text:
How do you propose an edit that changes a tag from a synonym to a separate tag?
I've come across edit-mode. It is similar to object-mode, but rather than being a separate tag, it is currently a synonym for editing.  since Edit Mode is a specific mode that Objects can be in, it's no really the same as editing, which can cover editing topics other than those applying to objects.
We can discuss whether it's too late to change the tag from a synonym, and perhaps I should ask a question specifically to do that; but for this question, I'm focusing on the general case of editing synonyms.
EDIT: clarification in response to an answer.
So the question is, "in general, if one wanted to edit a tag that is already a synonym for an existing tag, is it possible to modify the tag wiki so they are no longer synonyms, and if it is, what is the process for the Blender StackExchange?"

The answer to your general question is that only mods can swap/delete synonym relationships. Relevant MSE post: What are tag synonyms and merged tags? How do they work?

I've reversed the tag synonym between edit and edit-mode.
Reason being edit tag sounds like a meta tag to me, it is generic and tells little about what a post may be about, since technically everything you do in Blender may be considered "editing" in some form, including everything ranging from video-editing, to editing a mesh object, encompassing editing a material, texture or a node tree.
The edit-mode tag on the other hand has its purpose and a specific concise meaning in this context. Being an actual mode in Blender you can be in, and one only certain objects can be put in, gives us an actual scope for questions relating to that mode, that may have specific key combinations, available tools, operators, or techniques.
As for editing synonym tags, I don't think you can, being synonyms and all it means that whatever you describe the target of the synonym with, should also apply seamlessly to the source, if they don't its is probably not a good synonym relationship.
If the tags were merged after creating the synonym definition then there should be no questions tagged with the synonym tag anymore, otherwise if the two coexist and there are questions with both tags, then you should be able to edit them independently, as far as I know.

Is it possible to make it so neither is a synonym of the other?  I've had an edit accepted to the [tag:object-mode] tag to make it reflect the manual and if I offer such an edit for [tag:edit-mode] now, to make it consistent, [tag:edit] would lose it's general meaning.

That was the intended outcome, the edit tag should not exist on its own, and is for all intents and purposes a synonym of edit-mode. That is my opinion at least, not sure what the rest of the community has to say about it. If someone disagrees please do voice your opinions as another answer

To be clear the edit tag doesn't really exist at the moment as a standalone tag, nor should it. It has been replaced by edit-mode, and has been merged with it, so the two are effectively one tag and edit tag can't be created again.


text:
Proposal to finish cleaning up the "Modes" tags - completed
Final Version as implemented.
Proposal
I've gone through the various tags related to 3D Viewport Object Modes and with help, the object-mode and edit-mode tag wiki entries are consistent with each other and with the manual.  As of 2.93 there are 7 other modes, and I'd like to propose making tags consistent for each of them.  Here's my first take on this.  I'd like feedback.

Sculpt: currently has sculpt with no tag wiki entry.  I propose changing that to sculpt-mode if possible and making the entry consistent.
Vertex-Paint: currently has vertex-paint with no tag wiki entry. I propose changing that to vertex-paint-mode if possible and making the entry consistent.
Weight paint: currently has no mode tag.  I propose adding weight-paint-mode and making the entry consistent.
Texture paint: currently has textures as a synonym for texturing.  I propose adding texture-paint-mode and making the entry consistent.
Particle edit: currently has no tag.  I propose adding particle-edit-mode and making the entry consistent.  (Note: particle edit mode is about things like combing hair and isn't a general particle meta topic.)
Pose: currently has pose-mode.  I propose no change, but I've submitted an edit to make the full entry consistent.
Draw: currently has drawmodes.  This one is problematic, because it is being used for a wide range of drawing topic, but draw-mode is specific to grease pencil.  I propose adding draw-mode and making the entry consistent. Clarification:  As part of the overhaul of Grease Pencil, newer versions of Blender no longer rely on grease pencil tools in other modes but now has a separate mode (that I would have called grease pencil) that the developers decided to call draw mode.  This is like Pose mode in that it is specific to one subset of Blender things, in this case Grease Pencil.

By "making the entry consistent" I mean using boilerplate text for both the user guidance and long description, along the lines of

Use this tags for questions about operations performed on objects when they are in MODENAME-mode, rather than any of the other modes, such as edit, sculpt and weight painting.

for the user guidance (replacing 'sculpt' or 'weight painting' in their cases)
and

Blender has different tools available for manipulating objects in the 3D Viewport editor, depending on what mode the object is in.  One of these is MODENAME mode. The manual describes MODENAME mode as

[insert the manual entry for MODENAME]

This tag should be used for questions that are specifically about the operations that can be performed on an object when it is in object mode.

Thanks for all the recent efforts cleaning up all the tags and writing up wikis. Looks like your picking up Ray Mairlot's work

You're welcome.  I wouldn't say 'picking up', as much as 'helping', at least I hope it's helpful.  I have a certain amount of time / day for Blender Stack Exchange.  If I can't find questions to answer, I spend it trying to be helpful in small ways.

Something helpful, great!

Some of these I'm fine with others I have doubts because they are not areas of Blender I'm very familiar with.

Sculpt: as far as I know all sculpting in Blender is made in sculpt-mode so I suppose this one is fine to make a synonym from sculpt to sculpt-mode

Vertex-Paint: Since we have vertex-colors for non paint mode questions I suppose it is fine as well.

Weight paint: There are more ways to interact with vertex weights than through paint, live vertex groups or modifier. Are all Weight paint questions really related to Weight paint mode, do we really want to do this? Not disagreeing, just an area I'm not so familiar with.

Texture paint: This one I disagree, texture may have many meanings in Blender, from image textures, procedural textures, texture nodes, modifier/particle legacy textures, texture painting. Not only should texture-paint coexist with texture, since they are not necessarily synonyms, texture painting may also happen through the image editor, and as far as I know that doesn't require being in paint mode, or does it?

Particle edit: this one is fine I think

Draw: Draw is another meta-tag I think, it is very ambiguous on its own. Is it pertaining to drawing with grease pencil, or the annotation tool? Bezier curve drawing? Programming lingo GPU drawing, perhaps viewport shading modes? Currently we only have drawmodes, I think the tag draw should not exist at all, and drawmodes should probably be renamed and turned into a synonym of something along the lines of viewport-shading. Either we make draw a synonym of draw-mode, or grease-pencil or annotation.

Let us know what the rest of the community thinks.

About 3: It seems to me that the other ways to interact with vertex weights aren't usually thought of as 'painting', and, as far as I know, the only way to 'paint' vertex modes is in weight paint mode.  About 6: I should clarify the proposal.  As part of the great grease pencil overhaul, instead of relying on tools in other modes to do grease pencil drawing there's now a mode dedicated specifically to it.

Regarding 6, should we make draw a synonym for grease-pencil?, or should it be for drawing-mode? Then have a separate tag for annotation tool and rename drawmodes to viewport-shading?

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Questions related to rigging
Most Questions related to rigging are too personal and mostly falls into private session like helps. how do we approach these?

There is no obligation to answer if that's what you mean. In general I think that as long as the question is not a dupe, is on topic, is clear enough to be answered (or can be edited to made clear enough to answer), and can be of use to future users then it's no issue. If you don't feel like spending time on these, by all means, feel free to pass them up. We all volunteer our time when answering, editing, etc. Is this what you mean?

I was wondering if we should down vote such questions that are basically do my job for me questions or just ignore them cause line between them are quit blurry for me.
But I guess just ignoring them seems fair.

Well, re: voting, I feel should vote regardless up or down on most everything. The help explains in more detail, here are some helpful pages to read through on that...https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/why-vote  and https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/vote-up  also,https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/vote-down also this meta Do you have a specific example of a Q in mind that would help users understand your meaning also?

You can and should always cast whatever vote you feel is adequate for a post. If you feel it is too localized you can and should also flag it for being too localized. The community will then arbitrate on your vote and decide. If enough people agree with you it will then get closed otherwise it might remain open, no harm done.

"Do my job for me questions" are intended to be closed.  There is a specific reason for that in the close vote dialog (IIRC, as a sub-dialog of "community specific reason.")  It doesn't matter if they're looking for paid work or volunteer work, both are reasons for closing a question.  Of course, there's a very fuzzy line between looking to understand and looking to get somebody to do it for you; it is very easy for two users to disagree on where to draw the line.

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


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Why are seemingly on-topic question marked off-topic?
I am wondering why one of my question Bevel operation results in different result in similar mesh was marked off-topic.
As I understand it falls under the topics listed here: What topics can I ask about here?

