text:
2022: a year in moderation

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

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

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

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Answer flags handled
188
51

Answers flagged
1
238

Comment flags handled
11
10

Comments deleted⁷
26
50

Comments flagged
3
18

Posts bumped
0
8

Posts deleted⁶
72
67

Posts locked
0
7

Posts undeleted
1
1

Question flags handled⁵
23
44

Questions closed
14
51

Questions flagged⁵
0
69

Questions migrated
0
2

Questions protected
0
3

Questions reopened
2
2

Questions unprotected
3
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Close votes" queue
1
175

Tasks reviewed⁴: "First answers" queue
1
64

Tasks reviewed⁴: "First questions" queue
1
136

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Late answers" queue
0
75

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Low quality posts" queue
0
109

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Reopen votes" queue
0
23

Tasks reviewed⁴: "Suggested edits" queue
20
505

Users contacted
1
0

Users destroyed³
2
0

Users suspended²
0
19

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Bricks without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes). Community can handle these flags by at least one person voting to close a question that has a close flag.
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2021: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

Wishing everyone a happy 2023! ^_^


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LEGO related software
I just read the tour page and in the section Get answers to practical, detailed questions, it's written Don't ask about ... General support for LEGO related software (i.e. LDraw/LEGO Digital Designer/NXT alternatives). I wonder why and to me, they are about the only thing I might have question, I guess others too. Where should I ask these question ?
This site is in beta, if our questions are considered impractical, it'll close soon.

Possible duplicate of Are questions on 3rd party software on-topic?

The issue is that we are not actually affiliated with LEGO or any of those applications, we're a bunch of enthusiasts, AFOLs, etc. and as such have no greater access to the official support channels than any other customer (it's possible that we have members from the LDraw/Stud.IO, community here, but this isn't their preferred support channel as far as I know).
This is why we rule out "General support" questions - if you've found an issue with those programs you're best off directing your requests at the official channels - for example:

LDraw: https://forums.ldraw.org/ and most likely the "Help" forum.
LEGO Digital Designer: https://www.lego.com/en-us/ldd/support
Mindstorms/NXT/EV3: https://www.lego.com/en-gb/mindstorms/support

However, we are quite good at questions about how to use those programs: Can't get gears to mesh in LDD? We can help. Issues with loops in your EV3 program? We've got you covered.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Request: visual feature reference for parts on bricks.stackexchange.com
It would be helpful to have some sort of visual feature reference on the site here to hint at what the community has accepted as standard terms to describe various features of LEGO pieces.  I grew up using the term "bumps", but a diagram like the following (from leonardoslegos.com Lego Vocabulary 101) would be a very helpful hint for Newbies (to the community) like me posting questions.
I'm not familiar with what controls are available for modifying the interface on SE sites, but I was thinking an image or link on the Ask Question page would be infinitely educational.  I'm not sure what tag wiki page would be equivalently appropriate.
Thoughts?

Typically we suggest people post lists of technical terms in a meta post and link to it when needed. I think you should assume most users understand and use the basic terminology of the field. Having the reference for newbies is handy, but it's probably overkill to put it on the Ask Question page. This question is a good start. Maybe you can expand it to other commonly used terms?

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


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When to accept?
I  participated on two  Stack  sites extenively:

Drupal - you accepted as soon as your problem  was solved. Switching accept mark was normal.
Worldbuilding - it  is highly  discouraged to accept before 24 hours passed, to give people from all over  the globe fair chance  to answer and provide best idea without feeling neglected. Switching accepted answer is unusual.

What are customs about accepting on this stack?

I think it depends a little on the question type:
If you're asking for piece or set identification, and someone has found the answer for you, then accept as soon as you're happy - it saves people from clicking through to an ambiguous question.
If you're asking for building techniques however you may want to leave that open for a while as it's possible that you'll get a few different ways to approach your problem - feel free to vote and comment on answers as they come in, this also encourages participation as people can see you're actively involved in the answers.

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


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How old is [vintage]?
I recently noticed the vintage tag. The tag wiki simply specifies, "Used for old vintage LEGO sets and pieces."
How old is old enough for a set or piece to qualify as "vintage"? For example, would Paradisa and Blacktron be considered vintage? 4.5 volt trains? Classic Space (mid-1980's)? Fabuland? The Yellow Castle? Only stuff from before 1970? Only the very early years?
My personal opinion would be that anything before my "dark age" (circa 1995) feels vintage, but I recognize that many people will have a different perspective. Is there anything approaching a consensus on what is and what is not vintage?
I'm not really asking for an exhaustive or scientific answer, and don't need an adjudication on a borderline case. What I want to avoid is, say, tagging a bunch of monorail questions as vintage and then getting stern messages that vintage means pre-1980 and not just discontinued.
Possible answers:

It's based on a set number of years (e.g. 20) elapsing since the piece, set, and/or theme was released and/or discontinued.
It's based on a holistic judgment based not only the passage of time, but on the use of parts, themes, or practices that have been obsolete for so long that the part, set, or theme just has the feel of belonging to a bygone era, yea, even the days of fluorescent jewelry, New Coke, and the 386.
The tag lacks sufficient meaning to differentiate questions in any meaningful sense and should be burninated.

