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A meta dissertation on Conduct with new users
I came across this post yesterday and it bothered me enough to bring this to meta.

First take a look at how the question looked originally. Granted it was a lousy question. There were many problems with it: useless title, unclear, and multiple questions.
moonboots pointed out that is was unclear, and suggested more pictures.
Ray Mairlot pointed out that we only want one question per post.
Then it got DVed (not too surprising).
When the actions taken on this post are listed out and looked at it seams perfectly normal, but yet this user deleted his or her account just hours after creating it and posting their first question (and they will likely never see the answer).
Why did this happen? How can we do better?
When I read that question I saw a brand new blender user who knew nearly nothing. They did not need their question answered, they needed to know enough to know why they should not even need to do that. I perceived that even though they had a numbered list, there two questions really could be answered together.
Further at this level of beginnerness, how can we expect clear questions. It always is going to take some amount to decipher what the beginner really wants to do (XY problem).
Yes we need to keeps the site standards up. Yes we need clear questions. Yes there should only be one question per post. However, from the outcome of this question, what played out obviously was not quite the right approach.
Think back to when you were just starting out with blender, you probably felt overwhelmed, and daunted. (You might of gotten a mini dose of that when you opened up 2.8 for the first time.) At that stage none of us want "stupid elitist rules" pushed, WE JUST WANT AN ANSWER. That is the disconnect. It is between (some) new users and the curators of BSE.

I feel that some of us (myself included) have fallen into a warden roll. We know how this site works, and efficiently act on anything that falls outside of the target.

war·den
noun: warden; plural noun: wardens
a person responsible for the supervision of a particular place or thing or for ensuring that regulations associated with it are obeyed.

We need to step away from that mindset and become more of an usher.

ush·er
verb: usher

show or guide (someone) somewhere.
cause or mark the start of something new.

Definitions from google
I really like the second definition of usher "the start of something new." When we help a new user we are starting his or her journey with blender.
However when a new user gets frustrated and quits, we might be ending their journey.

In the example question if you know the answer, answer the question (even knowing the problems with the post). But also leave those comments saying that you should only have one question per post. Or editing to give it a better title.
A new user like this is new to blender and BSE. Answering the question teaches them blender, comments and interaction teaches them BSE. Ideally the two should not be exclusive, nor should one be more important then the other.
Saying all that I'm not at all suggesting that we abandon all our "rules" just because someone has a stupid shiny "New Contributor" indicator under their name. We expect new users to learn the ways of BSE the same as we had to learn the ways of the road to get a license.
Ever hover over that new contributor indicator? It says something like:

UserX is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.

OK so answering should be no different, but asking for clarification and commenting. There in lies some wisdom.

TLDR
Give them (new users) a tad bit of grace. Help them along, be a usher not a warden.

Just to clarify I am not finding fault with the actions of any of the users named here. Some of the answers seem to interpret this post as if I had an issue with Ray Mairlot's comment. That is simply not the case. Terseness does not equate with unfriendliness. This post was written because I really do not know what to do. There were no problems with the interactions between that new user. Yet that user "rage quit". That is the crux of my question. What can we do? What should we do?

While I don't disagree in general, that "new contributor indicator" was something that always surprised me. New users aren't the only ones which should get their questions carefully clarified and answered; every user wants that and has right to achieve. However amount of questions is that big that clarification etc is asked as a short line without certain politeness. That said I don't see any confusing points made in comments; rules exist and are popping up everywhere in the guide when asking

I revisited some of my first posts on blenderartists. They weren't very good and simply got no response. I would have appreciated any kind of negative response (helping me to improve it). In Duarte's answer he states that the power users/mods are tired of seeing the same problems over and over again. I presume they often (not always obv) make the choice of giving a warden response (your examples) or none. Forbid them from being a warden and you may get less responses. Can you adress this issue in your question/answer?

Ray Marlot's comment qualifies as an usher comment to me as well, btw. Users quitting doesn't have to do with being unwelcome. I try to keep my comments constructive and friendly, but don't post a lot as a result.

After finding out that questions with no engagement get deleted automatically after 9 days I no longer have a strong opinion on the matter.

@Leander On the meta! (the "help center" has a reputation for being kind of unhelpful in some places), however pretty much everything can be found on the meta.

Well, the user did not quit because of nothing. He expected something else from the site and when he didn't get it and realized the site doesn't work that way he gave up. Probably expected personalized help without any effort. The solution may be better communicate what the site is to filter these users from the start. Imho there is no solution to keep them on the site, because there are currently not enough people to consistently "help them along".

< sarcasm>
You must be new to this site.
While answering your own questions is perfectly valid and totally encouraged, please do so using the answer section.
< /sarcasm>
Nice post, joking aside I feel you have already self-answered this quite well in your own question.
At some point I started following a tip someone casually gave (I can't remember who but probably one of the mods or at least one of the veteran users here) which is Don't immediately downvote newcomer questions unless it is something egregious, rude, or spam.
It applies more generally to being more welcoming to new users. More often than not it looks aggressive and unhelpful, and at worse it just scares new users away and discourages improvement leading to abandoned questions.
As to the why, I guess we fall on the usual culprit: Frequent users just get tired of seeing the same mistakes and (understandable) beginner behavior, leading to frustration and more "aggressive" responses.
I don't really have a solution for that, I frequently struggle with it myself. The only half-measure I managed to develop is to not address those posts if I sense I'm in a bad mood, otherwise I'll probably lash out, downvote, post moody comments, or behave in a less conducive way.
I'll just wait it out, and "work in the shadows", by editing the question, linking to possible dupes, or pointing to the offended rules.
If behavior persists or the question isn't improved in a timely fashion, then "the system" will take care of it, or just fall through the cracks into oblivion.

What you are asking for is a double edged sword. You are basically asking to babysit new users, which takes more energy from the curators of the site. Not every curator has that or is willing to do that long-term. This might drive curators off the site (which is happening). You might get more new users reach their solution, but also drive other users off the site. The goal is to have database of well written questions relatable to everyone, it is not helpdesk service.
The beauty of how SE works is it regulates itself, there is no need to govern the user-base how to behave, because everything is voluntary and community driven. There will be curators more nice than others, some will do the ushering, some will warden. You get a Gauss distribution and the site will behave where the majority lies. Artificially changing their nature will make curators uncomfortable.
Asking RayMairlot to silence himself and not point out there are problems with the question is as problematic as asking the user himself to formulate a better question.
My policy is usually to be silent if I don't have much nice to add and I downvote the worst of the cases only. But is this really the correct action? There aren't enough ushers on this site to babysit these questions and if ignored these become dead weight to the site. Mostly unsolved, uncurated. Restrain in fear of the fragile user quitting just makes the site more polluted.
Solution: If the problem is you thought you could have answered that question, but the majority voted it was bad, was closed and the user quit and won't fix it, you can add that question to the site yourself. You can take the idea, improve it, make it applicable to larger audience and post that question and answer it. For the site it's not important which user adds it. By thinking about how you would word it so it's more useful to all users and if there isn't already question fulfilling the same task you might find out the question was rightfully closed or redirected to a dupe.
Generally if the feedback is polite and constructive, I have no problem of it being voiced. If there are snowflake users that will rather quit than have their problem solved and won't help the helpers with the question reciprocally, their problem is probably not that important to them. They need to be guided and nurtured to fit the site, and the reality is there are not enough good samaritans to do that. I believe these are mostly kids and when they grow up they will see past the negative experience they once had, will realize they will have different experience now and will return to the site prepared to fit much better, treating it less as a helpdesk entitled to getting solution for free.

I agree with everything you just said however, I would add that we should probably answer the question with an ending like "also, could you please ask only one question" etc. I know from personal experience that people on BSE can be unduly harsh. BSE is here for a reason-to help people with blender! And we don't want to act rudely if we want to be heard or payed attention to. We can't  expect everyone to be as far along in blender as us.


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Contest for an Image for our blender nation article
Bart, who runs blendernation.com, has agreed to run an article when our site graduates. All articles have a featured image; we need one.
So this is a call for artwork. The size for featured image on an article is 728px wide by 336px tall.
There is no set theme (as I have no idea what should go there.) :)
Bonus points for any image that portrays blender stack exchange in some way.
Go nuts and have fun, make anything awesome.
It could be of a scene from another world, or a black hole (@gandalf3). It could be an epic mech standing over a burning stack of blenders (@x-27). It could be a massive pile of the most expensive watches (@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ). Or even a radish, large cow, or a bottle of milk. (@ARadish, @GiantCowFilms @zeffii) Etc.

Yes, some rules... (I'm not going to copy all of the guru's rules)

Keep the image the same size or aspect resolution as the featured image (728px by 336px).
Vote for the image(s) you would like to see as the header image.
This is open for submissions until November 22, 2015

Any of the moderators of BSE (me) at their direction may anytime alter this post and contest; remove and or add images and submissions; declare a winner of the grand prize (nothing); alter the final image; or do just about anything else they want. Including but not limited to whacking people with a large ban hammer. :)

That fine print..

"Go nuts and have fun" - Sure, but please don't make this a chat in-joke, remember who this is for (hint: people who don't get chat in-jokes).

Does this mean that we will get new graphics and I will lose all of my privileges shortly after the 22nd?

@X-27 http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/25100567#25100567

How did you happen to pick the 22nd? Wouldn't the 27th have been better?

Maybe something with a bold big "stackexchage" text would be funny, in a way... :) mine is not a typo, of course...

I suggest we don't allow voting until a specific deadline, otherwise the earlier entries will have a huge advantage simply for being around longer.

It would be nice to know what our logo will be so we could include that in the artwork.

