text:
New service failing on .gif uploads
I'm having trouble uploading .gifs (generated by the Peek screen-recorder) using the recently introduced image service, via the provided tool. I'm getting consistent failutre, with: 'An error occured, please try again'.
Chrome browser, Linux, .gif readable by browser as a direct upload.
Can anyone reproduce this behaviour?

Tested just now and I successfully uploaded a GIF fine from Firefox under Windows. Now that you mentioned it, I do recall encountering a similar issue some days back. I though it was some temporary outage, and eventually went away; but if it's happening again, then maybe it is a symptom of something else wrong with the service. May be a regional thing that only affects certain parts of the content distribution network

Thanks,  @Duarte  for having a look, I'll check again after a decent interval .. I've not had any success so far in a couple of  days.

Ouch that is a long time to wait though, especially if you meant to post some critical answer. When I mentioned waiting it out I was imagining a few hours long outage tops, not several days. If I recall correctly for me it was a matter of minutes maybe. Maybe report it to the CMs then, maybe they are not aware of the issues; or perhaps these are just expected outages caused by overload during the migration process. In the meantime maybe you can work around it by manually uploading to imgur if it is an urgent matter.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I've posted here .. assuming that gets through.

Related on Meta SE: adding gifs or images is very laggy or provides errors

@AndrewT. Thanks for the link

@RobinBetts: i have the exact same problem :(.  Uploading images now takes significant longer or fails. Gifs only upload 1 out of 20 tries. So it's getting worse. I just hope it will be better once the new system is "ready installed"

Hi, @Chris thanks for your post to the Big Meta :)  Bit of a mystery to me why bad for some and not for others, suggests variations in .gif format matters?.. but I would have thought that was an encapsulated concern... and even then why does it sometimes work ...

i can just assume - but i might be because they are transferring now the "old" images to a new server and it is just "too much" for the server. But that's just an assumption.

@RobinBetts another user mentioned some workarounds in the meantime. See https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/398974/uploading-a-gif-doesnt-work-on-some-se-sites/

Marking [status-completed] per https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/398974/uploading-a-gif-doesnt-work-on-some-se-sites/

Thanks for rounding this out, @Slate. Appreciated.


text:
Layout and Text problems on Blender meta
I have just asked my first question on Blender meta, and when I tried to submit it I got an error:

First, it said '…see the error above.' but there was no error 'above'! The red 'flag thingy', to the right, said 'At least one of these tags is required - 'bug feature-request discussion support' (like a sentence rather than a list of tags). To someone new, this doesn't really make sense! I clicked on it hoping the error 'above' might appear to help me understand…do you understand my point? Luckily I managed to figure it out and I hope I'm not being too picky. :)
This time I'll make sure I add one of those 'odd' words to my Tags - before submitting.

I think the error message might be referring to the outlined box..

I have added the tag 'bug' thanks to Luke's suggestion

Every question on meta should fall into one of those three categories. It is mainly to keep everything organized. Because of that, the system requires every meta question to contain at least one of these tags.

discussion
designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.

bug
Indicates you've found an erroneous or unexpected behaviour in the system that needs to be fixed.

support
You need help with the use of one or more of the site's features.

feature-request
You have an idea for a new feature, or for a change to the existing functionality.

I don't think he was really looking for an explanation of the tags, just that it was a bit confusing what to do at that point but it's a good read nonetheless.

@iKlsR yes you're right, the point I was trying to make  was that the words: 'bug feature-request discussion support'- are all bunched together with nothing to indicate that they should be read as separate 'tags'.

I see. In that case, this question should be tagged with [bug] (because the tags should at least be separated by commas).

@SteveW this isn't too bad, if you click in the tag box, it should prompt you with options.

@iKlsR maybe it should say: 'Click in the tag box for options' then?

@Luke yes, commas, I was hoping someone would pick up on that. :)

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
The "Save this Question" manage functionality is broken on BSE
The "Save this Question" manage functionality is broken. I can't save/manage my favorite questions anymore :(

I am presented with the following snippet of HTML code, instead of the Done button so I cannot Save to organize my saved questions.
                </div>

            <div class="d-flex gs8 gsx s-modal--footer mt16">
                <button class="s-btn s-btn__filled js-save-manage-submit" type="submit">Done</button>
                <button class="flex--item s-btn js-modal-close" type="button">Cancel</button>
            </div>
            <button class="s-modal--close s-btn s-btn__muted js-modal-close js-last-tabbable" type="button" aria-label="Close">
                <svg aria-hidden="true" class="m0 svg-icon iconClearSm" width="14" height="14"  viewBox="0 0 14 14"><path  d="M12 3.41 10.59 2 7 5.59 3.41 2 2 3.41 5.59 7 2 10.59 3.41 12 7 8.41 10.59 12 12 10.59 8.41 7 12 3.41Z"/></svg>
            </button>
        </form>
    </div>
</aside>

I noticed that this "Manage" functionality is broken only on BSE. I checked the other communities and there it works fine. How is that possible? Shouldn't the code be common across all stack exchange communities?

BSE and its meta

I can confirm, broken here on meta as well

Just posting to notify that it has been fixed and we can close this question.

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


text:
Let's add a tag for [metaballs]
Why is there no tag for metaballs? Metaballs are a matter of discussion like anything else, and a very distinctive topic.

Added: Why does Blender convert ALL of the metaballs to mesh and not only the selected object?

While you couldn't yet create your own tags, I thought it would be useful to point out that there is a privilege earned at 1500 reputation Create New Tags.
Anyone who has 1500+ reputation can create a tag simply by

Enter[ing] a new tag with your question and it will be created. When creating your new tag, bear in mind that tags ...

must be no longer than 35 characters
must use the character set a-z 0-9 + # - .
on some sites, new tags will be automatically culled and removed from the system if they are not used by at least 1 other question in a 6 month period.
meta tags, tags that cannot stand alone as the only tag on a question, are not allowed.

In addition to creating a tag, you will create a tag wiki entry that is initially blank.  Anyone can propose an edit to a tag wiki, but you have to have a reputation of 20,000 or more to approve such an edit.
This answer contains a good discussion on how to edit a tag wiki entry.

Oh thank you! Now wondering why somebody downvoted my question. Poor frustrated people...

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


text:
Collaborating on answers
I sometimes have a good idea writing an answer but one part is missing (which i don't know how to do it).
For that i would like to have a kind of "collaborative" answer which might have more than just one person who answers but two or more persons. So even more great answers could be generated.
Is there such a possibility?
If not, i would love to have it. If the answer is correct, everybody who contributed could receive reputation from that.
What do you guys think about this?

I really like this idea! Especially for more extensive topics like Geometry Nodes, this would be a great help and could lead to great answers. Especially GN currently shows the tendency that many topics are really extensive or even similar, and then a fragmentation of questions/answers arises, whereby the quality of this platform suffers enormously.

If you want to indicate that the answer is a collaborative effort, you can mark it as a Community Wiki.

I should add that community wiki answers do not contribute to the reputation of the authors. The moderators also do not have the ability to add or change existing features, that's up to Stack Exchange Inc.


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How to sign out?
Sorry if this question is really nooby, I'm just not sure how to sign out of blender stack exchange. Any ideas?
Much appreciated,
Thanks.

This has been asked and answered before on the main meta: How to log out of a Stack Exchange site?

Over Blender big logo on the left, you can see StackExchange logo, with a little grey triangle on it's right side. Click the logo.There you'll find log out to click on.

UPDATE: The original answer no long holds for either Chrome, or most mobile browsers, and possibly others.  Currently, the logout button is in the menu on the right side of the topbar:

Damn, I had to look around for this too. Now that I think of it, I don't think I have ever intentionally logged out of this site. I may have become addicted.

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


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How do I thank the moderators for being so responsive to raised flags?
The title says it all.  I've raised several flags over time that required moderator intervention and the moderators have been very responsive.  Is there a preferred way to say Thank You?

I don't think there is any way, since it is expected of them as part of moderation duty. We appreciate the gesture non the less, from my part at least thank you. A good way to show gratitude could be help with site maintenance. Dealing with Review Queues is one of the sites most demanding aspects, helping keep them in check would be very appreciated

I was raised to believe, and 60ish years later still believe, that thanking people for doing their job well, even if that's expected, is a good thing.  So thank you, for doing well that which is expected of you.  (I do indeed work on the review queues every day.  I also believe that pitching in improves everyone's experience.)

Thanks for the kind words, keep up the great attitude

Here for example: Thank you all for your commitment and effort!

From the comments by Duarte Farrajota Ramos:

paraphrased: StackExchange appears to provide no formal mechanism because it is expected as part of moderation duty.
A good way to show gratitude could be help with site maintenance. Dealing with Review Queues is one of the sites most demanding aspects; helping keep them in check would be very appreciated.

Complete noob. Please find a way so that we (from foreign cultures at least) can express emotion. Cheers

Here is what I do on answers to my questions: 1) I leave a comment thanking the individual in the comment section of the answer.  2) If it is a good answer but doesn't fully solve my problem, I upvote the answer, as a way of showing gratitude.  3) If it is the best answer to the question, I accept the answer. That also shows gratitude.   you might want to read What should I do when someone answers my question? .  Saying thank you is kind, and that's how this StackExchange culture seems to do it.


