid - but the answer but boils down to:
Blender can't do that.

Often answers try to show workaround or some way to export to some external tool to perform the operation, use a hacky script... but they are often unsatisfactory solutions.
The thing about these questions is they can be seen as indirect feature requests, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But since its a sore-point that the Blender community has an insatiable appetite for posting there wish-lists, I'm hesitant to promote anything which may make SE into a place to feature request.
Having said that, I was wondering if it would be useful to have an unsupported tag. This means...

unsupported: The question is perfectly valid, but the functionality isn't supported.

As a developer this gives us the ability to view highly voted questions with the tag unsupported. Which can be translated into...
Things which would be really nice to support and the community obviously wants.
I'm wary to promote this though, since I think it could end up being mis-used.
On the other hand - questions can be a good way to highlight missing features too.
Some examples of features added as a reaction to questions, (there are more, this is just some I could find from a quick look)

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/24101/55
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/24102/55
https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/15692/55

The main downside of this AFAICS is.

It can be seen as a mis-use of SE to vote up good features, not good questions.
Users may knowing ask about non-existing features "Does BLAH feature exist?", rather than explaining the problem in full, (which would be a better question). Perhaps these can be closed as feature-requests.

On the other hand, if a popular feature doesn't exist, assuming it is also a valid question being asked - newer users would probably ask at some point anyway.

It is best to leave tags to describe what the question is about, and not get into labeling questions with other issues by using tags. Certainly, you include that information as part of your answer, but using tags to describe things like like "not supported" or "too easy" (or other issues with the question) are what we call "meta tags", and they are strongly discouraged. See:
Death of Meta Tags

Good point, for development purposes its nice to see a list of feature's not yet implemented, but I guess this could be maintained elsewhere.


text:
Answering own questions (as a way to share code-snippets)
Recently I was asked about a script I wrote for a project (just a small utility, nothing worth releasing as an addon).
And I figured others may find it useful, so I posted it as a Q&A (here - Render Videos From Marker Ranges?).
Small snippets like this don't really have a good place to go at the moment,
There was a Blending into Python cookbook, so perhaps that can be updated and better maintained.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Blending_Into_Python/Cookbook
So my question is:
If we have useful code-snippets we think others would find useful, either as examples or in their own right. Is it reasonable to post them as Questions, then answer our own questions and include the script?
Again, this is only for small scripts - entire addons better be in version control and linked to.

The question and answer are both valid and useful so I see no problem with this now or in the future. One purpose of this site is to create an archive of useful answers and self contained resources to common problems. As long as it is in our scope it should be fine to post these.

Obscure or irrelevant scripts wont get voted up... so, as long as theres not 100's of zero voted scripts clogging up SE (which seems unlikely), its fine I suppose.

IIRC, the system automatically deletes questions with no votes and low views after a while.


text:
Tips for new users
The Zen of BSE as I see it

BSE isn't a forum
The search facility (top right) works great! Use it - you'll be surprised what you find.
Your posts can be edited by anyone. This is normal. You wont loose any rep.
Comments should lead you to update the question with more information before we answer.
Comments are editable for a period of 5 minutes.
Read a comment carefully before hitting Enter to submit.
Keep the comments area tidy, remove comments after dealing with them, even if up voted.
A Question with many comments prompts BSE to provide a dedicated (but public) chat-room.
Up vote a comment that helped you.
Up vote any Answer that helped you.
If you get a satisfactory Answer accept it.
When you Down vote consider leaving an explanation.
Use screenshots, learn to crop (landscape tends to make images take up less vertical space) and keep text out of the image
Avoid resubmitting the same Question as another new Question. We will close it. (promise).
If the Question didn't get an answer there's usually a good reason (and it's not because we didn't see it).
Any of the following actions will bump your question to the front page again:

edit the question with more details
streamline the question (Imagine you had to pay per word, how much of your Question is new information)
include a .blend use http://blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com/ for permanent storage

To emphasize words don't use capitals, they'll get edited out anyway. (promise)
Take time to craft the Question and its Title.
Title your Question in a way that contains the core of your Question.
Ask 1 main thing per Question, if that's not possible then limit yourself to one topic. We might still ask you to split the Question into multiple separate Questions and will often suggest how to split it.
We encourage you to ask as many separate new Questions as you need.
Read the markdown formatting tips for text and code. (markdown lets you stylize your content)
Use correct tags for your Question. Tags are important

For much more information read the Full FAQ.

+1 for having a "beginner to SE" cheatsheet. I bet most of our new users are also new to SE entirely

I'm tempted to break it out into two groups Questions and Answers , there's things i'd like to say about answers specifically.

Here is an important tip: use questions for asking questions, and answers for posting answers. do not post your opinions and advice in a question! :-)

You need a new first (or second) item in the lisst, @zeffii: "Before asking a question, use the search facility to see if the question has been asked, and answered before".

I agree brasshat!


text:
How to ask scripting questions - efficiently
I read many of the scripting related questions / comments / edits. Some comments and edits are predictable and a lot of them fall in these categories

trying to get more info
trying to reduce the question to one topic at a time where possible.
trying to understand the desired end-result (to allow focus on a solution rather than fixing OP's code).
fixing code indentation / pep8
asking for Minimal Viable Product code snippets, to allow us to see how far they are in their understanding of the problem. Makes plugging in solution code easier.
asking for full error messages, telling about debugging with terminal open.
... i probably missed many

Is it realistic to expect all comments / edits to be avoidable? I don't know, but why not at least attempt to streamline it. I'm optimistic that we can do this much better. Some of this is covered in this question/answer, but i'd like to see if we can compile a list of "pro-tips" for people asking questions about

add-on development
general bpy scripting
problems using / installing existing add-ons (with errors, code stuff ..not conceptual usage)

StackExchange continuously evolves and new ways of pre-empting weak questions will emerge (maybe show this list for the first 5 questions by one user tagged as bpy, script, python.)
I'm looking for pro-tips from you, kind of like the zen of python : short points which make a path of least resistance bordering on philosophy.

In no particular order or phrasing (non exhaustive).

Don't worry we don't expect you to be proficient at Python or Blender.
Familiarity with Python is a bonus and get to know how a feature behaves from the UI before trying to script it.
TextEditor > Python > Templates > is a great place for short Blender Python (bpy) snippets (UI, mesh operations, icons).
yes use the search feature for a few minutes, usually feeding 3 or 4 keywords returns some interesting results.
start Blender from a terminal to catch errors that don't get reported into the info header.
if you get Errors generally the first or the last line of the error will return search results, but if you can't make sense of it. Paste the full text of the Error as an Image or as Text into your question to get faster answers.
If you have code describe its desired outcome first
then show the code, but do show it.
sometimes your code can be replaced by simpler code, that's another reason to describe your end goal.
if it's a lot of code please take the time to figure out the shortest possible code snippet you can provide that still allows us to run it and see the undesired outcome for ourselves. Even if this seems a lot of work, most likely you will learn a lot from the process and possibly solve your own question before asking it.
if there are multiple problems, split your question into separate questions. We don't care how many unique questions you ask, but we do care about keeping the information modular and applicable to narrow topics
Narrow questions allow the title to be more descriptive and easier for searchers to find answers and up-vote your question.
if you paste code make sure it's indented correctly in your question and uses 4 spaces and not tabs
if your code snippet relies on a .blend with certain conditions (animation, keyframes, example objects) please link to one so we can load it and load the code and hit run.