Modeling workflows and their related challenges in Blender.

I have not been able to recover the exact blender file that caused the bug, but that would make it an incomplete question - not off-topic.

Hello and welcome. Off topic message often is shown when different or conflicting reasons for closure are chosen by different users. I chose to close as "needs details or clarity" since you mentioned you'd provide a file but haven't done so yet. In this case this doesn't seem to be answerable without one, so if you can provide a working example feel free to edit, so we can reopen

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos appears to take the option of first vote to close.  Noticed this on a dupe, with  4 or 5 votes for dupe, closed for different reason.

I think I have an answer to the question if we want to reopen


text:
Blender paid work
I am planning to have a 3D animation short movies, My question:
Is it considered off-topic to offer some paid work related to Blender, in blender stack exchange?

maybe you should change "illegal" to "considered off-topic" or "not allowed".

@Tooniis, updated :)

"Legal" yes, I guess so, but it is off topic and would get closed.
Job offers are off topic. We get maybe one a month or so, and they quickly get closed, and directed to blender artists' job section.
So to save you from quickly getting your "question" really a job offer DVed and closed, just post on BA, its linked above.

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


text:
Blender 2.8 and Duplicate Questions
On the stack overflow blog it is said that "questions are merely the sand that produces the pearl." and "that you optimize for pearls, not sand". So with that context here is my question.
The public beta release of Blender 2.8 is looming, and I anticipate a lot of "Duplicate" and or "Similar" questions coming in that will have much different answers now than in the past because of the keyboard remapping, menu and interface changes etc. so, how will the moderation policies adapt to accommodate or work around this?

What kinds of changes are you thinking of? I don't think asking how to do $thing in 2.8 would necessarily be considered a duplicate of asking how to do $thing in 2.7x.

@gandalf3 Well that's exactly what I was asking. Thank you for clearing that up.


text:
Concerning third-party addons and question closing
I myself and other people have voted to close topics (exhibits A, B, C, D) for being about how to use a third-party (in some cases, paid) addon for Blender. Yet sometimes we still do answer such questions to our best (like here or there).
Regardless of our current stance: it isn't clearly stated in the closing option we use for these topics (nor in the mentioned help center):

This question is either not about Blender or is asking for hardware recommendations.
When the question doesn't seem to be strictly about using Blender or in any way related to the software as defined in the help center, like game development, hardware recommendations or other third party software.

It's not the first time the subject is brought up on BSE Meta:

Are questions about third party paid addons on topic? - Blender Meta Stack Exchange

How should we handle questions about addons? - Blender Meta Stack Exchange

How do we handle legitimate answer posts that use "free" add-ons if the user can later change the price? - Blender Meta Stack Exchange

All seemed to agree that we can answer these, with mentions of preferring free over paid addons, as well as documented & active addons over undocumented and dead addons. Though, both are quite a few years old, so maybe the de facto practice have changed since?
So, where do we draw the line ? Can we define a clear one once for all?
And if we do not want to answer some of these third-party addon questions, could we update the closing options to either add an option for that specific case, or update the current "This question is either not about Blender [...]" option we use for that purpose? Because right now, any user who wants to see that rule will not find it, and instead will find that we close topics with no apparent ground to do so.
I have the gut feeling that, we tend to close such questions when they are purely about using specific features of a third-party addon whereas we let it pass when the answer is about using Blender regardless of an addon. I.E. with rigging systems addons like Rigacar: if the question is how to use the addon's tools: we tend to close. But when it's a common rigging issue that any kind of rig gets: we answer.

I pinged @JohnEason over at chat, since he also seems to share the opinion that those should be off topic. If you have different opinion please do post it as an answer so the community can vote

Thanks for bringing this up, it has been on the back of my mind for a while, since I've seen some users propose closing questions for being about third party addons.
My personal view on this stands by the answers made in those linked posts. That is to say I think we should accept questions about addons for Blender, even commercial or payed ones here, as long as they are within the scope of our site.
That means they are not "bug reports", rants, or otherwise off topic matters. I have been refraining from voting to close those questions more on a gut feeling than actual rules, but the posts linked in this question confirm my suspicions.
Why? Well Blender is a software that supports addons, they are a central part of the native functionality, and a lot of common, even popular, features rely on them, including lots of official ones. Say Cycles is technically implemented as an addon you can turn on or off; like a lot of the official importers and exporters, and many other community addons shipped by default.
Like mentioned in other posts we would prefer free and open source addons over commercial products, for those we can always point users to official documentation (if any) or official support channels. As a commercial product professional support should be expected. That is not to say that questions about them should automatically be considered off topic here, if someone does know the answer, then having them around will only expand our platform.
It is also possible that some third party authors (of free or payed addons or forks) intentionally divert support requests for their products to our site, with honest intentions of leveraging our platform for answering them themselves or with the help of the community. Here they may remain freely available under a permissive license, easily accessible to all without the burden of hosting and curation. Good examples of this are animation-nodes and upbge.
Where should we draw the line then? What's to be considered on topic or off topic?
I would draw the line at:

Bug reports, error messages, Python exceptions, or any other behavior that is obviously unintended, malfunctioning or may otherwise be considered erroneous. This should also be reported to authors for fixing, there is nothing we can do here.
Trouble shooting network connections like web service availability, server timeouts, firewall configurations, or other network related diagnostics; for online or service based addons (like render farms, online asset libraries, cloud services, SAS (Software as Service), or other "connected" addons that rely on some web infrastructure). This is the job of the maintainers.
Issues that are strictly "behind a paywall", that is investigating the issue requires some unreasonable purchase, buying specific non-free asset, or signing up or subscribing some free or payed service or network. We can't expect volunteers here to go through the trouble or sign away their privacy for the sake of an answer.

That is not to say we are somehow obliged to answer any of these questions either. One can easily imagine the success rate for questions about obscure, third party, or payed addons may be significantly smaller, but that is just a natural consequence that I see as acceptable.
This is my personal take on it, if you have a different view please voice it as another answer so the community can vote. May the answer votes be the deciding factor.

I fully agree with this view.

I think I mostly agree with this. Especially for commercial addons, it should really be part of the service to provide help for that.


text:
List of posts containing AI-generated text
In the recent discussions about AI:
Should posts generated with the help of AI be marked as AI-generated content?
How to warn users about AI generated content?
I use an argument, that I have yet to see actually helpful AI-generated content on this site.
Instead of such anecdotal argumentation, it seems wiser to gather evidence. Putting the links to such posts in one place, especially if we decide to indiscriminately delete AI-generated content (and so remove it from search results), will make it easier for people to make their mind about the issue.
Using the below symbols can be helpful too:
Q / A - Question / Answer
 - for a lack of a better idea and perhaps to be replaced by something better in future, Moon emojis with the lit part marking percentage of human input (bright is human)
❌ - post was deleted
✏ - AI content was edited away (ideally the link will be updated to the revision which had the AI content)
Currently new links are added to the bottom of the existing list, they aren't otherwise sorted.
For convenience we'll add it here as well, we advise copy-pasting the following snippet into any culprit posts.
> ### ![AI Icon](https://i.sstatic.net/zNrQD.png) Warning, Potential AI generated content⚠
> **This post is suspected to have been generated with the help of an artificial intelligence, chat bot, or other language model tools without proper attribution.**
>
> There is reason to believe this post was not written by a human due to its structure, and grammatical construction, and has been marked by our community.

> Current AI chat bots are a language models, that means they are like a parrot, they can mimic human language well, but they are built to write **seemingly** logical, **seemingly** factual grammatically valid text, rather than actually **be correct**, like a human would.

> The veracity of the following content cannot be ascertained.
> See the [Concerns regarding AI generated content](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/384396).

Nice, Ill try to keep this up to date

Good Idea. Me too.