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How to deal with questions that need more information that in the question proposed as a duplicate
This question was closed as a duplicate of this question. Although the questions share the last part of the answer, answering the newer question requires information that is not in the original answer.  Also, because of the way the original question was asked, the missing information doesn't belong in the original answer. The new question asker needs to know that "some sort of dot pivot" is in fact the "Object Origin" being discussed in the original question.
It doesn't make sense to edit the original question and add definitions -- we'd have to do that with nearly every accepted answer, so if for no other reason, it's not practical.
It doesn't make sense to point the person asking the new question to the old question -- they don't know what "object origin" is.
It doesn't make sense to provide an answer that defines object origin and then directs the OP to a different answer that has so little new information.
So why doesn't it make sense to leave the question?

I think in this case the appointed duplicate adequately addresses the question.
The fact that new users don't know the terminology doesn't warrant a new answer all together, and also doesn't mean the question is not a duplicate regardless.
If one factors explaining terminology into an otherwise duplicate question, there is no end to potential combinations of possible issues and technical terms. There would hardly be any two exact duplicate.
New users aren't expected to know all the technical terms, even veterans often call the same thing by different names. Provided these aren't deleted by the system, this also benefits SE in general, having these questions around about the same thing but worded differently, using unofficial terminology or "newb language" may help future users in a similar situation, which are likely to resort to the same type of language or descriptions rather than find out on their own the correct technical terms.
In cases like this I think posting in the comments section enlightening about the correct terminology, or pointing to an answer that addresses that would suffice.
What are the small orange dots which appear next to a selected object
What is this dot? Not fireflies question
Maybe additionally even factor it into the original post by editing it, without actually replacing completely the original wording, so that the indexing engine considers both when someone searches in the future.

If I understand how StackExchange works, one problem is that if a question is closed, a new user won't have sufficient reputation to see it, so it won't turn up in a search.  Linking the questions doesn't help new users because of this.  We're still stuck with the problem that if they don't know what to search for they can't find the existing answer, and so it may as well not exist.

As far as I know The OP will always be able to see his question and comments on it, so it will still help him at least. In this case the question has a positive score and answers with votes, so as far as I know all users will be able to see it in the future. Questions with low activity may vanish into the black hole of system routines though, not sure exactly how those work


text:
What should the "MathJax help" link (on the Editing Help page) point to?
MathJax is a JavaScript library that displays mathematical notation in web browsers, using MathML, LaTeX, to display "pretty" math notation, useful when describing complex constraints, drivers, shaders, among others, like the example below.
Typing $$\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}$$ produces
$$\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}$$
It was recently pointed out by a community manager over chat that on sites where MathJax is enabled, the Markdown editing help page includes a link to a MathJax formatting help guide.
By default, this link points to the URL https://legacy-www.math.harvard.edu/texman/, which is an external site.
This link can apparently be customized, and on a few sites it points to a dedicated meta post about it; on others, to the Mathematics Meta post "MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference".
Since our site has MathJax enabled, where should our help page link point to?
Ideally this would point to our own meta post about it, but other suggestions are welcome.
Anyone is free to post their own suggestions, one per answer. Please vote on the answers below that you think serve our community best, downvote the ones that do a disservice. The answer with most votes will be implemented.

It should point to the existing Mathematics Meta quick reference which is comprehensive and well written.
https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5020/mathjax-basic-tutorial-and-quick-reference

I'd vote for this one, since typing a new guide is a lot of work, and blatantly copy pasting that one here and maintaining it seems unnecessary plagiarism.

I agree, this post already covers everything that you would need to know. There is nothing special about MathJax's usage on Blender's Stack Exchange, so I do not see any benefit for a custom reference/guideline post on our Meta.

@RobertGützkow Thansk for the feedback. If we go with this, maybe we then also link to it from our meta markup guidelines: Guidelines on the usage of StackExchange Markup and style

In addition to our own MathJax webpage, as suggested by Duarte, you are welcome to link at the end of the new guide to the two MathJax webpages that I am the author of:
https://or.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5/51 and https://quantumcomputing.meta.stackexchange.com/a/76/278
Using those links gives me credit for referring people, but you are welcome to vote and edit too. Those sites contain additions specific to the respective site, and unique compared to what is offered at the Mathematics MathJax FAQ.

Are there some cool perks for referring people? I always treated it just as convenient link shorteners :D.

@MarkusvonBroady, Yes: https://meta.stackexchange.com/tags/publicity-badges/info, for example:  https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/badges/61/publicist

A new post on our meta should be written specifically dedicated to Mathjax markup alone.

Mathematics Meta Guide is absolutely amazing, however I only now learned about the Harvard alternative, and I think its academic approach of explaining how it works is important as well. This answer allows to create a list of resources, rather than choosing one. It also allows to pick BSE specific snippets as examples of the usage. Rather than further extending already bloated Markup Guideline, it could link to it and be linked from it.

That is a fair point. Would you be willing to provide or help write such a post as an answer?

Sure, though I'm not an expert on Mathjax. :)

It should point to our existing Markup Guideline meta post, where a new answer specific to Mathjax would be posted.
This would require typing a dedicated guide as a new answer.

Keep the current link to https://legacy-www.math.harvard.edu/texman/


text:
Enable MathJaX syntax
Can the MathJax syntax be turned on for blender.stackexchange.com?
There are many instances where math is used in 3D and in blender. Further there are several instances where existing answers would of benefited from MathJax.
Detect light amount on surface?
How can I create a staggered, repeating procedural pattern?
Modelling a Klein bottle

It's a hefty dependency and I don't think we merit it at least not yet, SE will want to use regular usage for once as opposed to every now and then.

I think there are other things which could be enabled before this.. For instance I think video embedding would get a lot more use than mathjax.

I was just about to request this myself, personally I think it would be very useful.  I have wished we had MathJax on several occasions.

I needed it today for this question so I used it in another stackexchange site and then pasted a screenshot.

This was eventually implemented in 2018, per this post.

I can turn on MathJax, but since it's essentially irreversible, I want to be sure it will get used. Simply turning the feature on slows every pageview—even those that don't have any math content. It's probably not worthwhile to add a ~20% increase in load times for all 22,600 or so questions if only a handful of them will actually use mathematical notation.
Looking at the examples here and in the linked questions, I think there's a potential readablity gain for posts that explore the mathematical theory behind 3D graphics. But MathJax could be counter-productive when posts are mostly concerned with practical questions, such as achieving particular effects in Blender. In those cases, it's probably just as well to use code rather than mathematical notation.
I'm happy to consider another request for the feature. But in order to do that, I'd like to see many examples of posts where MathJax would clearly make the content better and easier to read. To get good statistics, may I suggest looking at a random sample? If MathJax would make the question better or enable better answers, stick it in an answer to this question. That way we could estimate what percentage of the site could be improved.

My head is still spinning from trying to read the discussion you've linked to in slows every page. There are several suggestions for ways to avoid the 'global slowdown' but it looks like none are really appropriate and/or viable here? I noticed that in Electronics SE I have to rewrite the MathJax syntax to work there (e.g. $ -> \$) are they using something different/better/faster there?  FYI is some additional, recent discussion.

For example a method to load on a per question basis has been suggested and mentioned here, but I don't know if this is viable.

@uhoh: The reason for using a different delimiter is that $ causes problems when mixed with dollar prices. I don't know the full backstory there, but I suppose people are more likely to use dollar signs on that site than, say, Math.SE. Again, the path forward is to do a bit of work to demonstrate that MathJax will make a noticeable difference in terms of relative number of posts.

I've just created an account on here to post this answer, but I think it's worth pointing out that user robjohn from the math stack exchange has developed a bookmarklet that can be used to render MathJax on sites where it is not normally enabled.
This means that users can include the MathJax syntax in their answers and anyone who has the bookmarklet can click on it to render the MathJax.  This is the approach used for the math.SE chat site.
I'm not sure quite how useful this would be, since users would presumably also need to include a text or image version of the math for the benefit of people who didn't have the bookmarklet.  The advantage of this approach is that it doesn't affect page load times on pages without MathJax.
You can test the bookmarklet out here:
$$
\text{Intensity} \propto \frac{1}{\text{distance}^{2}}
$$
$$
e^{i\pi}=-1
$$
$$
\int_{S}d\omega = \int_{\partial S}\omega
$$


text:
I could really use MathJax for a series of questions - how to build support for it?
I use blender to illustrate and demonstrate physics and optics, and it's incredibly useful. Blender + Python is a winning combination for science.
I'd like to ask several questions, and they involve math. Here is a question where I would have used MathJax for example. Instead I posted a screenshot from another Stackexchange site where I could use it.
The natural language for mathematics is not ASCII, it's equations, and MathJax support in many Stackexchange sites is widely used and appreciated. This MathJax in Stackexchange tutorial is helpful, but you can just edit any question or answer with an existing equation to see how it works.
If I understand correctly, if MathJax is turned on in a given Stackexchange site, it doesn't actually affect the user experience unless viewing a question/answer that requires it - it doesn't download until needed. But I am not sure about this. Is this true?
What would be needed to build a consensus that activating MathJax support for this Stackexchange site is a good idea? Are there any down sides?
There was a previous request here that has gone unanswered, and the answer to the question "Can we rethink requesting MathJaX?" seems to be quite positive.