My thoughts on the above is that #1 seems reasonable, but would imply that being vintage is a moving target. That is, every year, another year's worth of media, pieces, sets, can now have the tag added to it. For example, if we use a target timeframe of 20 years since release, it would be appropriate for me to spend the year 2024 bulk-tagging questions about sets released in 2004 as vintage, and do the same next year for sets released in 2005. That seems like quite a mess and a lot of questions being unnecessarily bumped. On the other hand, #2 above seems difficult to adjudicate, and could result in edit wars based on personal perspectives of whether something is or is not vintage "enough" to be tagged.

Looking at the questions we currently have tagged vintage it does seem to imply "early 80s" at the latest - however as with cars and furniture, this is likely to be a moving target: would you consider the pre-realistic skin tone licensed sets as "Vintage LEGO Star Wars" for example, or just "Classic"?

For me personally, vintage seem to be pre-1995 too (as this is where I got into Dark Age). This was 25 years ago, which is quite some time ago.
However I could think of a good point of time in LEGO history which could be considered a turning point here - change of Light/Dark Gray [BL] to Light/Dark Bluish Gray [BL] (and few other colors). It wasn't just a color change, but also quite drastical change in set designing approach as well as designers themselves.

To second Alex's timeframe, the urban dictionary definition for vintage states:

An item of age, usually from around the 1920's to [approximately] 20 years ago. The items could be anything from furniture, children's toys, to clothing and household bits and pieces.

So that'd be anything before 2000 at this point.  I wish Zhaph's answer was closer to the usage I'd heard, but it seems like I'm going to go feel old for a while now.

If we had to pick an arbitrary cutoff I think 20 years ago is reasonable.

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


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Are questions about the in-universe lore or history of sets or themes on-topic?
Are questions about the in-universe lore or history surrounding LEGO sets or themes, especially non-licensed ones (ones not based on existing stories such as Star Wars, but invented wholly by LEGO) on-topic? For example, one might ask about the political structure of Heartlake City, how many planets Blacktron controlled at the height of its power, what the training regime is like for new Imperial Soldiers recruits in the Pirates universe, how one becomes an Ultra Agent, or the names of Jack Stone's parents. Answers might cite original advertisements, box blurbs, tie-in media such as books, or official staff interviews.
LEGO themes, factions, or sets that have clear science fiction or fantasy elements (e.g. Classic Space, Lego Elves, Ninjago, Exo-Force, Castle Dragon Masters, Time Cruisers, etc.) are obviously on-topic at Science Fiction and Fantasy.SE, but LEGO themes that have little to no SFF content such as Pirates, Friends, or Western wouldn't be allowed there. A brief review of LEGO-related questions on SFF.SE also shows that a large percentage of the "LEGO" questions there are actually about tie-in media such as films and shows rather than sets themselves, leading me to believe that set-based questions might not get good answers there.

I'm not aware of us making a decision about this topic specifically, but I have no problem with us fielding these questions as long as they are specific, answerable, and not opinion based.
If these questions are better suited for SFF, we can certainly move them there, but I have a hunch that our community is better equipped to answer them given the amount of source material many of us have in our closets.


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Area to display MOCs on LEGO Answers
I have been using LEGO Answers for about a week and love it (Pure LEGO Fan). At the moment
LEGO Answers in BETA and I would like to contribute some ideas to make LEGO Answers a better Website and even make it out of Beta.
Feature Request Idea:

Create an LEGO Presentation Page to show off your Creations, Something like NXT Log.
  You could add your LEGO Creation to the page and show the World your Creation. We could have contests like the best log-House, Robot Arm, or best RC Car. Each Post (Creation) must have an Description, (Optional) Video, (Optional) LDD, and at least 4 Photos.

I hope you like my Feature Request, (Please spread this post for more Answers).  :)
Why would this Feature Request make LEGO Answers get out of BETA?
The LEGO Presentation Page will improve the post numbers for LEGO Answers.