Questions
 ✏ How do I Iterate over vertices to perform operation on them and connected verts
 How to Apply Texel Density using Blender as a Python Module
 Script to assign Color Attributes Color from Diffuse Material
 I'm trying to move vertices using an array but don't understand the correct syntax
 subdivide_edges VS Loop cut in Python
 Batch processing scene render and a shadow not being bast
 Accessing 3d-print toolbox via a script
 Link (With Driver) a Custom Property Value to a newly generated piece of Text
 ✏ Batch rendering multiple scenes using 'Material Preview - Viewport Render Animation'
 Displaying Custom Icons in Blender's File Browserustom-icons-in-blenders-file-browser
 I purchased a 3D model online, need to get rid of duplicate geometry and replace with instances?
Answers
 Script not hiding/unhiding objects in render correctly
 ❌ VDM Joining objects together
 (Auto) Flipped Faces
 Generate terrain from heightmap array
 ❌ Watch YouTube video inside Blender
 How to Preserve Base Color of Non-Node Materials When Converting to Node-Based Materials?
 How to apply a Geometry Node to multiple selected objects (curves, not meshes)?
 Blender boolean union breaks watertightness
 What is unexpect behavior in rigify
 ❌ Why do the two surfaces seem to have a clear boundary even though they are the same color?
 Delete all measurements with python
 What is the shortcut to add a new node?
 How to loop duplicate one object on top of all selected objects?
 How can I "stretch" the time for timeline markers
 Collision with Inflated Bubbles: Error in Folds
 How to smooth out only this part of the mesh?
 How to resize a video in video editing to a certain resolution
 Create a Cube in Blender from Python

I added a new link, clicked the previously added link to see what it is and copy-paste the warning from there, and to my surprise the post was written by the same user :D

Thanks for the update. Indeed from the same user, some things don't change. That is a good point. I setup a macro for pasting the snippet, but for convenience of whoever comes across this might add it to your post so users can easily copy paste it


text:
How to upload a blend file on BSE - good practices and advice
There are multiple topics asking where, and answer giving websites such as Blend-Exchange, but not much guidance on how to do it, what to include, ...
Thing is, while for most questions it's just a matter of giving the above link, sometimes the file is too big, or messy. We occasionally have someone who have a file of several hundred of MB because it has 8k textures everywhere, while the issue is about rigging.
So this will be a guide. I post the answer with it, and I invite everyone to edit that answer to make it a good summary of what to do and not do to send files. Plus, I usually tend to spit long walls of texts, so if anyone is comfortable to make it short and concise, go for it!

Nice guide, thanks for posting. I only skimmed over the answer but it might be a good candidate for a canonical guide and linking in canned comments

I'd argue that 90-99% of uploaded files on Blend Exchange are a waste. They could either have been replaced with a couple of screenshots, a diagram, a short gif or a more accurate description. I would even be in favor of banning them from questions, I think that if your question warrants a full blend file, it's too large in scope. They have their place in answers, although it deprives the reader from having to re-create it themselves which is a great exercise.

Most questions which require a blend file are IMO low effort questions anyways, they are often 1 or 2 sentences long. The authors usually don't take the 5 minutes to read the code of conduct and philosophy of the site so I am afraid they won't take the time to read neither this question or the answer in full, as thorough and canonical as they may be... Downloading random files from random sources on the internet also poses a serious security risk, since arbitrary code can be run with the python API. There are safeguards to prevent malicious stuff but it's easy to deactivate them in the prefs.

In short:

Make a small file (<30MB)
(Remove anything not needed for the issue,simplify if needed, then File > save as > enable Compress in the sidebar and save a new file);
Pack external resources and libraries if needed;
(File > External Data > Pack...)
Upload on Blend-Exchange ;
(If your file is too big, see below guide)
Copy the provided text into your question.

Why upload a file
Some questions are hard to understand with just textual descriptions and pictures, or the answer needs to be closely adapted to the situation.
Having access to the blend file makes it easier to see the issue and make a well documented answer.
However, it never replaces a good written question.
NDA, licensing and privacy concerns
If there are assets you can't show because of an NDA or license, always first try to recreate the issue in a new clean scene without the problematic assets. If you can't:
Check with the NDA/License holders if they can help with the issue. If you use a licensed asset that have an issue, the provider usually provides support for it.
If they can't help with the issue: make sure they are ok to share, propose to conceal the data if it helps.
You can always remove all data that we shouldn't see and leave only the strictly necessary. Even a mesh or an armature can be deleted down to only a few faces and bones that are problematic.
Regardless: DO NOT POST ANYTHING the NDA/License holder does not specifically agree to. It's not worth getting you or BSE in trouble.
For privacy: Blender saves paths to your .blend and external data/libraries, which can leak project names or your own legal name if you use named user accounts. If you don't want to disclose these:

Menu File > External Data > Make all paths relative
Menu File > External Data > Pack Resources/Linked Libraries
Move your file to an anonymous location (I.E. C:\tmp on Windows)
Menu File > External Data > Unpack Resources/Linked Libraries > Write Files to current Directory
Continue with the rest of the guide.

This way, all your external data that are needed in your file will have an anonymous path.
Where to upload
Our preferred choice:

Built by the community for BSE
Stores files on Google Drive (and Backblaze)
Files don't get deleted
Open source
30 MB per file

You might actually have already seen it before, as the following picture in a question:

Learn more
The only downside to this method is its file size limit: 30MB. But to be clear, it should be enough for most questions. See next chapter.
Other solutions:

Google Drive

15 GB total space
no time limit

easyupload.io

10 GB per file
50 files max
50 GB total space
30 days limit

WeTransfer

2 GB per file
7 days limit

pCloud

no file size limit
10 GB total space
50 GB traffic per month
no time limit
Hosted either in the EU or on international servers

Prepare a file for sharing
A couple of things you MUST pay attention to:

File decluttering
External data

File decluttering
Decluttering is necessary for two reasons: to keep the file size low, and have a clean file that is easy for us to work with.
Plus, it isn't rare that the decluttering allows you to further pinpoint where the issue is, sometimes even solving it altogether.
We highly recommend you to make your file under 30 MB in any possible scenario: so that you can upload on Blend-Exchange, but also to make sure your file can be downloaded by people with slow network. A file over 30 MB must have a really good reason to be this heavy.
Please follow these steps in order:
1. Compressing a file

Use the menu File > Save As
Add _share at the end of the name of the file
Press N to open the sidebar (or click the ⚙ gear icon), and enable the "Compress" checkbox.
Click the "Save As" button.

2. Removing Data
Remove any data that you are sure is not related to your issue. Such as:

unrelated objects (or useless meshes/bones within the same object)
image texture files
video files
objects

To easily select and delete data in bulk, you can set your outliner mode to "Blender File":

Once you are done deleting, there are probably some data that is now an "orphan": still there in the file but not used by anything. To clear them, set the outliner to "Orphan Data", hit the "Purge" button (ideally multiple times, as something could be used by an orphan and become an orphan itself after its user is purged), and save.

3. Names and Collections
If the first thing we see in your file is a hundred objects with the exact same name and no clue which does what, we will have to lose time just deciphering your scene. But you already know your scene, it will take less time for you to make it simple to understand. Help us helping you!
Put objects in collections, give them meaningful names.
Same for nodes. Try to make things readable and obvious, name nodes that do particular jobs using F2, name your images (especially when you are baking things; clearly identify the target baking node and the baked data).
4. Downsize data
If the above is still not enough, check if the data used in the file can be downsized in any way to make it lighter.
We probably don't need to have a multibillion triangles mesh to check a material issue. We don't need to any of your textures in 8k resolution with 32bits depth and uncompressed EXR, small and light JPEGs are enough if we can see what we need.
External Data
External data can be things like image and video files, but also assets linked from other .blend files.
If you have any of these, you should pack "external data" and "libraries", which you can do in this menu:

Save after you are done.
After cleanup
Make sure the issue is still visible, in case you deleted what was causing it.

Personally I recommend to decrease the file size below $1 MB$. I'm almost willing to bet I can take any problem and reproduce it within that size. The better you are at asking questions, the less likely you are to actually post the question - most of mine were never posted, because I do my part, and upon simplifying the problem I find the issue.


text:
How to solve the issue of most images on Blender Stack Exchange being blocked for my IP?
Recently, I can no longer see any images on Stack Exchange sites:

These show up everywhere all the time and when I try to go to the image's URL manually, I get

oh no, that request didn't look right RayID: [some random ID]

from https://i.sstatic.net/[some_image_name.png] addresses. I found out that it has something to do with Cloudfare protection. I can access the images using a web proxy manually copying their addresses. Also when I access the page from another device logged on to my account and connected to a mobile network from another internet provider, it works and then the images also get fixed for that page if I refresh it from my regular home internet.
So I assume that this is some security measure failing me badly, but not seeing images on Blender Stack exchange is a huge problem for me if I want to keep using it, which I would really prefer... Internet searches indicate that I might not be alone experiencing similar issues. There seem to be other Stack Exchange users experiencing this as well... How can this be solved or even where would one start? Who would I need to seek support from?
Same issue here:
Images from i.sstatic.net only work for me after being accessed from another IP address

Issue persists with all devices connected to my home network in case someone might be wondering. So I really think there is a problem on Stack Exchange end...