Thanks for this. Since python is our largest tag, we're looking to have a post/discussion soon about revamping the scope of this. This will be a good reference.


text:
How serious is the 'self -evaluation'
it doesn't seem to have attracted much attention in the meta, where does kind of post come from and does it have any effect on B.SE.
I feel a bit of a chump being the only person who added to the discussion in Let's get critical

You don't normally answer these... Insight is good but not a must, it is an automated process that we get to do as a community every (n) days or so (90 IIRC, not sure). Example on meta.fitness.se and example on meta.anime.se. After the eval ends, the results will be posted by Community.

hey, I won't bother in future.


text:
specific add-on tags
Recently a tag was created for animation-nodes, so I decided to also create the wiki tag for sverchok. These are both big non-trivial add-ons and totally deserve a tag. Before I start tagging the other Questions about Sverchok, and before I put more effort into the tag wiki I'd like to know if this is acceptable practice.

I have said this before about other new tags, There should be no set right or wrong answer to whether or not "this" tag is ok. The question usage should drive the demand for a new tag.
That said, I'm not sure we need a sverchok tag now, seeing as there so few questions. It looks to me (after a quick search) like there are 4 questions that could use the sverchok tag.
However tag the sverchok questions, lets see how much use the sverchok tag gets, if it is popular by all means then it should be a tag.
I'm also leaning towards its own tag because it is something quite distinct; no other tag will work.

I have been surprised at new tag usage in the past,for what I thought would be a odd tag. So there is no way to know for sure until we give a new tag time in the open.

PS thanks for bringing this to meta.

I hold contradicting views about whether or not to encourage the specific tags. If it gathers traction I might warm to it.

@zeffii what is your position? Because at this point I think it is an ok thing to do. We can go to the chat.

i think if a question arises due to unclear/lacking documentation, the question should be directed at the issue-tracker of the specific add-on. The best thing for each add-on is to have satisfactory docs, not sporadic info on BSE. It's almost like a 'soft-bug', fix it once in the add-on repo and the question doesn't need to exist anymore.

You have a very good point. Yet what to tag all the real questions that can arise (even with documentation and video tutorials)? Because good docs will never stop all the questions.

On the other hand... asking for a tutorial / run throughs also enters this grey area.. where does Blender start and 'add-on' X begin ? :) In some cases the more elaborate add-ons can really be viewed as distinct pieces of software that just happen to run inside Blender.

Documentation can rarely be comprehensive to the extent that all potential questions are negated. But sometimes clearly the docs should be improved as a result of dealing with these questions (this also with respect to Blender itself... and I think it's not something we do generally...fix the docs when weakness is encountered)

Just a small typo, you used weather rather than whether in your second sentence. (I don't have full edit privileges)

@angussidney thank you.  PS you can always edit a post, just it will be reviewed first.

@David the edit button is disabled entirely on meta for sub-2k users. Otherwise I would have edited it myself.

@David http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/78223/per-site-metas-dont-have-ability-of-suggested-edits/78319#78319

@angussidney I learn something new about SE every day. thanks.


text:
Micro Editing, does everything need to be perfect?
How do we decide if we should really go ahead with editing that nagging mistake in someone else's post? Is it OK to edit subtle grammatical mistakes, or typos?
Stack Exchange has this built in rule that the edit needs to be above a certain character count to be allowed. In practice this might mean that someone will edit more than they intended to, to be able to push their minimal edit through that first automated check -- that doesn't mean it will be accepted.
Once you have a certain level of reputation you don't get points for approved edits. Below this threshold you do, but your edits will be vetted by several members with sufficient reputation and we might consider your edit too minimal to constitute a valid edit.
If you think about it, there is a big difference between these two things:

correcting grammar, typos, punctuation  (you become the mechanical Turk version of a spell-checker)
correcting or adding structure, terminology, images, links, and fixing typos

The combination of items in the second bullet point is what benefits the community most, fixing typos and minor grammatical mistakes is fine, but if the edit doesn't help further elucidate a question it will likely be rejected -- not because it was a bad edit.
What other things should we consider before editing a question?

Oh dear... *hides*

@WChargin I agree with many of your edits, even style changes and redacting the fluff. Say more with less. But not everyone feels this way -- nor do they have to, I get it, the sense of ownership is a contentious  point.

gandalf3 is here too.. editing. :)

edits that fall into the second category (I hope), mind you ;)

i'm OK with it!

Editing is a good thing. Stack Exchange themselves say:

We welcome all constructive edits, but please make them substantial. Avoid trivial, tiny one-letter edits unless absolutely necessary.

They also suggest:

How to edit

fix grammatical or spelling errors
clarify meaning without changing it
correct minor mistakes
add related resources or links
always respect the original author

Sometimes questions have such bad grammar, because the asker is not a native speaker of English.
In those cases, the questions are really hard to follow. If you can understand it, fix it up. If you don't, it would be best to leave it as it is, as you could change the meaning of a sentence or paragraph.

what reference is that from? maybe you could link to it?

It's when you click edit on a question/answer.

I see, it is good to be reminded of this -- perhaps I have been harsh on recent proposed edits.

Well, personally I'd like to fix spelling, just as I'd appreciate someone else correcting a typo in my posts. Writing your instead of you're or then instead of than are off putting and don't need to stay in a post. I don't really understand the 6 character threshold yet

@Haunt_House, neither do I. fixing minor typos should be an entirely painless under-the-radar activity.

@zeffi very true.

This already seems to be covered by Why can people edit my posts? How does editing work?

When should I edit posts?
Any time you see a post that needs improvement and are inclined to suggest an edit, you are welcome to do so. The original author of a question or answer may always edit their own post, regardless of reputation level.
Edits are expected to be substantial and to leave the post better than you found it. Common reasons for edits include:

To fix grammar and spelling mistakes
To clarify the meaning of the post (without changing that meaning)
To include additional information only found in comments, so all of the information relevant to the post is contained in one place
To correct minor mistakes or add updates as the post ages
To add related resources or hyperlinks

We don't need small obsessive edits but we do want to maintain a high quality of content here.
We need to remember that this site uses English, which is not the native language of many users and these questions and answers will be archived here for several years for others to find. It is effectively an extension of the official documentation. Maybe even a testing ground for improving the documentation.
The quality of content here will reflect on the blender community as a whole. Poor quality here will give possible new users a bad impression of the whole blender community.
So when you want to edit something, will your edit improve the perception of the blender community? Will it improve the ability of someone to find a relevant answer when searching? Do the official docs also need clarification on this point?

I think even small edits are valid often, take for instance the situation where you suddenly notice a typo in a book or on-line article -- how often do we wish we could correct it and move on? I don't think this has anything to do with pedantry, and I agree that the content here will (increasingly) be perceived as the reference for new users -- we better make sure it's not only accurate but also free from the most obvious typos.

So maybe typo corrections shouldn't be perceived as 'not significant enough'

Just for good timing Matt Gemmell posted this yesterday about bad grammar in posts

that's a great post to reference - thanks for this share!