I personally have no use for it, and have no real idea about the consequences or possible performance concerns it may raise. My guess is that there never was enough interest or momentum to actually implemented it, but if it does helps some users and there are no downsides, then I'd vote to add.

Right, with the technical shift in our scope I could see this being used more. Will poke someone.

So it seems this is possible but we have to do a bit of investigating first, posts that could get broken, existing posts than will benefit from this and examples of future questions etc. Consider this in progress.

@iKlsR OK that's great to hear! If there is anything I can do to help somehow let me know. Thanks for the quick reply!

@uhoh The more examples of existing questions/answers that we can compile the better.

@iKlsR oh, OK how to proceed? Search for questions that contain words that might be math related? I've never done it before but there are python API's out there for stackexchange searches, and I think stackexchange has its own scripted search utility. Is this the kind of thing you mean?

@uhoh Right, examples like these http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/690/enable-mathjax-syntax

@iKlsR OK that's actually something I can do. OK maybe a few days to learn how to best do the search.

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2196/can-we-rethink-requesting-mathjax?noredirect=1&lq=1 and http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/690/enable-mathjax-syntax.  (BTW I am heavily in favor of this proposal.)

@iKlsR Where should said list be compiled?  Should we make a community wiki meta post for it?

@PGmath that's an excellent idea - I don't know how to create one, but if you (or someone) starts I will contribute. It could use a bit of organization - not just a list of 101 questions, but broken down somehow so there are several good examples in each category. But I don't know what the categories should exactly be. Fudged equations, screen shots, fails, workarounds, questions that could have been better if... dunno. What do you think?

@PGmath we can do so right here. Just post whatever you deem useful in a general answer below similar to our resources posts.

@uhoh I'll bump this up the chain again thanks for the effort.

I am strongly in favor of MathJax support. As someone who usually write technical answer, not having MathJax resolve me to either compile Latex or screenshot MathJax rendered equation from some online site or a local page which takes some time.

@iKlsR Is this still going to happen? What still needs to be done?

Yikes, nearly a year. I'll contact a community manager again. @ScottMilner

Ok the ball has finally started rolling. We can expect an official reply from StackExchange as early as a couple weeks (hopefully this month). Thanks for being patient.

@iKlsR that's great news, thank you! If there's any thing I can do to help, let me know!

@uhoh More examples would help as we find them. Omar's posts are especially helpful.

It's taking us a bit longer to get to this, but it is on our radar!

You might find this discussion interesting: https://languagedesign.meta.stackexchange.com/q/45/34

Thanks for your patience. Yes, we will enable MathJax on Blender.SE!
The one real catch is that enabling MathJax will break the formatting on a few posts. I looked into the situation (query here), and there are only ~20 posts which have in-line $ delimiters. Workable enough, but folks around these parts will still need to be willing to do a little manual editing to update these posts.
All you gotta do is add a \ in front of the $ on any of the broken posts. I included an example screenshot below from Math.SE (where MathJax is enabled) to show what I mean.

Some SE communities have also created their own specialized guides to working with MathJax. You can see examples of those here, in case you want to create one of your own.
Update: MathJax is now on!

Yay! For a general guide to MathJax in SE I use this: https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5020/284619

I have gone through all of the posts on the query. Everything should be fixed. The remaining posts that come up have $'s in code blocks, so they aren't an issue.

Are we encouraged to edit in MathJax to posts of other users?

@ScottMilner Yikes! Thank you. I was just prepared to do some late night edits. Definitely, as a holder of the edit posts privilege we trust your judgement when to use it! :)

I'd also recommend anyone with the time to create our own fancy mathjax guide. Could be a copy-paste from an existing one with credits. Would be great to feature and point new users to here!

Congrats to all those who lobbied for this.

I just tried MathJax here, updated most of my answers. There is a certain behavior that I would like to change, empty lines causes Mathjax to stop rendering, this seems to be similar to math.SE, is there a way around this? Also, upon editing a post with MathJax equations, it stops rendering until page is reloaded.

In accordance with iKlsR's comment, here is a list of posts which would benefit from MathJaX.  Anyone and everyone is encouraged to add to it as you like.

Update: Now that MathJax is turned on, please update this list to show which posts have been successfully converted.

Question How to understand the math behind Andrew Price's embedding his beer within his glass
Question Physical iridescence in Cycles?
Question Plotting 3D Regions
Question Plotting 3D Surfaces
Question Math logic between camera angle and lens
Question How to create a 3D object from a specific equation
Question how to change a mesh given by mathematical function with time i.e. how to include the time parameter in the mathematical equation?
Question (and answers of) How to: Exponential Fall Off for Volume Density?
Question How can I generate an object from a mathematical function?
Question Creating mesh on a surface with two variables
Question (and answers of) Blender Cycle's z-coordinate vs. camera-centered z-coordinate (orthogonal distance)
Question How to calculate Specular value for Principled BSDF node from IOR?
Question creating mesh on an isosurface
Question particle simulation
Question Write the Rotation Matrix Values of an Object by XYZ individually?
Question blender camera from 3x4 matrix
Question Animation nodes: rotate around axis
Question 3x4 camera matrix from blender camera
Answer to Detect light amount on surface?
Answer to How can I create a staggered, repeating procedural pattern?
Answer to Modeling a Klein bottle
Answer to Affecting a material based on another object's relation to camera
Answer to Possible to control a Driver from a Group Node input slider?
Answer to Is it possible to render a panorama in perspectives other than full 360°x180°?
Answer to How does the Turbulence Force Field work?
Answer to Liquid / glass interface IOR and normals in Cycles
Answers to What is Dot Product?
Answer to Matcaps and Normal Stretching
Answer to In BGE is there a way to apply gravity to the inside of a sphere
Answer to Trace visualisation in 3D - how to wrap curves onto a 3D mesh
Answer to Build color ramp out of math nodes?
Answer to What does the “unused” output on the Vector Math node do?
Answer to What does the “Absolute” setting in the Math node do?
Answer to How to construct a pyramid in blender but the edges of the triangles to be equal?
Answer to Possible to use object speed/acceleration as driver variable?
Answer to How to make a node group to calculate fresnel via F0 values
Answer to How to achieve this spline and particle effect
Answer to Creating Normal maps from a Texture?
Answer to Understanding 3D transforms and rotations
Answer to What do glossy distribution models do?
Answer to Camera angle for 50% height hex grid
Answer to Acces unmodified Normals on object with Custom/Transferred normals

Possible Benefit†:
Question How do you create a Math Formula for a Model Object?
Question (and answers of) functioning of the geometry node- what does it do with the vector math
Question How to simply find the code/script behind the volume scatter node so I can see the math?
Question How to make variable transparency hole in a plane with a math function using nodes?
Question Clarifying Blender skeleton animation and OpenGL
Question How to set a given Island margin for UV?
Answer to how are the math node operations in cycles calculated?
† The math in these posts might fit better remaining as pseudocode than being converted to MathJaX.

Note that there are currently 129 questions tagged with mathematics, a huge portion of these would probably benefit from MathJaX.  Keep in mind though that these are not the only posts which would, as there are many math-based answers.

Super thanks to Scott Milner for taking the initiative to update these posts!


text:
How do I create a Prosthetics?
I posted How do I de-construct a model created by someone else? two days ago.  That post was closed.  I edited the original post to explain that this was for a prosthetic finger.  That post remains closed.
Prosthetics are important to those who have lost part of a limb.
Is there a way to have a post re-opened?

The .stl and .blend files can be downloaded from https://temp.foxping.com/

what did you mean by "how do I remove the internals"? Are there some inner vertices in the mesh? is it the problem you are trying to fix? Maybe share your file

Hi ttom "Is there a way to have a post re-opened?" Certainly, post are reopened when the original close reasons are solved. Could you please clarify in detail what your issue is, and what you are trying to achieve, possibly supported by some accompanying screenshots with the [edit] button above the question. Don't post as a comment or ask a new question, editing will automatically put it up for review so it can be reopened.

The preferred way, I believe, to share files is to post them on blend-exchange. (How to add a blend file)

Hi, the url Blend-Exchange is asking for is your original question, which once edited and made more clear as requested will be put up for review to be reopened.

I've posted the same question about prosthetics two times. It has been closed / migrated both times. Should I post a third time?  If so, where should I post it?  Uploading a file has no value as both post have been closed.

Please just edit the original question on the main site. As has already been said, "closed "is not a permanent state so long as edits are made that make a question answerable and clear (or on-topic in other cases) Reposting will only create a duplicate which may get closed again, which would not be helpful for you.

I don't know what to change. The intent is to create a prosthetic. What else is needed?


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What am I doing Wrong when flagging?
I flagged this post that's obviously lacking in details and clarity before the comments in that post came in saying the same thing that it was lacking in details. But it got declined without any comments or reason. I did leave a comment trying to guess the issue but that doesn't mean the issue is clear so I should be able to flag it or not?

But,
According to What is Flagging

Can anyone fill me in? Is it discouraged to flag posts for lack of details and clarity or have the rules changed?

You are not doing anything wrong, in this case I dismissed you flag for three reasons:

The main one being that despite the obvious lack of detail a probable cause of the issue can be deduced from the sparse details. You in fact seem to have discovered it as confirmed by Lisa's comment
Lisa is a new user and I didn't want to immediately close her question to give her an opportunity to improve it. Close questions are usually accused of being hostile to new users and don't encourage improvement. Also as moderators our vote is binding, so if we were to take any action it would have taken effect immediately bypassing the community voting process.
Although flagging is possible and a a valid way for calling attention, for these basic cases were no particular moderator attention is required we prefer you use regular close votes system, were all users can help with review.

