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Downvoting is one of the reasons I often very much dislike StackExchange
Triggered by:
shrinkwrap ("decal") around entire object?
After noticing my question (link above) was downvoted, I commented downstream. Yes, I have used SE for years, off and on. So I am very familiar with the way things work. I also understand gripping about downvotes just for being downvoted is pointless. That's why I'm here now on meta: I see no problem at all with the question (link above), its format, content, or intent. After trying, for several hours, to do what the question asks about without success, I researched for several hours more, until finally giving up and coming here ... This just irks the you know what out of me. And yes, I understand some users just downvote like Trolls.
I am one of those who firmly believe downvoting without comment should not be allowed. (Please don't tell us it would be too expensive for SE to hold such a volume of data. Drivespace is cheaper than dirt. And there are other algorithms which could facilitate this.)
Here's my comment (excerpted from my question's comments):

OK why the downvote? --- this is one of the reasons I hate
  stackexchange many times.  Post a legitimate question ... in detail
  ... (It took me > 15 minutes to think out the question and step by
  step details, then I reviewed it, posted and then edited it several
  times, followed by an image added by request of a commentor.) So you
  downvote, but don't say WHY. How the heck is this supposed to help
  ANYONE? Off to Meta to whine ...

... And from the SE Horse's Mouth:

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.

from https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/vote-down

My question met none of the downvoting criteria, IMO.
So please DO go downvote my question if it needs improvement or is off-base (which would baffle me if you think so). BUT tell me (US!) what is wrong with it, or how it could be improved.
To be fair and balanced (LOL) you could also support the cause and go UPVOTE the question :))
thank you for your time and consideration.

I did what you asked and downvoted it. I read your question, all the comments to it, and the answer, and still can't figure out what your trying to do.

OK I'm baffled by this. Perhaps you all know TOO much and can't think like a noob when approaching a question? (Nothing personal)... However, seeing that you are one of the people who put it on hold, I can say that doing such a thing is a very bad idea for a multitude of discouraging reasons. It makes me just want to delete the question and blow off stackexchange sites AGAIN.  Do I sound temperamental? No. It's just that doing things this way is so counterproductive for noobs. AS I commented, if I understood how to do what I needed to do, I not need to ask the question. ... continued ...

...  So I (we) get penalized or the question is frozen just because we don't know the proper jargon?  Did it occur to you (all) that maybe someone like me has never even heard of UV mapping before? (I do know well what it is ... and said specifically asked if a simpler method exists.)  I rerereRead my post ... I just don't get what is so hard to understand about the idea of "wrapping a picture around an object". Take a jpg, gif, whatever, print it on a piece of paper and glue the damn thing around a cardboard box.  Would it help if I edited that into the OP? If so, this just confirms  ...

... a feeling of sadness about stacksites in general --- most seasoned users tend too frequently toward being obsessive compulsive about "getting it right," instead of truly trying to understand the intention of the question. (Sorry, you can look at my profile and see that I've been around awhile ... in fact, under a company ID I don't use since I'm not there anymore, I started on StackOverflow in 2009 ... so I'm not a noob to SE, but I am to Blender.)  Now, I feel like Blender.SE is going to be the same, time waster ... and you all wonder why the insufficient voting. And thank you ...

... and I mean it sincerely, that you downvoted AND explained why you did so.  Perhaps my question was so simple it isn't obvious ... that's all I can figure at this point ... - H

You could have done something as simple of showing an example of what your were trying to do. That example could have been of anything. Presenting a unclear description of what you have tried to do, to fix a problem you never clearly explain, does not help anyone. We can't answer your question, and help you solve your problem if we don't know what your trying to do.

@x-27 --- "show a simple example of what you are trying to do" ... OK, you got me. I give up. How can I show an example of what I am trying to do if I can't do it in the first place ???  That is precisely why I wrote an explanation.  I tried both to photoshop it and do it in After Effects, but it was too complex (for me at least) to do 3D w/ those tools ... so I turned Blender.  I really don't understand why you don't understand. I'd delete my question out of frustration, but the variations of the answers might prove useful to others. thanks anyway.

@X-27 please see also my final comment to the answer I accepted for the OP.

This is how I read your question, and why I DVed it.
"I'm trying to acheve an end result, but I'm not going to say what that end result is. This is the approach I've taken, which isn't working how I imagined it should. How can I make my approach work?"
You could simply have said:
"I'm trying to make ______. I have tried this already, but it didn't work.  What should I be doing?"

I don't see the point of this any longer. I did what you said. I specifically said exactly what I wanted to do in the very first sentence. Then, in the instructions, I said "take any arbitrary image" ... it doesn't matter what ... I picked "brain" at random. It could have been a picture of strawberries, or a dead horse.  Put picture on a plane, or empty, then wrap that picture around an arbitrary object. What is so hard to understand about that?...

@X-27 - as more than a few folks said my question was unclear, I've edited the o.post to try to clarify it, now that I understand the terminology. Thanks again for taking the time to assist on this!

@x-27 PS thanks for releasing / reopening the question... if you all had not done so, I would not have gotten the answer from today 24Aug16. That answer was precisely what I was looking for.  (Also, for the sake of blender.se. meta, please see my comments below to David.)

Your question in its current state is surely not that bad (in terms of lacking information) that I would DV it (I've seen worse). But then there is cegaton's answer - and the wonderful first paragraph seems to be a hint, right? ;-)
The problem is that most of the people with a reputation above 1000 will post the same comment over and over and over again; "Welcome to BlenderSE, your posting lacks structure and vital information, please add some informative images, also consider uploading your file to blend-exchange....yaddayaddy"
So some of us then even try to answer the question to our best knowledge and with the little information we get, but then it's almost always a very long answer since we want to cover all the possible solutions that unclear questions bear.
So here's the thing: Writing good answers is time-consuming and all we get is this nice warm and fuzzy feeling that maybe we helped that person with our effort. Oh, and street cred, of course. The least thing we could expect for our effort is that people ask their questions after they did research and - if they didn't find a good answer - describe their problem in the most comprehensible way possible.
The easiest way to describe a problem is starting with the expected result, like "I want to create a cube that has brain-like patterns allover its surface." Maybe then you could inform us also about the purpose, like "I want to use that model as a still rendering/in an animation/as a game asset." Because... things like these matter sometimes, you know...?
Good questions deliver good answers. Bad questions won't get any answers, only comments and in some cases they get DV'd. The world keeps turning. It's a learning process (hopefully).

Great answer, couldn't have said it better.

Thx metaphor_set; I've accepted your answer although this Q&A round format really doesn't fit for meta-level discussions (another sore spot with me an SE) - and especially for the DV'ing.  Re my question: since at least five people said they didn't understand what I was asking, I accept that my question was unclear. However, cegaton's shotgun approach hit it - and a few hours ago, Duane Dibbley nailed it spot on, or "interpreted" it correctly. So at least one other person understood it. I am glad it was openned again or else Duane's answer would have never happened ... (cont.) ...

... I still think across all SE sites, those with expertise would better serve the sites by refraining from blasting away with the generic "your post lacks ..." and halting it, rather put that as a comment (as, yes, is often done too).  You see, I understood exactly what I needed to do, but being a real blender noob, I had no way of knowing the correct terminology to use. Also I didn't want to just "create a cube with brain like patterns allover it's surface" ... I needed the method of putting any picture on any object (not a material, not a texture, not a UV wrap, not a pattern - and not ....

... specifically a cube.) That's why I said what I said at the get go. The brain on a cube was just an example. Now - after - all the answers, I could ask my question again more precisely. But I'd not need to ask, would I ? TRying to "explain" in detail from a noob's perspective would have been far worse than the XY problem. Do you see? How does a blind man model an elephant, much less ask what tools to use? thanks much for your attention!

Well, not much I can say to cheer you up (and this next bit wont help.)
We will probably never see mandatory comments for DVing. This type of thing and many variants have come up on the main meta for years.
One of the biggest reasons for not having a mandatory comment after a DV, is anonymous voting. If every user that DVs your post has to leave a comment at the same time, it would become rather clear who DVed your post, and that is not something we ever want to let lose.
(You think the DVs are unfair now, you can't even imagine how bad it would get when people can target users and revenge vote.)
Now for any user under 2000 rep, they are asked to leave a comment. A box pops up under the vote buttons that says "Please consider adding a comment if you think this post can be improved."

If I were to venture a guess as to why somebody DVed your post, I would say that it is because it was unclear, maybe a bit long winded (you only get to the question at the end, and it only becomes clearer what you are trying to do with the sentence you edited in later), and it seams to be kind of a XY problem question.

Thanks David. You said, " ... reasons for not having a mandatory comment after a DV, is anonymous voting. If every user that DVs your post has to leave a comment at the same time, it would become rather clear who DVed your post, and that is not something we ever want to let lose." That's an example of what I said about algorithmic fixes. When you downvote, it forces a comment, but the user ID could be left off. One bit set.  Sure, they could leave it blank, but at least they'd be tempted to say at least "it sux" or somesuch.  It's not remotely similar to the XY problem. Why? ...