It seems Stack exchange contract with Imgur has terminated, and they have begun a process of transitioning to self hosting all the stack exchange images themselves. This is probably one of the many issues users have been experiencing issue caused by the new service and the ongoing transitioning process. See https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3067/new-service-failing-on-gif-uploads

Are you perhaps accessing  from some a corporate network or using a shared web access? Some times many users sharing the same outbound  IP address may inadvertently look like a coordinate attack trigger cloudfare DOS protection

No, it's standard home internet plan. One computer connecting to the internet and sharing it to 2 other wifi devices. Nothing too suspicious about my activity online I can think of... I have used ad blocking DNS, but it doesn't seem to work with Google DNS either. I'll try my internet provider's default DNS just in case. Maybe it got blocked because of that... But why should it?.. And why does it fix itself in such weird circumstances?..

Seems to be a really bad situation for me. Not a lot of people may be experiencing this bug so it's likelihood to be solved soon does not to seem to be great. :( I cannot use BSE like that... :( It's really sad situation...

We will escalate the issue and try to report it to the CMs. This may well be just a temporary problem, during the transition process while the servers are probably busier than usual. I'm sure it will get sorted out when the dust settles. We will let you know if we get a response

is this still an issue currently? Has it been resolved in the meantime?

Still an issue. I just don't see images on Stack Exchange sites anymore. Was anything done about it?

I've tagged it as a bug so that developers take a look at it. I've also notified in chat, hopefully this time it goes through

Sorry this is taking so long, it is on the current bugs list, the devs are looking into it. Hopefully it won't take much longer

@Martynas May I ask, is it possible you are behind a proxy or an ISP that is modifying the requests your device sends? It is most likely that this is triggering hotlink protection, which is designed to prevent people from loading Stack Exchange images on non-Stack Exchange sites. If your device or ISP are editing the requests your device sends, it could result in the images failing to load

Actually, I use web proxy to view the images. I use different DNS servers than my ISP provides, but other than that, I cannot think of anything.

@Slate, I am not sure I understand what you mean, actually. In what cases and how would an ISP or device modify requests? I use my PC as a wifi hotspot to connect other devices that then also experience this problem so it might be related to one device. I'll try to boot from another OS to see if that changes anything.

Just to be clear - I have never experienced this problem during 5+ years I use this internet provider and I don't experience it on any other sites, just all Stack Exchange sites, which is weird, because I am sure I must have encountered at least some other sites using hotlink protection, right?

@Martynas To be honest, I don't know if you'd have run into it. I'm just not sure how common utilization of this feature is, or how often the configuration you'd have run into matches ours. Let me know if you try out a couple other ways and see any success.

@Slate Problem persist when booted from fresh Ubuntu USB stick, so it cannot be my device. I don't even have a router, the PC connects directly to the box provided by my ISP that connects to optic fiber cable - don't know how all that works to be honest.

Is there a way to test if my ISP modifies requests? It's a very standard ISP, most popular one in my country(Lithuania). Standard most popular plan... No idea, what to do. Any advice?..

@MartynasŽiemys Not sure what next steps are personally - I can follow up and ask, however. Could I ask you for a couple more recent Ray IDs?

Of course. 88359b951a9d7120, 88359c10c8187120, 88359c8ed9427120, 88359d3e1ca57120, 88359db57ebc7120 - these are from BSE, but other sites don't work as well. Stack Overflow for example: 8835a01cbc5e7120, 8835a16fabc07120... Old posts from a couple of years back work fine, also the mentioned thing with accessing the page from another ISP still fixes the issue everywhere.

I have to be logged on though. So if I access the page from my phone where I am logged on, it will work. I don't log on through free web proxy sites, because well, I suspect there are reasons they are free. But I can view images using web proxy sites.

Maybe a stupid question, but may I ask which browser you are using (and which version of it)?

I have tried Chrome and Firefox, as well as their mobile versions, all latest versions from Windows, Android and Ubuntu. PC, phone and a tablet. It doesn't seem to be on my end. It seems to be a problem with Stack Exchange maybe because of some configuration my ISP uses. I mean I don't know, maybe it's just my PC, because all internet connections go through it and maybe the IP got blacklisted somehow, but no idea why. I use ad blocking DNS, that's probably the most likely thing... I obviously tired 2 other DNS providers including the one my ISP provides.

It's a problem with Stack Exchange. It seems to affect me and one other user only. As far as they are concerned anyway. So... I sort of understand it might not be worth the effort. I think it might be that this will not get resolved at all... :(

Did this ever get resolved for you? I have the exact same issue, on two different devices (iOS/macOS), different browsers and even different networks (home network/5G) . Unable to see any images on any Stack Exchange website since a few months back.

No. It did not. They forgot about it and I just don't see images any more. It has lead to problems when people delete the alternative text and I am not even aware images exist at all in a few cases :D. I almost voted to close a few questions. I just use web proxy to view the images if some question seems interesting for me to consider answering it. (If I don't feel too lazy to do that). Very nice support system here. They don't know what it is so it doesn't matter. I mean we are just a few users. Who cares?..

I don't mean BSE mods of course they are just users like us, some Stack Overflow staff looked into it. See: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/399031/images-from-i-sstatic-net-only-work-for-me-after-being-accessed-from-another-ip

I think some certain Cloudflare servers that happen to serve a few unlucky people like us get stuck somehow. So it's not even a problem Stack Overflow can solve directly themselves, because they just use Cloudflare's services for protection against attacks the way I understand it which makes it very unlikely this will get fixed. I lost hope completely.


text:
Was Question posted?
I tried posting a question a few minutes ago. It seemed to take a long time to post and I did not see any confirmation it posted. How can I tell if my question was posted?

You can see all of your not deleted posts by visiting your profile and looking at either questions or answers. If you're looking for something recent, you can just view your activity page and sort the columns by "Newest".
Your most recent question was over a month ago, so it seems that the question you tried to post did not go through.


text:
2020 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
Blender is scheduled for an election next week, October 12. In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation.  Participation is completely voluntary.

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

Here's how it'll work:

Until the nomination phase, (so, until October 12th at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.

We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.

If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of [text](link), as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.

This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into currently.

At the start of the nomination phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election.

Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, typically containing 10 questions in total.

This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

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

After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this brought an influx of beginners to BSE.
How do you suggest we deal with the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and general unawareness of rules and conduct?

How do you feel about the current state of the community here?  What role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how will you encourage this?

How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago?  Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

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

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

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


text:
2020 Community Moderator Election Results
Blender's third moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied and the new moderator is:

They'll be joining the existing crew shortly—please thank them for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with them as they learn the ropes!
Following additional moderator need, we called on the runner-up of the election and have a new moderator, please welcome:

For details on how the voting played out, you can download the election results here, or view a summary report online.

Hey Robert, congratulations on winning, and welcome aboard

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos In Stack Exchange tradition I'm not going to reply with a "Thank you", but I very much appreciate the warm welcome!

Congratulations! Well qualified, for this job.

@RobertGützkow I agree with them. ;-) Congratulations.

Very cool :). Congrats.


text:
2020 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire
In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.
Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 8 questions.
As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes. Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.
Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.
Good luck to all of the candidates!
Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.
To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):

Nate_Sycro27

Jachym Michal

Timaroberts

Teck-Freak

Robert Gützkow

After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this brought an influx of beginners to BSE.
How do you suggest we deal with the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and general unawareness of rules and conduct?

How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

How do you feel about the current state of the community here? What role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how will you encourage this?

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Jachym Michal

Update, October 18th
I decided to withdraw my nomination from the 2020 Moderator Election.
Due to some unexpected circumstances (new job and stuff...) I probably wouldn't have enough time in the next few months to properly fulfill moderating duties.
Good luck to all the other candidates :).

After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this brought an influx of beginners to BSE.
How do you suggest we deal with the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and general unawareness of rules and conduct?

The same way moderators always did.
By relying on self-moderating mechanisms of SE and stepping in when needed
Blender SE is becoming a library of sorts, already having answers for most basic questions.
It's increasingly more important to keep it organized, so it can keep fulfilling it's purpose.
Adding more moderators (eventually more and more) feels like a step in the right direction

How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

In summer 2019, I finally worked up the courage to try 3D. I downloaded Blender 2.8 and got hooked instantly (often spending 16 hours a day) and have been using it every day since then.
It's an awesome journey, and this site is a big part of the experience.
But if you're wondering, no, I don't get paid to use Blender. And I like it like that :).