Great link @sambler! I wish more people understood the principles in that article . . .


text:
Guidelines on the usage of StackExchange Markup and style
The basics are explained in formatting help, but perhaps for sake of homogeneity we can adopt a style guide concerning conventions with examples of how to and not to mark-up content.
Well established Exchanges rigorously enforce their style-guide, this doesn't mean people lose their identity but it does mean that people combing through the site can quickly understand the content, without having to parse through various personal styles.
We may not all agree with some of the conventions, so I will reference appropriate examples in these cases. The following is a work in progress, feel free to add your suggestions and objections in the comments or as answers.
Style Guide

Avoid using bold to emphasize key words mid sentence, using bold rarely has the effect you think it does.
Use back-ticks for short code references only.
Use the kbd tag only when referencing keys or mouse buttons. Menu / submenu items should perhaps get their own tag type if possible (with own styling).
If you inline an image, make sure to crop when possible or otherwise edit it before uploading. Edit it in a way that most of it's pixels contribute to passing information.

Please discuss the following.
Menus
we should pick one and stick with it, encourage new users to conform.

Add > Mesh > Cube
Add → Mesh → Cube
Add > Mesh > Cube
Add > Mesh > Cube
Add > Mesh > Cube
Add > Mesh > Cube
Add | Mesh | Cube
Add > Mesh > Cube
Add|Mesh|Cube
Add | Mesh | Cube
Add → Mesh → Cube
Add→Mesh→Cube
Add | Mesh | Cube
Add > Mesh > Cube

I will argue for the first option,  it is undeniably easier to type while still serving the author and the reader well. edit: This has generated some interesting discussion and style proposal
keyboard shortcuts (and mouse events)
This one is not be up for debate, it seems we all accept the convention to use the kbd tag. One might find slight variance in the following.

Ctrl M
Ctrl + M
CtrlM
Ctrl + M

Cases for all three can be argued, I will stick up for the last as it seems to be most visually straightforward.
Links
This may be somewhat tricky, but here we find less variety than the menu items. Also the meta has slightly different styling than the main site so this may fail to serve the point I wanted to make.

this is some link
this is some link (code tags inside square brackets)
this is some link (italic)
this is some link (bold)

Again with the first example being easiest to type, but I will agree the styling fails to significantly distinguish short links, the dark blue and black are not easy to tell apart on the main site -- I suspect this is the main reason people feel they should decorate their links with other methods.
to be continued
more to come (sorry had to cut short)

good man! feel free to help flesh out this post too.

Aldrik won't like the third one :(

I would say menu options should be **Menu** → **Submenu** → **Menu item**, whereas non-menu UI elements are *Render Engine* or *Remove Doubles*.

whatever we settle on, it's something all of us should be doing else there's too much disparate styles

@WChargin Fear not, I am rather amused. ;)
@zeffii The available markup already has documented semantics that apply, e.g if someone wants to emphasize something they should use the ,  or the markdown equivalents.
There's also the issue of enforcement. Looking about it seem that users shouldn't be badgered about markup.

hey, if it's just me being fussy about this nothing's going to change,

@Aldrik, actually, if you read the accepted answer, you would see that these are seen as being odd. It would be best if our site adopted a conventional style of markdown instead of everyone doing what they felt like or what external sources say they should be used for. Sometimes it looks messy and I agree with the answer on that question that these should often be edited when possible. Menu options should be something like Object > etc. This isn't a large site (yet) like SO so these things get noticed and aren't as minor as some might think.

Indeed, in that case it's odd because of the incorrect usage. The web standards aren't just some other site, what they decide upon is how it implemented in all web browser, robots/search-engines and user accessibility tools, etc. If you don't like the styling, that's a different issue. It's my understanding that will be changeable once we're out of beta.

Looks good. For menus I would recommend going with Menu Item > Submenu Item or Menu Item > Submenu Item. I prefer using italics, but it depends on what the rest of you guys think.

Also, when formatting shortcuts, is it necessary to use a '+' in between? The styling already separates the two.

perhaps what we could do is pick issues, write about them as answers and people can discuss them seperately -- else this comment section gets long and it doesn't allow much formatting anyway.

@Aldrik the main issue we have is that SE renders these badly, line consistency is lost and pipes with  is ugly.. some more issues are brought up on the meta.so post I think.

@CharlesL okay, but why no right arrow →? it looks much cleaner from my point of view.

@WChargin, ah, I guess that works as well. It's a little more difficult for users to write that in every time they want to put in a menu. Beginner users will have a hard time finding out how to do that.

@WChargin not everyone knows that, but everyone can type braces, it's simple and gets the point across.

Regarding the last revision, I don't think the space(d) ones should count as separate options.

Excellent post, I think there needs to be a consistent style-guide. These should be as clear as possible so here are my suggestions:
Menu Items

Add > Mesh > Cube is very easy to type, it gets the point across and provides a logical flow of operations as the brackets hint that each item flows into the other as opposed to listing and separating items with pipes. Italicizing these also separates it from the rest of the content and that is enough.
For menu items that have entries in the manual, these can be linked in if you deem it necessary.
Example: Add > Mesh > Cube.

Shortcuts

There should only be one word on each button so either of these can be used interchangeably.
Example: CtrlShiftM and Ctrl + Shift + M are perfectly fine as long as they are chained together in the correct order.

Links

The default and normal use of links is fine so this is ok.
For links to the api, it is ok to use backticks (as these are code).
Example: bpy.context.region_data

Images

There is already an entire post dedicated to ways images can be optimized. See How can I optimize images and screenshots that I embed in my post? For gifs see How to post gifs on this site?.

Other

I agree that we should use back-ticks sparingly and only for code, filenames, extensions, parameters/arguments and links to the api for functions. Don't use this for mere highlighting purposes.
Using  for menu items not only makes the line height inconsistent for the post but it also makes the words smaller than they need to be. Here is another good reason why this shouldn't be practiced and another meta discussion on this.

I will further update this answer as you update your question.

In the case of Ctrl Shift M and Ctrl+Shift+M. IMHO I think it's better to use the + version. To distinguish it from things like E Z 3 Where keys are pressed in order while the + version is for keys that need to be pressed at the same time.

What about using something similar to the wiki, especially for mouse actions? (I've had to explain what 'MMB' or 'RMB' etc. stand for occasionally).
For example:
Shift +  (Shift + ![MMB][MMB])
AltRMB  (AltRMB ![RMB][RMB])
Alt RMB (Alt![RMB][RMB] RMB)
CtrlShift (CtrlShift![MW][MW])
Ctrl  (Ctrl ![LMB][LMB])
⌘ Cmd⌥ OptQ (⌘ Cmd⌥ OptQ)
⎈ Ctrl⎇ Alt↹ Tab (⎈ Ctrl⎇ Alt↹ Tab)
⇧ ShiftD (⇧ ShiftD)
Since this is kind of a pain to type out, I'm thinking of modifying the kbd script to do this automatically. I have modified the kbd script to do this automatically now.

@David does this work: ⎈ ⎇ ?