... because the first thing I said was the question.  Then to clarify, I gave you, the reader the step by step process to get to the same point I was, thus showing you how the result differed from what I was asking about. I've been told I'm very good a teaching other people technical things, and being able to think like someone learning that thing new. So please read my comments above to @x-27 's comment above. BTW, I do appreciate you both taking the time to assist on this. I'd like to hang out here on Blender more, but, honestly, it seems like the same, old worn-out SE shoe ...

@HowardPautz The reason it seems the same, is this is an SE site, so all the same rules and procedures apply. It being old an worn out is a valid opinion, but there isn't really anything we here can do about it, you would need to talk to SE employees up and down the food chain if you want anything to change. Most of us have come to appreciate how it works, and think it does so very effectively.

@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ - understood. Indeed, I too think SE is effective overall, but the effect on downvoting noob posts on the noobs themselves is difficult for experienced users to experience, IMO. In general, the more seasoned an SE user, the less tolerant they might be towards malformed noob questions ... understandably ... it's taxing and tiring to see the same junk over and over again. It's not the noobs themselves, it's their noob-way of asking. There should be some way of getting them to clean up their act without discouraging them.  It feels horrible to see downvotes on your very ...

... first post.  Noobs do not understand this. It's only after you've gained some experience (say > 5 to 10 posts) that you then see what downvoting does.  I'd wager a box of doughnuts that there are thousands of people who legitimately post once or twice, get their posts down to -1, -2, even -3, then never come back.  OK, I supposed we could be Darwinian about this and say if they're not tough enough to survive that initial hurdle, then maybe they shouldn't post at all - but doesn't that just seem wrong?


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Are contests appropriate for meta?
I have a odd question, would it be ok to run contests in meta? something like "Who can make the best looking house" I think this would be a fun thing to do and wouldn't negatively affect the site. This SE site does something similar. What do you think about this?

Well, strictly speaking, not really, that's not the purpose of meta but several SE sites hold small events like these. We were planning some community building activities for the site but real world stuff takes up quite a bit of our time so not much left for us to organize and oversee things like these. It's not as simple as just making a post asking for submissions under a theme etc. Maybe in the coming holidays we could hold a small competition of sorts. Let's see what happens.

@iKlsR I agree that meta shouldn't be used for contest stuff, after I saw your look of disapproval (http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/13346875#13346875) I wonder whether you're against the chat-room, wasn't the Showroom intented for things like that? Could you please add a post on the plans? ">> We were planning some community building activities".

@stacker Heh, ignore that ;). It's perfectly fine to use chat as long as it's related to what the site is about for the most part. We once had scheduled chats but not enough participants so we put that on hold. I can't say exactly what yet as this would have to be discussed some more.

While this may be fun, its really not the purpose of stackexchange or meta, such competitions can be run on forums and other community channels.
While not especially harmful its a distraction.

Would it be ok if I made a chat room for this?

@Qwertie That should be ok.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Some users appends .blend files with wrong "dowload" linked image

Is there a way to correct this minor typo?
eg:
Can't get the right camera settings that match the scene

I'm not sure I follow, can you link the question?

I just linked it in the text above

Oh, I completely missed the apparent typo pointed to by the huge arrow and label.

I can't believe we could have possibly missed that for so long, especially @david, Mr. anti-spam!

Apparently, in the same mental state that got the "n" left out, I also managed to lose the .psd file. Hopefully I will have a new one soon.

... OO did you really use a PSD??? :D

o.O How did we all miss this for so long? (@GiantCowFilms are you sure no one had unauthorized access to the repo or something? :P)

@gandalf3 I'm pretty confident the mistake was always there. The main reason that if someone had changed it I wouldn't have had such a hard time making everything line up when I fixed it (I'm still not happy with how it looks now :/).

More interesting, the previous (controversial due to supposed advertising) version of the image was missing the "n".

That is hilarious. so all along, the MOD-Team was having a fit about the "advertising" and "spam" when we all missed a typo that should have been obvious! lol!

Ooops! That was a bad typo
It is now fixed, and all the old images updated!

There we go!

You'll never be able to forget :-) https://i.sstatic.net/mh7TN.png

@cegaton You are welcome, it was much fun, thanks for the kind words!

I still think "dowload" should be a hidden bonus feature. Like, if you type it into the URL you get some "Easter egg" or something. ...Shoot, the URLs use a different schema, no way to implement that.

@Mentalist If you want Easter eggs, take a look at the bottom of my profile.

This service is generously hosted/provided to the community by GiantCowFilms, send all blame his way ;). You can give him a nudge in our main chatroom to update the image.

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


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I think sometimes some answers are disappearing, is it really so? why?
Sometimes it happens that I see some answer to a post and later it is no more. eg: this one recently
I want to rotate a parent object and see how far a certain vertex of the child object has moved
I guess I should have enough reputation to see deleted answers, but this is not the case. Could it be a site/question "rollback", somehow?

First you don't have enough rep to see deleted posts. Look at the privileges page you need 10,000 to see deleted posts.
The question you linked to has 0 answers, deleted or live. Not sure what you saw on that one, but there have been no answers (maybe you got your links confused).
Last, nope the only rollback operation that exists is to "undo" an edit.
From the help pages:

What is a rollback?
A rollback reverts a question or answer to a previous version in the edit history. The rollback action itself then appears as the most recent item in the edit history.

You would still see a post that was rolled back. Only deletion makes it so non 10K users can no longer see it.

Now there are plenty of "answers" that I convert to an comment; some are completely useless and I plain delete them, but I will never delete a even halfway good answer.

no I'm very sure, and is not the first time: I don't remember the question ID, but I'm sure of the content. Eg: I commented there, suggesting a possible solution, later I saw someone else answered with a similar solution, pictures, an animated gif... it was clearly the same idea as mine, but as an answer, thus I remember it very well. Im really sure. Maybe the OP has deleted the answered question, and then reposted another identical but, I commented only once... on the first one,...

and about reputation, I searched the history here and saw this, http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/366/any-way-to-view-a-deleted-answer?rq=1, so I was misleaded, perhapsl, sorry.

no, you're right I confused one question with another... sorry

I really don't know, sometimes I feel like this happens, maybe with comments, also... it should be me....

@m.ardito The meta post you linked to was correct when we were still in beta, when the site graduated all the permission levels jumped.


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Unanswered questions locked
Not sure where to post this reply but my original question was non-answered then locked, and labeled not useful.
Undo and Redo on Macbook not functioning
I just started using Blender on specifically on the very popular Macbook platform running Lion.  Unfortunately, the most basic of commands (undo/redo) do not work using ctrl-z. The answer given was that undo is ctrl-z, even though I specifically stated that does not work.
Every Macbook user running Lion is going to hit this problem.  The solution, it turns out is to disable mission control under system preferences for keyboard. I hope this helps others.

When you ask a question, please read the responses. The very useful answer brecht gave addresses your issue directly--use the 'Command' key instead of the 'Control' key. The comment I posted before locking your post explains exactly why it was locked: the question does not directly pertain to Blender, but instead is about the Mac OS itself. Please take a look at Superuser.SE or Ask Different for any future questions you might have on the issue.

First of all, your issue is not Blender itself, but the operating system. Most users on Blender.SE are Windows users, and if you continue to have issues you can ask in the comments. Starting a new question when it can be answered in one thread isn't optimal.

@CharlesL I'd venture to say it's probably split evenly between Linux and Windows actually :)

Yeah, that makes sense. I use Mac 75% of the time and Linux the other 25%


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what to do when a question is marked as duplicate and clearly isn't?
In the case of this question, there are 5 moderators marking it duplicate.
The answer referenced doesn't answer the question asked. it concerning completely different keyboard layout than the one being asked about.
Searching for home/end/page up or down does not give any insight to using the Home key on a mac book. Emulating numpad or 3 button mouse will not press home key for a mac user. The information is not provided in the referenced answer.
So, no one is reading what the poster asked, they all just assumed the OP is trying to use the numberpad.
How do I flag as not a duplicate/ needs to be read, not just assumed/ etc?

I get that on a PC keyboard disabling the NumLock provides a Home key, and thus, emulating numpad would provide that key. But this is not true for mac. mac only outputs numbers from numpad. there is no 'numlock' option. so, just enabling numpad emulation is not sufficient to give access to the 'Home-Key' command on a mac book keyboard. You need to use the mac specific shortcut.

In the future you can flag the question or bring it up here, pinging people in chat or casting a reopen vote are valid as well.

"What to do" is bring it up in the meta ;-)
Your FIRST step should be to make sure your question is CLEARLY different (yours is) and comment to that effect (you did). If that doesn't work, bring it to the meta (which you did). These three tools are what StackExchange provides to moderate these kinds of problems.

Thanks for bringing this up on meta :)
I've reopened the post in question.
Once you have 3000 reputation you'll be able to cast close and reopen votes directly. Until then, leave a comment and/or post a meta question, just like you've done here.
Also, with the exception of David (note the ♦), all of the users who closed that question are normal users. SE uses a privilege system which allows anyone to help moderate the site.