@PGmath I would too.

November 22 in which time zone?

@Mentalist Alaska time which is UTC -10, or just look here.

@David Just an idea to generate content: Can we also have a full article including an interview with all the moderators (if they like) and some of the best questions/answers in order to get a first impression of the site?

Great idea! I was thinking some of the question and answers, but a quick interview with the mods, is great!

I thought about how the ? sign resambles to an hook. Next step was to draw a reversed hook that help another to get out of the mud. Then the mud became a sea to match Blender logo's color palette.
It looked not so bad till I realized that "the thing" in the middle (believe me or not but it's just a man with a fishing rod...damn waves) catches too much attention. Shame on me...

I'll post here another experiment with more or less the same intention:

I thought about a kind of "collaborative art" where everyone can contribute by giving one material to an object (maybe that remember a question/answer that has a meaning for him) to give an sense of community.
Do you think it would come up good? Maybe with the site's logo in the middle coverd by ??

I love this idea! How would you go about implementing it, though?

Probably by providing a public template, collect the blendfiles and append the materials manually (they will require a proper arrangement in the scene).

Well, I'm down for it, if you decide to do it.

I'll withdraw this idea @IncessantLee as it didn't get the wide acclaim required for this kind of projects. Maybe it'll get luckier in the 1st year anniversary competition :)

@Carlo Had a few undelete votes so I restored it. I think these are pretty good and you should keep them. Let me know if you want it removed again.

Thanks @iKlsR for your kindness, but I'm wondering if leaving it open doesn't mess up the votecount, as there are "two in one". Apart from this, it's fine for me to keep them

@Carlo Thanks for your effort. I really like your idea of the second one, but I think it's too grey for a header image, which should attract attention. Just an idea: what about coloring the question marks like http://blender.stackexchange.com/a/17934/3710 for a more friendy feel and introduce a bit fog and more zdepth? If you like the ideas just let me know whether I can help :)

I agree with you @poor, I dreamt of it as colorful, rich and glittered piece too. Though, I also believe that this idea looses too much (if not all) of its strenght if it is not run as community project, so I'm not personally inclined to develop it further on my own. Anyway thanks for your kind offer and suggestions!

Alright, here is the one gandalf3, TARDIS Maker, cegeaton and I worked on:

Few final things being touched up still

Information
For those of you who don't watch movies this is closely based of the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The idea is centered around what our site is, an organized collaborative collection of useful blender information. A warehouse of blender info.
We took some liberties with the original image, in added question tags with actual question ID's on them, as well as populating the scene with workers (Empty is not an adjective for this site), and making it cleaner and more inviting. We also added little post boxes, which are either Questions, Answers or Accepted Answers, as denoted by the letter and or color.
The idea for this image is to be a metaphor for our site everything is carefully thought through. It is infinite in potential, and contains a massive amount of carefully maintained information.
The monkeys standing on each other shoulders are a metaphor for editing, since they are building on the work of others.
Notes
I wanted to put some subtle things in:

There are three monkeys with mod hats. Guess which one is which :D

One of them happens to be standing near a giant crate of reputation
Another one just happens to be tagging something
The third one is (and has been) pushing a cart representing our site

There is an equal number of accepted answer boxes (green) as there are orange question boxes. Afterall, it would be great if every question had an accepted answer :)

This image will be updated
We are not done with it. We will be adding more monkeys and textures; we will be adjusting the lighting and materials. We won't change the overall theme, so your vote is safe. Please comment for anything you think needs to be addressed

We are still working on this, as allowed. Why the downvote?

Nice use of the Stencil font! (A-Team font) I can't seem to find my mech in that render. Is it really small?

Ha, love it. I'm sure our avid users will as well.

Love it!  Are you going to continue the piles of crates on the sides to go to the horizon?  They look kind of funny stopping like they do now.

@PGmath Yes on ths sides, I'm not sure what to do with the horizon, we already have several thousand creates in the image, so its become a bit hard to manage.

@GiantCowFilms Are you using particle instancing for the crates?

With the arrival of our new theme, I thought it would be a good idea to suggest something different from a render image: a screenshot of our site (We will get another one when the design is actually pushed).

Boring it may be, This is still a safe bet, and shows what our site looks like (literally) to the outside. It also shows off the new theme, which is about the only thing to change during the graduation, other than an extreme loss of privileges for most of us D:

Fortunate

View the uncompressed full-res original here.
Because Blender Stack Exchange is a place where you can get high quality answers to help you take your Blender skills to the next level.
It reads:
You will soon conquer your fear of UV mapping.

Lucky Numbers:  2,  7,  6

Why did I pick UV mapping? Just because I think it's something that intimidates a lot of new users. I remember avoiding it like the plague for a while before I felt comfortable with it.
Thanks for any and all support.

While I get your point, we shouldn't advertise that you get your questions answered out of luck. BSE is a database, not a lottery.

@DalekMaker It's not that you get your questions answered out of luck. It's that people are lucky to discover BSE, and lucky to have it as a resource. While it is a database, it is also more than just a stockpile of questions and answers. I consider it a community of users who are enthusiastic about sharing knowledge. You can find more than just facts here - you can gain Blender wisdom. :-)

I love this, so simple and relatable (even if UV mapping isn't your plague). Plus everyone loves a fortune cookie.

A unarmed and almost totally harmless Forklift Mech. For moving pallets and crates full of questions and answers.

By the way, you should upvote GiantCowFilms' entry. A different colored version of this awesome mech is in there if you look really carefully. The scale is horribly off - the mech should be way bigger in his entry, but it is there, so it should get votes.
EDIT:
GiantCowFilms must have changed his entry, as this mech is now much smaller, is painted a dark color, and it is now in a shadow. You will have a Very hard time finding it.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Footer's New Background Image and Height

As shown in the image, the footer is taller then the background image. (small lighter blue strip along the bottom) The footer is 509.917px when the image is only 500px.
That can be fixed by setting the padding-top on the #footer to 0.
OR
Lowering the padding on the .footerwrap down to 10px.
I personally thing the first method is the better option.

Good catch. Thanks. Will push a fix soon.

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


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Favorite BSE post of the year - 2017
Well the winter bash is almost over and the hats are nearly gone, that means the year is close to its end and it's time to look back.
What was your favorite post from BSE this year?
Question or answer, post the link as an answer below.
By favorite I mean anything you found awesome, learned something new, was surprised by, impressed, etc.
This is not necessary a best of list, more like the most memorable post from 2017.
What a year BSE has had. We have had 12,098 questions and 9,435 answers (and counting).
Here's to an even better 2018!

Well to get things started off, Volumetric Windows 10 logo effect by Rich Sedman. A great answer.

@David Are self-nominations allowed?

@ScottMilner sure.

Ok because SE auto converts to comments "trivial answers" (answers with links to other answers) I guess there will be one answer with a list of links.
Add your favorite post to the list below.

Volumetric Windows 10 logo effect by Rich Sedman - David's pick
Trace visualisation in 3D - how to wrap curves onto a 3D mesh by OmarAhmad - cegaton's pick
Rounded Indentation on Cyclinder by Paul Gonet - Duarte's pick
Mix colors from different objects at collision (Rigid Bodies and Particles) by Scott Milner - self-nomination


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Add: No hardware questions to help center
Hardware question are generally not well received here on blender stack exchange despite that, I see a lot of people asking them. Almost all of those people are new users, that discovery has lead my to believe that these new users don't know that they are forbidden.
Now if they were to read the help center carefully, and consider whether their question fits they would see it breaks the rules, but sadly most don't. Is it possible then for someone add more information pertaining to this issue to the help center article on asking questions?

Good idea! I agree, the sooner can we update our FAQ/how to ask pages, the better. Are they mostly still at the defaults? I didn't see much content specific to blender.se last time I read through them..

@gandalf3 So how do we go about doing that...?

@GiantCowFilms Post it on meta and wait for a mod to get around to it if there is no objection or if the community is in favour ;). Consider it added to my todo list. The help center is in need of an update.

@iKlsR Wouldn't it be possible to use the flag tool, so a mod sees it?

@someonewithpc These come to our inbox automagically.

It has been added at https://blender.stackexchange.com/tour and there are links to what the community deems off-topic at https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic.


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Are "advertisments" linking to used services ok?
The blend hosting service blend-exchange outputs this image, as a link to the file.

The "Hosted by Blend-Exchange" is the line in the image I'm questioning.
Is that:

"Effectively an advertisement with no disclosure."
"It is not useful or relevant, but promotional."

If so, what should be done with the posts with this image in them. Is flagging as spam, or editing the post the only options?

You could also ask me to change it.... just saying

@GiantCowFilms I did, back on the 26th of February http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/20266033#20266033

Going back to the title, if the image really isn't an advert, but more of a user friendly way to introduce a .blend file, is that okay?
Under this theme, these may resolve the issue of unsolicited or solicited for that matter branding:
Here are a few logo less alternatives that avoid the image-text alignment issues of @Davids suggestions by putting text into the image, which isn't quite that bad:

I've made this a community wiki because anyone is welcome to add examples.

I think your first image would be a fine way to link to B-E.
Even without the "hosted by" line it is still branding; while someone using pastall could use that image (probably won't), it will convey (very quickly) that this blend is on blend-exchange.

From reading about "spam" on SE, I would say that is not "spam" but it should not be in the posts.
Quoting from the first line of when to flag as spam

A post should be marked as spam ONLY when it contains an unsolicited advertisement.

The "Hosted by Blend-Exchange" is considered a unsolicited advertisement. - flag as spam.
https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/promotion Starts out with

The community here tends to vote down overt self-promotion and flag it as spam.