How do you feel about the current state of the community here? What role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how will you encourage this?

The community here is amazing, otherwise I wouldn't stick around. Yet I understand some people became disillusioned with SE over time, and I don't blame them.
But for me, this is still the go to place to meet skilled yet humble people, willing to learn new things and actively share their expertise. Not just about Blender.
Meta is a useful tool for giving feedback to moderators, and a good way to learn about how the site works and what moderating is about.
Chat (Renderfarm) may feel a bit uninviting at first - I personally didn't want to intrude as a new user. But I belive it's a good opportunity to talk about (un)related stuff, and get to know people around here just a little better
And the encouraging?
How about: "Hey, great answer [new user] make sure to visit our chatroom here, we'd love to get to know you better :)."

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

We're human, right? Let's open a personal chatroom and talk.
I'm not here to deal with anyone, I'm here to make this site a better place :).

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

Again. We're people, we can talk about stuff.
→ "Hey, I noticed you closed this question. I feel we should keep it
open, it could generate a lot of interesting answers. What do you think?"

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

In no particular order and often intersecting:

First, they should (and currently do) keep this site a pleasant place to visit, mostly by helping others use and navigate the site
Second, they help where SE self-moderating mechanisms fail (rude comments, disputes between users, trolling...)
Third, they keep this site going! Their job isn't to know everything, but to make it easier for others to find the right answers

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

Honestly, I could do without that BIG RED Diamond next to my name.
I'm proud of my involvement on the site, but I'm a bit afraid some (new) users will take me just a bit too seriously
However, I'll gladly wear the diamond so users know where to turn for help. For this reason alone, the diamond is worth it.
It's also a nice reminder that people around here trust me

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

That was my first question before I even considered running.
It's simple. Regular users are limited by the system in their involvement. Instead of flagging problems, why not solve them right away?
And regarding the rep - I'm almost at 18,000 with most moderating tools available, yet I still feel I could help more

Well, this was fun :).

If I understand well, Blender is still a hobby for you (that's mainly the case for me too). Do you feel it as a limitation compared to professional people?

Hey :). It certainly limits how much time I can spend Blendering. However, I'm glad my income doesn't depend on my Blender skills yet, it makes the whole learning experience much more fun :). With regard to moderating I don't see any difference. Is that what you had in mind?

Jachym, yes, thanks!

@timaroberts How often would you frequent blender.se a moderator and how much time would you dedicate daily/weekly/monthly to review/edit?

Oh, you've got perfect timing, @Leander :). I've got offered a new job today, which wouldn't leave me with enough time for proper moderating. I'll decide tomorrow, whether to withdraw or not.

@Leander As for the dedicated time, I'm in a similar situation as Timaroberts. I frequent the site a few times a day, and that wouldn't change as a mod. I'd make it a priority to keep the queues in check over answering questions :).

I would be happy if you didn't withdraw. Duarte mentioned, that it could be possible to also add the runner up from this election and they were thinking about it. In that case it would be better to have more candidates than fewer who can split the work.

Thanks for the support @Leander, I considered that too. But all the other candidates have more experience with moderating than me, so there's still enough to choose from :). Also, I wouldn't withdraw if there were only two other candidates left.

Sad to see that you withdrew, but congratulations on the new job! Even though I don't really have much time for moderation either, I've decided to join as candidate. Just to make sure that people have a bit of a choice.

Echo Robert, sorry to see you off this list, maybe next time.

That's great news @RobertGützkow :). This election is going to be way more interesting than i thought... And good luck of course, the lineup is pretty strong this time :).

@RobinBetts Oh, you can count on that :). Thanks.

@JachymMichal, it seems the vote is open but you're not there. Is it intentional? If not I think the vote is kind of rigged?

Hey @lemon :). Nothing is rigged, I decided to withdraw two days ago. I've put a short explanation in the beginning of my answer here.

@JachymMichal, ok I understand... too bad for us, imho. Wish you plain success in your new job

Thank you @lemon, that's very kind of you :).

After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the
industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this
brought an influx of beginners to BSE. How do you suggest we deal with
the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and
general unawareness of rules and conduct?

For starters, use your votes. If it is helpful at all, if it is well written, then vote it up. If not, vote down and leave a comment why so the OP can improve their Q/A. Quality content should be voted up.

Be patient, and be understanding that the majority of posts currently tend to be “write first don’t read”, and users will generally have no idea how to format their text the way we are accustomed to reading, or how things work here.
 Edit and improve these (ideally leave a short comment why so the OP can learn why their post was changed)

Be nice :)

How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are
you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

I started using Blender sometime around 2.70 or so, a little over 6
years ago. My first experience with 3D modeling was with very early versions of Lightwave running on Windows 95, and when I found Blender I was hooked immediately, and have been since.

I mostly use Blender for personal projects, but will occasionally use Blender commercially.

How do you feel about the current state of the community here? What
role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how
will you encourage this?

This community is an amazing place, and there is an incredible amount of knowledge here. Even though there have been some troubling times in the past year, we're human. I like to err on the side of people personally. Meta and chat are incredibly important to the community, and should be used more!

If you have a problem, or question about the site, go to meta! If you want to converse for more than two lines of text, go to chat! Bonus, chat can be a little off-topic :)

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of
valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of
arguments/flags from comments?

I don’t think that I have yet seen such an issue here on BSE, however, if ever such a situation occurred, I think I would handle the flags first and then directly contact the user should the situation merit that. Communication is always better. :)

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc
a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

Communicate! If there was ever such a case, I would simply reach out and gain an understanding of their point of view. Often, asking questions clears things up.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

As little as possible

I think that moderators are the people accountable to the community for the feel of the site and how it runs. Basically, the mods are the ones who step in to handle what the system can't on it's own.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the
past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will
do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

New users especially will immediately see mods as an authority, and it is up the mods to be discerning, and fair in how they speak and act towards them. While the diamond will certainly carry it's own weight. I already try to do my best now to treat both new and established users with respect, and fairness. I will continue to do so if elected.

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more
effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

There is much more that I would be able to do for the site as a whole, as a mod.
I already do what I can, flag, edit, review, comment, etc.
This will continue of course, but I will be able to directly deal with the occasional spam, or obsolete comments, help bear the weight of the flags,ect.

You're the only one so far that would ask why another moderator closed a question, rather than saying why it shouldn't be closed :) What are the close vote queues like?  My impression of being a 7k user on [elu.se] is that moderators mainly handle flags.

+1 from me :). I'd be happy to have you as our moderator.

The first point about beginners is very important I think. Frequently this is boring, specific, repetitive, and/or with no general interest. However we can answer and be nice, I tried to do often. Yes, ok. Any idea for a better management of these cases? I must add (joke, of course): how to ban directly any question about donuts ; )

@lemon Yes, sometimes very specific, and to that point I try to remind users that Q's should be useful to future users and the OP. To manage it is good to know the dupes, use the search or even better to  have canonical answers or community wikis to refer to. The donut Q's by now are mostly dupes, so close as dupes. But still be nice, and encourage them to ask other Q's.

@timaroberts How often would you frequent blender.se a moderator and how much time would you dedicate daily/weekly/monthly to review/edit?

@Leander day to day varies :) Could be 30 minutes, could be an hour in a day... no hard limits. I’m already around a lot, so not much will change. :) I’ll try to at least dedicate enough time to have queues caught up so it stays manageable. Does that answer your question well enough?

Yes, it does. Thank you.

Re 1. what is being "nice".   We have  recently lost RayMairlot, a tireless editor / reviewer / keeper of the tags... A new user took umbrage at a tag edit and spat out some of the usual obtuse, ignorant  vitriol. As you'd be aware this occurs too often    Our comments are ignored, edits reverted. Then no matter how rude this user may have been, another user rides up like a white knight  and comments /  answers to reward the  tantrum thrower, whom in getting what they want is then "nice".    IMO the suggestions in the CoC lean towards  patronizing. Do we really want these gimme gimme noobs?

@batFINGER to me, "be nice" means just that, literally not only as in the CoC. At the end of the end of the day, we are all human anyway. :) Some new users will stay and contribute, learn how things work here... great. Others won't. It's unfortunate that we've lost many long time users that contributed great content and worked hard to maintain the site. At the end of the day, remember we all started somewhere with a first ask, some better than others and then learned from other users comments and actions, hence why I suggest be nice, vote, comment. I hope that answers your question :)

Robert Gützkow

After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this brought an influx of beginners to BSE.
How do you suggest we deal with the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and general unawareness of rules and conduct?