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Source code questions in 2016
Source code questions. Back in the day, we decided to put these questions outside our scope for a variety of reasons.
Now that we've graduated and matured more as a site, perhaps now is the time to examine the possibility of expanding that scope.

C/C++ questions with nothing to do with blender can certainly go on StackOverflow, but
C/C++ questions that have everything to do with blender are rarely answered on StackOverflow and have nowhere else to go.
Many questions would be localized, but then again many questions about the use of blender are also very localized. It should be possible to encourage a policy of asking generalized questions which apply to more than just a specific project, just as we do for regular usage questions.
This site has certainly benefited artists, but more technical artists and would-be developers are left without any really accessible resources on blender development. Most developer traffic is either on a mailing list, which leaves its content buried deep in a bottomless pit of archives, or IRC, which, while great for 1-on-1 debugging type problems, suffers from short-term memory loss and common questions must be asked again and again.

I propose allowing source-code questions, but with a carefully monitored lower-bound on localization. Questions such as "How to add a modifier" would be okay, but questions involving a project specific to the OP, such as "How to add a make-awesome modifier" would be too localized.
Really, the rules already in place for regular usage questions should work just as well for development questions.
I also suggest the tag for such questions be named source-code, with possibly more specific tags (e.g. rna, blenkernel) if demand is there.
The pros and cons of such an arrangement:
(at least ones I have thought of so far, if you think of more, please do add them)
Pros

Finally, an accessible, searchable, approachable place to ask about the internals of blender.
Possibly interest developers more in the site, resulting in more user-developer interaction
Increase in scope means there are more questions to be asked, and a wider reaching audience to ask/answer them.
Make it easier for community members to contribute to blender directly, resulting in more features.
Some users could even turn into full-time blender devs, resulting in even more features.
More persistent place to keep info for developers than IRC or the mailing list, and possibly easier to add to/more visible than the wiki.

Cons

Development questions could damage the site by driving away artistic users (doesn't seem likely IMO)
Development questions would go out of date as blender changes. This is of course also true of usage questions.
Some questions, such as "where is the code" questions, seem most effectively answered with some kind of general, universal map of blender's source, but such a map would have to be maintained.

If we decide to expand the scope, one problem we'll have to face is that we've been telling everyone that they aren't allowed for years. We can't just change our official scope definition to something like "The Blender Stack Exchange site is for people who use and develop Blender" and expect the source-code questions to magically come rolling in.
In order to "break the new scope in", we'll need to spread the word and set examples of what new kinds of questions are allowed.
A couple ideas come to mind:

Make a massive CW post on something relatively simple but with lots of common pitfalls (GPU style), perhaps obtaining the source-code and getting to compile (for multiple platforms)
Have a "source-code" day, where users aware of the scope update hang around in chat and have a question and answer party with all the source-code questions that have been in the back of everyone's mind since day 1. (and perhaps copy/paste a short description of whats going on with a link to this post at the bottom of each Q)

Does this include build questions?

@RayMairlot Offhand I'd say no, as most of them are probably one-off machine-specific oddities. Though I think we could consider the occasional CW post if recurring pitfalls appear

Surprised that internal code questions are considered off-topic. Seems like drawing the line at the python api is pretty thin.
I support the suggestion, here's why.
I agree with all the pros, although it might be pushing it to say "Some users could even turn into full-time blender devs."  Of course, it would increase the likelihood of contribution to development. However, learning the python scripting API is challenging enough, compiling code's another beasty entirely.
Re cons (including those listed in the variety of reasons link):

That the site integrity could be "damaged" is just silly. Artists are big boys and girls. But if we're worried they're squeamish, a C/C++ Internals tag could warn them that naked code is ahead.
Code going stale is a non-issue, IMO. Most items seem stable. Things that change, e.g., new features, bug fixes, would be (or should be!) self-evident, documented in the code itself. Blender's GUI stuff seems to change more often (to me anyway), but the underlying elements are also probably fairly stable.  This could be empirically checked, of course.  In any case, someone able to work at this level will (or should) already have enough coding and development experience that coming up to speed on changes is routine, bread and butter.
Re a code map - I disagree with even having one. The code repo IS the map, and - unless it was a totally simple question - the answer would likely, frequently require a link to the code in said repo for the context needed to make sense.  Here, there'd be the chance of having the dead link issue. If we tried to create and maintain a parallel map, we'd just double the headaches.

I'm in support of C/C++ questions, not just because I'm also interested in this personally, but because it seems necessary as there's nowhere else for it, as the OP mentions.
There's one other (non-disqualifying) CON which could turn PRO: we already don't have a great answer response rate (last I looked, it was ~= 75% and dropping!) ... adding in code questions might well drop the rate more. Or, maybe, such questions might get some of the existing devs to come over here and contribute answers

I don't really think a "map" would be very useful, but having attempted to find stuff in the source before, it is really not as straight forward as one would think. Certainly some kind of CW question explaining the roles of DNA, RNA, and where the actual implementation code lives would be a must-have.

The site's integrity could in all reality be compromised, the quality and quantity of recent posts has been overwhelming, and if you look at a site like Stack Overflow, there are tons of genuinely bad questions to be asked. However, if the community here agrees to be on the alert in the coming months as word gets around, I think that risk could be mitigated. It is not a good idea though to pretend it isn't there.

Yeah, that's really my only real concern too. I totally agree with allowing these questions, but my impression is that most users here that actually bother answering are mostly artists, or technical artists at best. Not sure there'll be anyone around qualified enough for answering, let alone provide actual quality answers. I hope it'd attract some devs, but they are already few and far between and wouldn't want them wasting too much time that could be invested in actual development, though I do recognize the value of possibly attracting new people.

@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ - the main reason I'm not worried about the site being compromised by bad blender c/c++ questions, (leaving bad questions in general unconsidered): the question quality would likely be higher as a poster would already be proficient enough in c/c++ to attempt the innards, and would or should already know how to formulate it. ... Might be a good technical question, but malformed on the deeper code level. That would require a more sophisticated comment/answer.  On the other hand, it'd be no big deal to flag "I'd like to learn c/c++ by coding blender."

Indeed, I agree with you. Just pointing out that we do have to be careful before making such a big change.

I am in full support of the proposition too.
For an addon I needed to add control points to the fcurve envelope modifier.  I've programmed in C / C++ but many moons ago.  Even getting tips on which file to look in / edit, I found my self sitting there and scratching my head.
The "kick-start" from Uncle Entity unlocked some of the internal rna "blender magic" on how to add features to the python API.
Source code questions, such as the example above, would prove to be an invaluable resource and enhance this site (and ultimately blender) IMhO.
Will also reduce the need to go "pestering" the devs on #blendercoders .

Questions about code can be a way to have more accurate information about Blender's behavior even for end user usage. This is can be interpreted to be the case here or here.
Another example is this one, which is not directly about source code (as asking about the algorithm) but the answer needs to be based on it (except if we can find an exact specification about this Blender's algorithm).
And this one is directly about the source, but IMO it could simply be reformulated as "what is the algorithm?" too.
I am globally favorable to allow source code questions as long as they are properly tagged so that they do not annoy people who are not interested in them and as long as these questions are about gathering information about Blender's behavior or Blender's function localization (in the project source). No more.
But, considering some Python questions in the trend "how to do this in Python?", I am not sure that allowing the same for C/C++ is a good idea because question like "how can I modify the source to obtain this?" is far more complex and far more dangerous about the consequent stability of Blender itself (and we could have other questions about "I have modified the code like that, but now Blender crashes when I do this, can someone help me?" or "I have modified the code but now the project fails to compile...") and IMO this can not be constructive at all for BSE.
To summarize, my opinion about that is :

OK to allow informational questions about the code like "how this function works or what is the accurate result of this function?" or "where is this function implemented?" (as long as there is no precise map of the code)
Not OK to allow any kind of debugging or development requests

In complement (to the code map), another category of questions can be "cook book questions" like "I want to add a new modifier : what are the different parts of Blender involved in it?" (modifier or nodes or editing functions...). But I think these cook books could be more efficient if they were described and maintained in an official Blender wiki.

I vote for allowing source code questions. And agree with all the pro points above. Plus the line between an answer that needs python scripting and source code changes is not always visible when you start to ask a question. You might end in the c code for what you want to do. Happened to me.
It is in general also very discouraging when you first have to think if your question is even allowed before you start to post something. Also source code is Blender.

A couple of the answers already have made good cases for why we should allow source code questions.
So, Lets try it!
Worst comes to worst, we can change the scope back. I don't think our site will be forever ruined if we have two weeks or so of blender internals questions. That way we can see if the questions will actually get answered.  In my opinion the only probable risk here is we end up with a stream of never answered questions, like graphicdesign.stackexchange experienced with 3D modeling questions. If that happens, simply undo, and life returns to normal, or at least whatever this site thinks is normal. . .

I'm not sure it's as simple as all that. We can try and shape the scope, but it's really defined the all users who "get" it.  It takes time for enough users to "get" the scope, and changing it once will be hard enough. Changing it twice (especially in rapid-succession) would likely cause confusion without end..

@gandalf3 I disagree. Anyone who'd have noticed the change in the first place, will probably notice the other change. Besides, most users who have trouble are first time visitors, who don't know what the scope is, either way.