I think the short-name of the mousebutton should always be added, otherwise it is hard to distinguish between MMB and MW. I know that the tooltips show the full name of the MB, but relying on tooltips is IMHO a PITA.

@OcasoProtal Good point. Do you think the order matters? e.g. MMB ![icon], or ![icon] MMB? I originally was thinking the first way, but now that I think about it, the second way would be more consistent with the modifier key formatting.

Looking at the modifers I would also prefer the second way.

The Unicode characters you have for "Ctrl" and "Alt" are not displaying in Firefox 31 on vista

@David Works fine for me here, FF 31 Archlinux. Maybe a font issue?

@David Does it work if I use an html decimal entity instead of pasting the character itself? See edit (It seems they don't work in comments).

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


text:
What would be wrong with tutorials as long as they describe a reusable workflow?
First bullet point in What questions should be definitely off-topic? is :

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

although I strongly agree with all other points, this one causes me headache. As a beginner I guess that I would most benefit from tutorial-style Q/A.
Would this question What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron? considered as asking for a tutorial and therefore be off-topic?
What would be the benefit for beginners if typical beginners questions are banned as off-topic?

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.

Generally speaking, tutorial requests are broad and show a lack of effort on the asker's behalf. The site would probably become flooded with these kinds of requests if we were to accept them.
I would describe What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron? as a question rather than a tutorial request. It addresses a specific problem and has a short, definitive answer.

As an example from another site, Ask Ubuntu, sometimes we have simple questions that cover wide areas and have long answers:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/62001/am-i-using-unity-or-unity-2d/
https://askubuntu.com/questions/48535/how-to-customize-live-ubuntu-cd
https://askubuntu.com/questions/162075/my-computer-boots-to-a-black-screen-what-options-do-i-have-to-fix-it

These are not similar to tutorials in their scope, but some may appear so in their length or in that they may have different answers for the same question (as in more than one way to do a single action).
Such questions are not off-topic to the site in question, they are just a a bit atypical in nature. They should not be discouraged, because the point is ultimately to become a place where people can swiftly get concise answers to their questions.
Of course, we would not allow questions asking things like:

"How do I do xyz for my homework?" (We don't do homework for people, though we can assist with specific issues encountered in the process (depends on the situation presented)).
"How do I model a star ship?" (What star ship?)
"How do I make a sky dome?" (Overly broad; because a sky dome can be done in different ways).

Questions similar to those above might work though.
For example:

"How do I create a transparent sky dome with opaque clouds?" (There are only so many ways to skin a cat).
"How do I create a laser beam for my starship?" (The question could be answered with a method that works in cycles, and another that works in Blender internal. In fact these could be included in one answer).

See these questions as examples.

How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?
What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron?

They are small and concise and can quickly be answered with a few images and a couple lines of text. What the post above clearly says should be off-topic is requests for tutorials or what we in the Blender community know to merit an actual full length tutorial.
For eg. How do I model a car in Blender?
This is not an ideal question for several reasons as it can be done many different ways and it wouldn't be ideal if one were to attempt to fully answer it and not just give tips and pointers. There would be several things to consider too such as best practices etc.
So in short, you can ask for help on small matters, how to quickly model folds in cloth etc, just not full blown things as asking how to rig, model or animate an entire character or object.
Update: Regarding questions and answers as tutorials

I think tutorials, and the culture of tutorials for everything, has lowered the bar for a lot of people, and I have mixed feelings about whether that is good or not. But at the moment there are so many tutorials, they start to duplicate effort. And at present most non text based tutorials aren't searchable without a transcript, and if you have timestamped-transcript you are in luck.
As seasoned users how often do we look for information only to find that the bit we wanted to know was a paragraph or word or a 10 second bit of video of a tutorial. Often we are only looking for the missing information that allows us to investigate further on our own.
For newcomers with no 3d experience it helps to have a narrative, initially. But this need diminishes proportionally to the amount of self-directed effort put into learning Blender (searching and reading the docs, the wiki, the various tutorials sites) until newcomers become intermediate and start to push away the hand holding of tutorials. And they too will start to favour narrow questions and answers.
Newcomers with prior 3d experience tend to be more exact with searches and questions, and generally progress to intermediate or advanced rather fast because they already have the vocabulary or have learned how to learn.


text:
Should repeated downvotes without cause be treated as bullying?
Today we had repeated downvotes on one anwer to this question How to lock object face a certain distance away from another object face?
Do we have a way to avoid this?
If I remember right this: The NEW new "Be Nice" Policy ("Code of Conduct") — Updated with your feedback appeared on Blender.SE in the 'Hot Meta Posts' box. Should users link to this posts and flag the post when this pattern appears again?.

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/473/599 BTW, that proposal has been replaced by this one: http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/240839/238438

I believe they should. Unfortunately, we have no way to see if they were without cause. In the case brought up here JuhaW's answer was inadequate for the question, but the OP's receiving it acted unfairly. Rather than down-voting (thanks for the glares guys, it wasn't me) constructive comments should be added to alert that the answer or comment didn't reach criteria.

Note that the same user can't downvote repeatedly. Multiple downvotes means that multiple people all thought that the post was downvote worthy.

I'm not sure where all the concern over this is coming from all of a sudden, as we've had lots of posts with downvotes before.. And this is nothing compared to big sites like SO.

Voting (even downvoting) is a core part of the site, and is part of what makes SE what it is. Voting is important to separate the useful answers from the others.
What makes a "good", useful answer?
This is obviously pretty subjective, and depends a lot on the type of question, context, and apparent skill level of the OP.
Users will vote based on their own opinions.
Obviously it's important that the answer has a explanation/solution which answers the OP's question, but aside from that, IMO it's also important that the answer communicates the solution (and how to implement it) effectively, especially if the OP is new.
A really nice answer might include instructions on how to do the various steps required, and perhaps an explanation of why it works (including this will help get upvotes too, as it gives users a good indication that the solution actually works, without having to test it themselves).
These aren't supposed to be requirements or anything, just my own opinions of how a ideal answer might look.

When is it reasonable to downvote?
From the help center:

Above all, be honest. If you see misinformation, vote it down. Add
comments indicating what, specifically, is wrong. Provide better
answers of your own. Last but not least, edit and improve the existing
questions and answers! By doing these things, you are helping keep
Stack Exchange a great place to share knowledge of our craft.

And:

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

Answers which don't satisfactorily answer or communicate an answer to the question (in some users opinion) will most likely be downvoted. This isn't meant to be some sort of rude insult, but an  impersonal indication that your answer could be improved.
Simply put, don't take downvotes personally.

Indeed, downvotes should absolutely never be used for insulting/being rude to a user.
If you see any rude/insulting comments, flag them.
However, in the case of the post linked in the question, I don't see any evidence of this being the case.
Also remember that a single user cannot downvote a post multiple times, so even if a malicious user downvoted a post without good reason, it wouldn't amount to much. (a downvote is -2, compared to an upvote which is +10).

For more, meta.se has loads of content on this (predictably ;))
Writing detailed answers is time consuming. Keep it friendly, and don't take the votes too seriously

Full disclosure: I was one of the downvoters on the post in question. I downvoted because I felt that the answer did not clearly explain how or why their answer worked.
I didn't write a comment, which was a failing on my part. I'll try to be more prompt with this in the future.
I've since retracted my vote, as the post was later edited to include more detail.