I would suggest we use the votes and flagging system of StackExchange, just like before and encourage member of our community to participate in the review process. Additionally, new users should be informed about the rules and guidelines that apply to this website. I personally think it's important to keep the community friendly and welcoming, which means when new users are unintentionally breaking the rules, they are given polite reminder.

How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

The first time I've used Blender was in high school, probably around 2010, and I've been using it ever since. Blender has been a great tool for both professional and hobby projects. The last professional project I was involved in was the preparation of 3D models created with photogrammetry for an augmented reality application. I'm also a moderator on Blender's bug tracker since November 2019 and a Blender developer with commit access since April 2020.

How do you feel about the current state of the community here? What role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how will you encourage this?

I think the community is fairly organized and well behaved, despite the exodus of moderators. It does seem that the number of questions since the 2.80 release has grown significantly and the number of answers not as much. I hope that we can create an atmosphere that encourages our newer members to contribute high quality answers of their own.
Meta can be useful to help members with issues that they have within our community and how it is organized. It also allows me to ask question to fellow community members, when I'm unsure how a particular issue could/should be handled. This is important since the perspective of one moderator may not be same as those of the community members or other moderators. Feedback and communication are key components to a healthy community.
Chat is great for the communication between members of the community, especially for having a direct conversation with a particular user. This can be helpful as a tool to solve issues one-on-one. Furthermore, it allows to facilitate more lively discussions that sometimes occur on questions and are better suited for this purpose than the comment section. If I'd see a particular long list of comments as moderator I would move them to chat.

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I would try to have an conversation over chat with them, to see why they are leaving such comments and if they are aware of the impact these comments have on other community members. I'm certain that reasonable members will try to improve their behavior in the future, if they are politely reminded of the positive and helpful community we're trying to create here. Should the problematic behavior continue or even escalate, I would confer with the other moderators and take actions that we deem appropriate.

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

That would depend on the particular case. If it was closed, then I would leave a comment why I think it shouldn't be and vote to reopen discuss this with the other moderators since moderator votes are binding. If it is an action that can only be reversed by moderators, which poses a high bar for reverting the action, I might post a question on Meta to discuss or contact the other moderator directly.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators help to keep the community organized and running. They ensure that the members don't have to deal with rude comments, spam, overly large number of low quality posts or duplicates, content that belongs on another StackExchange website and much more. Essentially, they are are the teachers or parents of this community making sure that nobody is fighting, everybody is learning and the place stays tidy.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I'm not sure how much different others will look at my past, present and future actions. I do know that I have and will work hard to ensure that all my posts have a high standard of quality. Everything I do on here already has my real name attached to it.

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I believe it allows for potentially quicker actions and a better ability to intervene e.g. when I'm seeing an argument that happens in the comments. Since I'm not a moderator yet, this is likely something that I could provide a better answer to after having used the moderator tools for a while.

"I would leave a comment why I think it shouldn't be and vote to reopen" as a moderator that vote would immediately open it.  In my opinion moderators are like parents, and should be a united front to the community :)

@marcellothearcane My bad. In that case, check with the moderators first. If this candidacy wouldn't have been so spontaneous due to Jachym withdrawing, I would've had time to familiarize myself with the moderator privileges.

I've asked a question for each candidate, about a point (that I feeled) to be cleared or explained or simply want to react on. From your answer, there is this "teachers or parents". You certainly know that rep points or any status does not give the values here (because we are just participating but low rep users can be as skilled as we are or more). On which plane "teachers or parents" is to be considered?

@lemon This was only meant to be interpreted figuratively, not as a statement about experience or status. Essentially the moderators make sure everything is running smoothly, similar to teachers or parents.

Curiously, the private moderators chat room over at stack meta is coincidentally called Teachers Lounge in a nod to how moderators are supposed to be the "shepherd" guiding the various communities

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos, appears much more like school supervisor to me. Don't know if shepherd is better (will try to find some sheeps here and ask them) ; ) But ok, nothing essential, just wanted to know what Robert meant.

You are not the first to dislike the name, it is subjective but seems to be a common misinterpretation.

BSE! I would like to be in the running for the 2020 moderator nomination. I have already within a span of 8 months completed over 1,400 reviews, and answered many topics in Blender Stack Exchange. I believe I would be a good moderator on BSE, so I nominate myself in for the election.

(1) After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this brought an influx of beginners to BSE.
How do you suggest we deal with the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and general unawareness of rules and conduct?

With new users, some do not always fully understand the way BSE works, so they may create posts which are not acceptable on BSE. However, this should be (and is) treated with kindness, and a moderator should simply say that it is non-acceptable. This is what I will try best to do. (1)

(2) How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

I have had experience with 3D modeling for over three years now, and have been using Blender for two years now. I am currently using Blender mainly as a hobby, but am also working with it for commercial purposes. (2)

(3) How do you feel about the current state of the community here? What role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how will you encourage this?

I myself do not use the BSE chat often, and so should not be contacted on it frequently, however it is a great way for others to share work and to answer questions that might be off-topic/closed on BSE. I think to keep it, and possibly add newer features that can enhance your experience with it. (3)

(4) How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I believe that comments to posts (which in a large way help the site) that ruin/damage or are against the topic, and make the name of the author look bad, are completely unnecessary. I also believe that comments posted as retort to another comment, or in a way that makes fun of the original post (which do not help the post in any way) should be deleted, or not posted. (4)

(5) How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

(6) In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I believe a moderator should look more deeply into a question before flagging, as I feel they are not currently. I have seen multiple posts on BSE, (and have had a couple posts), flagged as duplicates or something else, which are not as they are flagged for, and can be improved such that they can really benefit the site. However, when it comes to genuinely stupid posts that do not help the site, I will make haste to do away with them, as they do not help the site in any way. (5)(6)
If I am nominated as a moderator, I will try as best as I can to look more deeply into posts before flagging, while also making the necessary edits, and improvements to the question/answer wherever I can. (6)

(7) A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I would not see myself "above" everyone else simply because of my status if I was moderator, but would want to be seen as someone that can help frequently when needed. (7)

(8) In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I do not have a relatively large reputation (in terms of points), but I have made a large difference in cleaning up the site's new posts, and low-quality posts. I try to review as frequently as I can, and do the best job I can. (8)
Thank you

Also, don't forget to nominate yourself on the Election page :).

Could you qualify a bit more what you called "genuinely stupid posts"?

Posts which basically try to troll BSE and/or are spamming or scamming the site. I.e. someone trying to sell scams to users.

@Nate_Sycro27, scamming is very very rare. But ok, thanks.

@Nate_Sycro27 if you wish to run nominate, you have 3 days, AFAIK answering the questions  does not nominate you. https://blender.stackexchange.com/election

@batFINGER Completed!

@timaroberts How often would you frequent blender.se a moderator and how much time would you dedicate daily/weekly/monthly to review/edit?

@Leander It might vary per day, but usually about 2 hours per day whenever I am using my PC

Teck-Freak

After the 2.8 series Blender's popularity and visibility in the industry increased considerably attracting a lot of new users, this brought an influx of beginners to BSE.
How do you suggest we deal with the inevitable increase in lower quality posts, repeated questions and general unawareness of rules and conduct?

For dealing with repeated questions we got a nice system of pointing out duplicates, checking if they are indeed duplicates and closing them with a link.
Concerning unawareness of rules and conduct, it should be pointed out in a comment, linking to our code of conduct. For both, low quality posts and posts not following our rules minimal editing should be considered to bring it up to our standards. And always, always use your votes and comment on why/how to enhance a question or post.

How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

When I was young I used to draw and invent a lot. My cousin showed me an early version of blender once it got OpenSource somewhere 2002. I hardly used it, since I could draw well and fast back then, and Blender seemed to slow/hard for my needs. When my brother found out about "Elephants Dream" I looked into it, and when it came out May 2006 I downloaded Blender (2.45? 2.49?) and made my first real animation (a light sabre throw - yes I am a nerd ). From then I played around with it every other week or so. It went much more real in university, where I had my own computer and would use it bi-dayly. Also I learned Python and in second semester got a students job as programmer working with Python and Blender and have been using it ever since.
Currently I am using Blender almost dayly, but I don't do much artwork anymore.
I use it in work 3-4 days a week and for hobby half the other days. (With 2.78 and 2.83 and I still dont like that you're forced an 'active tool')

How do you feel about the current state of the community here? What role does meta and chat play in your ideal for blender.SE, and how will you encourage this?