Self promotion does not come in to play much here (except that a member of the community created the service) - no action
If you look at the spam flagging reason it becomes less clear.

This answer is effectively an advertisement with no disclosure. It is not useful or relevant, but promotional.

The answer is good and helpfull, but the image is what is "advertisement with no disclosure and promotional" - this is the gray one no action.
Well what is the definition of spam? In two different places1 2 SE links to the wikipeda definition of spam.

Electronic spamming is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited messages (spam), especially advertising, as well as sending messages repeatedly on the same site

So the question really becomes "what to do with good posts that have spam in them?".
At this point I would say that flagging is not the best course of action. Rather edit out the images, and replace them with a simple text link.
Here are several link option in stead of this.

Download the Blend file.
Download the Blend file. Note the tool tip

This question (and the answer) deserves a read as it talks about the weightiness of the spam and offensive flags. What are the “spam” and “rude or abusive” (offensive) flags, and how do they work?

Further more the W3 states that

Images of text are only used for pure decoration or where a particular presentation of text is essential to the information being conveyed. (Level AAA)

Which means that there is no reason that the text "Download the .Blend Hosted by Blend-Exchange" should be in a image. If a icon is really necessary the image should only contain the icon.
 Download the Blend file

Or the Icon and the "download the .Blend!" cause that's colorful and cool.

@VinceScalia edited the answer to include your suggestion.

I understand the W3 states that text should be out of images, but without full CSS and markup, I had to make do... not ideal yes, but the download the blend file you provide has serious image alignment issues that would be avoided by putting the text in the image

If the question is  "[W]hat to do with good posts that have spam in them?", the answer is simple; more sophisticated users, upon seeing the spam, should edit it out, noting in the comments that the question was edited to remove spam..

Summary:

Flagging is the wrong approach
Blend-Exchange isn't "adverting"
Blend-Exchange is just suggesting use of these images
It really doesn't constitute irrelevant adverting spam
If they are a problem editing is the correct approach

Flagging is the wrong approach
Firstly I'd like to say that posts shouldn't be marked as spam just because they contain something that could be considered advertising. Spam is when a post is solely trying to sell something, and not contributing to the knowledge base the stack exchange is trying to build.
In this case, some of the posts with the image have been well received and gotten several upvotes, a sign that with the Blend-Exchange name and all they are still valuable and not at all spam. Flagging is out of the question, now to whether the image are spam is a different matter...
Not quite spam
Spam on stack exchange usually consists of people trying to sell garbage that nobody wants... Blend-Exchange is a charitable service, built out of volunteer hours and operating at a net loss of 100% with no income and operating expenses. In other similar cases these were companies, and the links helped them sell products. On the other hand, charitable organizations can spam for donations, but then again they are trying to collect money. Blend-Exchange doesn't collect money at  all on its site. Blend-Exchange has nothing to gain other then increased taxing of its services, as well as a reinforced brand, but what does that brand even help?
Blend-Exchange isn't spamming, users are
Finally, normal users are spreading this accused spam by using the suggested embed code... Blend-Exchange isn't adding it to posts. One could claim that by giving out a blender guru tutorial link, or even by putting the name in this post that they are spamming. The only reason that Blend-Exchange cause an upset is that the image was fairly large and very orange. A better question may have been is it incorrect to put attention grabbing content? Is the subtlety of the brand's name important. The point is mentioning a service isn't necessarily spamming, the line can be fine, yes, but I don't think this crosses it.
Do edit if all else fails
How to handle the images, amusing it is spam, which it is not: Editing the posts.... flagging isn't appropriate, since the moderators will simply have to edit it since it on its own doesn't justify removing the post, see first paragraph.
Special note from the admin of Blend-Exchange
This is a Community Project
As the manager of the project, I'm open to suggestions from the community. (I also have to say no from time to time in the best interest of the project, I promise to be nicer about it then Linus Torvalds though :P ) Even though Blend-Exchange is under no obligation to change the images, a change will occur as a result of this.
I appreciate your support of the project, even if its unconventional... I hope this doesn't affect your view of the service, Its trying to solve a problem, not create one.
PS Blend-Exchange is under no obligation to act upon this much like any other file hosting service wouldn't be liable for its embed code... however since this community is central to its operation as said above, Blend-Exchange will be changing as a result.

7 excellent points addressed in this answer! also, text on any display is displayed as pixels. unless you are using an alien goo-tron display, then they might not use pixels.

@X-27 I now have 4, you clearly cant count in the future...

well, I posted that with the anticipation that you would add more, which you have.

Apparently some people on  this site only like white backgrounds and black text. We want pretty looking images to use for links and other places where attention is needed and a plain link isn't enough.

may be a bit overkill, but it is a lot more eye-catching than
blend file
I can not represent Every answer or question on this site, however based on this reason we should NOT flag as spam answers or questions containing this image.

This answer is effectively an advertisement with no disclosure. It is not useful or relevant, but promotional.

This description would be fitting if the Entire answer or question was an advertizement, not useful or irrelevant.  However, the very purpose of all answers and questions are to be useful, and the blend files are added as a general aid.
Just because the link to the blend file has a picture that some people do not like does Not mean the entire answer is useless or irrelevant.

I covered the flagging as spam topic in my answer. I never stated that a image would invalidate the whole post as "not useful or relevant," but rather I was raising the whole point on the "advertisement with no disclosure or promotional" line. As to your "pretty" links point, read the last part of my answer.

Your answer is seemingly drifting off in another direction. The question is about whether or not the blendexchange image is considered spam, and what should be done about it. It really has nothing to do with the styling of links, vs images.

Ok, you have a good point. But your question is still flawed, there should be a third option on how to deal with "spam" answers.  3. add a disclosure such as "The service Blend-Exchange is a third party service and not endorsed by stack exchange. use at your own risk"   Seriously????? no one wants a bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo in their answers.

Your last comment confused me, and the issue. However I would agree that there is no need for extraneous text like "Hosted by blend-exchange" in answers.

We do want pretty pictures. thankyou!

Just because the link to the blend file has a picture that some people do not like does Not mean the entire answer is useless or irrelevant. I'm pretty sure that's a fallacy - the straw man fallacy, to be precise. The point is not whether we can have images for the link, but rather whether they should say hosted by Blend-Exchange.


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People "editing" post without actually changing anything
The other day, a saw a user edit 27 post, in like 30 min, and it seems (haven't checked them all, but a couple of them confirmed this); Also today, he did this to one of my posts.
It seems hes just farming reputation, which I don't think is allowed.
So, what can I do people "editing" post without actually changing anything?

Yes that was me (I think). I can assure you that I am not reputation farming, or just editing every question for no reason.
I do a lot of retags, editing questions just to keep the tags clean. So it can look like I'm not editing the question, and in some cases I'm not changing any of the text in the question, just the tags.
About getting reputation:
Any user with over 1000 reputation does not get any reputation for editing questions. If a user has less then 1000 reputation then (as gandal3 mentioned) the edits go through a review process, and if they are useless then they would not be approved.
If you see some suspicious edits, ask a question in the chat, or here on the meta.

If the user is getting reputation, the edits would go through the review process and would be rejected if they are invalid.
I think the user in question is @David, who has the privilege to edit questions and answers without going through the review queue and won't gain rep from editing.
We discussed earlier in the chat about clarifying and separating the baking and texture-baking tags, so presumably this is what that was about.

Indee, but he didn't change anything, in most posts...

@someonewithpc I don't think you can save your edits if you don't edit anything. I think if you check the history you'll find they are all tag edits

Ok. But isn't this site for this kind of things? Just wanted to make sure.

@someonewithpc Which site? The main site? or meta? This is a fine meta question if that's what your asking..

@gandal3 Yes, the meta.

@someonewithpc See http://blender.stackexchange.com/help/whats-meta for an overview.

Thanks, appreciated; BTW when it says bugs, is it bugs with the website, or with Blender itself(assuming it's the former).

Bugs with the website. Blender bugs should go on the tracker.

I knew about the tracker, but should I discuss the bugs here first, to see if they are indeed bugs and if more people are getting them, or should I post them directly in the tracker?

@someonewithpc I thought of that too, see  http://blender.stackexchange.com/q/2389/599. If it's not a bug, the worst that can happen is that the report will be closed.


text:
Python API Code - Where Should it Go?
When people are asking questions about their python code, IF the question is ambiguous and understandable to other users who do python, but don't use the Python API, do you think those questions are better off in StackOverflow, or do you think it is better to keep those questions in an environment where the API is fully understood by the community?

Your question is a little ambiguous. What type of code/ questions are you talking about?

I think the general sentiment (and my opinion) it that all coding questions should be related to blender.
If you have a python question that does not have anything to do with blender, such as this one, then it would be better suited to SO (and probably would get closed as off topic on BSE).
The other case, is questions that do in fact have a direct connection to blender. Such questions have a huge diversity, and as so it is hard to name a few good examples.
As a base line if you have a question about blender's API, BSE is probably a good place for your question.