I disagree with your assumption that repeated down votes is bullying. Down voting is SE's way to filter content and bring the best answers up to the main view. There is no way that one person can down vote a answer multiple times. So I do not see how you can be calling it "bullying." If I or any other regular user wrote a bad answer, and it got down voted surely you would not call that bullying. As I said here

For a new user add a comment explaining what is wrong with their answer.

Some how thinking that down voting posts is bad goes against the very heart of SE and why this site works so well.
Why is voting important
Don't misunderstand me, I did not down vote the answer in question. Nor do I have a vendetta against any of the users mentioned. I am simply trying to state that we can not take away down votes and have SE function as it is meant to.

To add my two cents, there has been a lot of traffic (more than the usual) around here lately so naturally, there will also be an increase in question views and votes.

I've noticed a lot of new traffic, too, and I'm concerned that "noobs" misunderstand the meaning of the downvote and take it as an insult, rather than a critique. Unrelated to the post in question, I have to admit, it's pretty frustrating when I've written what I believe to be a thorough, helpful answer, and I get a downvote with no comment. I don't mind the downvote so much as I mind not knowing how to improve.

@Matt very good point, and well said. I'm sure I will link to your comment at some point in the future.

Someone can go into your profile and down vote all your answers for no reason.

@LetTheWritersWrite While someone "can" go and rage DV all my posts, the votes would get reversed. SE can detect such things and all the votes would get changed by the next UTC 0000. But aside from all that, this was talking about mutipal vote on one post, not multiple vote from one person on many posts. That is a very big difference.

Someone dv three of my answers. It was obvious it was out of a grudge because they all happened back to back and yet SE wasn't smart enough to detect it.

Well, there are many sites that are out-right-haywire-bonkers and for things to work well a site like this; it would have to be like an oasis away from the rest of the attitude seen elsewhere.
Otherwise it's contributing to the rest.  Everything is cumulative even if it's just a small thing like a down-vote.
(i) Someone may have just been called names and ridiculed by half a dozen people on game-dev.net.  People who never even bother to contribute at all, they just log in and cause trouble.
(ii) So this stressed out person now heads over to BA.org and see one of the moderators is again calling someone names and generally being rude to people and that many other people are also imitating this behavior so that most of the site is a verbal war-zone.
(iii) Next the person heads over here and sees multiple downvotes to an answer that he intended to be helpful but didn't realize that it fell short of help and actually look more like a hint.
I think a simple comment is far more helpful and since Up-votes leave incomplete answers at the bottom regardless.  Downvote's serve little functional benefit.
To sum up:
A: I feel DV's add to other problems people may encounter elsewhere and can easily be misinterpreted even if people are not supposed to take things personally.
A person can only take so much trouble online or at work;  Staying 100% stress-free is difficult even for the best of us.  Why should we add to that?
B: Up-votes filter the answers anyways so down-votes have no functional use.
A downside to downvotes-> It's too easy for down-votes to be misused as a substitute for rude gestures.
People often like to follow the crowd.
If there is down-voting taking place, then other people will follow along because they believe that this is the appropriate way to behave but do not understand WHY it is being used so they misuse it based on inexperience and likely grouchiness.
Just look at how many inexperienced people refer to themselves as 'Noobs', they are imitating each other.
To me it seems best to not give the crowds any behavior ideas that will catch on and be used in a context that we never intended.
We can certainly influence the masses of people into making down-voting a habitual behavior but we cannot control when and why they decide to down-vote,

Regarding point B, I don't agree. I think of votes with three possibilities: 1. upvote if the post is complete, understandable, answers question (if it's an answer). 2. don't vote if the post is incomplete or is somewhat unclear, but otherwise is promising (i.e. clearly had some effort put into it) 3. downvote if the post is incorrect or hard to parse, and has no apparent effort put into it. They also give users a way to reduce score on highly upvoted posts, that may not deserve it (in the user's opinion).

I was going to mention that downvotes can be used to keep a confusing or misleading post at zero.  I forgot.

Point B was a response to something David said about down-votes bringing bad answers to the bottom of the stack.  Upvotes do this anyways so down-votes are nor necessary for this to work.


text:
Should we have a few questions on resources for use with Blender?
I suggest that we allow one question on each of the following resource types (list is incomplete) to create a list of resources:
As in this post Blender resources for architects?
The questions should be marked as community wiki.

Addons
Background Images
Blueprints
External Tools
HDR environment maps
Materials Any good free materials libraries online?
Models
Sounds
Special Interest (Blender resources for architects?)
Themes
Textures

If these questions would be tagged as resource they could be easily found. I'm aware that we already have this post Beginner's Reference where we collect some resources but it isn't available in the main site and unlikely to be found by many users.
If we decide that this types of borderline post are useful, how could we avoid that users close the question as off-topic?

Once we decide how this will work, iKlsR or some other mod can probably keep the post open (and we can direct close voters to the discussion).

Related: Are questions about external tutorial/resources on topic?

@gandalf3 You also marked this as accepted but voted to close http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/13494/are-there-some-free-sound-resources-for-use-in-blender . btw I wasn't able to find http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5593/any-good-free-materials-libraries-online therefore an extra tag wold be nice.

I close voted because it wasn't CW.

I think you'd be much better off having a single question on resources, and using an answer per type. You could even use the list you made in your question as an index in the question itself, such as what I did for the Mandarin Chinese Resources question.

I am one for this method as well.

This sounds good to me, as long as we decide what these should be beforehand.
We've already had a good number of these kinds of questions:

Resource for Blender addons?
non-video blender resources?
Blender resources for architects?
Any good free materials libraries online?
Where are some places to get reference images for modeling?

I'm not quite sure about how to pick the topics though. Your list seems fine to me, but IMO we should have some defined way to decide when a topic deserves a canonical post.
For the GPU post, we decided it deserved one because we were getting lots of questions asking about enabling GPU rendering.
However we don't seem to get many users asking about resources (which is good, because they wouldn't be considered good, on-topic questions), but it makes it hard to say which topics would be the most useful.

what do you think about the extra 'resources' tag?

@stacker It sounds useful to me, but I'm hoping some other users will see this and weigh in before we do anything. (only 10 views so far :/)

@gandalf3 I would add it now and see if anyone uses/misuses it, and based on that, I would keep it or remove it.

I submit for consideration two proposals for the list of Blender resources. First, besides being tagged as resource, they should also have a difficulty tag, new to blender, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Second, include published tutorial works, including Blenderart magazine, and the printed on using Blender by Ben Simonds, John Blain, Tony Mullen, Roland Hess, and any others.


text:
When should a question or answer marked as community wiki?
What is the purpose of the community wiki flag, and is the criteria on marking a question as CW different to an answer?
Searching all Wiki answers shows that some have one edited answer others have multiple answers.
Is both OK or should we define a rule?

Community wiki questions don't accrue rep and have a lower full editing reputation threshold. Questions should be manually converted to community wiki when they are marginal fits or 'list of X' questions that contain enough value to avoid deletion. This affects the question and all answers.