Flagging should generally be reserved for more serious offenses, rude behavior or something that requires more immediate attention or special care.
For regular maintenance and reviewing voting to close creates less overhead because all other users with enough reputation to enter review queues have the ability to help, thus sharing some of the load of site maintenance with the community.
Also see

Help about Flags and
Help about declined flags

thanks for the reaponse! fair enough. but it would be awesome if that was included in the documentation :)

No problem, thanks for the feedback. I don't think we as moderators have any permission to edit most documentation unfortunately

As for the second bullet point: as a moderator you can indicate a flag as helpful without it having any consequence for the user contribution that was flagged. If,as you state, a flag is appropriate, it should be considered as such (I'm having a lot of flags declined, and am confused about this as well).

It's even more annoying when a flag was declined but an action was nonetheless taken to have the desired effect (like an answer here). While not closing questions might retain new users, this modus operandi does demotivate users new to this site but familiar with others on the network from contributing to the quality of the site.

@Joachim the goal is not to avoid closing the question entirely, just to delay it long enough to create a window of opportunity for the user to improve them. If you ever find a low quality post or a flag that was denied and you don't know why, please do open a meta post or ping someone at chat to clarify. Some times motivations are not entirely clear, or moderators inadvertently miss something. Discussion here may also change our minds


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When to use italicization for keywords?
I'm curious and a bit confused on when to use italicization for keyword terms. I have noticed that in this revision the italicization has been taken out for Image Texture. I have noticed that most reputable community members use italicization for keywords. I think Image Texture is a keyword that could potentially be italicized.

Italics here are used mainly for menus, UI items and other interface elements, as suggested in those guidelines and has discussed recently a few posts ago

hmmm i still see it quite often for other reputable members to use italicization for nodes here for example for the Sample Curve node

Have you read the post? That is one of the intended uses

yes a little, mostly skimmed through it. still gotta read the rest. but would be cool if it was consistent for all node type not just geometry nodes.

In my opinion, this should also be written as "image texture" since it does not refer to the node (at least not directly). Italics could be used for extra emphasis, but doesn't seem to be necessary here. Capitalizing would be fine if it is an "Image Texture node", since that is a proper noun in the context of Blender. That's nitpicking though.


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How do we handle legitimate answer posts that use "free" add-ons if the user can later change the price?
There is a legit answer post here by @shico (same as the previously deleted by moderator) that claims to use a free add-on with step-by-step instructions, but when I checked, it was \$3 so I commented the following:

The community generally focuses on providing solutions using Blender’s
built-in features and FREE add-ons. Paid add-ons are not typically
used as default solutions unless they are specifically mentioned by
the person asking the question

But then the user decided to make it free and changed the price to \$0+ because he noticed it was being reviewed by the community. Since it was recently changed, it is still displaying the cached previous \$3 price. Anyway, the real issue is that after the review, he can easily change the add-on price back to $3+ or more, making it no longer free and no longer a valid answer. How do we deal with these posts?
But it can also be argued that the post can remain, even if using a paid addon, since it's better than having no answers at all on this question. Or should they be taken down once the user changes the price again but how do we keep track that he changed the price to greater than 0? It's tricky because the link can become "invalid" once it changes to not being free.
But even if I was mistaken about this product and it is really \$0 but just erroneously got displayed for \$3, it is still a theoretical scenario or not?

Disregarding the paid/ free content question (which is interesting in its own right and I don't have anything to add to the answers) I just have this to say about the €3 / €0 discrepancy, I think it's something specific to gumroad, the file is free (see the €0 mark in the left of the page) but €3 is a suggested fair price (the amount might be set by the author), and lightly greyed out to not make it stand out too much. You can input 0 in the field and it works. Whether it is a fair market practice is up for debate, but I don't think the intention here was to force users to pay for it. Cheers

Also do keep in mind that on gumroad and any other site, free items are not free, you are paying with your e-mail address information ;)

Thanks for bringing this up.
Questions about addons on our site have been raised several times before and all came to the same conclusion so far.

How should we handle questions about addons?

Are questions about third party paid addons on topic?

Concerning third-party addons and question closing

My stance on this remains unaltered, and aligns with what has been answered before.
Questions about and answers relying on third party (payed or free) addons, are on topic and welcome here.
This site is for all things Blender related, as long as they remain on topic according to out rules. Some additional rules apply though.

Any answers involving payed addons must clearly disclose that the solution involves a commercial addon in the beginning of the post
The poster must disclose any affiliation with said commercial product (i.e. he is the author, co-creator, developer, promoter, affiliate, etc), if any
The answer must make a genuine attempt at solving the issue
The solution must be thoroughly explained and present clear steps to follow.
The post must not read like an advertisement, nor otherwise exist solely for the purpose of promoting the product (be a valid answer on its own merit)

Likewise questions about third party even commercial addons are on topic, because  Blender is a software that supports addons, and they are a central part of the native functionality. Some third party authors may also intentionally divert support requests for their products to our site, with honest intentions of answering them themselves, with the goal of making them easily accessible. Good examples of this are animation-nodes and upbge.
Whether these posts will be well received or not, is of course a whole other matter. Naturally we would never expect any user to make some purchase to be able to answer some question, so those posts are naturally less likely to get a response, but that is just a fact the posters have to accept.
Answers using third party addons may or may not be well received as well, depending on how clear and well written they are. Obviously using free addons or native functionality is always preferred of course, but that may not always be possible or practical.
Regardless they are still on topic, as long as they follow the rules and clearly disclose the intentions.
Regarding your specific case I'd say it would suffice to mention in the answer that it uses a commercial addon right at the beginning. No mention of price or any other detail that could easily get outdated or require maintenance. That way the user is warned before investing any time reading the answer.
If the user is interested enough he can visit the link and find out about the price (if any) or other information. If it happens to have been made free at some point in time, then a pleasant surprise is preferable than wasting efforts only find there is a pay wall at the end of the road.
Once again this is my stance. If anyone has a different opinion post it as an answer, and let the amount of votes determine a binding decision.

Interesting, I would also lean towards this stance as it makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you for sharing! So since this is the same post it should have not been deleted but just edited to include #1 & #2 as it seems genuine at its attempt to provide a solution. IMHO, #1 Any answers involving payed addons should probably not just be paid addons but for all 3rd party addons as they can change anytime from free to not-free so they should probably all indicate at least point #2

Oh I checked the history of the post and it was a link only answer at time of deletion so it probably was justified to convert to comment

I'd just add the warning on first occurrence of being payed, anything more might unjustly scare off potential users, and adds a lot of maintenance overhead. Addosn even payed one are open source b definition, and lots most remain free indefinitely , seems unnecessary to tag those, unless there is an actual occurrence of being payed

Thanks to @Duarte for such a thorough exposition of what seems to me to be a rational and consistent policy. Personally, I would second that entirely, with perhaps just one further point:
To be in  the spirit of self-contained explanatory SE answers, an add-on linked answer should contain at least a sketch-summary of the strategy the add-on is using to solve the problem. (Not just how to use it.)
That also changes the returned value of any payment for the add-on  from: 'access to proprietary information' to: 'saving the labour of doing it yourself.'
That seems important to me, in an open-source project. I don't know if anybody has any thoughts on that aspect, or the practicality of policing it.

Thank you Robin for sharing your thoughts!

@HarryMcKenzie Not at all. it's a good question, and Duarte has done a great job of laying out a position which we can fairly adopt.

This seems a fair point. I have previously encouraged authors of non commercial addons to include code snippets of any scripts in their answer (if it is single file and short enough), or at least parts of it, to avoid the pitfalls of link only answers (if the links become unavailable, the answer becomes impossible to follow). For commercial ones though, that seems unfair to ask, but a rough explanation of the procedure would be nice to have, in the name of open source. Not sure if I'd enforce this very rigidly, but I'd certainly request politely.


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Where to Ask Blender and Python-Related Questions?
Which site should I use if I want to ask questions related to Blender or Python in Blender? Stack Exchange or Stack Overflow?

The accepted rules state that if it is a general Python programming question it should go on Stack overflow, if it has something specific to Blender, uses specific BPI operators or the Blender Python API, then it can be posted here


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The "Unsave this question" feature returns "An error occurred" message
When you use the Save this question > Manage > Save To feature, and then navigate back to the question in the saved list, the "Unsave this question" feature returns an "An error occurred" message. Now my list is growing bigger and I can't unsave the questions.

This issue occurs exclusively with older lists created before the Stack Exchange developers implemented a database change that was not fully adapted to accommodate pre-existing lists.

I can reproduce it too, here on Meta even. Sounds like a bug, maybe one the developers should take a look. It is already tagged as [bug], so I think they are aware of it, though it may take some time for them to get here.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos The workaround I found was to delete the list and then create a new one. This new list is now properly registered in their database and now functions properly. So they probably made some database change that did not appropriately adjust to the already-existing old lists. The new lists you create will work.