The avid contributors here on b.se are quite able to distinguish between the three scenarios:

bpy oriented
borderline bpy / python
straight up python

I think we condone borderline questions because more often than not we understand the problem better than they know how to ask the question. It's little effort to help as far as possible with the bpy stuff, and beyond that point link to the relative python docs. We're not here to teach python, but we can give them enough information to spark a train of thought (and if nothing sparks, no amount of matches will help....they need to think harder and show more effort)
For straight up python questions, these have a lifespan of maybe a day and are rarely tolerated, they don't get much attention. (like someone asking for a NLP algorithm, or how to delete a Pickle file). If the usage of Blender is incidental to the question, I'll cast a close vote and expect others to see the question for what it is. (But always, always leave some useful comment about where to get help ..because if I do know..why not extend that courtesy anyway).
As for bpy specific stuff, often the people who have internalized Blender and Python don't need help, or rarely. It's a fairly consistent API. These bpy questions often come from people who are not in that group: Either new to Blender or new to Python (or worse, both!) and therefore have a weaker grasp of the whole system. Those questions are hard, do we tell them to go off learn Blender better.. or learn Python better?...


text:
New Contest Idea
We have already had some community building activities on the Meta, such as the themed rendering contests, marked with the contest tag. I recently had an idea to expand on those contests. My new idea would be quite simple, and wouldn't take nearly as much time or effort as creating an entire render. It would be a simple contest, basically you would write a question, and make it as funny as you can, whether the question is blatantly off topic, written by someone who knows way too much or way too little about blender. Any method could be used to make the question enjoyable funny to other users. THE QUESTIONS SHOULD NEVER BE POSTED ON THE MAIN SITE OR IN ANY PLACE OTHER THAN THE DEDICATED CONTEST POST UNLESS THEY ARE REAL, SERIOUS QUESTIONS. (that is to avoid heavy resistance by the M.O.D-Team)
Instead, you would take a screenshot of your question and post it in the contest post, or you could simply copy the markdown form the "ask a question" page and paste it into the "add an answer" page on the contest post.
Winners would be picked by whoever has the most up Votes within a week, (Or any other reasonable time span)
In case your wondering what gave me this idea, it was this highly off-topic question that Gandalf3 was able to find and save
If this idea gets enough support from the community, I'd be happy to create the contest post. DO NOT post funny responses here - We need community approval first
To the M.O.D.-Team, it would not just be a post to collect spam.

how bout whoever gets most DV's?

It could either be whoever gets the most Dvs also gets a prize for the worst one, or DVs are simply not counted (just like in the other contests)

it would be more accurate if you're trying to write a bad question..,. jus sayiin'

I personally like the idea of lower score wins, and if your post sounds like a real question it gets upvoted, but the more spammy, hilarious or off-topic your question is the more DVs you get- it would be more realistic indeed, but other users might not want a lot of heavily down voted answers on their meta account. Also, if it was most down votes wins, the lowest score you could ever get is 10, (I think that posts with a score of less than 10 automatically get deleted) - that might be wrong though.

It would probably be simplest to just do it by UV's. If you like the question, and this it's funny, then you upvote, if you hate the question, you downvote. If it's okay, you leave it be.

Why not reward the winner with something like 20 rep? Nothing huge, but nothing extremely small either.

@TARDISMaker I would not mind rewarding users with rep, but there is no system in place to do this (aside form upvoting two of their answers).

I don't think votes change rep in meta, I think that's only in the actual site.

exactly, which is why getting Upvoted/Downvoted on your entries would not effect your rep, and then only way to reward them with the current rep system is someone upvoting their posts on the main site, which could be called voter fraud, so for now we'd have to settle for no direct reward.

If it's not broken, I would try beating it back into shape with a hammer.

would you try to forge the blade or the spoon back into shape with your lightning shooting ban hammer?

@iKlsR I mean't not broken off entirely, should have been more specific....


text:
Styling for GUI instructions
With a graphical application like Blender, answers often require instructions that include navigating the interface. The standards recommend using  for this, but the current styling looks like a keyboard key and which is inappropriate (and not something we want to lose).
Proposed solution:
Append the following to the blender.SE stylesheet:
em kbd {
    font-size: 12px;
    font-style: normal;
    color: white;
    text-shadow: none;
    background-color: rgba(25, 25, 25, 0.9);
    border: 1px solid black;
    border-radius: 4px;
    padding: 0 4px;
    box-shadow: 0 2px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, .6);
    vertical-align: middle;
}

em kbd + kbd {
    margin-left: -0.5em;
}

em kbd:after {
    content: url("https://i.sstatic.net/naX0c.png");
    display: inline-block;
    margin: -3px 0 0 6px;
    line-height: 0;
    vertical-align: inherit;
}

em kbd:last-child:after {
    content: none;
}

So we can use the following to markup interface interactions:
_Add Mesh Cube_

This'll result in it rendering similarly to Blender's own menus:

This looks lovely. Let's hope it is possible.

much much better to look at, but still looks like a pain to mark-up.

@zeffii Quite.. Though it's not that much more than the current way. (I always put + in the clipboard when I have to type long or multiple shortcuts :P) I do have a question though, is there a way with this to have separate looks for keyboard shortcuts and interface directions? Is such a  separation of keyboard and interface considered necessary?

It would seem <samp> isn't allowed..

@iKlsR Was sure it was… Oh well, have updated the proposal. ;)

@gandalf3 Yes, this'll leave current shortcut styling unchanged.

@Aldrik +1 looks good to me :) though I'm not sure I understand "and not something we want to loose".. typo?

Question: what's the semantic reason for em?

@WChargin Mainly just trying to work within the Stackexchange limitations (lesser of the other evils). But I think it's acceptable to emphasis literal instructions.

Okay, I understand that. Then, another question: I would propose em kbd { background-color: #5680C2;} and em kbd:last-child { background-color: #3F3F3F;} to match Blender's menu colors, the implication being that all but the last are selected (or including the last, if you want to remove the last-child if it makes more sense). For example: rendering in Chrome.

@WChargin I decided against it as I felt it lost the menu recognisability. Note if the community does want to go blue, Blender uses a subtle gradient and black text.

my only slight issue with this is that despite the colours it actually reminds me of pre 2.5 interface, but I guess that's just because it's subjective. Would love to see several variations, extra spacing, padding, corner rounding etc.

@RayMairlot Here is a variant of WChargin's proposal with original colors and increased corner rounding, spacing, and padding.

@WChargin I would say that if we want the last one to be different, my personal preference would be to have the last one look like it is selected, rather than the other way around.

Is there any update on whether this will be possible? In the meantime, should we use  for forward compatibility?

@WChargin I'm not sure, but I guess this would be implemented once the site graduates.

The standards link returns a 404.

Here's a jsFiddle with my proposal.
Changes are all to reflect the Blender menus better:

linear gradient for selected color
decreased border-radius: it's really only aesthetic; the Blender menus are square
changed border color to the actual color (#282828, not #000000)

I put the example in context with a paragraph (to show line height), a kbd tag (to contrast the two), and the full Blender.SE stylesheet, to make sure nothing interferes.
Regarding the text color: I know that Blender uses a black color, but white just seems a bit nicer on the eyes to me. What do you guys think?
(If you want to see the difference, open the link, in the CSS at top right, change color: white; to color: black; and press Run or CtrlEnter.)

I guess the color will be a matter of personal preference.. I personally prefer the black.

@gandalf3 I could go with either one.

So instead of asking others for iterations of designs I thought I would share my own, this is just an extension on the designs that others have done so far.
I haven't the skill to create these with css so I have just mocked this up in photoshop.
Firstly I have increased the spacing, or padding, between the text and the border of the box, I felt other designs were too squashed together. I also increased the gaps inbetween the boxes themselves, I don't think it's necessary that they touch, the arrow is enough to indicate they follow on from each other. I think this also helps to identify them as separate elements.

Actual size (drop shadows could probably be bigger at this size):

From the designs above my personal preference is number 8. While it doesn't use the traditional black of the blender menus I do feel it's slightly more readable (for me).
Number 9 is probably unnecessary, it has a slight bevel to try and imitate the blender menus more, but it's faint even at a larger size so it's largely pointless.
I don't know if the drop shadows are entirely necessary they are just another way of separating these 'menu paths' from the rest of the text. I think it's good to have the last element highlighted as blue just to clearly signify that that is the menu item/option you should be looking for. It uses a vertical gradient from light blue to dark blue using roughly the correct blender colours.
The font is the 'blender font' DejaVu Sans, I wasn't sure if other examples used this or not or whether it's even usable on the web. Certainly it's very clean to read.
Feel free to disagree with these points I know it's all very subjective. I also realise I haven't shown any iteration on padding or rounded edges, it can be very hard to judge very small details like that, but I look forward to your feedback/thoughts.

Don't worry about CSS, we can handle that for you. These are rather large, please scale to the expected usage size for comparison.

"roughly the correct blender colours" the exact ones, if you'd like them, are #7aa3ef (top) and #5680c1 (bottom).

I love this idea, but I also think it should be use in addition to the  tags. Reason being, sometimes we need to use kbd separately from menus for example.


text:
What Should We Do About Tags With Different Meanings Depending on the Context
What should we do about tags that can mean different things depending on their context? For example, mirror(although I'm sure there are many others). Mirror can mean: mirror modifier, mirror material or a mirror model. Should we make tags specifically for each one?
The primary reason I'm bringing this up is because it makes tag definition much harder.

More than likely, for tags like these there already exists another with which it can correlate to bring across its meaning or the scope of the question.
For example, mirror as you used it could have modifiers, materials or modeling to go along with it. In a worst case scenario we could have a question that entails all 3 (or more) like;
Q: Why does the material distort when I use the mirror modifier and extrude?
In such a case, it will be easy enough for the same reason we decided not to use version specific tags, once the question is being read, it will be made clear as to what is being asked. Also note that tags in general play very little in deciding what a question is entirely about.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because it makes tag definition harder.

@CharlesL did you read the last line? note that tags in general play very little in deciding what a question is entirely about. Tags can only tell so much about a question, at most they set the scope, attract more views and popup in searches. If in doubt, use the one that the majority of the question is about.