The main reason for CW is that these questions/answers can be contributed to by anyone, posts should be made community wiki when there aren't any definitive answers and people are just sharing opinions and not hard facts or where someone sees that more information can be added.
CW can also be triggered by the system if a user makes several edits to their post in a short period.


text:
Revoking false close votes from multiple users
I recently viewed a question that I initially though was a duplicate of another question, so, I voted to close it as such. Anyway, I asked for clarification just in case it wasn't a duplicate. After clarification from OP and a subsequent edit, I realized that it wasn't a duplicate and I revoked my close vote.
The problem is, someone had already seconded my close vote. Not knowing that a clarification and an edit from OP showed that the question is not a duplicate, that someone never revoked one's vote. What should we do in this case? Can we somehow notify the person who voted to reconsider his decision? Was that someone already notified but decided to leave the vote as is?
The question in question.

When you say that someone else has also voted to close the question as a duplicate do you mean that it still showed the "close (2)" under the question? Or was the question already closed? In the latter case you can notify anyone that has interacted with a post with an "@" in front of their username in a comment. It autocompletes for people that wrote a comment, but it doesn't autocomplete for editors, close voters, mods that added a post notice, the OP, ... - but it still works (you just have to be careful about writing the correct username).

@Secespitus The question wasn't closed, but there were two votes to close it, mine and another's. I do not know who the other voter is, so I can't notify him.

First off no, there are no notifications around casting a close vote/flag.
Now to the closing mechanics.
The only thing you can do is retract your CV (close vote). When a post has at least one CV it goes to the close votes review. There users either vote to close it (add more votes), or leave open (jump starts the aging process).
All CVs automatically age away on their own. So if this question does not get another four CVs in a week, I think I remembering that correctly, then that one vote will disappear.
If that someone else who also voted to close it comes back to that post they too can retract their vote.
However that is unlikely for a few reasons, most prominently there is no reason to go back to that post (the only place to retract that vote). There is no notification, mentions or status of your CVs. You just click the button, then if you do not go back to that post you forget about it.

Now do not worry, there is still one other thing you can do (although not really needed for something like this), bring it to the mods attention. We can kill CVs, or if it gets that far reopen the question (any 3k user can vote to reopen a post, we can do it instantly). So if I had the link hint hint I could clear all this up for you right now.

Alright, thanks. I added the question in question to the question. That was a lot of questions in a single sentence.

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


text:
Would prepared statements and questions and requests be useful?
I like this site.
All of this may be wishful thinking.
Prepared statements are often more neutral and more accepted.
I have noticed some questions being put on hold for other new members.  I understand the desire for high signal to noise ratio.  Some new members, for valid reasons, are being put on hold. In the current manner, I could understand a new member feeling quite alienated. I find the yellow hold box a bit frigid.  I get a penalty impression from it.
I think that prepared statement could be more welcoming.
I know stack already has prepared statements and actions.
I understand questions may be edited.
Sometimes I think it might be useful for users to click on UI elements or
or have some suggested copy and paste or insert items or icons.
You can pick better wording. Delete or Add items.  This is just to have some standard comments for standard situations.

I rate myself beginner, intermediate, advanced on this topic. Possible icon 3 bar position.
I rate myself beginner, intermediate, advanced on Blender in general
Please feel free to rephrase my question if that would expedite the answer process.
Please feel free to point me to a tutorial for a very general question.
I think I need a general tutorial.
I am a newbie, and I am really making an effort, so be nice to me.  Or an Icon.

I think some newbies on Blender with general multiple topic questions could be more careful with their question. Everyone can be more careful.  I wonder if that does some harm. I do welcome newbies.  Most newbies can have a clear question.
All optional. Many for comment section only.  Not answer section.

Could you provide a blender file?
We suggest you search this site again. This question occurs frequently. Remember to vote a match up if it helps you.
We understand your are a newbie, we can help.
We have a tutorial to suggest to you on the general topic.
This is not a beginner video tutorial site. We do not promote specific video sites.  Please see a video tutorial or other tutorial information of your choice and come back with specific a question.  We welcome your specific question.
Please try to focus primarily on one topic. You will get more focused help.
Please provide a screen image.  Click this link for more detail.
Please be more clear and provide more detail
The question is unclear so please rewrite.  You get more attention with a new question which is clear.

Removing some potential discomfort for those questions. Suggestions might be more neutral and kindly worded by consensus.

You did not answer the question posed
Blender does not offer that feature.  We have an alternative suggestion for you to consider.
If we knew the larger technical picture of what you are doing we may be able to give alternative suggestions.
This is not a direct answer to your question but we believe this information will be helpful.

I would be okay with clicking on 3 check boxes before submitting a question.

I searched this site and could not find a great match
I will check back within 24 hours to see if I have an answer
I will show interest in my question by accepting an answer within 72 hours, or clicking the "I am still waiting for my perfect answer" button.

I understand Stack has some deletion policy.

As far as the search idea goes, stackexchange already searches based on the title of the new question. As far as the pre-written responses go, IMO it's better to write response which are specific to each question, perhaps explaining why it's off topic or where else they can look for answers. SE already has a few pre-written close reasons (which can be customized), see http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/296/599.


text:
Can someone clean up these comments?
Not enough reputation to flag them myself out at least don't see that option.
After typing out "win-win for you print it out and send it to your mom so she can put it in her fridge and marvel at the fine man you turned into" I remembered it's a waste of time taking trolls' bait.
Can someone please remove the exchange between batfinger and myself as it adds no  value to the q&a What's the easiest way to draw this complex plane in Blender?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I removed the comments. No hard feelings I hope. I truly expect batFINGER was trying to help, and not being a troll. Thing is some of us kind of get bothered (myself included) when someone says "I searched everywhere" or "spent days looking for this" etc.
I'm not making excuses for that first comment, it was out of place.
You need 15 reputation (which you now have) to flag. Then it is as simple as clicking the red flag icon on the comment.
flag a comment

Thank you. It's really frustrating trying to figure out how to do something simple in a new program that you've done many times in others. I'm grateful to people who volunteer their time and I try to do that myself when I can. When people use terms like that they know what they're asking is simple or basic but for whatever reason they're stuck and they need help. At one point we're all new at something or just have a block and need help. That's what I try to keep in mind when I read things like that.

You wrote [I'm not making excuses for that first comment, it was out of place].  It seems like you are making excuses when I read the [bothered] word.

@atomicbezierslinger Being bothered and showing it (e.g. by being rude) are two different things. This is further complicated by the ability of different people to have wildly different interpretations of what counts as "being rude". Linking to a search engine is one of those things which may very easily to seem like a tactful reminder to one person, and a blatant passive aggressive troll to another.

@gandalf3 I read what you wrote twice.  It did not impact me in any way because I do not see the relevance of what you wrote.  Perhaps you can explain it better or we can leave it in its current state.

@atomicbezierslinger I meant to show how stating "some of us kind of get bothered" isn't excusing rude behavior (with an addendum to the effect that "rude behavior" is not well defined).