Nice find, thanks for sharing. That will do until we get a proper fix


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Should posts generated with the help of AI be marked as AI-generated content?
As a moderator (and user) of this platform, I increasingly recognize a disturbing development that makes me think about what actions should be taken in order not to reduce the credibility and quality of this platform.
In the recent past, there have been users on various SE sites (including here) who have posted answers using ChatGPT (or similar mechanisms). Some of the answers were helpful and even accepted, but nevertheless most of the answers were also seriously wrong and caused some confusion.
I myself also recognize more and more questions arising from erroneous answers from ChatGPT that are being asked here. Personally, I see the danger here that this platform will degenerate into a very difficult mix of genuine humanoid expertise and presumed knowledge, and thus in the long run no longer fulfill the mission it actually has.
The topic concerning AI is generally a bit more complicated, and therefore difficult to judge. The question that actually arises, however, is how one meets this trend as a platform, moderator and user, and how one wants to deal with it in the future.
In my view, this would require action to be taken very soon, rather than too late, to enable clear labeling of AI-generated content, so that visitors to this platform have the opportunity to correctly assess the content offered and its quality/truthfulness for themselves.
I therefore call for two things to be implemented here on this platform:

A clear labeling of AI-generated content
Posts marked as AI-generated content should not receive reputation points

This mechanism can be designed like the so far successfully used system for flagging a question/answer. Contributions can be flagged by software and community, and the community can accept or reject these suggestions. After a certain number of actions or by intervention of a moderator, these posts get an additional flag (similar to the green flag that marks an answer as accepted).

Since it's sometimes hard to make decisions regarding such a change, I just had a very nice conversation with someone who needs to know, and am posting the uncut version here for you to make your valued comments:

I have a question regarding StackExchange. This is a Q&A platform where humans ask questions, and others answer questions. Can I ask you about this?

Yes, you can ask me about StackExchange. As an AI language model, I can provide you with information and insights on this platform.

Perfect! What problems arise from mixing answers written by humans and contributions generated by AI?

There are several problems that can arise from mixing answers written by humans and contributions generated by AI. Here are a few examples:Consistency: If answers are generated by different sources, it can be difficult to ensure consistency in tone, style, and format. This can make the content harder to read and less trustworthy.Accuracy: AI may not always get things right, particularly in areas where human judgment is required. This could lead to incorrect or misleading information being spread.Bias: AI can also perpetuate biases that exist in the data sets that it was trained on, leading to inaccurate or unfair information being produced.Accountability: If there is a problem with the content, it can be difficult to determine who is responsible. This can make it harder to correct errors or hold someone accountable for any harm that is caused.Creativity: AI is not always able to produce creative or original content. This can lead to answers that feel robotic or generic, rather than being tailored to the specific situation or question at hand.

Should AI-generated contributions be allowed on knowledge platforms such as StackExchange, and thus be able to gain reputation, even though it used to be the case that only humans who answered questions satisfactorily could gain reputation points? Wouldn't that counteract the reputation points system?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or opinions, but I can provide an objective analysis of the issue.Allowing AI-generated contributions on knowledge platforms such as StackExchange could potentially have both positive and negative effects. On one hand, AI-generated contributions may provide accurate and helpful answers to questions, potentially increasing the overall quality of the information available on the platform. Additionally, AI-generated contributions could potentially provide a solution to the problem of unanswered questions that may be too complex or specialized for human experts to answer.On the other hand, allowing AI-generated contributions to gain reputation points could potentially undermine the existing reputation system, which is based on the recognition of human expertise and effort. If AI-generated contributions are allowed to gain reputation points, it could potentially lead to a situation where the quality and accuracy of the answers are no longer the primary factors influencing reputation on the platform. Additionally, it could potentially create a situation where AI-generated contributions are prioritized over human-generated content, further reducing the value of the platform for human participants.Ultimately, the decision to allow AI-generated contributions on knowledge platforms such as StackExchange should be based on careful consideration of the potential benefits and drawbacks of such a system. One possible solution could be to allow AI-generated responses, but not award reputation points for them.

Should posts generated with the help of AI be marked as AI-generated posts so that those seeking help can clearly distinguish between them?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or beliefs. However, in my professional opinion, posts generated with the help of AI should be marked as AI-generated posts to provide transparency and clarity to the readers. By clearly identifying AI-generated posts, readers can trust the authenticity of the information presented. It also allows readers to distinguish between human-generated content and AI-generated content, which can help them evaluate the accuracy and relevance of the posts. Overall, marking AI-generated posts provides a more ethical and transparent approach to content creation.

That's an interesting answer! Although you don't have a personal opinion on this, from a purely professional point of view, do you recommend that AI-generated posts be clearly marked as such, so that it is clear to someone seeking for help that it is AI-generated content that may contain gross errors and does not necessarily represent a solution?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions. However, from a professional point of view, it is recommended that AI-generated posts should be clearly labeled as such. This is important because it helps users understand that the content they are interacting with is not necessarily created by a human expert. Making it clear that the content is generated by AI can prevent potential misunderstandings and misinterpretations and help establish trust with users. Additionally, labeling AI-generated content can also help improve the transparency of machine learning systems, which is becoming increasingly important as these systems become more advanced and ubiquitous.

But how can AI-generated posts be automatically distinguished from posts created by humans, so that the tagging of such posts can be done reliably and automatically?

One approach to distinguish AI-generated posts from human-generated posts is to analyze the language style and patterns of the text. AI-generated content often lacks the nuances and creativity of natural human language and tends to follow a specific pattern or structure. Machine learning algorithms can be trained to recognize these patterns and identify if a post is likely to be generated by an AI. Additionally, metadata such as the source of the post or the frequency of posts can also provide signals for distinguishing between human and AI-generated content. It is also possible to use verification methods such as CAPTCHA tests to verify human-generated content.

OK, but that answer sounds a little vague to me. Can you please elaborate a bit and make a concrete suggestion on how you can actively help detect AI-generated posts and mark them as such?

As an AI language model, I do not have the ability to actively help detect AI-generated posts. However, social media platforms can implement tools like AI-powered content detection algorithms that analyze linguistic patterns and other characteristics of the post to detect if it is produced by AI or a human. These tools can then flag the post as potentially AI-generated, and either remove or add a label indicating that the post was produced by AI. Users can also be educated on how to identify AI-generated content so they can report it to the platform.

If I understand this correctly, does it then require humans to integrate this function and thus enable AI-based recognition of contributions? I'm thinking of a system like the one used on StackExchange so far, where contributions are flagged, and these suggestions are then reviewed by the community and accepted or rejected. Would that be a solution?

Yes, that is one possible solution. AI can be used to generate suggestions based on certain criteria or patterns, but ultimately it would require human review and input to ensure accuracy and fairness in recognizing contributions. A system like the one used on StackExchange, where community members review and flag contributions, can be effective in achieving this. Ultimately, a combination of AI and human review can help ensure a well-rounded recognition system for contributions.

Well that sounds wonderful! This answer could be a reasonable way to handle AI-generated content on a human-powered Q&A platform! Thank you for your honest and helpful answers and have a wonderful day!

You're welcome! I'm glad I could offer some insights. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any more questions in the future. Have a great day too!

Uh, wait, but I don't quite understand this answer. You don't have a personal opinion about anything, but you pretend to understand what "a great day" is? Now I'm confused. Could you explain in more detail how you arrive at the assumption that a day can be "great" at all?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions or feelings as I am not capable of emotions like humans. However, I have been programmed to understand and interpret the meaning of language, including idiomatic expressions such as "having a great day." When a user makes such a statement, I can process the linguistic cues and context to determine that they are expressing positivity or a sense of satisfaction or happiness. My response is based on understanding the commonly accepted meaning of the phrase "great day" and providing an appropriate response in line with that interpretation.

So, in conclusion, all that really remains to be said is: "Have a wonderful day and think about how your Q&A platform should be run in the future."
Your moderator.

Helpful: Is there a list of ChatGPT or other AI-related discussions and policies for our sites?
Promising: OpenAI detector

@quellenform thanks for posting this and all the work and investigation that went into it. As a moderator it is my duty to flag this post as containing AI generated content. ;)

Interesting. Thanks for starting the debate and articulating the problem. I would argue if we want to stay on top of things, we should also consider what we will do when AI-generated meshes, node-trees, and more generally assets will start coming up in troubleshooting questions (at the current pace, I can guess we"ll see that by the end of the current year). AI will most certainly make mistakes that a human would never do, and I think we need to decide how we deal with it before it dilutes knowledge and user engagement beyond repair.

Btw your conversation really goes to show how we can induce severe biases in the answers of GPT, I'm not sure it would have come up on its own with this system of tagging had you asked : "Is there something we can do to alleviate the problems of AI generated content on a stackexchange site" instead of "Is it a good idea to tag AI generated content with a special tag ?" and the general dichotomy of a chat engine that constantly tells you they don't feel any emotion or have any opinion, but is at the same time programmed to make you feel like you're talking to a real human being. :)

@Gorgious That's interesting! I just tried with other (less biased) words, but even then the answer is largely the same in content! In short: AI explicitly recommends labeling AI-generated content (as long as you value trustworthiness and consistent quality).