OK, makes sense. Thanks :D


text:
Should the UV tag be blacklisted?
Should we get rid of the UV tag? There are already 3 UV tags UVmap, UVunwrap and UVimage. They're specific and too the point, while the UV tag doesn't really add anything.

Contrariwise, do we really need those other three tags, that are all referring to essentially the same part of the process?

Blacklisting a tag is a bit extreme at this point. If we remove it from all questions, it will automatically be deleted.

It might be useful for initial questions, if someone is really new to UV they might be looking for terminology rather than complete answers. Usually once someone learns terminology that opens up a new world of search terms. I say keep it as it can always be retagged to be more specific.


text:
How do we get syntax highlighted python in this stack exchange?
maybe im missing something.. but this should show some colours at the very least.
(insert some generic python here)
for i in range(40):
    print("something")

I understand that the syntax highlighting isn't a big deal for some people, but having to run a plugin in my browser to highlight code on sites doesn't sit well with me. If we can have these kbd tags, there is no acceptable reason to not have decent basic syntax highlighting. (unless that would require the parser to import bpy.. )

I got the email from iKlsR regarding this request.
I have now enabled highlighting of code section by default - using the default of python.
From the few posts I have looked at that do have python, it looks good. Let me know if there are any issues with this.

cool, thank you!

It should work, by adding <!-- language: lang-py --> at the top but oddly it doesn't seem to work here..
def __init__(self):
    pass

OK, if the beta grows this has a chance of happening? :)

@zeffii see my comment on the question, based upon what I have learnt, it is enabled upon request, so quite possibly yes.

then whose door do we knock on for this?

@zeffii I am thinking of emailing one of the SE mods or waiting till they see this.


text:
Anyone can edit?
Surely I have missed something as I though editing questions or answers was allowed at 2000 rep?
Today, twice, a user with 1 rep edited my answer. I rejected it and so I don't have a link anymore, but here is a screen capture:

Am I wrong about the needed reputation?

The user gets some rep for a suggested edit IIRC.  At 1 you need rep to comment.

That is a suggested edit, and yes anyone below 2000 rep (the edit privilege) can suggest an edit to any post.
Suggested edits differ from an edit, in that suggested edits must be reviewed.
For example if I edited that post, you would not even know. However with a suggested edit SE first pings the OP (you) and you get a link to the suggested edit review queue (here is the link to the review in question)
So yes anybody can edit, but edits from users with less then 2000 rep have to clear the review before the post is actually edited.

OK, and thanks for the proof of concept...

sure :) What I do is every so often look at the responses tab in my profile that shows when one of your posts gets edited.


text:
Is it possible to mark a question in order to be notified of the answers?
Is it possible to mark a question in order to be notified of the answers? The aim here is only to have a quick way to be informed of the answers, without taking any kind of action on the question.

@David thanks. But I am more or less happy with the edit : the words "any kind of appreciation" was about "I dont want to say I like (or not) the question", just about "I want to follow the answer". So favorite feature is not exactly what I expected. But it is convenient enough. So this comment was just FYI.

I think the favorite feature does what you are looking for, or as close as SE offers.
After clicking the little star under the vote buttons on any question, it will get added to your favorite list. Any time anything changes, or a new answer gets added a little blue box with how many changes will show up there.

Then just sort your favorite list by "activity", and the most recent changed question will be at the top.

If you are into RSS, then you can click the
link at the bottom of the page on any question. That feed will include, and update for any answers.


text:
Old logo is still used in iOS app
(I reported this for the RPi site when it graduated, and now you've done it again for Blender!)
The old logo is still used in the iOS app for the communities sidebar and the Profile > All x communities page:

Sorry for the low-res picture, I had to edit It and submit on my iPad.

Note that the meta site logo is working properly (strange)

@Wanda That was one of the things I reported on RPi too....

This now appears to be fixed.

@Wanda Make a new question tagged design and bug, that would probably bring more visibility


text:
Removing the tag for which a question was dupehammered
I noticed @cegaton had closed this question as duplicate using his gold cycles tag.  Just playing the "devil's advocate" I am in no way questioning @cegaton.
Consider some hypothetical question, which has been mis-tagged with nothing-to-do-with-the-question
The "issue of law" as I see it is, what if I edited, and removed the mis-tagged nothing-to-do-with-the-question, because when searching by tag we don't want to come up with a result that has nothing to do with the tag,  the question couldn't then be closed by a user with a gold nothing-to-do-with-the-question tag.
What if it already had been?  I'd feel then that I'm questioning someone that knows more about nothing-to-do-with-the-question by removing the tag.

This question was a good example of editing out tags that have noting to to with the question...

Speaking just about the linked question, yes you absolutely could of edited out the cycles tag (I went and did it). That question has noting to do with any rendering, it is a modeling question.
Now when a question is closed as a dup, even when it was gold tag closed, you editing the question will not change that. (Except in some cases it will go through the reopen review because it was "Edited after being closed.")
In this instance the question being closed by someone that holds the gold close power makes no difference. If a question has nothing to do with a tag, remove that tag.

Still pretty off with the cycles stamp which is what I think was the main issue.


text:
Why are some names light blue in code markdown syntax highlighting?
What is the light blue syntax highlighting?
On BSE in this answer, IntProperty, FloatProperty, EnumProperty, MyInt, MyFloat and MyEnum are syntax highlighting in light blue.

And as a supplementary, why isn't the same syntax highlighting used on meta?

looks like SE has no syntax highlighting on the meta. I guess its its that talking about the site we don't need syntax highlighting that often.

I'd like to build on @batFINGER's answer.
StackExchange syntax highlighting is handled by Google Code Prettify. Looking at the source code, it appears that Code Prettify has a general set of rules that it enables/disables for languages with C-like syntax, making slight tweaks for individual languages. Python's configuration function is as follows:
registerLangHandler(sourceDecorator({
      'keywords': PYTHON_KEYWORDS,
      'hashComments': true,
      'multiLineStrings': true,
      'tripleQuotedStrings': true
    }), ['cv', 'py', 'python']);

This tells us that there is no special consideration given for CamelCase, or snake_case, etc. in prettifying Python. So, Code Prettify is not specifically following PEP8 criterion, but rather a more general naming convention. This convention of CamelCase for class names is found in many C style guides, which I would assume Code Prettify is based off of.

PEP8 style criteria.
Quoting from the Best Practice Style Conventions

For Blender/Python development we have chosen to follow python
  suggested style guide to avoid mixing styles amongst our own scripts
  and make it easier to use python scripts from other projects.
Using our style guide for your own scripts makes it easier if you
  eventually want to contribute them to blender.
This style guide is known as pep8 and can be found here
A brief listing of pep8 criteria.

camel caps for class names: MyClass
all lower case underscore separated module names: my_module
indentation of 4 spaces (no tabs)
spaces around operators. 1 + 1, not 1+1
only use explicit imports, (no importing *)
don’t use single line: if val: body, separate onto 2 lines instead.

The syntax highlighter is using the style, and expects a camel-case name  (CamelCase), for instance, MyInt to be a class.  Suggest naming it my_int or myint instead.


text:
Pause, resume and rewind GIF animations
Sometimes a GIF animation posted to illustrate an answer is too long. It would be convenient to pause, resume and rewind the animation. In other words, to have playback functionality for GIF animations. Is it possible?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about Blender.SE or Stack Exchange, but rather the .GIF codec and filetype

The question is about how to use Blender SE conveniently. If a GIF animation posted in an answer is too long, it's not easy to follow the animation and to understand the answer.

I agree with @NoviceInDisguise sadly, I don't have enough rep to vote to close this (probably a good thing), but if I did, I would. You can argue that it's about using it conveniently, but that's not what meta is about (at least by my understanding). Meta isn't about how to use the site well or effectively, it's about how the site runs. Should "topic a" be off topic, should "topic b" be edited in this situation. I'm still learning, so if I'm wrong, please tell me, but from what I've seen here, I'm not.

I'm voting to close this aswell, pausing, rewinding a gif is specific to your browser and only in second thought a problem with SE - they don't offer a custom player for .gif, which would probably be overengeneering. (Add a feature-request tag if you feel like you want SE to make its own .gif player)

You suggested to close the question but you didn't suggest where to post it otherwise. So your suggestions?

Please read What is "meta"? How does it work?. A quote from there: Meta is for... asking questions about how the websites work...

I'm voting to reopen this question, we are using more and more gifs here (or maybe it's only me) and sometimes answers are cluttered with them. Gif player could significantly reduce downloaded data and user have control over the gif itself. We are writing answers along gifs so sometimes user won't play it. Also this method is widely used on sites such as Facebook or 9GAG. I've found something like this: http://rubentd.com/gifplayer/ as an example. I don't know if this is only BSE thing to use heavy gifs in answers but probably whole SE could benefit from it.

Save the GIF to your local hard drive and open it in GIMP.
Then Filters -> Animation -> Playback...

That's more of a work around than anything else. I have to say, this feels a bit off topic to me since you made this question with the answer in mind, but that's just me.

If you have a better solution, just post it here.

Firefox browser has plugin for that like Toggle Animation Gif. Once installed it allows to pause or rewind the GIF animation.
Some programs for recording .gifs have option to include time elapsed which helps distinguish is it beginning of the animation or the end. E.g. Licecap tool has Elapsed time option available when you start recording.
Speaking about Blender, ScreenCast Keys addon has the Time option which will also show time elapsed from the beginning of the animation. It is not documented in the wiki, you can see it here.
I wouldn't agree with .gif player is being necessary, my opinion is that it's something user should decide according to their software, etc.
Lastly - if the gif is too long make sure to shorten it somehow. Include some of the instructions into image, include 2 gifs (although not the best solution), etc. It all depends on answer of course but generally if it requires that many gifs maybe you can demonstrate necessary information from other answers as there are plenty already.