Yes, but then those visitors spread the word to others ”idk what's the matter with your file, but maybe you should post on this site I just found... just mind you don't mention your GPU, or they'll get all excited and block your post". Then those users tell other users in a MMO version of telephone, and a reputation starts to form. Undoing that takes time "did you see that stackexchange place came to their senses and allows real questions now?" "nice, I'ma ask one right now!" later.. "what? Closed because of a little sourcecode? This site sucks!"

@gandalf3 Pity SE wont allow us to temporarily stick a big red banner saying source code questions are now banned on the question page. That would make undo scope changes easier. I guess you have a point, although I still think in practice, everyone is less connected than that.


text:
Are questions asking about problems encountered while following a tutorial off topic?
I've noticed that these sorts of questions are suddenly being closed:

"Minecraft Properties" tab is not showing up on rig where the tab is supposed to be there
https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/33147/599

However these weren't always closed, for instance Cause of black artifacts in render? (from one of the same tutorials even).
I feel like we should decide one way or another.

I don't really see any difference between these questions and the usual "Something X is weird, why?" questions.
Are there any reasons to exclude these kinds of questions from our scope?

This may be a little contentious, but in the case of "What face do I extrude in this tutorial?" it's a little bit like helping someone with a paint-by-numbers painting. It's not teaching them to paint, it's us showing them how to do the thing that should have been made clear in the tutorial.
They weren't having a problem with the concept of extrude, but the problem with the clarity of the tutorial, and that's why I think we should not encourage questions like that.
But there are questions about tutorials which I think are valid to answer once, for example scripting tutorials which reference deprecated API (for example the CGcookie AudioVisualizer tutorial. I think it generated about 5 questions here, and maybe 10 question on BA.org).
There's a nuance here which might not be easy to enforce or get agreement on.


text:
"Improve the Blender Manual" event proposal
The Blender manual still has many rough spots from it's recent migration from the old wiki.
Many pages are severely out of date, incomplete, or missing.
Since we are a community of Blender users who spend time writing about how to use Blender, I thought it would be a good idea to organize an event to contribute en mass to the official manual project.
Having a good manual is not only beneficial to Blender and it's users, but also can directly enhance SE content by providing a consistent and easily-linked reference for answerers and questioners alike — provided it's complete and up to date.
But wait! I thought the devs were supposed to do this?
Well, yes, developers do write documentation. But a lot of documentation from the old wiki ended up mostly disorganized, not very consistent, and over time became out of date.
To fix this, a switch was made to Sphinx (the same system used for the python API docs). Hopefully this system will provide a more controlled and organized platform for managing the manual once the docs which were imported from the old wiki are cleaned up. There is are large amounts of still out-of-date and incomplete documentation, and cleaning all of it up is a monumental task for only a few people. Developer time is precious, and naturally it's in the interest of blender users to ensure that they have as much time as possible to make blender more awesome ;)
Alright then, what's the idea?
I suggest putting on a site event for a week and creating a dedicated chat room where fellow documenters can exchange ideas and ask questions.
Perhaps we could set some kind of goal for the end of the week, e.g. clear 10 tasks from the to-do list.
I want to start right now! Where do I go?
Well, we aren't starting just yet..
See this meta post for details!

Do you think it would be possible to convince a developer/expert to drop by and help anyone who is baffled by some of the confusing technical overhead? Probably unlikely, but it would be cool

@GiantCowFilms I expect we could get Greg Zaal in on it (he was hired by blender to work on the docs).

@GiantCowFilms What technicalities in particular?

@gandalf3 Sphinx setup, svn... committing the entire thing

@GiantCowFilms For the most part probably I or Greg Zaal can answer such questions. It's when things go wrong that we might need an expert..

The docs could definitely use your guys' help :) I can help where I can - just poke me in the chat or on irc (pixaal)

This sounds like a fantastic idea, I'd love to participate!  I also might note that in many cases people who are naturally good at something are very bad at explaining it, so it often isn't a great idea to have devs write manuals.


text:
Improving the Blender manual
So to follow up my previous post, the manual project chat room is live and ready for action!
Contributions of all shapes and sizes are welcome.
How do I start?
If you're unfamiliar with the manual editing process, it essentially goes like this:
Setup build environment
Install SVN and Sphinx.
You'll only have to do this once. It's a bit of a complicated process if you're unfamiliar with version control, but setting things up now will vastly speed up your workflow in the future.
Feel free to ask any questions in the chat room.
Pick something to fix
Right now problems are so plentiful you can probably find a good place to start just by looking at the manual, but there's always something on the tracker to pick from.
To avoid conflicting work it may be a good idea to create and claim a task on phabricator, or at least check that no one else in the chat room is already working on the same thing.
When writing new sections from scratch be sure to check that the section doesn't already exist somewhere; in some places the docs are so disorganized that sections may not be where you think they are. If you find a "hidden" section like this which might be better placed elsewhere, create a task describing which files should go where and why.
Do note that many existing files in the manual don't follow the style guides since they were imported from the wiki, so be sure you base your writing off the official guide and not existing files.
Write documentation
The manual is written in RST (reStructuredText) markup.
The guide on the manual should explain most the the syntax you'll need to know, including some constructs specific to the blender manual.
Be sure to read the writing style guide and verify your documentation follows the guidelines.
The main purpose of the manual is to provide a consistent, reliable, and maintainable reference.
Tutorial-like step by step instructions detailing how to do a particular task are not considered good material for the manual.
Submit for review
To make sure the manual stays organized and maintains a good quality standard, submitted contributions are reviewed before putting them on the manual.
Create a diff and upload it to phabricator (developer.blender.org) for review:

Create an account on developer.blender.org if you don't have one already.
Create a revision by clicking the Submit Code button on the home page.
Once presented with the submission page, either upload your diff file or copy/paste it's content into the Raw Diff box. When finished, click Create Diff.
Review the diff phabricator sees to ensure it's correct, then click Continue.

You should now be presented with a form. Write a descriptive title and briefly describe the purpose of the patch and what it changes. Set the reviewer to Documentation. I also like to set the Repository and Project, but this is optional.

Developers or other documenters will review your submission to make sure it follows the guidelines and fits in with the rest of the manual. They may have a few suggestions, in which case you may find yourself wanting to update the revision with a new diff.
To update a revision, follow the same steps as above, but on step 3 select the revision you wish to update in the Attach To drop down:

Don't worry if this sounds complicated! As always, feel free to ask any questions in the chat room.
I don't feel like writing documentation, but I want to help
Another way you can help is by finding problems with the manual and reporting them here. As always, it's a good idea to check that the problem hasn't been reported already.
Resources
Links to useful places

Writing style guide
RST syntax reference
The #blenderwiki IRC channel
The Bf-docboard mailing list
Talk at Bcon 2014 explaining the rational behind the switch from MediaWiki to Sphinx.

Show off your contributions!
Once you have added a new contribution, please add a link to the diff page here as an answer. It will encourage others and give an opportunity to receive feedback.
But please try to keep review comments/feedback on phabricator.

Would be good to have those instructional images on the blender manual's contribute page https://www.blender.org/manual/about/contribute.html

@RayMairlot Unfortunately gifs are discouraged..

Clean up glossary

Define a styleguide
Clean up glossary entries which don't conform to the style guide.
Also just rewrite a few more entries.

Contribute.rst
I was editing the timeline page to improve it, when I discovered while searching for a page to link to, that one, very good one, already existed. I ended up wasting a good deal of time. I have added this revision to warn future writers about thsis pitfall.

Good catch, thanks.

Standardize Game Engine Controllers
I moved all the standard parts of the game engine controller into one file.

Re-organize "getting started" section
This shuffles a lot of pages out of /getting_started/basics which didn't really belong there.

I think there should be a better understanding and reorganization for the programming section of the blender manual. The problem I see for other BGE and BL users is that they go in and are scared to code in python. In-fact they are because there is no explanation on how to code in BGE and BL except for the fact that you need to go get a "Python Programming" book which is true, however, that book isn't about how python code will function in BGE and BL.

This isn't really the proper place to hold a discussion on these sorts of things. The "official" places for documentation discussion is on the mailing list or IRC.

You could also make a task on phabricator


text:
What kinds of questions should be migrated to video.stackexchange?
For example, this question was flagged as a possible candidate for migration.
Are general questions about tracking and the filming aspects of tracking on-topic here, even when not necessarily specific to blender?

Would be good to get someone from there to have a say in this as well.

@iKlsR I will see if I can get a mod from their site to drop by.

In the past we've allowed general CG questions as long as they are not overly broad and/or deal with aspects specific to another program.
Some related metas:

General 3D Graphics
Should we allow general workflow questions that don't directly relate to blender?
Should questions that don't directly relate to blender, but are about general artistic topics like composition be on or off topic?

In conclusion, I don't see any reason to treat tracking questions differently. If it's not not about blender, it's not necessarily not on topic.