Thanks for the thoughtful question and thorough investigation, took me a while to process all this. This is all relatively new, so expect developments in the future, and that some of this may well become outdated with time.
Luckily we already have a few network guidelines to helps us outline a strategy for our site. As you stated, they have so far opted for not banning AI generated content globally at the moment.
Sadly though the burden of identification and filtering so far lies on the human side; ingenious community members have already built tools to help with that, but integration in the site is still lacking, so some manual work is still required.
There is also the issue of certainty when establishing  whether some content was human generated or not, within an acceptable margin of error.
Somehow marking, tagging or signaling AI generated content, suspected or certain, seems like a correct thing to do.
As far as I know there is no builtin or native way to do this yet. We can flag questions with a limited subset of builtin moderation flags but these are mostly transitory and to mark something that requires action, not a long term categorization system. We can create arbitrary content tags, we could have a tag for ai-generated content, but we can't tag answers yet, and answers would be most desirable candidate for flagging.
Until there is, we should probably defined a set of guidelines on how to handle this type of content on our community, and how to mark it, in the absence of a dedicated tagging system.
It has been suggested that answers that rely heavily on AI generated content should not earn reputation for the poster, which I agree but is harder to implement in practice, since that would probably require development from the platform maintainers (which may or may not be happening as we speak).
That would at least require a system for users to flag content as generated by AI, a system for reviewing such flags by other users, so they can verify the claims; and if confirmed, a system for both visually tagging such posts (to inform potential readers), and internally prevent the poster from earning reputation.
Site guidelines already require attribution for copied content, most argue that AI generated content is neither the original work of the poster nor the programmers that created the language model, so it should be no different for posts where the majority of the content was not typed by a human.
Some suggest that AI generated content should be block quoted and correctly attributed, as in:

Generated by ChatGPT Should posts generated with the help of AI be marked as AI-generated content?

As an AI language model, I do not have personal opinions. However, from a professional point of view, it is recommended that AI-generated posts should be clearly labeled as such. This is important because it helps users understand that the content they are interacting with is not necessarily created by a human expert. Making it clear that the content is generated by AI can prevent potential misunderstandings and misinterpretations and help establish trust with users. Additionally, labeling AI-generated content can also help improve the transparency of machine learning systems, which is becoming increasingly important as these systems become more advanced and ubiquitous.

In practice it will probably be hard to enforce this policy, users who are inclined to post AI generated content are probably the most likely to be unaware of the rules, ignore them, or try to sneak around them for reputation gains. Compliance will most likely require the help of the community, for flagging and reviewing potential infractions, and if confirmed withing a certain margin of certainty, edit said content to make it clear it was potentially generated by AI.
For now we'd probably have to rely on the builtin flag system and ask users to flag such posts with:

In need of moderator intervention
A problem not listed above that requires action by a moderator. Be specific and detailed!

and ask users to type something like Potential AI generated content.

Regarding a separate tag for AI-generated content, it should be considered that this could possibly be understood as an invitation to collect RPs and could encourage the accumulation of such posts.

True, good point. Since we can only tag questions at the moment, it could also inadvertently affect negatively a question that happened to get an AI generated answer by some other user

Yes, posts should be marked, but I don't think a help or contribution of ai in some way has to be something bad especially if reviewed by author of such post.
I can understand the danger of weird scripts generated by ai or any unchecked structured solutions, but from experience (at time before ai) there were also posts with a lot of nonsenses or some dysfunctions in their process ... and only followers that read it or tried it and failed could discover issued posts ... so they could be flagged or downvoted than.
So how this situation with ai differs?
Or if like now I posted ai generated script - how does it differs from time before where I would grab some parts of existing scripts or templates and try to merge into some functional script? It will work in some way for me, but as for a generated ai script I wouldn't be sure how bad or good the script is. How does it differs from coder beginner?
Only voting or flagging system should be enough to separate gold from rubbish. (... as experienced contributor on this site I know it is not quite true as mentioned by Markus 0,1,2..., but that is how it works here.)
SE already use flagging system, so seems to me native to expand this list of flags. It seems to me as warning as any other.
Author of this post could be asked to extend his post about an explanation how ai contributes in his answer so followers can decides for an amount of a risk.
About usefulness/uselessness of the answer (question) it self should decide existing voting/downvoting system.
Current warning feels like "run a way" even before you give it a chance to check if the answer is good or not.
Also +1 for "ai-generated" tag.
Note: My current state of point, that can be re-evaluated in time for sure :)

We had a TV show in Poland called A fault- a candid camera with a professional asked to do a small job, revealing how many experts are actually quite unprofessional, be it due to incompetence or dishonesty... One controversial episode was about IT - fixing a computer. The fault here was a cable inside a PC case, connected to a wrong place. The controversy was: it's not a problem that 'naturally' arises, ever. It was an 'artificial' problem, that could only arise if someone intentionally made a bad connection.

It felt unfair to portray experts being unable to "repair" the computer, if virtually no amount of experience could teach one to deal with such a scenario. Imagine that you use Python to set "Instance on Points: Selection" to False - it would be hard for us to figure this out, right? Sure, we could recreate the node tree from scratch and it would work, but an IT technician can't possibly suggest replacing the entire PC case. Why do I write about this? Because the bugs introduced by AI are not the same bugs that appear in code "naturally", which is a huge problem...

Great topic, but I'm not sure if this is the best comparison ... I see everyday newbees asking for help exactly for this reason - using your simile -they plugged cable to a wrong place. It is unexpected action done in unexpected way ... but it makes any error to be error. ... I can agree we are faced to an another kind of errors that we have to lear to recognise (or be more sensitive), but thats all for me. More dangerous is fact that generate sophisticated detaily explained nonsense take AI a seconds and takes someone seconds to post, but takes much longer to revise it by human :)

You don't see newbies coming with the kind of a Blender problem I describe :) Just like with cables some kind of problems simply never arise. Yes, this is a new kind of an error, but I'd like to have the right to subscribe to this kind of an error or not - if I see chatGPT generated code, I just don't read it. There's another reason: our brains work in complicated ways: you use a word usually not because you memorized it from a dictionary, but because you've seen it in many contexts. If you read hallucinated code, you poison your intution. Hard to explain in a comment section...

My thoughts on the matter:

As linked in the OP, Stack Overflow outright bans GPT content.
BSE is not Stack Overflow; I don't think there's a rule SO policies apply unless explicitly overridden.
The aforementioned policy I find too defensive: GPT is praised by a lot of people, and censoring it might create an aura of conspiracy.
GPT is indeed a marvelous technology; however, BSE is an even more marvelous place, with content of ridiculously high quality - AI generated content can't possibly compete and so inevitably dilutes the value.
Pasting AI generated content and not marking it as such is cheating - it's like writing Python code and saying you tested it, even though you didn't; the potential annoyance caused is not worth any reward the SE system has in store.
Some users of this site might be unaware of the problems related to GPT: perhaps AI-generated content should be wrapped in a warning similarly to tobacco warning labels:

 Be careful! The below content is AI-generated❗
GPT outputs tokens with similar statistical relations to training data; in practice this means text that seems valid, seems confident, seems logically consistent etc. While humans write text to be correct → and therefore it seems correct, AI writes text to seems correct → and therefore it often is correct. More reading: What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?

3 chickens lay 3 eggs in 3 days, therefore 12 chickens lay 12 eggs in 12 days.

This marks the end of AI-generated content. Below human-generated content

Since I advise against censoring AI, it can be fought with downvotes; those however are discouraged with a reputation cost to downvote an answer.
If downvoting is discouraged, then the solution becomes not-upvoting, which unfortunately also doesn't work in a situation, where a lot of valid answers have 0, 1 or 2 upvotes…
Detecting AI is unreliable: technically speaking, a human can answer exactly as AI would, as well as AI is programmed to answer as a human would.
Any effort to discriminate between AI and humans is too invasive: we could enforce a requirement to be politically incorrect for example.
Even if AI content is detected, it can't be fairly punished: it's easy to defend by claiming a human proxy, which passed the AI text without disclosing it's AI this way either innocent people get punished, or offenders can easily get away.
Only just now from D. F. R.'s post I learned about the necessity to reference - sounds reasonable and I probably never quoted someone without an attribution, but recently an established user was caught pasting GPT text "from a friend"  and no punishment was served, be it a flag, downvotes or a reprimand. And perhaps rightly so, with such incidents being rare.
What if someone uses AI to translate text? That's how most translators work like DeepL, but ChatGPT can also be used to translate text. It can be also used to correct grammar, or otherwise modify the form of the text without changing its substance. Grammarly is also AI based.
I would therefore argue lack of attribution to AI is not the real problem here. The real issue is the author of an answer should put some effort to verify the information provided is correct, and be transparent about which parts still require confirmation.

In principle, I agree with you on some points, but I think a distinction must be made between "posts generated with the help of AI and revised by humans" and "posts generated by AI that are NOT edited and reviewed by humans". I think that is the key difference. And in the second case, mechanisms for early detection can be implemented, which could then be checked by the community in the reviews. The essence would be to mark such contributions that are clearly unchecked AI crap.

@quellenform I agree, except I'm skeptical one can be sure nonsense wasn't generated by a human… After all, we had plenty of that in the pre-AI era.

Yes, there were and always will be those contributors :D ... but in such cases I honestly trust the competent assessments of enthusiastic community members like you!