I don't know about this plugin for Firefox but other methods doesn't make site lighter. I'm speaking here from pure technical view. Imagine question with 5 answers, every one has ~2MB gif in it. This is pretty heavy site to load. From gifplayer site: "The advantage of using this plugin is that you can load a lighter static version of the animated gif, and then load the actual animated gif, when the user wants to see it in motion. Improving the initial load time of your page." And lastly, user can't decide about it based on their software as for browser gif is just another image.

@LukeD "pretty heavy site to load" I can't agree. Nowadays sites especially with media rarely use less than 5 mb for loading up and 10 mb now really isn't that much. Methods with elapsed time won't make amount of mbs to load less, and they weren't intended to mean that. Every answer with one gif isn't really comfortable, I agree, and even less comfortable when 2 or more gifs. As I said important thing to do here is to base answer on links to other ones, to images instead of gif if amount of gifs starts to exceed 1 or if 1 is very big. User can decide at least to install the plugin.

Where did you get that 5-10MB? I'm web developer and 10MB is really an overkill for user experience and even for basic SEO. Also you can't tell users to install plugin which is what I've found available only for one browser (not even top used). And yes, gifplayer (please check it) which I've cited load less data. A lot less if you don't want to play gif. If there is a method to make site faster, and easier to use why don't use it? When big players like Facebook are starting to use such method it probably mean that they research about this a lot, and it's beneficial.

"Where did you get" - from browser stats in Developer Tools. Yotube main page gets 3mb, yahoo mail 6mb, BSE main page 1mb. Player maybe could help (won't it download anything for its working? ah, whatever) but work for loading less gifs is fighting for those several mbs some gifs provide (hint - some images as well), so instead of 4-5 mb it will be 2. Great but it will be useful maybe for those who browse from mobile devices (not recommended anyway if loading media). My main point is one should not record answers in 5-10 mbs videos impossible to show, gif is NOT designed for that. That's all

Did you read my first comment? I've told you about 5 different answers every one with gif. Not 5 gifs in one answer. Now think about long gif, if you will use instead images to illustrate steps it would take even more data and could be less intuitive. Now read this: https://www.keycdn.com/support/the-growth-of-web-page-size/ as you clearly have no idea whats going on in web development lately. There are so many initiatives out there to reduce pages size that I can't even count half of them. From 4MB > 2MB there is 100% reduced size. gifplayer is loading 12kb and you can pause gif.

Check even this article from 2015, it's still pretty accurate: https://www.sitepoint.com/average-page-weight-increased-another-16-2015/ Especially paragraph "Why should I bother? Few others do".

Of course I have no idea what's going on in web dev now and I'm not going to. I just see that Internet quickly becomes into a crap of memory leaks in browsers and overheated cpu. Less size? Great if possible and really justified. I was for several times trying to tell that I don't want answers to have many gifs as I see many of them included where it is absolutely not that necessary and that is my point. I think we will agree to disagree as this is going to nowhere.

Link in the message for "Toggle Animation Gif", I have found another plugin Toggle Animated Gif but it seems quite limited in functionalities (it is more a switch on animated git).

For Chrome, there is this extension: GIF Scrubber.

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


text:
Where would be a good location to post a Blender Addon request/idea?
I have a pretty good idea for a blender addon I figured I should throw out into the addon developing community. Would Blender Meta be the place to do this? Or the Blender Surface Site? Or should I use a site other than Stack Exchange?

PS the [meta-tag:feature-request] tag is for feature requests for the site, not blender.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Blender Surface Site" but no the meta, nor the main site would not be the correct place to post that. See point 5 in the off topic list.
You could try on blender artists, or if you happen to find somebody who is interested, in our chat.

By surface site I simply meant the main site

Isn't there an idea site somewhere, blender right or something like that?

@iKlsR There is http://rightclickselect.com/ but that is about suggesting features for blender, not add-ons.

Unfortunately ideas for addons are a dime a dozen; everyone has a million requests for addons and features, but comparatively (very) few people know how to actually code them.
Of those even less are willing to just make an addon for a "random bright idea" for free.
My advice to you is: just let it go. If you really  must you can dump it in the bloated feature request bucket that is http://rightclickselect.com if it makes you feel any better.


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Cant log in to unregistered account
I created an account with blender stack exchange today, in order to ask a question, but for some reason the account is unregistered. I have other stack exchange accounts so I created another blender account.
It seems as if there are two accounts - one has a green profile picture and the one I use with my other stack exchange accounts is purple.
I cant reply to an answer or upvote it on my question but I can edit the question, through my purple account. I have no access to the green account.
How can I get full access to my account? Or can I merge the two?

Ok, I think I see what happened.
You already had an SE account:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/20782/matt-majic
However, today you came to blender stack exchange, and without logging in you asked a question (that is one of the ways an unregistered account gets created.) thus creating:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/users/20779/mattmajic
Now (I think) you went and "registered" you old SE account with blender, essentially locking you out of your unregistered account. (Normally for unregistered accounts there would be a register link at the top of the page.)
The easiest thing for you to would be to ask for your accounts to be merged.
check
So within 24-48 hours you should have only the one matt majic account.

Cheers I think that was what happened. I asked for them to be merged


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Indirect Blender questions?
I just posted THIS and it got flagged as not Blender related (which it kinda is indirectly ;P) I knew it would get flagged but there are some people that are only on this site that I highly respect their knowledge. I tried Graphic Design exchange and BA but have not got a response back yet. Should I post questions like this on META or am I just out of luck hoping one of my stack exchange heroes can shed some light on things?

Note that cross posting is discouraged. Post where it seems most fit (GD.SE seems like a good start to me) and if it turns out it's better fit somewhere else it'll be migrated (ideally).
If you want to talk to someone here in particular you could try asking around in chat, though if the someone you're looking for isn't there then I'm afraid you're out of luck.

I guess I just feel like breaking rules today. lol Thanks

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


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Old forgotten unlabeled duplicates?
How to recenter an object's origin?
Moving the 'center of the object' to the actual center…
Is it useful to flag old duplicates as duplicates?
Should I just ignore them?

I would say yes, go ahead and mark it as a duplicate. (I just closed the linked question as duplicate.)
Usually, there is no harm in adding links to a place where other answers may help - the age of the question does not matter. If it has been answered else where on this site, why not point others to it?
There is an added bonus to marking old questions like that, which is that you bring added attention to these old questions. So yes go ahead and
Do bear in mind that all the same "rules" apply, they really have to be duplicates (again age does not matter).


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How do you create a chat room from comments?
I've seen chat-rooms created from over-extended comment exchanges, copying the accumulated commentary into the room. How is this done?

There's a button which automatically appears on particularly long comment threads. Unfortunately there is currently no other way access this feature. I have not tried the javascript snippet posted in the answer there, but I'd be happy to give it a go if you have a particular conversation in mind.

I must have been particularly inept at finding search-terms for existing questions on this issue. Here is the thread I think would be better in chat. (I've seen shorter exchanges moved, but I've had no offer from the bot.)


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Game-engine question on hold because bug?
I've come across a question.
It asks about a bug in the game-engine and was therefore put on hold, since it

should be reported to the official bug tracker.

Considering that the game engine won't be in 2.8 anymore, I guess nobody at the Blender Foundation cares anymore about solving these bugs.
My question:
Shall bug-concerning game-engine questions still be flagged and put on hold? In my opinion this will make it even more unlikely for those who ask, to find an answer.

"In my opinion this will make it even more unlikely for those who ask, to find an answer". I'll just add that regardless of the application component or its impending removal, the solution to all bugs (Blender or otherwise) is to fix them. Since most of us aren't developers and can't really fix them, having posts here make little sense, unless you are looking for workarounds.

We (blender.stackexchange.com) do not take any bug questions. Does not matter if about the now removed BGE, or any other part of blender. Bug related questions have always been off topic.
Yes absolutely still close them with he bug reason. (top choice in the off-topic category)

This question appears to be about an issue caused by a bug in Blender. These should be reported to the official bug tracker.

This particular question was about he UPBGE, so you could suggest the OP report the bug to their tracker.

I assume that we would make some concessions if the question was clearly focused on asking about potential workarounds for the bug?


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Down-voting a question because the OP didn't accept your answer
Is this actually acceptable practice?
There was a recent question where a user basically stated in a comment that they were going to downvote a question because the questioner wouldn't (or didn't know how to) accept this user's answer. Lo and behold, there's a downvote on the question even though there's nothing that I can see wrong with the question.
I understand everyone has the freedom to do as they like, but I was under the assumption that votes were used to describe a good question or a bad question, or a non-vote for a meh question.  Are votes to be used as leverage as well?  You don't scratch my back, I'll cut yours?  Not only is this blatant rep-whoring, but it seems to me to undermine the structure of SE.
I can totally understand when someone doesn't accept your answer even though you spent time to help them.  I totally understand that the questioner should accept a solid answer.  But if we take this to its logical end, what's to stop users from going through and downvoting everything that another user's done, simply out of spite?
Thoughts?

PS if someone when on a tirade and down voted all your posts (up to the daily limit of DVs), the SE system would correct it. It can detect serial rage down voting.

The human brain is an extraordinarily bizarre thing. You're on the internet, anonymous and nobody knows you, so you shouldn't care anyway, and the master overlord gives you points for your hard work, numbers, scores; they won't get you friends, you can't buy anything, they are useless. But you work hard for them and because they are the only representation of your hard work people fight and argue over them, back stab each other and if the system was rigged for it, yes, people would kill each other over these points. If somebody could really answer your question, there would be no more wars.