I'm one of the mods on Video Production.  Video Production already has a level of 3d graphics questions that get handled over there when non-blender specific.  We'd shy away from something like making assets for a game, but, my personal feeling at least, is that anything that has to do with the production of a movie, film, tv show, stream, youtube clip, whatever, is on topic for Video Production.  That can include anything from financing a production to producing effects shots to animation and modeling.
That said, I'm glad to see you guys handling some fringe stuff for general graphics since we do have a more limited set of people who are knowledgeable about 3d graphics on Video Production (I'm one of them), but just about anything you guys don't want can likely be funneled either our way, or game design's way if it is on the modeling for games side of things.  Of course, the standard "don't migrate crap" and "check if it'd be a dupe" stipulations still apply.
My thoughts would be handle whatever you think you can/want to here, since you have a larger base of 3d graphics experts, but anything that doesn't fit that is film and video related, send it our way and we have some generalists that may be able to help.

In general we allow anything that has to do with video post-production (e.g. CG, Animation, especially in After Effects). The question about motion tracking would be very well on-topic for us. We actually have quite a few questions already about motion tracking and motion compensation.
We also allow questions about 3D, though if they go deep into 3D modeling, rendering etc. they wouldn't quite fit our scope. If its a general beginner 3D question it would be ok to merge. Though if you are ok with these types of questions aswell it might be better to keep them here as your users would have much more know-how in that area. We just accept them because so far there wasn't a better fit for these type of questions and they fit the area of video production in a way.
I think as a rule of thumb, if it can be done in or is about After Effects, Nuke etc. its ok to merge.

Hard to decide in general, but in this case the question is:

Has somebody tips about how to shoot a good video for motion tracking?

Tracking algorithms/detecting feature points are mostly identical in all motion tracking environments nowadays, so the question is  more about planning a shot and that's not really Blender related (IMO). I'm sure this question could be answered here. But even if, it seems too broad for blender.se at the moment and sounds more like a 'drive by question' without any further details.
Since video.se allows broader questions like:

https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/8198/what-software-do-movies-use-for-fx
https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/14973/which-would-be-the-best-vfx-software-for-an-absolute-beginner (migrated from blender.se)
https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/2500/about-film-making-techniques

It probably makes sense for the OP (in this case) to migrate. Most important is that the user gets a solid answer, right? Why not wait a few days so our users have the chance to comment and answer something blender related and migrate it afterwards?


text:
Cleaning up our custom close reasons
For a long time our close reasons have been wanting of attention.
We've just now gotten around to making a few changes:
Bug reports
We've decided to change the wording of this close reason, as it ended up being used not only for mis-placed reports, but also normal questions which turned out to be the result of some bug.
Old

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

New

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

Tutorials
As pointed out, this close reason serves effectively the same purpose as the Too Broad close reason. As such it has now been retired, allowing space for adding less redundant reasons in the future.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment. We want these to be as concise as possible.

How about (and this was a real close reason): "it is about a kitchen implement, not the software package."

@David I know, because I wrote that D:

@David I think we only have one question for that. :)


text:
"Meet the Pros" — Scheduled chat #3 with Mike Pan
As you may already know, we are bringing back regular scheduled chats with various blender professionals.
We are honored to have the esteemed Mike Pan as our next guest! Mike is well known in the Blender community and "dabbles" in 3D art, programming, game-making, book-writing and photography. He has over 12 years of Blender experience and a keen interest in scientific visualization
This event will be held in chat on

Friday, January 29, 2016 at 23:00 UTC. (6:00 PM EST)
We hope to see you there :)

You can browse through past scheduled chats here.

This event has ended. You can find the transcript here.

Just a question, why so late?

Unfortunately it's very difficult to schedule an event like this and have it work for everyone around the globe. This time works better for people in the Americas, which is where I am at. Sorry!

@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ We should still have a small crowd, enough to get a good chat session going!


text:
Questions closed as duplicates of a question with an unclear answer
Sometimes questions are closed as a duplicate of a question with an answer that isn't as clear as it could be.
If this is the case, should new answers be posted as another answer on the original question? Or should the closed question be reopened and answers posted there?
For example: Add a pause to an animated camera (following curve path)
If answers are added to the old question, all the answers stay in one place, however the answers will likely be conflicted in trying to address the nuances of the new question while acting as an answer to the original question.
If answers are added to the new question, answers are split into separate posts, but the answers stay where the action is and are free to address the OP's exact situation directly. Plus any comment discussions with the new question's OP will be in a more relevant location.
Which is preferred?

If the questions really are duplicities, and the first answer(s) are not sufficient, then yes by all means add another answer to the original question.
However, there should be no reason to reopen the dup.
This applies to more then just dup questions, any time you find a question with a less then satisfactory answer, either edit it (if the changes are not too large) or add another answer.

Not sure if I completely understood.. I'm wondering where the new answers should go. On the new (closed) question? Or on the old (original) question?

@gandalf3 edited for better clarity.


text:
Featured image contest revisited
We've discussed having a photo.se style continuous contest to provide a "featured render" for display on the main site before, but now that we are graduating it's time to see about making this happen.
Basically everyone who wants to enter would post their render on a massive meta thread, then every so often the highest voted entry would be displayed on the main site. Once it's had it's turn, the entry would go into a "hall of fame" meta post, making way for new renders to become the highest voted. The idea is to have a very relaxed "contest" that anyone can participate in without having to worry about a boatload of rules and restrictions. As a bonus, we get fresh pretty artwork on the front of the site on a regular basis :)
How can we work this idea into the design of the site? What kind of special considerations can we have implemented to streamline the operation of this contest? E.g. automated ways to feature and move posts to a hall of fame on a fixed interval (perhaps with a way to adjust the interval, so we can speed up the turnover a little once more people participate).

Should there be a minimum reputation, say 300, to encourage people to not just use BSE as a place to park their fantastic work for a week, and instead also contribute to the information we have on the site. 300 is an arbitrary value, but there should be some threshold..

@zeffii I would say no. I think most (if not all) blender users who find the contest will likely participate in the main site at least a little bit. However enforcing participation is not a good idea imo, if anything that will discourage potential new users from having anything to do with us. They'll perceive the site as an "exclusive club" where only the privileged high-rep users are allowed. We want to welcome all contributions, large and small.

300 points is not high rep, and I think it's reasonable to encourage people to participate at least a little bit to share their knowledge. If they're any good they'll easily gain rep. I don't want to see just any render in the header, it has to be quality, it is supposed to be promotional material after all. If we set the threshold at 7000k. yeah that would be "elitism ".

@zeffii Well, the entries that go into the header will be selected by voting. Presumably "bad" entries will not get many votes.

Seems a little inconsistent to not require reputation for the privilege of getting work up there. I have no doubt we'll vote for the good stuff. I just like the idea that those who do get their work up there have spent a little time sharing their knowledge on this site. As it stands there are already many ways to share epic work (BA, Blendernation...etc)  -- I won't harp on about this, if it's just me that feels this way..

@zeffii It's a good point, and one which should be decided by the community. You might consider writing an answer here so people can vote on the idea :)

Downvote if you don't agree, else upvote!

Assuming we get this feature, why not vote on 1 particular facet of the proposal.

namely: Besides votes for the Artwork, do we also demand a minimum reputation threshold?

I propose 300 points. Why? Because it encourages people to participate in the main site, and it's not that high that it could be mistaken for elitism.
Our collective votes will probably already filter the good stuff anyway. no matter if you have 6000 points, if your art isn't display quality (why?) would we want it up there?
But if someone just joins to show their Blender work, and doesn't participate "on the front lines" like every one us, then I see that as a disconnect and even inconsistency with the reputation system, where privilege is earned. If they're good it will shine through how they answer questions way before submitting artwork. If they really want to get their work up there 300 points shouldn't take too long.
The vote will be for a threshold of some kind, if you think 300 is too high, add a comment with how much. ( 50, 100, 150... etc).

300 is wayyyy too high. 125 rep, at least twenty-five days on the site, and ten days where a user has asked a question. I know that sounds a wee bit over-complicated, but it'll help weed out the people that are truly new and/or are only good at troubleshooting.

yeah, maybe 125 is enough, but how fast they reach that is less relevant to me. At any rate all I would like to persuade is the idea that we attach some importance to site-participation, there are after-all already many ways for people to share their work and promote Blender outside of BSE.

The rep threshold will most definitely need to be tweaked. Other than that, I really like this idea :)

I voted down, but if there is a threshold - remember that users coming from other SE sites automatically start with 101 rep


text:
What special features do we *really want* for this site?
So now that we are getting ready to graduate to a full site, it's finally time to ask SE if we can have any special site-specific considerations to make the site better. What special feature(s), if any, would be most important to the success and usability of this site?
We've already compiled a kind of wish list of features we'd like to see made a part of this site. However we likely won't be able to have everything, so what features do we want most? (and why?)

Number one most important.
Permanent blend file hosting, integrated like the imgur picture hosting.

While some users have taken at upon themselves to make a permanent blend hosting solution, a SE integrated system would be more convenient. Imagine simply pressing CtrlF (or some other key), and a upload box, like the imgur box, would let you insert a blend right on that page.
A SE integrated system would be more stable, with a much greater chance of staying online (no offense to GCF).
A SE integrated system would have a much greater chance of unifying all blends on one central, permanent location. Instead of the blends we have being scattered across so many different sites with varying levels of security: pasteall, blend-exchange, dropbox, google drive, one drive, filedropper, megashare, github, and many others...