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Custom Filter with Tags and Operators?
Is it somehow possible to create a custom filter that only shows certain tags, but at the same time only shows unclosed questions?
I would like to save a filter that contains the following search query:
[geometry-nodes] or [geometry-nodes-fields] answers:0 closed:no is:question

I don't use filters much myself, so I may be wrong, but I don't think you can save filters that complex.
One alternative is to bookmark a custom search in your browser, which through URL allows more complex search patterns.
One example would be questions tagged geometry-nodes or geometry-nodes-fields answers:0 closed:no
https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=[geometry-nodes]+or+[geometry-nodes-fields]+closed%3Ano+answers:0
You can add this to your browser bookmarks or setup an alias for it
https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=[geometry-nodes]+or+[geometry-nodes-fields]+closed:no+answers:0
On a side note I think geometry-nodes-fields tag should be removed and made a synonym of geometry-nodes. I don't think there's any point in keeping a dedicated tag just for that, since the use of fields basically implies geometry nodes.

Haha, so simple, and I of all people do not come up with this idea! :D Thanks, problem solved (with workaround)!

Side note: Well, this may sound reasonable from the point of view of an inexperienced user, but from a technical point of view these are already two different topics. This is similar to curves and bezier-curves or model and modeling ( and modelling), or nodes and node-editor. I think the tag should remain.

Maybe we can make a new meta post with a community poll and see what outcome we get. I'm not very knowledgeable in that area. Can one use Fields outside geometry nodes as standalone? It is my understanding they only work when geometry nodes are involved, so having a separate tag for that seems redundant to me.

Yes, let's discuss that. Are you creating a meta post?

I have a faint idea of having discussed those already. See if this addresses your concerns https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2840/proposal-to-finish-cleaning-up-the-modes-tags-completed


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Should the tag [geometry-nodes-fields] be a synonym of [geometry-nodes]?
Duarte Farrajota Ramos made an interesting suggestion in a post that is worth discussing:

"I think geometry-nodes-fields tag should be removed and made a synonym of geometry-nodes. I don't think there's any point in keeping a dedicated tag just for that, since the use of fields basically implies geometry nodes."

Personally, I am not quite sure which decision should be made here. I support both views, because for me the subject matter is quite different, but of course Geometry Nodes Fields are a part of Geometry Nodes.
What are your opinions on this? What should happen to the tag?
Should it stay or continue as a synonym?
...I have suggested the tag once as a synonym and ask for your input.

Please be so kind and cast your vote here.

I suggested merging the tags geometry-nodes-fields and creating a synonym between geometry-nodes because as far as I can tell they are not standalone, and one cannot use Geometry Nodes Fields without using Geometry Nodes in general.
Any question about Geometry Nodes Fields implies it is also necessarily about Geometry Nodes in general.
Conversely the opposite may not be true, not all Geometry Nodes questions touch fields, but despite being introduced at a later time, Fields are now an integral part of Geometry Nodes in general, and used naturally as part of a larger workflow, I don't think they need a separate specific category.
I'd vote for merging because I don't think Fields deserves a dedicated tag, I suppose no one would be specifically searching for a posts forcefully with/without fields, that filtering by geometry-nodes-fields alone would benefit anyone.
Mentioning Fields in the body of a question should suffice both for searching purposes and to get relevant solutions if your problem does involves fields.

...I think the same then applies to [tag:particle-nodes] and [tag:particle-edit-mode], because these topics are not possible without [tag:particles].

Yes, some serous tag maintenance is overdue indeed. There are several other topics that don't deserve a separate tag, though I'm not sure about those particle ones. Not all particle editing is done through [tag:particle-edit-mode], a lot is done through parameters, and we have legacy particles that don't use nodes, so I don't know about those specifically. I'm not very up to date about particles though, so I'm not sure about this. It would deserve another topic

If you have any pros for keeping a dedicated [tag:geometry-nodes-fields] tag around please do post them in an answer, so the community can weight in. Also still waiting for your answer over at moderators election post. ;)

Oh, I didn't know that I should write a direct answer to this :D ...I would be interested in principle, and would stand for election. However, as you know, I'm quite limited to Geometry Nodes and I'm not always available. ...I'm not sure if I can be of much help here. What do you think?

There are no "moderation quotas", you dedicate whatever time you can. Also being proficient in all areas of Blender is not a requirement, not even something most users would be able to reasonably do.

Regarding [tag:geometry-nodes-fields]: No, actually there are no real advantages to having your own tag. In my experience, it's mostly questions about specific node constellations or setups. In the rarest cases a question was explicitly related to fields, but that still falls under [tag:geometry-nodes]. A sub-tag would basically just be confusing and would not bring any concrete benefits ...that's my opinion. But let's see how it's voted.

Was that right to suggest a synonym for [tag:geometry-nodes] at this link and wait for a vote, or should that be done here?

Never used that linked form, wasn't even aware of it. I'd say let's give it a try to learn how it actually works, suggest away for the sake of science. Otherwise posting here is fine as well, and actually preferred if it is controversial or at least requires discussion

I don't think this works well at all. Apparently, the voting seems to be completely lost in this link, because it does not appear anywhere active. I'll add the link to the question...

Indeed it seems to only create a list of synonyms in the corresponding tag pages where people can vote, but there is no notifications anywhere. You only see it if you visit the tag page, so visibility is really poor. I'll merge the tag anyway


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Why does reopening (and closing) questions not work?
Reopening
I recently received the gold badge for geometry-nodes, and the tag description says:

These users can single-handedly mark geometry-nodes questions as duplicates and reopen them as needed.

So I tried that with this post here:
I can't randomly distribute the contents of a collection in Blender 3.0 geometry nodes
Actually, I wanted to reopen the question first so that I could mark it as a duplicate, because technically it is identical to a previously answered question:
How to distribute pebbles on the surface?
But that didn't work the way it was described. The action was counted as a vote to reopen the question, and did not directly change the question.
What have I done wrong here?
Or does this not work as described?
Can I now reopen questions just like that, or not?
Closing/Mark as Duplicate
I have just encountered another problem:
I was just able to reopen a question that I closed once before (along with others), but I can't close it again or mark it as a "duplicate".
The message I receive reads: "You cannot vote to close again after retracting your vote".
Specifically, the issue is that I wanted to mark this question as a duplicate to this post.
I was able to open the question as I said, but now I can't close it.
Why?

...somehow this all doesn't seem to work so well here, without moderator rights. Maybe someone should take a closer look at these additional permissions, which are related to the gold badge. ;-)

If I'm not mistaken the privilege doesn't seem to work if the question was closed by a moderator. It is now reopened, you may close again as duplicate

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Ah, OK, that could be, of course. Would be good to mention that in the description too, because it's a bit confusing that way. Thanks for reopening, the question has now been marked as duplicate.

But that didn't work the way it was described. The action was counted as a vote to reopen the question, and did not directly change the question.

That's because it was originally closed as 'not suitable for this site', and your gold tag badge (congratulations!) only works for the 'duplicate' close reason.

I was able to open the question as I said, but now I can't close it.

You already voted to close this question before, and regular users can't vote to close a question more than once.

Thanks for the explanation! As already mentioned in the comments, it might be good if this information somehow finds its way into the description of the additional privileges. For me it was a bit confusing. Anyway: problem solved!

@quellenform Just to add that most of the pages from the help center are not editable and the text is the same for all sites. We can't personalize it for our community nor add to it, as far as I know.


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How can I ask this question in Blender Stack Exchange, without it being closed due to being opinion based?
The following is the question I recently posted on Blender Stack Exchange, but it was closed because it was opinion based:
What is the standard technical workflow for high quality short films?
What does a standard technical workflow for a high-quality animated short film look like in detail, from inception to finished product? Technical in the sense of modeling, textures, rigging, compositing, animation etc.
How can I phrase this question more objectively without straying too far from my actual question?

Just to add to Quellenform's answer, this question is much too broad for this site. Ask yourself, what would an acceptable or satisfying answer to your question look like?
Would a full description of a lengthy studio workflow, complete with employees roles, software used, standard practices be enough? Should it include step by step procedures or corner cases? That alone would probably be enough material to write a small book. That is way too long for our Q&A format, not to mention that it might well require including "trade secrets" most would not be willing to disclose publicly.
It is also something that is not universal across studios using similar software suites, let alone some global industry standard across so many different possible workflows. I don't even think it would be the exact same across different projects inside the same studio, as things adapt to particular project requirements.
To potentially make your questions on topic here I think it should be broken down into smaller issues, or focus on the single aspect you are having difficulties with.
From your post it seems to concern mostly performance or optimizations, so perhaps focus on those points alone.
Be sure to identify what are the bottlenecks of your scene, and search existing answers for solutions we already described.

This is not a usual forum, but a Q&A platform. Therefore the focus is to solve specific individual problems.
How do I ask a good question?
Guidelines for great subjective questions
However, your question is not focused enough and there are just too many answers to it because everyone looks at this issue differently.
Therefore, this is a question for search engines, books, studies, courses and there is a lot of technical knowledge and experience behind it.
It is therefore less suitable for this platform in this form, since no generally valid and comprehensive answer can be given.
You could do some research on the net and try out a workflow. If you have a specific problem that can be answered clearly, then you can ask this question here and I am sure that then the question will not be closed and there will be an answer.
If you want to get opinions, there are still the many Blender forums on the net, which are more suitable for discussions.