@AzulShiva - That's an interesting take on this.  I would say, though, that the points aren't useless.  Apart from helping to ensure a certain level of technical precision and completeness in answers and questions, they can be used to "purchase" help from users on particulars problems you're having, and it has the potential to be a plus on a resume.

SILLY QUESTION... DOWN VOTED jk jk

@AzulShiva add to that prevalence of the "meh" factor.  Consider the amount of 0 voted ("meh") questions that have generated interest both in comment and answers.  If  treated  a bit more positively with more up-votes the occasional spite down-vote wont matter all that much.   Compare to votes in meta where  time of writing this comment there are 21 collectively in q & a in less than a month. (even with  Elimazz's DV ).  So many of these issues come down to the "wedge"... vote more.

Like I wrote in my comment:

@Hendriks3D while I sure understand the frustration of not getting an answer accepted (where the OP comments saying how you helped them), down voting the question out of spite is just not right.

That kind of voting is wrong, period.
On the DV Privilege page is says when to down vote:

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

Nowhere in there (or anywhere else will you find) "Down vote whenever you are unhappy with the OP."
Aside from the very big problem with that type of behavior, there is an underlying issue, which is: voting on anything other then the content of the post.
Anytime you cast a vote (Up, Down, Close, or Delete) you should be voting only on the content. Whenever other things start to creep in, problems start. Then you have unhappy users, next it is you holding a grudge, then the other guy which you did not UV is angry and on and on it goes.
"He already has enough rep, no point UVing that question."
"I'm not UVing that - it will push his answer above mine."
"I know this guy, he was a jerk in second grade." DVed.
Do not vote on anything like this is a popularity contest, just vote on the content.
Would be an interesting experiment, anonymize the posts then see if people vote differently.
In a perfect world all the votes would be the same, but as we all know nothing's perfect. Like the example that spurred this question, people do not vote with pure intentions.

All that only goes for the main site, on meta it is a bit different.
Here in cases where somebody has a proposal or feature request, voting is more of a "agree, disagree" than "good post, bad post".
If for example (and by saying this I'm begging for it to be done) my answer here gets DVed, I wont take it as if I wrote a bad answer, but rather that there is some user that wants to keep voting on whatever whims they have.


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New Contributor indicator how to be a Contributor to Code of Conduct?
While Browsing Blender Stack Exchange. I noticed that some users are Contributor of "Code of Conduct".

If You hover the Text 'New Contributor' it Shows a message about "Code of Conduct". Although I already know about this code of conduct but I want to know , How to be a Contributor to Code of Conduct.

This flag doesn't mean that the user is a "Contributor to the Code of Conduct". It means that this user is new to the site and thus should be treated in a more welcoming manner in accordance with the Code of Conduct. In fact, you are a new contributor to this site and other users will see this flag on you for some time.

This flag is visible for a week following the user's first post. In your case, that was your first post in meta, hence the flag. For more information, see this meta post.

But some New Users with Reputation less than 50 are not shown with this Flag.

@ShehrozKhan Sure, that's possibly because they asked a question a long time ago and had minimal contributions since then, that is, they are not new to the site. For more information, see this meta post.


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How do I attach files in comments and sub-comments?
I can't find a way to attach files (specifically rendered videos .mkv or "FFmpeg" in blender) to my comments. I'm new to the site so it might actually be really obvious.

What do you mean by "mkv or "FFmpeg" in blender"? Do you expect them to be a part of your .blend file? The only files expected to be attached on the site are .blend files which help to narrow down the problem and should not be the only definition of it (tldr add screenshots and description). Files of other formats are not attached and shouldn't be. To quickly illustrate something you can use .gif or link to YT video with description.

Sorry, I'm a beginner at blender and this website. I meant rendered videos. Is there a way that I can add rendered videos from my computer to my comments?

The same principle applies - only files applicable for showcasing the question are expected. .blend files as priority together with images and description. Any videos are large for download and can't be embedded in the posts, only usual links to external resource. It would maybe add clarity if you [edit] and write why do you need to add videos to question or comment.

I need to attach the files to showcase a graphics/lag error after a 5-hour render, which is why I won't upload a .blend file (I don't even know how to). I think I could do a .gif, but I'm not sure how to record and upload one. I use OBS for recording, but I don't think it can record in .gif. I could do a YT vid, but it seems like a .gif would be easier.

You could always make some screenshots on the frames where "graphics error" is visible and include them. I don't see why not posting a file just because it renders slowly; though the .blend attached should have minimal example allowing to reproduce the problem (only one object / action / strip etc). See how to record gifs

Ok, thanks! (comment too short)

and if you really need to show a video, external solutions are there. Youtube as example. Or google drive, or openload, ... For animation reviews (meaning there is a need to review frame per frame, anotate on frames, etc), there are some specialized websites, like syncsketch.com


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Need to tell blender developers to add different symbols in future updates
I am in need of letters which are not in the standard English alphabet. I personally am after the ancient Hebrew alphabet from the times new roman font file. I am not able to copy these letters from character map app and paste them into my blender project.
I know that, in mentioning this, I am also aware that there are many users from around the world that may be using blender, however, but do not write in European languages (for e.g. Russian, Mandarin, and Arabic to name a few).
As a solution to this I strongly propose and believe that it is paramount that the next future update of blender needs to implement allowing the default microsoft character map to show up somehow in blender, OR, for blender to have its very own (extremely extensive) character map that allows all users to have all letters and symbols of all the languages ever recorded in existence.
Where else can I better give this feedback other than this site?
I need the traditional Hebrew letters in the Times New Roman font to preferably be in my project as added text OR, in the meantime, if anyone can show me a versatile practical way of showing me how to get these symbols (as 3D objects only) into blender in a way that I can make them look bright, presentable and, mystical.

From the how to get these symbols (as 3D objects only) I suppose you want to create 3D text object with using non-standard font. In this case this is not a question to Blender developers rather to fonts used by Blender. In text object properties choose a font which supports those symbols, see https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/6920/1245 for more (comments as well).

For giving feedback to developers, see:

Best Place to put Feature Requests?
Best place to put bug reports?

However, an important step in that process is checking if the feature you seek doesn't already exist, perhaps in an unexpected form. At least in this case, it seems like it does: How can I add text in a non-english language?


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How do I subscribe to, follow or save questions?
I'd like to do something like "+1" or just "subscribe" to certain questions. Can't find a button for it.
By the way the next obstacle is posting itself: System says I have to wait for 40 minutes. Looks like some idiots have spammed here a lot and ruined it for noobs like me who just want to learn Blender.

Stack Exchange doesn't have this functionality well handled yet (notifications of other people's stuff), so here is what you can do (and what I do):

Mark questions favorite (little star below up/down count). This adds them into list under your profile > activity > favorites. The list is public.
Bookmark questions (or answers copying their share url) into your browser bookmarks (if you don't want others to see).
Get an RSS reader to see new questions. The feed is: http://blender.stackexchange.com//feeds. This is like subscribing to the whole blender.stackexchange site. You can do this for certain tags only.
To subscribe to just one question, use the question's RSS feed:

Gosh, how could I not see that star below up/downvote? Maybe the adblocker stole it? :) Thank you very much!

Yes being brand new to SE comes with quite a few limitations. That is what the privileges system takes care of.
The 40 min wait you experienced is just for posting on the meta (it is really quite rare to get a brand new user asking a question here).
You will see there you need 15 rep to Up Vote anything. That takes care of the "+1" part of your question.
As Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny pointed out there is really no good way of subscribing to a post. All we get is the favorite button (sounds very much like what you want) and the RSS feed for each post. (Personally I have never used the RSS)
When you click on the star, below the vote buttons on a question, that question gets added to your favorites. When sorted by activity anything new (say an answer or an edit) will bring that post to the top of your favorites list.

Thanks. I really know why these limitations exist, I used to be a web developer / administrator in the first place.
Also -- to my defence -- I'm above 30 so learning something new takes a bit longer than it used to ;)
Anyway, just by asking 3 or 4 questions alltogether I got a reputation of 16 now. Yeeha.


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Why are 2.8 questions off topic?
I have a question about my Blender Stack Exchange post: How to do a simple smoke in 2.8 eevee
Anyway what can be asked and what cannot is almost to the point of semantics. I understand the reasoning. I would assume a “no 2.8 or Blender dev 2.7 “ would be a very easy to see notification somewhere on the blender exchange front page Or “for official release only”. Since I cant find reference “no 2.8 questions “, I am just concerned  another question I ask with official build will get removed because of some common knowledge of masters but not of noobs. What you should ask and not should be on the front page link instead linked and menued down in the help section.

Nope this won't be deleted, in fact this is exactly what the meta if for. Glad you stuck around and are now trying to learn more about the site.

I understand Wally, and so many other users, as the only hint given when asking question are:1) the title placeholder "What's your blender question? Be specific." and 2) only on desktop, in a side panel, is "Is your question about blender?". Yes, site's help and faq can help but only if you take the time to read them. Even a simple change to the question asking form could spare many discussions and closing votes needed. Who knows, next 2.9 could trigger the same misunderstanding, soon...

Not all 2.8 questions are offtopic. For example this one:
Where is the Layers panel in Blender 2.8?
is legit, because it is known the layer system will change and the question will stay relevant after the official 2.8 release. And in meantime it will clarify what's going on with layers in developer versions.
There are many questions with "Something does not work in 2.8" format. They are getting closed, because it's normal behaviour until official release comes out and also they get obsolete as that "Something" gets re-implemented back into 2.8.