The community is awesome and very helpful. I remember it as even better, but that might be my memory playing tricks on me.
Meta and chat are important for BSE, but shamefully I got to admit I hardly ever used either. I would like to encurage usage, maybe with a comment towards new folks.

How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Weirdly specific for something very hypothetical. Well, I got to deal with the flags. Arguments should be outsourced to chat (we're all human). If someone just attacs in the comments, I think one should contact them directly. If it keeps happening, I'd delete said comments. I can see how feelings can stir up, but if you don't provide valid reasons for your argument, I'm not sure anyone would like to read it.

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I would try to explain my reasoning why I think that was wrong, and depending on the individual case I'd try to reopen the question. Communication is the key.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

minimally invasive modifications! In my eyes, a mod is in a weird superposition: you're a friend to anyone, you settle fights, you're the Good-Guy-Greg meme personified. However from the sites perspective, you are also a surgeon - your job is not to show how good you are with the scalpel or to make beauty-operations. Your job is to do the necessary tasks at hand, without to much complications.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I'm not sure. I see why it is needed, but I dont think that'll change me much. I try to be nice and helpfull anyway. Am I being "the first among equals"?
I don't know and frankly dont care much either. On a scale from -10 to 10, with -10 being royally p... unhappy and 10 being highly positive, I think I'm on a -1, maybe? Slightly annoyed, but not enough to even call it annoying?

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I could solve problems that standards can only point to. Also, I'm far from a 20k or even a 10k.

Good luck everybody! May the one most fit for this site win. ;-)

+1 from me :). Even if you don't win this time, please do stick around in our chatroom

@JachymMichal Thanks mate. :-D I will try to keep in touch.

In .3, you say " I remember it as even better". Do you think things have changed with time here? Why and what to do for it in your opinion?

Oh. The honest answer to both would be "I dont know". My best guess is that some of the old members are slowly ground down while we get a flood of people that dont see the rules and ... lets say traditions of this site. Like I said though: it might be that I changed.

@timaroberts How often would you frequent blender.se a moderator and how much time would you dedicate daily/weekly/monthly to review/edit?

@Leander It might vary a bit between bi-dayly and twice a day. I'd say about 3-7h a week should be reasonable. Probably I'll do more on weekends. If I notice more has to be done, I might up it a bit (maybe 10-ish), but I can't give a fixed top limit right now. Starting from January I should have more time. Sorry if that's not the answer you hoped for.


text:
Big thanks to the Blender.SE community!
Moderators, veterans and other mentors.
Before any more of you leave, you need to know:
YOU'RE AWESOME!
(it doesn't get said enough)
It's just amazing to be a part of such a great community.
Blender SE is the first site I check in the morning. And the last one I check before going to bed.
I learn so much here every day, I can hardly put it into words.
People here restored my faith in humanity.
And also, helped me to find a purpose (don't laugh, you'll hurt my ego).
So, mighty moderators and common folk :), veterans and newbies:

Thank you for helping others.
Thank you for being kind to people with silly questions.
Thank you for your infinite patience with me and other newbies.
Thank you for going out of your way to help solve somebody else's problems.
Thank you.

Duarte Farrajota Ramos - Man, I don't know how you do it. Every single day. Respect.
Cegaton - if you ever read this, just know that you left a mark. You're my hero.
Robert Gützkow - you really know Blender inside out. Damn.
Robin Betts - you always come up with even more elegant solution to any problem. Like, how?
gandalf - legendary. I read 600 of your answers so far. Took me 4 months. Worth it.
batFINGER - I don't speak Python, but now I really really want to.
(I just don't know where else to post this)
Still. Cegaton? Really?

Awww, thank you! I wouldn't say that I know Blender inside out, but I try my best. Blender's source code is simply too big to know everything. I love helping the community and I'm very glad that my contributions have made a positive impact, even if it's just a little bit.

I'm so glad the message got across :). I certainly benefit a lot from all your answers (old and new) and wish there were more people like you on the web :).

@ᴊᴀᴄʜʏᴍᴍɪᴄʜᴀʟ thanks for this. I'll let cegaton know about this post. I hope BSE stays strong in spite of our departure. Kind of sad that this kind of thing is the only time we all think to say thank you.

@David Thanks for passing it along. I had this post in my head for a few weeks, but decided to hurry up :). You never heard of me, but your extensive Q&A posts are of great help anytime I'm lost. Enjoy your retirement, and make sure to check on us every once in a while :).


text:
How do I hilight words in grey such as Blender hot keys?
I've searched right through the markup help and can't find any mention anywhere of what hotkey or incantation to use to create the grey hilighting (with or without the surrounding box outline) when writing an answer to a question, e.g: CTRL + X with the 'CTRL and 'X' hilighted. Any clues please? - Just found mention of the 'kbd' tag, but how do you use it? Surely you don't have to type in the full HTML formatting every time you want to hilight a letter?

https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/524/what-case-should-letters-inside-kbd-tags-be

Thanks. Couldn't find that by searching.

@JohnEason there are also some userscripts around SE, such as here and here for example that add kbd tags for you.

@Timaroberts Thanks. I'll have a look!


text:
David♦ Moderator resignation
Well, here is a post that even a year ago I never thought I would be writing.
I've been part of this site for six years to the day, January 21, 2014. My interest in blender caused me to get more and more involved with BSE so much so that I was one of our first three elected moderators. Over the years my enthusiasm for SE grew - this was the best place to get answers for blender questions. Slowly life moved on, and I used blender less and less (as you could probably guess from my declining answer rate); yet I was always still here, almost out of duty for this community.
Now we get to the present. I'm not going to rehash all that has transpired (the history goes back a few years, and greatly accelerated in the last four months), but the fact is that I no longer feel good about supporting SE.
So I'm resigning as a mod, and stepping away from SE as a whole.
Let me be clear, my departure has nothing to do with BSE, or any of you the users and my friends. It is solely based on the actions of SE and what kind of company SE has become.
As with anything that one embarks on for years of one's life this change leaves me saddened. Saddened for how SE has changed, and saddened because of all that I'll miss: hunting and destroying socks, helping users, interacting with other mods, but most of all the friends I gained along the way.
I'd be remiss if I did not thank some of the people that I have had the pleasure of interacting with over the years. You have helped shape this site,
you are this site. Further you helped shape me. I'm hesitant to make a list like this because I know I will not be able to list everyone.
In alphabetical order a non-exhaustive list of users that have had a impact on me and this site:
batFINGER You supply endless python answers, like the ones that came before you CodeManX, ideasman42, pink vertex and many more. Your answers are filled with a lifetime of wisdom. Your expertise in python shows through the amazing volume of answers of have written.
cegaton Thank you for working to keep this site running - for years. Your endless edits, persistent comments and all around blender knowledge is a real asset to the community.
CharlesL Our activity did not overlap much, but I will never forget the ebook we coauthored, fun times. Definitely one of the most memorable moments.
Duarte Farrajota Ramos You were one of the few active users in BSE's lull. You stepped up to be a full blown mod when no one else would. I remember you pumping out good answers, seemingly on fire. Even now, you still have passion for this community - singly handily editing whole tags.
gandalf3 Wow, where to start? Back when I first joined you were the one I wanted to be like. Top dog on the site - you could answer everything. You made gifs a standard part of answers "gandalf style gifs." Your demeanor through chat was unwavering, and your keen sense for internet privacy was something I always aspired to.
GiantCowFilms First off Thank you for building (twice) blend exchange, without that service BSE would have a lot more dead blend file links littered all over the place. Now this might be a surprise but thank you for the many times we disagreed in chat, through that I better learned to see other people's perspective, and hopefully better communicate.
iKlsR BSE's longest serving mod, first appointed in June of 2013 and served this site well since. Back in the day before we graduated, you were our only active mod. You alone had to deal with all my flags and incessant pings to fix stuff, both in chat and on the meta. Also the only user who knows it all.
Jerryno Aside from having one of the coolest user ids on the site, you have provided a wealth of knowledge through hundreds of answers. I personally have learned much from you. Your contributions to BSE will always be remembered.
Nicola Sap You are the next wave of active users. I've seen you post great answer after great answer. Keep it up, just do not burn out too quickly.
Ray Mairlot You unlike many from your era are still around and active. You have done the unrewarding work: edits and comments, the work that keeps this site running. For that I am forever grateful.
VRM You were definitely part of "the old crew". Super active back in 2015 both in chat and on BSE. Your answers were always spot on and helpful. I will always remember our interactions with fondness.
X-27 The pyromaniac stalker of the renderfarm :) You are one of the users that seemingly was always in our chat, another of "the old crew". I'll never forget our fun banter, nor your stack exchange video.
Without detailing each one, many others I knew from chat:
Gwen, Scalia, Shady Puck someonewithpc, stacker TARDIS Maker, Thom Blair III, and Vader.