Whilst this might indeed "bring in more users", it's not really what the Stack Exchange sites are designed for:

We welcome questions that are clear and specific, representing real problems that you face; Stack Exchange is not the place for conversation, opinions, or socializing.

In fact it's even in the image you included (emphasis added):

15 questions per day on average is a healthy beta, 5 questions or fewer per day needs some work.

As you mention, there are already a number of sites on the web that are geared up around showcasing your latest MOCs, from dedicated sites such as MOCpages, through to common tags on Flickr.
The best the Stack Exchange engine can really offer you is the ability to update your avatar and possibly include some images in your profile - you don't have to copy this around the network if you'd like to keep it just to LEGO Answers.

Responding to the suggestion that "Photo.SE" does it:
Yep, I'd forgotten that Photo.SE has the weekly featured image image in the header - we could probably do something similar, although I'm not sure how good the small size header image would be at showcasing MOCs.
That said, there's nothing to stop this sort of discussion happening here on Meta.Bricks :)

I think the Stack Exchange engine can handle MOC (Lego Creation). The Photography StackOverflow shows Top Images up top. We could do that with lego.

Photography SE does have a weekly photo contest, but it is running because the site is otherwise active and successful. It's not active and successful because it has a photo sharing contest. This isn't to say Lego SE couldn't grow to that point, but creating a feature that moves away from our Q&A mission and exists largely to boost some numbers isn't going to happen. Those stats aren't the be all and end all of a site. Focusing on quality questions and answers and growing an audience, even if small, tends to pay off a lot better.


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Are LEGO Robotics Clubs/Competitions on-topic?
I'm wondering if questions about LEGO Robotics clubs/organizations such as First LEGO League and associated teams/competitions are on-topic. Questions could conceivably include topics such as teaching/training resources, best practices for organizing teams/competitions, etc.


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Should we have a LEGO tag?
I see lego is no longer allowed. Since this site seems to be not exclusively about LEGO, is this a good idea?

Note that there's a really, really practical reason not to have the tag, even if it would be occasionally useful: since the vast majority of questions will need it, it'll either be omitted (making it useless) or used in lieu of more specific tags (making tagging useless) on a fair number of them. Anything you can do to encourage one good tag by default should usually be done.

If there is a LEGO tag does it need to be in all caps?

I think we should keep the LEGO tag - if we rename the site to make it obvious that we welcome k-nex, etc. then it makes sense to be able to say "I'm interested/not interested in lego"
Otherwise there's no way to filter them out later.

Edit to add - mostly responding to Dori's comments to her answer:
I've got no experience with knex, which (I feel) we should welcome on this site, but I'm not going to be able to answer any of the questions about that, so would like to be able to filter them out using the "Ignored Tags" feature.
The opposite is probably equally likely: There may well be people who are experts in knex, but with limited interest in LEGO - shouldn't they also be allowed to "Ignore" LEGO specific questions?
Finally, thinking far into a possible future - look at Facebook.stackoverflow.com if this site gets big enough that we become an "official" support channel for one of these toys, then providing this sort of separation is much harder if a specific toy isn't tagged correctly (we should aim high after all ;))

Also, if we keep the lego tag, we can deal with things related to the LEGO company itself

Hmm, @jrg interesting point - if we want to ask a question about LEGO the company is that off topic, or should it be tagged with something like "LEGO-corporate"?

No idea, that'd also be another question worth asking.

@Dori True... Didn't think about that.

@Dori But I don't think that applies in this case - unlike the Apple site, we're not exclusively about LEGO, but open to other brick based construction toys - so having a "LEGO" tag is more use.

@JoeWreschnig That was my initial thought too, but after thinking about it, I felt it had value.

But if the site were renamed to be slightly less "LEGO-centric", would that encourage more people later to join in and ask more questions about other toys? Then the balance might be more even? Isn't it just that the initial interest is from LEGO users, the proposal was LEGO specific, but was open to other toys, so to start with it's going to be biased?

@JoeWreschnig In which case we need a greater body of people to consider http://bricks.stackexchange.com/questions/93/what-is-oodammo off topic, as I'm sure you've done, and update the FAQ to be more explicit about what we're not talking about?

@JoeWreschnig My concern is that the most upvoted and accepted answer during the commitment phase to "Should we expand the LEGO proposal to also include other brick families, like K'Nex and Erector?" (http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/questions/1613/should-we-expand-the-lego-proposal-to-also-include-other-brick-families-like-k) seemed to be "yes".

@JoeWreschnig There was a motion at one point for it to be called Construction Toys, which to me would seem to be the best idea. The difference between brick and non-brick based toys is hazy, and the definition between Lego and non-Lego is a bit restrictive. Construction Toys is very clear cut.