Might be nice to list some reasons why we'd want this integrated, when we have blend-exchange

@gandalf3 read edited post.

@David Offense taken! Because BE has never ever.... crashed..... um.... well... uh

Automated Header Image Contest
What could be a cooler way to show off what we're all about, then to show off some of our best work at the top of the home page?
This would be run using an automated competition on meta, the highest voted image gets the feature, and then when it's time for the next image, the last one gets retired to a hall of fame.
The time slots would be dependent on the number of entries. It would probably start as a 1 month slot, but come down to something as fast as a week, depending on the amount of participation.
Note, imo Permanent .blender file hosting is more important.

I've put a feature request for this here

searches
The search seems like it could be fuzzier, and a bit more relaxed about spelling. At the moment it has zero contextual awareness, and fails to find questions that are really about the same thing just asked differently.
code
i'd like a better way to share code for answers. Github is fine, but it relies on github being available, and assumes the gists / repo isn't deleted. A blender stackexchange cookbook would get my vote, how much cool code have we shared already?!

There is syntax highlighting

@zeffii I was not the one who DVed, but do not take it personal. A DV on the meta is different then on the main site, here a DV shows agreement, or disagreement, so all that means is somebody does not think better code and search is the most important thing.

These would be nice features indeed, but I imagine they would be implemented already if there was much chance of them being added (if they would be useful here, imagine them on SO!).. As you may expect, these have been requested many times on the main meta.

Community file sharing + contribution functionality. The idea of a community project has been bouncing around for a while now. It'd likely be linked to reputation, like +10 for contributing a prop or model (reward given only once per user, to be fair,) +25 for item being accepted (which can be given out multiple times per user.)
Permanent file hosting (Dropbox, Google Drive, Github... heck, I'll even take a site that a community member makes from scratch for that purpose!)
An actual banner that we can link to from other sites
A small update to the submission form for questions and such, where they show the order of things like bold and italic tags.
Not being ostracized for simply asking for community input on a question/topic.


text:
Should we have tags for external render engines which have blender integration?
As a follow up to Are questions about external render engines on topic?, should we have specific tags for popular external render engines (e.g. luxrender yafaray etc.)
Or a single generic tag like external-render-engines, albeit separate from the uber-general external-applications tag?
How specific or general should our tags be?

Possible dupe http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/286/how-should-we-deal-with-tags-about-other-software/

@iKlsR Hm.. I'm asking more specifically about external render engines which are integrated into blender

I'm always in favor of more specific tags. So if the question base is there to warrant a new tag, then by all means add it. I do wonder if it is realy needed at this point (I'm the one, nearly a year ago now, that removed the yafaray tag), Luxrender only has 8 questions, Yafaray has 4, etc.
There are other question groups, with many more questions that are denied the right to get their own tag. Yes iklsr, I'm talking about knife tool
However, I do not think that we should just go and add a new tag for each conceivable render engine, because we have decided to add a "Luxrender" tag.  If nobody asks about Povray, then it does not need a tag.
Let the question demand drive what new tags we have, rather then because we decided to create this tag.

+1 For the last sentence in particular

Knife tool, spin tool, smooth tool, add all the tools!


text:
Should we create specific tags for popular tools?
Some tools and terms are used a lot. Should we create tags for these, even if they are rather specific?
Where should we draw the line for "a lot"?
For example, things like:

knife-tool
loop-cut
extrude

According to those search results, there are now a good 50 questions which could potentially use a knife-tool tag.
We already have a few tags like this, such as snapping and 3d-cursor.
What are the possible downsides of adding these tags? What are the upsides?
How should we pick what tools deserve a tag? How many questions should there be asked about said tool before we consider making a tag?

We definitively need these tags, the more exact a search result can be narrowed down, the better. Some would argue that all of those tags could be ignored and simply tagged Modeling.
from the basic description of all tags

A tag is a keyword or label that categorizes your question with other, similar questions. Using the right tags makes it easier for others to find and answer your question.

Although a question about the knife tool could be tagged modeling and left at that, you could further tag it as knife-tool and make search results much more useful. however, that same question it would not necessarily also be about extruding, so I would argue that not only those three, but many more like them could be added. when you broadly tag something modeling, it can have Many, Many different questions that have nothing to do with each other. tags are meant to categorize questions that are similar so someone with a problem can easily find his/her/its solution.
This is the same situation with the modifiers tag and the subdivision-surface tag. someone could blindly throw on the modifiers tag and walk away, but it makes it much more difficult for an expert on a certain subject to assist that person.

If there are downsides, I can't think of any. I think we'd have to go ahead with this and see if any pop up.
This idea has my vote, straight up.

I agree with the idea that the more specific you can make a question's tags the better. The only thing that might possibly be an issue would be that people might be tempted to add the non-specific ones first and use the available 5 up before getting to them, but I think this risk is negligible because of it's unlikelihood.
I support this idea, and I think we should go ahead with it.

I still think there should be a limit to how specific tags should be. IMO we don't want super-specific tags like inverted-normals, non-manifold-geometry, undo-history, etc. Though with the number of inverted normal questions we get, it'd almost be worth it if they weren't all duplicates :P

Exactly, it should be limited to tools and major techniques I think


text:
Should questions that don't directly relate to blender, but are about general artistic topics like composition be on or off topic?
For example, this question: How to use the golden spiral composition rule.
These are already allowed for general CG/modeling questions. One could argue that composition is a part of CG, but on the other hand composition also applies to lots of non-CG art forms too.
Are these kinds of questions on or off topic?

Again, related - http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/59/12. General CG is fine to a certain point but the flat theory is a bit borderline IMO. This question would probably be better off on photography.se.

Searching photo.se also turned up this What is the 'Golden Ratio' and why is it better than the 'Rule of Thirds?'.


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New contest format proposal
We tried contests (Add contests on blender exchange), however after the first one we didn't get many entries.
It seemed to me that there was interest, but people didn't have enough time to put something together in their spare time in-between answering questions ;). At least that was what happened to me :P
If this is true, what about having something more like photography.se's continuous contest?
This would allow everyone to enter on their own time.
I assume we can't (yet) feature the weekly winner on the main site (in a banner or something), but we could have a "hall of fame" meta post like photography.se where the winners are collected, and perhaps we could feature the winner of the week in the question for extra visibility.
Any thoughts?

I really like the continuous contest idea!

I'm fairly new to SE, and for quite a while I wasn't aware that there was competition section at all, maybe they could be advertised better on the main site?

@ChristyJames Well, this started fairly recently (so there wasn't a contest section at all), and there still kind of isn't. Unfortunately until the site graduates (hopefully soon) we don't have any control over the look/design/non-Q&A content on the main site.

@ChristyJames Can't be on the main site, would be preferred to keep the scope strictly Q&A. Several avid users are interested however so we decided to keep them here until we decide how to best approach this. An external custom site? etc.

I think this is an excellent idea! Have an open-ended competition, that people can submit to at any time. That would solve a lot of the participation issues I think.
One thought, having just an open submit anything you want competition might not be optimal, as it is hard to compare the very different types to each other. Maybe every month, or every quarter, we could add a new one with a different prompt, just to keep it kind of focused and to keep any one thread from getting too bloated. Having just one thread would make the first ones submitted have an almost insurmountable advantage over more recent entries.

I'm not so sure it would be such a huge advantage, as once an entry is chosen it would be moved the the hall of fame, allowing newer entries to come up. And if people understand how the contest works, perhaps they will go and look at some of the pages of newer answers to vote on too. The contest on photography.se seems to work quite well, and they currently have 266 entries.

That would certainly help!

@gandalf3 the photo guys seem to have a lot more active meta guys than we do. Would this affect the contest?
I think NoviceInDisguise is right that we may need to change the subject occasionally (once a quarter or season). Anyone could post, past work or work they're still doing. Statistically it seems like it would draw a lot more users to post as long as everyone found out.

If we do have themes I would suggest that they be very flexible and open, I don't think they are entirely necessary though.  The photography.SE site's one is more of a “showcase your work”, rather than “take this kind of picture”.  Which is an aspect that a lot of cg contests lack and I think would be refreshing if we had.

@PGmath That is a different perspective, and I like it! +1

@PGmath Yes, thats more what I had in mind.

@VinceScalia Well, maybe we would only have an average of 10-20 entries at a time, as opposed to 200.

If the winners were posted on the main site, then that would be a big incentive to enter. If the winners knew that there winning entrees might get voted up, and as a result, might get rep from it, there would probably be a lot more entrees, and probably of higher quality. as of now, aside from the "it's fun" factor, there is no real incentive or reward from winning.
Also, if our "hall of fame" - or whatever it is called gets featured on blender nation, that would bring a lot of views, activity, and possibly new users to the site.

I was thinking along the lines of photography.se or blendernation, where the winner appears in a "image of the week" or something in a banner. But I doubt this is an option before we graduate..

very true, and there really is no indicator on when the site will graduate...