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How to solve the problem of dead links to external clouds (blend files)?
I'm beginning to realize that it's quite inconvenient when a (blend) file related to a question or answer is lost over time because it's no longer available.
External links that are outdated can be corrected under certain circumstances, but files that are essential to the question, such as blend files or images that are linked to external proprietary clouds and are then no longer available, can no longer be corrected.
Of course, from the user's point of view, it's convenient to be able to link any files from your own cloud, but I question the usefulness of that, especially since it could lose the long-term value of a question or answer.
Hence the crux of the question:

Does it make sense to keep the ability to link any files in a question/answer?
Would it be possible to disallow linking to specific files or clouds (at least in the questions and answers)?
From a technical point of view, is there a way to integrate https://blend-exchange.com/ into the rich text editor so that there are fewer cases where essential information is missing from the start? (Here is the proof that this is possible in principle, only can it be simplified and made available to all users?)

My goal would be to reduce the number of useless questions by creating policies that largely prevent dead links by not allowing links in the first place that may be dead at some point in the future.
PS: A user could of course always be so free despite such policies, and continue to post links to external clouds in the comments, but from my point of view it would make sense to at least keep questions and answers more restrictive.

It is untidy. I wonder what you think: how many of the questions ( as opposed to answers ) which depend on  linked .blend, or other files,  are of much searchable generality? How many of those are of much use to the archive a long time after being posted? Most often, those ones  seek a solution to a particular symptom without knowledge of the cause, and if there is any generality, it's in the answers.

@RobinBetts If these questions/answers are not relevant for the search and also have no long-term benefit, why are these questions not deleted right away? And yes, it would be great if the answers to these individual questions/problems would always turn out to be generally valid. After all (or in the long run), it's always just about being found and creating a collection of knowledge, or am I wrong?

@RobinBetts And there are answers that have become obsolete due to the constant development of Blender (Geometry Nodes, for example). Only unfortunately, the original Blend file is then often missing to be able to give a contemporary and correct answer to it. I think therefore that it can be a problem in a way if this original information is not preserved. ...for example. Or am I looking at this too narrowly?

@RobinBetts Take this question as an example. Without the Blend file, it would have been impossible to provide a meaningful (or satisfactory) answer. And again, it has not been possible for me to provide a universal answer. From my point of view, the whole post would have no use in the long run if this information was not available, and could not be reconstructed on the basis of a concrete example.

'Why not deleted straight away'?   Yes, I guess I was hinting at  a purge, there, but not on..?.  Policy pretty hard / impossible to define, destructive of accumulated rep. That question: (Nice answer BTW)  After some time has passed, I guess I'm suggesting that the .blend in the question is no longer so useful. The .blend in the answer is, for a much longer time.

I agree with you. It would be very good, especially with an edit-tool, to guide .blend links to blend-exchange on BSE, in the same way as images are guided to stack.imgur,  SE-wide. Rarely, it's necessary to exceed blend-exchange's size limits. Those could be from comments.

Some of this as been discussed before https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2869/look-at-my-file-via-pasteall-or-others-and-answer-me-the-good-way-now I have strong feelings about files in posts, I rarely include any in my answers at all for other reasons. I think all posts should stand on their own without the need for downloading a file, save for some questions where recreating an issue can be time consuming.

Answers that rely on a file downloading are as far as I'm concerned poor answers, and most questions that require downloading a file are in my opinion too localized and should be closed. Of course I won't enforce this more strict view and have relaxed the rules a bit, people should be able to get their answers, otherwise this would be a desolate site. But I still think it makes them a low value questions in the long term.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I completely agree with you in both comments, actually. However, this is (as you know, I don't know other topics that well) often hardly possible with Geometry Nodes without knowing the exact setup. Rebuilding is often too uncertain. In answers, on the other hand, I tend to consistently supply the blend file for the same reasons (Even if the answer would basically do without blend file). Strictly speaking, most geometry node questions are very localized (70%?) and without a blend file the question would remain open forever because no one wants to bother rebuilding it all.

I agree that questions only answerable with access to the blend files should be avoided if possible, which is already up to our discretion with the "too localized" flag. My suggestion for cases where this isn't easily possible, such as e.g. geometry nodes projects, would be to encourage adding the relevant information that were needed from the blend-file to the question after an answer was written and accepted or that this information is included in the answer. Both would help to understand the underlying issue and also help with discoverability.


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Why do people edit, but not leave comments?
I have seen some people edit posts but not leave a comment where necessary. For example; a newcomer on this site might have asked a question which contains a lot of grammatical error. But this question could have been improved if the person had provided images (in other cases files, videos, etc.). Now the grammatical part can be solved by editing the question. But the other part is something that can be asked for in the comments. Like, "Please provide images of your problem"
Now the thing is that people do edit these posts but don't leave these comments. At first I thought that this was just score-hunting. But some of the people who do these edits don't earn any repuation out of it as they are well above 2000 points. I know that everyone's time is valueable. But if they have the time to edit the question, then a small comment should not be too much of a trouble right?

I can only speak for myself, but I've encountered a few "newcomers" here who were kindly asked to supplement their question with more details and/or images, but ignored the request. That's why I sometimes edit questions/answers without comment, if this can increase the quality of the post.

Editing questions takes considerable time and effort, leaving an additional comment  on top of that adds up. Comments are often not fully addressed or outright ignored by users. If the editor already did the work himself, the reasons should be self explanatory in the edit itself, there less incentive to leave an additional comment

This. And personally, I honestly stopped caring because I know well that virtually nobody reads them. Most of them would be any of the following "fixed tags/punctuation/grammar/images/formatting" and a short glance at the side-by-side comparison is often self-explanatory. And when it's not, I already spent a lot of time editing anyway, I want to move on before becoming a grinch x)

well it's not like we are editing code, that may involve complex edits to several files where it's definitely crucial to leave comments for every commit within a version-controlled code base :)

Most of the time when I edit something, it is about grammar or fixing terminology to make questions/answers easier to find for people who search for the correct (Blender-used) terms, so I think this does not require a comment... And as quellenform already said, comments asking for clarification or details, images etc. are often ignored so I've often given up on that. And apart from that, very often commenters immediately demand files when I think, I already understood what the problem is, so I write no comment for it although others might ask for details.


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Should we have a tag for Node Tools(Geometry Nodes in Tool mode)?
I think this is a distinct topic. The contexts are different and use cases as well. I think there will be questions specific to Node Tools and a tag is appropriate.
What do you think?

Related question:
How to select an edge loop with geometry nodes tool mode nodes?

Well, you're basically right, but ....Node Tools are Geometry Nodes. Is a separate tag really needed here? In my opinion, the topics are too close together, which is why I removed the tag again. Remember the geometry-nodes-fields tag, which was migrated to geometry-nodes. But as I said, let's hear what others think about it.

Hum not sure about it. As Quellenform mentions like Fields, [tag:geometry-nodes-tools] might be seen as an integral part of Geometry-Nodes in general, on the other hand, it does involve 3D View interaction, and a new set of constraints, which might be seen as new thing of its own, like [tag:simulation-nodes]. Its a bit fuzzy, I'd be inclined to include it but I don't have strong feelings either way. In the same vein we might soon need to discuss the upcoming [tag:geometry-nodes-gizmos]

The functionality is very different in terms of workflows they are used for. One is non-destructive, the other is destructive. I think people might be more interested in one than the other in some cases. For example it makes sense to filter only Node Tools questions if I want to see how people are making or attempting to make their destructive workflows more convenient if I am interested in learning more about that. In that sense I see this as very different than fields, because fields just are a part of all geometry nodes and tools are a separate type.

For example my original intention of the question https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/304841/how-to-select-an-edge-loop-with-geometry-nodes-tool-mode-nodes?noredirect=1#comment528584_304841 is to create a tool for everyday modelling work and I don't know, that just seems like a completely different thing than Modifier type that is about manipulating the geometry of a specific object. One is workflow improvement, the other is work to achieve a goal. Personaly I find those concepts very different.

2¢ .. As Blender gradually heads to Everything Nodes, I, too, imagine that Geometry Nodes will need splitting into categories.. GN-Modifiers, GN-Tools, GN-Simulation, .. possibly others, for very different use-cases and implementation problems, as the system develops. As the main purpose of tags  is to reduce search-space, the criteria for me are: semantic distinction, category size.. and the size has to be anticipated, unless we can tag retrospectively.

@RobinBetts Good points. Also having an unanted tag and removing it or merging is relatively easy. Not having one and retroactively trying to tag all relevant questions is near impossible


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Do these challenge like things still exist?
So basically I stumbled upon this post: What's the fastest and / or craziest way to model an arrow in Blender?
Also this one: What's the fastest / most fun way to create a fork in Blender?
Now I am not completely sure whether this was some fun official challenge, or whether it was just a few members who came together an decided to have some fun.
Exactly what was this thing? Do you guys do this even today? Was this a popular thing? Or was it just a small period fad or something?

They are not official, any user is free to create them and they have been quite popular.
Strictly speaking they are off topic, but since they work well to improve community engagement we tend to turn a blind eye.
There are no official rules in place as long as they are not too frequent. I'd say at least:

Keep them infrequent enough to not lose appeal
Keep them on-topic and specifically about using Blender.
Word them in such way that if you remove the fact they are a "challenge" they are still valid, answerable and on topic
Try to make them as objective as possible.
Avoid overly broad topics. Make them interesting but relatively limited in scope that they can be answered in a short post