I should've known not to ask about blender 2.8.

You can ask about 2.8, the reason is not the 2.8 version, but the nature of the question being too narrow. You are right this is not mentioned in the Tour section, there is only:

Avoid questions that are primarily opinion-based, or that are likely to generate discussion rather than answers.

And that you get the real disclaimers what is off-topic through digging in the help section, which is much harder to get to and not many newcomers will read right away.
There is a balance between simplicity and information abundance. I don't personally mind how little the Tour page covers as there seems enough moderating capacity of this site to filter occasional off-topics in minutes. Closing mechanic is quite normal and nothing to feel bad about. I can imagine there being a link to the off-topic list from the Tour/Front page though.
You might want to see some hilarious fictional examples of what gets moderated here (some are less fictional than you would think:)
Funny Questions #1
Funny Questions #2
Funny Questions #3
2.8 questions are not that bad in general, some might be even good and legit. As they are not the biggest offender, imho they don't require special treatment on front page.

Thanks..I have been hesitant to check my mail. I have a phobia of it, I think. I catastrophize what I think how people will respond. Silly.

When the first release candidate drops would be a good time for us to slowly start officially adopting it. Expect a featured meta post when this happens.

Thing is we don't want version tags as eventually 2.8+ will be the de facto standard and Blender has excellent backwards compatibility so the majority of our content will still apply sans some shortcut and interface changes/enhancements.

It's also still undergoing heavy changes for any answers to be useful to anyone a year from now for example. We want a curated archive of helpful posts and we've had several 2.8 related answers become obsolete already within the space of a week.

Why Beta release is "official"? The was a 2 official alpha releases yet. So if Alpha is not "official", maybe Beta also is not "official"?

According to what I was following on irc and code.blender the first release candidate would have dropped around that time. https://code.blender.org/2018/06/beyond-the-code-quest/, not alpha, not beta (last month) but close enough to production ready. That means less large breaking changes.

The information that you are provided is not up-to-date. Since blender alpha 2 was released instead beta, release plan delayed and RC is expected in 2019Q1
https://code.blender.org/2018/08/blender-2-8-planning-update/

I'd like to point out that "excellent backwards compatibility" is completely untrue for the python API.


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What's the fastest way to screen capture to a GIF for demonstrations?
When posting an answer it's common to want to illustrate an idea using an animated diagram or screen capture. I have some screen capture software (iShowU) but it doesn't have and export to GIF option built in. I also know of a website for quickly creating animated GIFs from an image sequence (gifmaker.me), but I have to crop in an image editor and export the frames first, so it's not very efficient.
Are there any apps or web apps you guys recommend for preparing an animated GIF quickly from what's on the screen?
Attention: This post is not specific to one software title or website!
I'm looking for something that will work on a Mac, but this conversation is intended to invite discussion of options for all OSes that Blender can run on (Mac/Linux/Windows).
Thanks!

Were you asking about a screen recording of your user and mouse gestures?  Were you asking about any series of screen captures?  Blender render of image sequences of jpegs or png files?

I just wanted to know how others make GIFs so quickly. Unfortunately a trigger-happy gandalf3 marked it as a duplicate so others probably won't find this question and benefit from it. It's not a duplicate btw, this is not about gfycat specifically. Anyway, it's solved. I found that .mov files made with iShowU can be converted to GIFs using this site: http://image.online-convert.com/convert-to-gif and I also found that loading a series of  screen shots into PhotoShop and exporting as a GIF is easier than I thought: http://www.briandalessandro.com/blog/create-an-animated-gif-in-photoshop-cs5/

Yes.  Your post seems quite open to variety of solutions/techniques. I happen to use GIMP for GIF creation. It works satisfactorily.  I sometimes see imperfections which I have not investigated. Thanks.


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Aggressive posting for rep
I've noticed that some posters , in my opinion, are aggressively posting to gain reputation at the expense of legitimate content.
I can't offer up any immediate solution(s). But, I think, that as a community, if that trend continues, BSE becomes more of a game than the professional forum that it currently is.

Link to the examples in question would be helpful, even just to the user.

Can you elaborate on why you think this? Perhaps some examples?

It's something I've noticed. I prefer to not throw any individual under a buss.

@Dontwalk I appreciate your consideration. I intended to suggest providing examples of the behavior or language, not of any specific individuals. In hindsight I'll admit that was not at all clear. So that said, as it is now we have no way of knowing what you mean by "aggressively posting". In your own words, could you describe or paraphrase what you interpret as an "aggressive post"?

Hello. Just few words because I could feel concerned about what is said here. So... well, considering the question and the answers : yes I am new participant. Yes there is some kind of game aspect because this is new to me. Yes, I know my answers are often low level (I am just a hobbyist). But I try to take time to formalize them well and to take into account the remarks of the moderators. And surely no : this is not aggressiveness... not at all (at least, I hope !). Anyway I am not here to annoy people so feel free to express your thoughts. Sincerely yours

There is (almost) no limit to how often a user can answer questions.
If this user is posting lots of good answers, maybe because he is new to the site and finds all this fun, then great! The more the merrier.
However if these are low quality, then there is a problem. Low quality posts, no matter the frequency, are an issue and should be dealt with. SE has many different ways to handle them: CV, DV, edit, flag, delete.
Guidelines for reviewing low-quality posts
more guidelines
I have not seen anything out of the ordinary, (when a user is new they are likely to #1 be quite active, and #2 their posts will not be the highest quality.) Add that together and you get more then "normal" about of answers.
Hopefully the user(s) you are referring to will quickly learn that it is much more beneficial to write a few excellent answers, then it is to flood as many answers as you can while having none of them really stand out.
You can help speed up that learning process by commenting on any answer and ask for more info, (DV and comment if it is really not good), if it is really bad flag it as "very low quality."
But you could do the same things that I would do after getting a flag. Give the user some links, links to the SE good answer help page, other good answers, etc. Leave the user a comment inviting him to chat to learn more.
Finally don't reward mediocrity, if the answer doesn't deserve a DV, but is not particularity great, then don't UV it. It doesn't take long when getting little to no rep on an answer to wonder what is wrong with it.

I'd like to kindly offer some constructive criticism. Only using he/him can imply that only male users will make this mistake. Normally, I wouldn't say anything about this, as it can be a defensive topic, but I don't feel you'll interpret it that way. Since "he" is grammatically correct, and this is not a grammar forum here is a short and sweet question regarding the topic http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/48/is-there-a-correct-gender-neutral-singular-pronoun-his-versus-her-versus?newreg=781ab91584d141a09877be8c95286b2a.

@360ueck thank you for your thoughts. As you correctly observed I am not using "he" in an only masculine form. Wikipedia talks about the generic use that I am using. (In fact the question you linked to has an answer saying that it is still recognized as gender neutral term.) Now I have a question for you, when you read my answer did you really think I was singling out men? (I did only use "he" once, and used a generic "the user" all throughout my answer.)

@360ueck I invite you to come over to chat if you would like to talk more about this.

Honestly, someone accused me of using the wrong pronoun in a similar context, and when I saw the post I couldn’t resist. Now in that setting, it was a lot more relevant. But the idea is similar to this question, in that part of it has to do with one’s interpretation. I know what the user means by “aggressive” and the problem is that it isn’t objectively aggressive, just like using “him” isn’t objectively wrong, but it could hinder in someone liking the post should they interpret it that way. I’m not trying to tell you how to speak, just trying to be helpful and share what I’ve learned.

When I saw your post 2 things crossed my mind. 1) That you were speaking of every Blender user. 2) What if the person who pointed out my mistake saw this.


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How to deal with unanswered questions
It seems there's a lot of unanswered questions with good answers, but no up votes or OP's activity. I think we could use a closing reason allowing to:

Close an unanswered question older than 15/30/60;
Check if the question has a not-so-bad answer;
Check the OP's recent activity, and:

If recently active, ask him to comment the answer or edit the question to make it better;
If inactive (15/30/60 days), automatically close the question as "Probably Answered".

The unanswered list would be shorter and more accurate.

I do not understand your first line "It seems there's a lot of unanswered questions with good answers" What do you mean unanswered with answers?

found this in the unanswered questions list, it has an answer. http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/637/how-can-i-insert-videos-into-my-qa

OK, you are talking about questions with answers that have 0 up votes.

If I am not mistaken (someone please correct me if I am) all a question needs is at least one upvote on one or more answers to be considered answered.  So instead of closing the question, why not just upvote the answer if it seems appropriate?  I see no reason why a question should be closed just because the OP hasn't come back.

@PGmath That I believe is the case, and I 100% agree. Closing questions should not be a go-to solution :P

I think that this is a bad idea for several reasons:

Closing questions should be avoided whenever possible

I think we should be cautious of just closing questions because they are old and unanswered, even if they do/do not have an answer. I think that would be a very questionable practice.

You should not close a question with an answer unless it is very off topic or a duplicate.

I think the only real reason to close a question with a good answer is because it is a duplicate (or of course it is well off-topic). Closing questions should not become our end-all solution.
In your question you stated

It seems there's a lot of unanswered questions with good answers (0 up votes) but no "asker"'s activity. I think we could use a closing vote . . .

I strongly disagree, if it is a good answer, simply give it an upvote. This removes it from the unanswered queue immediately, and will solve the problem just as effectively as closing the question.

I think I misunderstood the meaning of closing a question. I also discovered that it's possible to use the no answers filter when using the upper unanswered link.

This filter is not visible when choosing unanswered from questions list

So it seems my question is somehow off-topic or useless.

I had the same issue when I first looked for unanswered questions. I get what you were thinking :)