More answers is all we appear to need. Who knows . . .

@NoviceInDisguise Rumor has it that they are extremely backlogged rolling out new designs... despite the fact they just updated the so look by changing some colors and font sizes :/

Format sample basic contest question. 1.0
[Intro to contest]
(introduction text here, explains what the contest is)
This is a contest for those in this blender community. Anyone may enter. Anyone may post an artwork. Keep it clean. Works do not need to be made during the contest times, it may be a past work. Any artwork entered must be an original work by the user who posts. Artworks must be made and rendered 100% in Blender (minor post-processing in a 2D photo application is acceptable)
Date of contest (day x through 3 months from day x (y))
[On day y]
The work with the most votes (down-votes not counted in final tally) will win, will be the accepted answer (if we can get it working the winning image will be put in a banner on the main site with the users name). A brand new contest question, created three days prior to avoid confusion, will be posted. Users may post artworks immediately once question is asked.
In order to create the post on time, likely winner(s) will collaborate to decide subject.
[Rules]
Rules here will be the same as in the past.
some links to past works in blender in order to stir thought may be posted here.

If we don't do themes, then new questions would be asked by date. i.e. Contest: Spring, 2015 that way we could still avoid the enormous answer load on one question.

New Format Proposal:
We hold a competition, into which you can submit anything you created over the last month only. People can vote until a week after there are 5 (or any other pre-defined number) of submissions [the competition will then close], after then, the winner is calculated, and we start the whole thing again!
The advantage of this is that it encourages out performing of peers in all of our projects, which can be a very very good thing.

Suggest we don't do competitions, There are enough places in Blender's community (and more generally - the online CG community) to show off your work.
In fact there are multiple sites that run Blender specific competitions, to name some popular ones...

Blender Cookie
Blender Guru
Blender-Nation
Blender.org Suzzane awards (short films).

... probably other non-English speaking forums too.
This just seems like an unnecessary distraction and we can better focus on Q&A.

I do agree to an extent. You have a good point there!

Those all seem like high-profile "competitive" contests (with prizes and such). I was envisioning something more on the lines of a place to upload cool renders where a few people can see them (and vote on them). When we aren't answering questions, A group of us tend to hang around in chat etc. I think a sort of "relaxed" continuous contest would fit nicely into this.

@gandalf3 That is an even better point!

If you just want a place to upload cool renders then any of the forums? finished work sections? I can see my position isn't popular here, but think theres absolutely no need for this on SE IMHO, but maybe I miss the community aspect. Where I draw the line is when this becomes a maintenance burden. (taking focus away from Q&A)


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Are material requests on-topic?
Are requests on how to simulate certain materials (e.g. asphalt, ice, water, etc.) on topic here?
We've had questions like this before which seemed to have been received well, e.g.

How To Create a Matte Car Paint Material?
How to make a bronze material in Cycles?
Making a multi-colored candy material in Cycles?

But some more recent question have not. e.g.

How to make a cast iron shader in Cycles?
Node "Recipe" For Asphalt?

So are these questions on-topic or not?
Related: Should we expand our scope to allow simple howtos?

I'm not sure, but I think it is a tutorial request; However, I can spot a difference, in those which have been well received - they have at least an initial try.

@someonewithpc Well, not all of them. But I do agree that it's nicer when the OP at least makes an attempt before coming here, as then they can ask about what they specifically had trouble with (e.g. "how to add cracks a material", or maybe something even more technical than that, like "Why isn't my normal map affecting my material").

Well.. I thought all did; But still, that's exactly what I mean - it shows effort, and allows for more technical questions.

I think it would depend on simplicity.

I would go as far to say that if some would be accepted, than why not all. I hadn't seen the other I don't think.

I think that those question regardless of how well they were received are good questions to have answers too. The problem with some of these questions is that they require a lot of work. Frosted glass is an easy one but others, e.g. asphalt or procedural marble would require some R&D.
Most cases OP will not have made an attempt to create the material themselves, which is why it takes a lot of effort to answer these questions. So that there question is indeed a request.
I think we should allow all material questions to stay under the following conditions:

complex shader questions need to show work, this is not a request site
simple shader questions like frosted glass do not need to show work

Where should we draw the line between simple and complex?

Well unfortunately it is not all black and white. But a rough way to do it is that anything that requires you to download textures and create something 'procedural'.

A small part ot me says that someone might be working on said complex shader only to have the question closed, wich would be icreadibly dissapoiting... I think these are answerable, and the kind that will get ALOT of upvotes when  posted.

Don't draw a line. They should all be allowed. Those who know just need to be cautious about their answer. I think they can all be answered without sounding like a tutorial.

@gandalf3 Supposing a new cycles user asks a question about a material, how would he know if it was a simple or complex shader? To a new user every node with more then a few nodes is complex. I have files called something like "large cycles material," but when I go back and look at them now, they do not look all that large or complex.

I think it's not so much simple vs complex but rather question vs request.

That's a good point, there is a distinction between "gemmeh teh nodez" and "my nodes don't do what I want.. Why??".


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Improve your old answers party!
I recently got an up vote on a rather old answer of mine. I took a moment to read it since I'd forgotten what it said, and promptly discovered it made nearly no sense (the animated gifs made it usable, but it wasn't great). Naturally I promptly repaired it, but this made my realize how unpolished and poor some of my old answers were.
I thought now, as many users are getting onto their first year and our site is graduating, it would be a good time to look back and clean up some old content and see just how much we have learnt.
Lets go back and clean up, clarify and correct old answers that we wrote. Of course you should correct any answer that isn't up to scratch, but lets specifically go out of our way to fix our own content.
Please post your changes here, one answer per person (use edits), so we can see how much is being done, and help motivate ourselves, since seeing other people's contributions is very inspiring, as well as getting some recognition.

Great idea! I'm sure I have loads of crap answers lying around..

Nice. We should probably extend the scope of this to include answers that were left in comments instead of as answers.

@Mentalist Sure, post those results too... I'm still eagerly awaiting some answers :D

Good idea!  I'll start right away.  I am sure I have some pretty bad stuff left over from when I first started.

Here's what I've done so far:

Is there a way to capture the viewport in Blender the same way as it is on 3DS Max?
Weight paint front and back faces at the same time
Repeat a generated texture in Cycles?
Materials and Exporting to different formats
Unselectable edge? Help!

wiki to manual links, is a HUGE job (I have about 90 answers to change), and nearly every wiki link needs to be manually changed. :(
Also moving my last pastall hosted files.
Another annoyance. All cgcookie links are bad. (switch to youtube if available.)
Why does the material show 'unexpected' transparency effects?
Remove vertex while using knife tool?
My parent answer
Which object should be selected when selected to active is check for texture baking?
Make Camera System Look at Empty
Object Info Node
Problem: material has stretched on side of shape

I started on writing a python script to identify which wiki urls should go to which manual urls (with the idea of generating a list of redirects for the blender wiki servers), but not being a super skilled python expert I have yet to get it to work completely. Perhaps someone with more python experience might like to help?

I finally started to get to work on updating some of mine.
The big one is this
How to distribute objects in a circular pattern on a surface (Radial Array, Polar Array)
I updated a few others, but they weren't really significant changes. Removing a dead CGC link, and some small clarifications. In all, I've probably edited around 5-6 so far.

Here's what I've updated so far:

Iridescence In Cycles?
Zoom in and out without a mouse wheel
Resource for Blender addons?
How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?
How do I set a background image while I am editing?


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Icons next to tags, like Stack Overflow?
On stack overflow they have icons next to some tags (see for example: google-chrome-extension). Blender has a lot of icons that a very applicable it has an icon for these tags to name a few:
mesh
modifiers
armature
simulation-tags
rendering
texturing

This could be useful for helping users tag questions to an extent but I don't think that's the purpose and seems purely cosmetic on this site at least. Don't see much of a reason for it here really.

@iKlsR True, but still worth a shot right?

Could be used for the major panels (node editor) etc and external applications, can probably mention it when the site design is going up but highly unlikely to happen.

So should I add it to the thread?

Those are sponsored tags and they are only available the owner of the name or trademark associated with the tag name.

So what happens if nobody owns a trademark, and we aren't attaching a logo, just software relevant icon?

Tag sponsorships are very limited, and it's not just to put an icon on the tag, it also implies that the company is supporting the site and maintaining the tag wiki, etc. We're not likely to start adding pictures to the tags outside this limited use case or it's going to start looking cluttered and distracting. Read some of the posts I linked above.


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What to do about people posting copyrighted material?
So, I've recently come across this question and I noticed that the first image comes from Carlos Ortega's website and is Copyrighted; What should I do?

Quoting from http://stackexchange.com/legal/content-policy

Copyright. Using copyrighted material does not constitute infringement in all cases. In general, however, users should be careful when using copyrighted content without the permission of those who created it. It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA").

I would say that the question named if it had a link to the source would not a problem. But to be on the safe side, adding just a link to the picture, and not posting the picture would not violate any copyright.

So, just let it be?

@someonewithpc that question is closed now, so do not worry about that particular instance.