@gandalf3 I hope what you wrote is useful for someone.  My original comment stands.  Perhaps David can respond.  Are you the appointed spokesman for David?


text:
Should information on how to use <kbd> be taught to new users?
I have noticed that many edits by moderators are to change keystrokes like CTRL + A to the proper Ctrl+A format.
Should information on how to properly use key command formatting be included i.e. on the tour page, or even when trying to post your first question?
I know it took me a very long time to figure out how to correctly format key commands, and I think it would take a lot of load off of the moderators if we could educate new users right from the get go.

Using kbd is optional even tho it's nicer to read. Generally speaking, edits should be substantial as opposed to small visual changes. See http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/241/micro-editing-does-everything-need-to-be-perfect. There is a small header above the editing area with helpful tooltips and a help panel. A one minute glance at the help center should get anyone up to scratch with se if they are interested.

From personal experience, I could not find out how to properly format key commands, and every single time I posted a question or answer, it would be edited and the  tags inserted in the correct places, even if no other edits were made. This was both frustrating, and made me less likely to post anything that required you to press a button. I also could not locate the information on the web for several weeks.

The most important thing is we get clear & helpful answers, having to know too many details (and being an expert on SE markup) before you begin can also be off-putting.
SHortcuts formatted as Ctrl+C are clear, so any answers without <kbd> markup are still easily understandable.
So prefer not to be picky about this matter, popular answers from less experienced editors will likely be edited to improve the formatting later on anyway.

Good points. Between this and what @iKlsR said, I think that I understand why we shouldn't do this.

I'm inclined to think no.
Most users probably come here just to ask a quick question, and might not ever really plan on coming back regularly when they first join. There are enough active users here to edit and add <kbd> formatting to  keyboard shortcuts.
For new users who want to learn/regularly be active, they will figure it out. This information is readily available in the help pages, which are linked in the Ask a question page:

Even if such places are left undiscovered, if active users edit keyboard shortcuts to add kbd formating, a curious user only needs to click edit to see the raw markdown and discover how it was accomplished.
And if all else fails, they can always ask ;)
TL;DR: We shouldn't force irrelevant and unneeded knowledge users don't want or necessarily need to know before they can use the site. Users who do want to know will find out easily enough on their own.

More excellent points! However, could the  tag be included on the menu to the right, as how to write key commands? It wouldn't really clutter it, and it would make things a lot easier to figure out. Still, I get all of you guy's points, and maybe it is better just to let them figure it out themselves. It was extremely frustrating on my part, I know that . . .

I couldn't agree more, but that's a feature request for stackexchange. Feel free to ask on the global meta ;). BTW, in case you haven't already found it, iKlsR, CoDEmanX, and I wrote a userscript a while ago which adds a kbd button to the toolbar.

Sweet! That will save a lot of typing!

I put it on the global meta http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/244032/should-how-to-use-kbd-tags-be-included-in-the-how-to-format-list should I delete this question?

@NoviceInDisguiseGraphics No need to, it's relevant here.

Big difference between forcing it on people and offering the information. I agree that nagging is bad. Educating first time posters regarding the essentials in an entertaining way however is good. I personally miss a   and  tag. "If they're interested, they will find it" is definitely not what I perceive as 'offering information' though

@Haunt_House <kbd> is part of html, I doubt SE wants to add custom tags :P No reason we can't put RMB MMB and LMB in <kbd> tags, see for example how the <kbd> button script does it.

@gandalf3 You can persuade almost anyone if you are persistent and elegant and dedicated. I just have more relevant fights to do. I'd still like a cute little mouse with a highlighted button though.

@Haunt_House That's what the kbd script inserts (using an image), see this answer for e.g.


text:
Minor typos found on blend-exchange form
Sorry if I could seem nitpicking (I could probably be), but just noted that the submission form has some minor typos in a couple of texts/placeholders, just in case someone wish to correct those. Not that important, obviously, I guess no one ever noticed this before.

I need to dowload the blend for to help my queston :)

For to help sounds lich an an archaicism to me; not that it shouldn't be changed.

Don't worry about that, it shouldn't at all take long for @GiantCowFilms to fix it.

No, I'm quite glad you pointed this out. I am notorious for making typos.

@GiantCowFilms I know that other issue, too... :)

@X-27 that is not constructive. Please edit your comment.

@LetTheWritersWrite I actually liked that comment, but he can't edit the comment, anyway, that is possible only within 5 minutes...

Fixed!
All changes should now be visible on the site.
P.S.
If anyone feels like giving the copy on blend-exchange a good run down and making changes (there are awkward sentences as well as typos), the repo is available here. Changes can be made to files directly on github (no need to mess with git command line).


text:
Add blender ID as a login option for BSE
On the SE login page could we get a option to login with a Blender ID? kind of like in this picture:

There are other non-offical blender sites (graphicall, rightclickselect) that are already using the blender ID system for their logins.
It seems that BSE would be a great fit for it. SE already has the login with other sites option, and BSE is all about blender.
Now I know this is rather unlikely to happen, the login is shared across all SE sites, and BSE is the only place it would make sense. However I wanted to put the idea out there.

What are the actual benefits of being able to sign in with the blender ID as opposed to other logins?

@RayMairlot its blender's login, with ties through all blender services (and now in blender its self). Doesn't it seem that if there is a standard blender login a fully blender site should use it? As an aside, what are the benefits to login in with AOL?! as apposed to just creating a password for SE? Convenience through the community's already used sites.

No, I don't think there is a reason to add it if it doesn't actually do anything. Sites like blender.today use the blender ID so it can use my name and email address, add-ons use it so I can access textures on the blender cloud. My point is, they use the Blender ID because it adds functionality, not just for the sake of having another way of logging it. And no, I don't see the purpose of having all those other login methods, but that doesn't mean we should add another.


text:
New Site Design is Live
As you can see the new design just went live. Which means this site has been officially launched! Congratulations! Thank you for your valuable design feedback.
If you see any CSS/styling bugs, please start a new post and tag it with "design" and "bug".
Congrats on the launch and thank you for being an awesome community!

Sweet!  I just opened a question in a new tab and got a (very) nice suprise!  It's awesome!

Thanks to everyone, our amazing community and the community team for working with us. It's been a great 3 years and we're happy to finally be a permanent part of SE!

the meta looks like a black and white picture of the main site.. not outstanding, but better than default...

here's the first.

Yay! Now we get to find out if the rumors of swag are true

@gandalf3 The cake is not a lie.

Plot twist!  (now I have to actually get portal so I can understand what all this cake business is about..)

BTW, should meta have no polygon background for the footer? I'm not sure if thats by design or not.

@GiantCowFilms I'm seeing a polygon footer. Wonder if that's catching or a browser issue. Which browser/system are you using?

I can confirm it is absent on the latest version of Chrome on Windows 10

@KurtisBeavers tried Shift-F5, no results

@KurtisBeavers I can second or third the no polygon image in the meta's footer.

@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ https://i.sstatic.net/iTGV4.png

Ditto @NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ for me.

@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ should be fixed now.

@KurtisBeavers Yes indeed, looks good.

I still can't believe how super cool the new design of the site looks like. I'm proud to be a member of Blenderstack :).


text:
SE.com "All Sites" logo wrong
The All Sites page on stackexchange.com still has the wrong logo for our site.  The talk bubble color seems right, the logo just hasn't been updated yet.

Looks fine to me

http://shouldiblamecaching.com


text:
2019 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection

The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.