I leave this site with a word or two of advice.

Remember what it was like to be a noob, the things we take for granted, many reading your answers will not know.
Mind the tags. I was once called the tag master you will have to replace me for that job, please keep reign on those unwieldy categorizations.
2.8 brought a ton of new users and questions to this site (more then anything else in BSE's 6 years and 8 months history), you are going to have to find a way to filter out all the LQPs and keep the gems.
Mods: always stay pingable in the chat room, that is important.

Its been fun, disappointing, tiring, invigorating, draining, exciting, enlightening and so on. I would not trade my experiences here away. Were I able to go back these six years, sure there are some things I would of changed, but I'd do it all again.
Farewell all.

Thanks for being the mentor we needed around here. Hope I'll see you around again some day. PS: You should have posted this GIF https://media.giphy.com/media/gFwZfXIqD0eNW/giphy.gif

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos The difference is the terminator said "I'll be back" not so sure that is true of me.

One can hope for better stack exchange days :)

owwwwww, nooooooo

Today is a sad day, you never read into these until it hits your site. The community is what makes any site and I hope SE realizes that one day before they lose the core of what built and maintained many of these communities.

Understandable. I never was very active anyway, even though I still have the reward T-Shirt. I have quit long ago over inter user quarrels and I still am on page one of the users. Something to think about. Big projects often forget that it's people who make the site big, not the software. Where can I read about the big problems?

Guess I found it. The more politically correct people want to be, the less correct they become.

@David, thank you for all you have done for this site and the network.  It's sad that it's ending like this, but we can only control our own actions.  Thank you for standing up for what you believe in.  I hope we meet again in a better place.

@MonicaCellio hold on while I pick up my jaw off the floor (yes seeing a comment from you was a huge surprise). wow How do you even find posts like these? You will forever have legend status for us network power users. Thank you for everything you have done. PS I hope you don't mind when I borrowed your avatar.

@David this post is linked from Meta; that's how I found it.  Thanks for the kind words.  I was touched by your change in name/gravatar!

I actually cried when I read this. You will be missed, and the site, will be so much less for it. I've always admired you incredible commitment to the duty of moderating this site. Thanks for keeping all things tidy as they should be :). I will miss your presence on chat immensely.

It is very sad to see how one known as always ready to help to the site goes away. I wish you keep only the best moments you had from SE and I only hope site continues working which will be harder without your invaluable contribution.

Sad to see you leave. Given the circumstance this is totally understandable. Hope we'll see you around in some other part of the Blender community!

Thankyou for the mention it is very humbling.  Thankyou for your advice, patience, diplomacy, statesmanship, responsiveness, understanding.  Will do my best to heed the advice re noobs and not put on my big bad wolf hat and... Hopefully you are not lost to blender and  without the "addiction" of BSE can get down and create away.  Oh and also may  you find something to fill the sweeping and hat fetish.  You will be sorely missed. Adios Amigo.

Thank you for the very kind words! I myself learned so much from your posts and the site you co-build. I too am using the site less and less, I barely visit twice a week now. Am also sickened what is happening with SE. I wish you the best in all the next endeavors David!

Thank you for your meticulous tag management.
Thank you for your tireless review queue sweeps.
Thank you for your steadfast flag handling.
You poured so much energy into keeping the cogs of this site going for years. We appreciate you for that. But more than that, thank you for being our friend. Your advice is well taken.
Thank you for everything, we'll miss you.


text:
Why was my Question About Dithering Closed?
I asked a question called How do you Render With Foyd-Steinberg Dithering in Blender?, and the question was closed.
Why was the question closed?
How can I fix the question?

The question doesn't seem to be very clear. People asked for clarification in the comments but never got any response, nor was there any additional information edited into your original question.

As it stands this question seems unanswerable and was put on hold for lack of essential details to understand the issue. Obviously only you know your exact issue, so unless you describe it thoroughly you alone know your exact setup, settings and what steps you took to arrive where your are now. Describe in detail what the issue is, supported by accompanying screenshots with the [edit] button above. Don't post comments or ask a new question, editing will automatically queue it for review so it can be reopened.

I find the question understandable, and I've edited it to help others; but the topic is a little obscure and I can see why most people wouldn't understand it.  I've also added a comment with an article that might help the OP.  I'd like the question reopened so I can turn that pointer into an answer with details.

@MartyFouts reopened, answer away


text:
Do we want specific tags for GPU types?
I noticed that there is now a amd tag presumably due to the influx of driver issues and problems users are coming to the site asking for help with.
A few years ago, we had a similar problem with nividia hardware that caused extreme lag with affected hardware. No nvidia tag was created then.

So the question is, do we want or need GPU specific tags?

I am against hardware related tags for a few reasons.
Hardware tags are often a strong sign of an off-topic question.

Either it is a blatant question about hardware which is off topic
A case of unsupported hardware
It is an issue with hardware which should be resolved and is out of scope here
It is an issue with drivers which basically always boils down to either update to latest version, or roll back to last known good configuration
It is a bug and should be reported in the official channels, as such doesn't belong here

Other than that Blender should ideally run well on all supported hardware, as long as it is officially approved. If it doesn't then it should be reported.
For the narrow cases of asymmetrical feature parity (like different feature support for GPU rendering between CUDA, OpenCL or Optix) where hardware is actually relevant, I supposed a simple descriptions in the body of the post should suffice.
As for the current issues we are experiencing due to a bug in recent AMD drivers, I don't think the amd tag would help much, since most users are new comers and aren't well versed in our tag system, or aren't aware of the source of their issue, so they probably wouldn't tag their question properly anyway.
The current AMD tag should probably be eliminated

I fully agree. While the current issues with the AMD drivers are quite unfortunate, they are also an example how a) we can't really help here beyond saying which driver version does work or what workarounds could be used b) all answers to such question will likely soon be obsolete c) not even the Blender developers can do much besides implementing workarounds for buggy graphics drivers. None of this would warrant hardware specific tags and most question about hardware will fall into the off-topic categories listed in your answer.

Good point obsolescence is also a valid concern. White the current situation is indeed aggravating it will be over eventually and those questions will quickly become irrelevant and useless, just like the NVidia issue a few years back

There are only three possible GPUs
AMD
INTEL
NVIDIA
Each one of them is very specific in the way it is used by blender, and each one of them creates unique problems. Those problems are not interchangeable, and can be addressed in a very targeted way. If a tag is not useful for that then what is it good for?
And who uses tags anyway? I created the label for easier search for the answers in a sea of poorly titled questions, and no way to find the info otherwise...


text:
Meaning of comment at end of page
I just got a notice of activity on a question of mine that's been closed. At the bottom of the page, I see this:
// TODO sg: TMP solution until we are confident in our current implementation of async imports // once we are, we can move the if into the js entry file and dynamically load the mark obsolete module
Is  this a mistake and something I'm supposed to see, like another comment, or is it a note for the SE developers to fix something?
Edit: Seen on this question.
Edit 2: Wow - this is getting really meta! It was at the bottom of the page for this question after I added the above edit, then was adding a comment. See this:

What question was this notice posted to? Never encountered, it, sounds like some sort of debug info a normal user should never see. Should probably be reported to site admins

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos: My bad. I should have included the link. I've added it. Also, after I edited this question to add that, as I'm typing this comment, I see it here, too. I'll add a screenshot including it.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos: Screenshot showing it on this page, while I was making my last comment is now added. I still see it.

Seems to be visible only to you, I don't see it on my end. I have reported it to the community manager, if there is anything that can be done about it I'm sure they will eventually take care of it. Thanks for reporting

If it helps, I'm using Chrome on macOS. I don't see it now. Maybe it's fixed.

It seems like it was an issue that affected multiple sites. Details are on main meta.
According to Adam Lears' response, this has since been fixed.

This is part of our new tradition here at Stack Overflow... Whoops
Wednesday.
Thanks for the report! The fix is out now.

Thanks. Thought it was an error, but wasn't sure where to report it, thought I'd start where I saw it and figured admins or other wise folk would know where to forward the report. If they know about it, that's all I can do, but I'm glad it's fixed.