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Is it not cleaning part of care not vice versa?
Right now care is the synonym of cleaning but is it not cleaning part caring? I mean to say care sound more like the master tag to me in this regard.


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Is it not adhesive better name for the tag rather then glue?
It might be more personal but adhesive sound like a better tag to me than glue. Also, the adhesive word is quite popularly used here.
If not tag rename then at-least adhesive can be a synonym.

It really depends. Different adhesives have different properties and hence uses. You wouldn't use tape for something that hot glue is a better fit for. To that end, [adhesive] might actually be ambiguous.

I will call broader not ambiguous @LegoSonicBoy

This definition I found explaining the difference seems quite helpful.

What Is Glue?
Glue is a substance that allows two surfaces to be bonded together.
  The term is commonly used interchangeably with “adhesive”. Glues are
  often marketed for specific applications—wood glue, thread lock,
  etc.—rather than being marketed based on their chemical compositions,
  such as polyurethane or epoxy.
What Is Adhesive?
An adhesive holds materials together. There are many different types,
  but the different types all describe essentially the same thing.
  Cement, glue and other terms all refer to adhesives of one sort or
  another.

There are 18 glue questions, 12 of them use 'Glue' in the title, most of the others refer to glue in the posts as well. I think the word glue is more commonly understood and used in the context of LEGO constructions.
I have added adhesive as a synonym of glue.


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How many TAG tags we need in meta?
I was searching tags for my meta question and it feels tags and tagging both are applicable but do we even need to have them separately ?
Also tag-synonyms and interesting-tags can be made synonym of it too.

We could probably merge tags and tagging here, which would simplify things, even though you could argue there are some minor differences (nouns versus verbs, etc.).
I disagree that tag-synonyms (valid) and "interesting-tags" should be merged either into that or together, they are different things - we seem to be using the tags and tagging to discuss use of a particular tag, whilst tag-synonyms should be specifically for requests to combine tags.
I think I've burnt "interesting-tags".

Sound pretty fine to me.


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Community's view on old question grammar edits
As you may have noticed, there have been multiple old questions popping up due to edits. I feel like such amount of edits hurts the community.
First reason is that they don't really bring anything useful to the questions being edited. It isn't essential to question if "im" or "Im" has been used instead of "I'm". I find such edits fine if this is a fresh question, but I don't see how this would make old questions better. What would be useful here is to provide a better answer and then maybe do a few grammar fixes (and certainly don't bring anything new to question OP didn't consider in his question) as you review the question itself. But don't just do grammar alone.
Second reason is that the real (new) questions tend to disappear quickly. They are being moved by all the edits to old questions and may be unnoticed, thus unanswered. I've been quite active here for past couple of months, yet still I tend to miss one or another new question purely because of the high amount of edits to old questions.
Third reason - some edits change the question too much (or even add new (mis)information) that it alters authors idea about the question he was asking about. This may discourage new members of Bricks.SE community from posting new questions. It also looks like members of this community are more focused on typos than the quality of the content.
Overall, I find it good to review and fix some errors, but going full "grammar nazi" mode isn't that great.
What's the stand of the community on this issue?
Edit. I just noticed there's an Archaeologist badge you can achieve editing posts older than 6 months.
PS. If you find a typo, it could be this was placed intentionally or was a pure mistake. However this doesn't change the idea. I will rollback whichever edit will be made to this post except tags.

I'm the one doing all those edits, I like that dopamine going through me whenever I get reputation...

Proper grammar and spelling means a lot to people who learned English as a second (or third) language. Many, I dare say most of us, have learned it not by speaking naturally at early age, but by learning grammar and spelling rules in theory and then applying them.
Worse yet, grammar errors tends to correspond to the native language of the writer, making it even harder to read for people from other countries, speaking languages from other language groups as their first.
What to you may be a small typo or minor grammar issue, for other non-natives may be the difference between illegible and legible writing.

Exactly. It's like giving you a sandwich without the bread.

I came to this question in search of meta Q that might address https://bricks.stackexchange.com/q/923/2833 and found that @mindstormsboi did too. Why do the grammar edits on that question keep getting rolled back to a version that has no capitalization and ends questions with a period?

@shoover Indeed, edit wars. It's driving me nuts and there is absolutely no reason to create the rollback. What should I do about it? Should I imitate the behavior and continuously make the edit? (FYI the constant rollbacks actually remove 2 rep from me ): )

@shoover And now even this user is making rollback, and I truly don't understand why. Nor do I understand why I should receive an unupvote and an additional downvote on this answer of mine at exactly nine hours ago, the same time when the most recent rollback was made. How rebellious.