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Suzanize it! - Challenge #1
If you haven't already, read this Uncyclopedia article about Blender.
Contest: The Level One Beginner
Just about everyone has been there - the Level One Beginner; And if you haven't you probably know about someone who has. There was a time at the start, when you first opened Blender, probably, when you would praise the Suzanne deity. It's time to go back to that; Not quite, but still...
Objective:
Create an artwork whose main subject is the default Suzanne.
You can use any method you want, as long as you use only Blender, and keep at least something that resembles the default Suzanne.
Rules:

Only new and original work
Blender only, non commercial add-ons are allowed
Keep it nice, nothing you wouldn't want to show to a five year old.
Include .blend file, so we can be sure it is yours (use pasteall.org)
The competition runs for a week, you can edit/change your submission at anytime
Late entries will be disqualified
Only one entry per person
Downvotes will not be considered when picking the winner

Voting guide:
(Going beyond the simple visual appeal)

Meets objective, not missing anything
No rules were broken
Artistically sound:

Good composition
Good use of color
Solid design

Humor:

Makes you laugh
has clever Easter eggs/references

Well Executed

Technically impressive
Quality of execution meets artistic goals.

Winning criteria:
Submission with the most upvotes as of November 23th 2014. The submission must to be posted before the deadline.
Deadline: November 21st 2014 at UTC +0000
And most importantly, have fun!
Final Results:

X-27
gandalf3 (First place for animation)
stacker
David
someonewithpc

Seeing how many people commented on the other post asking for this, I hope as many are willing to get involved and take this seriously. Good luck to all participating. For any discussions or to share ideas, use the room Events.

Regarding the "voting guidelines", I think I must have a different definition of "subjective".. See my comments in the chat

Please ask others one Events before making edits... Especially later into the competition.

My entree. Behold the flying fortress of total monkey awesomeness.
click on it for higher resolution

That is pretty sweet!

You now get to pick the next Contest's theme!

You can't really see it from that picture, but there are duel missile pods on the top that fire misses that can easily cross the ocean.<--(C#16)

The Endless Cycle of Suzanne

(click for a nice html5 video version)

A very unique approach!

Wow, I love this, would have been awesome if the entire thing were Suzannes, leaves etc. ;)

@iKlsR Haha, thanks. That is an interesting idea.. Though Suzanne isn't very leaf-shaped :P The orange part of the flower is made entirely of Suzannes (just in case they are too small to see in the render..). I also tried to do a subtle blender logo reference, I'd be curious to know if anyone spots it ;)

@gandalf3 I saw, I was thinking of this image when I commented http://www.artstation.com/artwork/morning-snow. The snow is made from monkeys.

@iKlsR Wow, that is some realistic snow. I think I could mistake that for a photograph :)

NOTICE: To late to qualify
The Fruit of the Noob: The Suzanne Apple.
(Old cult of noob theme tie in)

Fast fact, monkey fruit trees are a real thing.
Eating the Suzanne Apple is believed to give the power of rembering keyboard shortcuts, not that it helps since they are random.

especially as keys can change function depending on where the mouse is, what platform you are running it on, the day of the week, and the random movements of a quark someplace in the center of the Universe.
  - Blender page on Uncyclopedia

Behold- I have brought forth a monkey!   :-)

Behold, the Suzanne deity!! :D

Missing nose

.blend

I like the concept! Not so much the composition though...

A LEGO monkey, named Suzanne
click for full resolution (it really does have the LEGO bumps)

Wow, that is detailed! Interesting choice of background/lighting though..

Excellent detail! I would be extremely interested in knowing how to do that! +1

@NoviceInDisguise remesh set to bricks, then replace every brick with a block..

@RadishoftheOpera that is not how I did it. I have said in chat before, but if you would like to know I will be happy to tell you.

Link???????????


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Is it okay to ask questions about Blender related tasks?
I asked myself if Blender SE is meant to answer questions that don't ask for help with the software but around the software. A specifc question would be

Is there a central place to host plugins I have developed?

As this doesn't really ask for help inside Blender itself but rather about interacting with it's community I wondered if such questions are allowed here. I personally believe that this does fit our scope because it helps people who use Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games.
I want to stress that I think about questions where people search for ways to get in touch with the Blender community, not where the question is how to achieve X on some site Y - for example BlenderNation.
I want to point out that e.g. this question is well received and not about Blender's inside at all - contrary to what is pointed out in this meta post see #8.
So, are we allowed to post questions about getting in touch with the Blender community?

A question such as your example would be closed as off topic.
BSE is for blender, and problems around blender. A broad question simply asking about a hosting location falls too far away from blender and the scope of this site.
In a very broad general statement I would say that questions about "getting in touch with the Blender community" are off topic.

The BSE community has compiled a list of Blender resources / links, if someone asks about the blender community or ecosystem we'll probably close the question as off topic and point them to that: Resources for Blender
There's never a need for us to be impolite about closing a question, sufficient information can be exchanged even with the question closed. In the end usually even if the question is outside of out scope there is some answer or hints of where to look for information.


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"Community" (the moderator) deleted a question that I linked as base question on an other post!
If this question is deleted, the base of my question will disappear!
What should I do?
Furthermore, it is NOT an already asked question, because it talks about OPTIMUS on Linux, case in which many users of Blender could be. And an answer is given in the other post. So I think that the post is useful.
That's it ;)
What do you think?

The fate of the original question aside… the best way to handle this is edit the original question to add (back) enough of the original context so your question can stand on its own. That sort of inter-post dependency works better in a threaded discussion forum, but as the content of this site is always expected to be updated and changed, it is best if each question/answer thread is able to stand on its own.

What should I do? I can't copy paste the whole post in the other (way too long and makes post n°2 unreadable) and I can't change anything because its closed! thanks for your help :)

@tuxtoriel I wouldn't copy the original post verbatim, but you could edit your new question in a way to read as if the original question was never asked. It just has to make sense to anybody who didn't see (or cannot view) the original question.

ok! Thanks, I'll do it! :)


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Can we get a "Not Answerable" close reason?
https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/71770/2217

Picture just for historical reference.
That is just the latest example from the plethora of questions BSE gets that may be clear, on topic, but we can never answer. As such we are doing a disservice to the OP, as their unanswerable questions just sit around (and they walk away from this "useless site"). We should at least tell them (with a CV) that we can't help you here, then maybe there will be edits, and a good, answerable, question may come forth.
I understand that we need to be very careful about just slapping a "bad question" label on questions, but I think there are enough question of this type, that do not fit any of the existing close reasons, that the benefits outweigh the risk.
I'm proposing a new custom close reason, I do not have optimal wording. Please post your ideas in the answer section below.

PS if you think that "too localized" would work, not only here but on more of these questions, then just forget all this. :)

I have to agree with you, honestly. Also, it'd clear up things like the unanswered section a little, maybe.

Out of curiosity: Why Off-topic > Bug Tracker is not ok in this case?

@poor because I have seen way to many question that have nothing to do with a bug in blender closed as "bug report." With this little information, why should we be suspecting the blender devs are at fault and not some user error?

Ahh, yeah makes sense, thanks @David.

Would this not fit into the "Unclear what you are asking" category?

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos personally I dont like that CV reason for this type of question. The question is perfectly clear, although it is not answerable and lacking details.

@David If the question is lacking details then I would argue that it is not "perfectly clear".

For this particular example at least, I quite like "too localized".
To me, the "too localized" reason is for questions so specific, one would not expect any (or hardly any) other people to have them.
A question about a specific crash on an antique version of blender certainly seems to fit that description, especially as the crash is not readily reproducible (forgetting for the moment that questions about crashes generally would be better off as bug reports).
That said, I'd like to exercise caution with the "too localized" reason, as it doesn't really offer the OP any guidance on how to improve their question. I don't think this is avoidable, as writing useful instructions for improving all manner of esoteric questions in a single paragraph doesn't sound feasible. I expect any new close reason attempting to fill a similar roll will suffer a similar problem.
To combat this, I'd say it's extra important to comment some feedback specific to the post when closing, indicating what makes the question localized and why. For example, in this case, the main thing making this question esoteric is the blender version. So, to address that:

Is there any special reason you are using 2.72? The latest version of blender is 2.78a. If you still get a crash using the latest version, consider submitting a bug report


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Should we rename our community bot?
Every site has a community bot which takes the credit for any server action that needs a user id, such as suggested edits.
There is no need for it to be named "Community," we could rename it to anything we like.
I'm proposing "Francesca," a name that originally comes from here, and has a long SE tradition (since 2009!).
Also her gender has been firmly established on the main meta to be female.

I know this isn't a feature-request but I'm going to have to status-declined this discussion before it gets too far along.
The community user is identical on all sites for several reasons.  First, it's the bot taking community actions so the name "community" fits perfectly. Second, we like consistency and renaming it to something specific on Blender would be confusing to a user arriving here from Stack Overflow or any of the hundreds of other sites.
While we appreciate your enthusiasm, we don't think it's appropriate to change her name. Plus, you don't want to make the her angry, you won't like her when she is angry.

ok, I understand. Francesca will remain only in thought.

Because she's the hulk, thats why. :P