Blender is scheduled for an election next week, April 15th 2019.In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates.  This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation.  Participation is completely voluntary.
Here's how it'll work:

Until the nomination phase, (so, until April 15th 2019 at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.
We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.
If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of [text](link), as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.
This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at currently.
At the start of the nomination phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election.
Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, typically containing 10 questions in total.
This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

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

Being the first public announcement about this election I want to say that the current three of us mods are all well and staying on as mods. The site has grown ever so much and we just need the extra help.

Great to hear you are all well. Once voted in are you a moderator for life?

@batFINGER give or take, just be active and want the responsibility.

If elected moderator, how much of a priority would you make it to regularly do reviews, to help solve the problem we currently have where there are several dozen posts in the close vote review queue at any given time?

How much time can you dedicate to moderation tasks?

Rep, badges, flags, candidate score and the like are all measures of your familiarity with BSE. How familiar do you consider yourself with the SE system?

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

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

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

How familiar are you with blender (2.8 and prior)?

Which Blender Open Movie is/was your favorite, and why?

I think we should condense these type of questions into one say rapid-fire type that could be attached at the end to get a quick summary of the candidate.


text:
2022: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

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

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we say goodbye to 2022 (and where did January go, right?) and dive head first into 2023, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Blender over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

All comments on a post moved to chat
27
0

Answer flags handled
1,908
199

Answers flagged
51
2,056

Comment flags handled
157
127

Comments deleted⁷
1,220
4,416

Comments flagged
1
283

Comments undeleted
12
0

Posts bumped
0
8,259

Posts deleted⁶
1,439
6,847

Posts locked
1
51

Posts undeleted
18
244

Posts unlocked
0
1

Question flags handled⁵
552
229

Questions closed
2,963
144

Questions flagged⁵
127
673

Questions migrated
8
0

Questions protected
2
36

Questions reopened
205
6

Revisions redacted
2
0

Tag synonyms created
5
0

Tag synonyms proposed
4
5

Tags merged
7
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Close votes" queue
2,590
2,290

Tasks reviewed⁴: "First answers" queue
341
2,301

Tasks reviewed⁴: "First questions" queue
1,209
7,526

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Late answers" queue
295
893

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Low quality posts" queue
246
852

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Reopen votes" queue
246
207

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Suggested edits" queue
361
1,245

Users contacted
6
0

Users destroyed³
19
0

Users suspended²
2
24

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). Community can handle these flags by at least one person voting to close a question that has a close flag.
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? We posted a similar report here last year: 2021: 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 everyone a happy 2023! ^_^


text:
Community Ads for 2021
September update: Community Ads are now live network-wide. Since there were no ad proposal submissions on this site, none will be displayed — go to the main post on MSE for a list of the ads that are being displayed. And stay tuned for 2022's edition for the next opportunity to submit more ad proposals!

JUNE NOTE: This post has now been locked and new submissions are not being accepted. Ad submissions are now undergoing review by the Community Team, and this question will be updated once the ads are live.

We're almost halfway through 2021, and in case you missed it, Community Promotion Ads are gonna be a bit different this time! TL;DR: submit and vote for ad proposals before August 2nd!
What are Community Ads?
Community Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, or on other sites in the network. They can show up in the right sidebar, or in banners in question pages. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be considered by the Community Management Team to be displayed.
Why do we have Community Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. The goal of this initiative is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join. You may want to promote external resources, or Meta guidance for newcomers, for instance.
This initiative has an added goal of providing your community with an opportunity to showcase exemplary questions from your main site, as well as frequently-linked-to guides from your Meta site. While the latter makes sense to be shown solely on this site, the former can be shown all across the network. These should avoid hot button topics, and instead focus more on evergreen questions that show what your community’s all about.
Why do we reset the ads?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. Historically, we've reset the ads every year — since this is the first run of a new format, we'll run the ads collected in this post through the end of 2021 and reassess the rotation cycle then.
The community ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a previous exposure.
Are there restrictions to the ads I can post?
All proposed ads need to abide by our Code of Conduct. Our ad creative guidelines also generally apply (note that the first 2 bullet points on the “Tracking” section do not apply, and a lot of the guidelines surrounding claims, comparisons, proof, etc., while still applicable, may not be particularly relevant). Finally, ads can not be promoting products nor soliciting programmer time or resources for: knowledge sharing or collaboration tools for technologists, or for sites where ad buyers are primarily targeting technologists.
How does it work?
The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored:

Each answer must relate to a single ad submission. Please do not post multiple ad submissions in the same answer.

All answers must be in one of the below formats:

If you have an image for the ad you want to display on this site (must be the case for ads to external sources):

[![Image name. Example: "community_ad_name_300x250"][1]][2]

  [1]: https://image-url
  [2]: https://clickthrough-url

If you want to create an ad for a question from your main or meta site, to be advertised on this or other sites in the network (staff will generate a frame for the ad with this site's theme, for brand consistency):

Question title
Question URL
Ad size (right sidebar or banner ads)
Site(s) to be displayed in. Can be:
  - "self" for ads to be displayed on this site
  - "all" for ads to be displayed all over the network
  - a specific subset of sites

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.

Image requirements

The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels for right sidebar ads or 728 x 90 pixels for banner ads. Images can be double that if high DPI.
Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
Must be GIF, PNG, or JPG
No animated GIFs
Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Selection process
This post will remain open for ad submissions and voting until August 2nd. At that point, the question will be closed/locked, and no more ad submissions will be accepted. For ad submissions to be considered for selection by the Community Management Team, they must have a minimum score of 6 at the time the post was closed/locked for submissions. Given this is the first run with this new format, we may adjust the score threshold to be a bit lower if we see ads struggling to get to it (especially if the ads are not getting downvotes) by the time submissions and voting are closed.
Reporting statistics
Once this cycle is over, at the end of 2021, the Community Management Team will provide you with reporting statistics, as described in the "reporting" section of this post.

Feel free to use the question's comment section to ask for any clarifications.


text:
2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

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

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we welcome 2021, and in keeping with tradition, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Blender over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
2
6

Users destroyed³
2
0

Users deleted
4
0

Users contacted
2
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
490
1,837

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
354
503

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
544
2,937

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
241
1,654

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
4,956
8,270

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
2,058
1,242

Tags merged
21
0

Tag synonyms proposed
23
4

Tag synonyms created
19
0

Tag highlight language set
1
0

Questions reopened
211
11

Questions protected
1
58

Questions migrated
12
0

Questions flagged⁵
4
679

Questions closed
3,644
442

Question flags handled⁵
446
237

Posts undeleted
24
268

Posts locked
0
49

Posts deleted⁶
1,989
8,121

Posts bumped
0
8,576

Comments undeleted
4
0

Comments flagged
19
230

Comments deleted⁷
988
6,101

Comment flags handled
198
51

Answers flagged
538
3,323

Answer flags handled
3,369
491

All comments on a post moved to chat
31
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? We posted a similar report here last year: 2019: 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

A big thank you to Shog9 for writing the queries and script to facilitate fetching and posting this data to all the sites in the network, and to Brian for the subsequent work making the whole thing more user friendly.
Wishing everyone a happy 2021!