@mindstormboi revenge downvotes are forbidden, but notoriously hard to prove.

We've had some similar excitement previously around the capitalisation of the word LEGO and also the legos purges - in general, we prefer edits that are substantial and leave the post better than you found it.
That said, if we didn't think there was value in these minor edits (and to be clear, I like a grammatically correct, properly capitalised, properly punctuated post as much as the next pedant), we would be rejecting them from the review queues - the editor in question at the time of writing doesn't meet the reputation cap to make edits directly, nor to stop earning reputation from edits.
Whilst maybe not ideal, you can always use the Questions view, which can sort them by created date rather than just latest activity.


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Will there be Winter Bash 2020 competition on Bricks.SE?
Last year we had Winter Bash 2019 competition. While you could win some LEGO prizes last year it was quite fun to participate on its own. Are we going to have something like that this Winter Bash period as well?

Thanks for the reminder. I had prepared this beforehand, but I forgot to post it promptly. This year's competition post is up now:
Winter Bash 2020 LEGO Prizes!
Please use that thread for any questions, discussion, or adjustments that may need to be made.

Considering the amount of bickering last year (see here), I hope that at least some of the proposed changes are applied if there are valuable prizes to be won (which inevitably attracts a crowd).
In short, if we could find a way to keep to the intended spirit of the competition (as outlined here):

The goal here is to facilitate positive engagement on the site both to celebrate the holidays and because this is the time of year when we get a lot of new traffic from parents and others just getting into LEGO. My hope is that providing prizes for this will facilitate meaningful engagement on the site. Please don't make a mess of things just to earn hats. :)

and here:

My hope is that Winter Bash can help increase engagement between current users and new users over the next several weeks by encouraging current users to be active on the site.

then I'm all for it, but I'm afraid it's a bit late to start discussing the best way now, as the hats are already being collected.


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Should we use the brands properly in tags?
Should we use more generic tags?
Our tag technic assumes that all technic bricks are LEGO Technic.
Our tag clone-brands assumes that all but LEGO bricks are clones and does not allow to distinguish between the manufacturers.
How about a tag for each manufacturer and a neutral tag technical for the brick family?
Instead of the brand LEGO Technic in technic: A more advanced form of LEGO®, allowing for the creation of more realistic working parts.
we can use
technical: Bricks in form of gears, axles and mechanical parts.
And trains would allow to tag trains from any manufacturer.
Our users may combine them as in technical + cobi

Technic is also less about bricks these days, and more "beams with holes" ;)

Also TLG appear to have a trade mark on "Technic"  so that's actually the brand, similar to Duplo, etc., as opposed to "technical" which would be a generic term for the system.

@Zhaph-BenDuguid very good point. I will include this in my post.

There aren't so many "technical" questions for clone brands, so it would be fine without technical tag. While technic and building-techniques suit Technic and brick building related questions of relatively complex LEGO matter.


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Where does Python questions belong to?
You could find a lot of questions with the python tag but does it belong on this site because it also about the ev3 programmable LEGO brick or is it better on Stack Overflow because it's about programming or are both valid?
I've also seen that Stack Overflow also has a "lego", "mindstorms" and "ev3" tag.

Yes, the tag belongs on this site as well. There are a number of 3rd-party firmware replacements for the Mindstorms hubs, so it makes sense for us to be able to tag questions with the language being used in the programme, especially if it's relevant to the question.
As with many programmable systems, there's going to be some cross-over between sites, however many of the questions tagged lego on StackOverflow either predate this site, or seem to be more targeted to SO with things like "How to use TensorFlow to categorise LEGO bricks" or "How to import custom python modules" on an hub ;)


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Deleted opinion based question on Bricks SE
Some time ago I've asked quite opinion based question on Bricks SE about emulation environment. I know that on the site it is ok to ask opinion based questions like this or this. My question was downvoted for unknown (for me) reason and after some time it was deleted. I flagged it and asked for undeletion because now I have an answer to my own question. I know that my question could be helpful for some people but I don't know what to do now. I have read the meta SE question about undeleting so I did the same but my question still deleted. Should I give up, create a new question and answer to it or just continue waiting for a moderator that hopefully will see my request?

This question was automatically deleted because it was 30 days old, voted to -1, and had no answers. I'll reverse that deletion so that you can add a constructive self-answer.

The author has now posted their self-answer, and it's substantive.


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Tag typo only appears in specific place
I'm in the tag page, the tags are sorted by popularity, and technic is one of them, as you can see here.

However, If I go to page seven, I see a typo in the tag name.

Hmm, strange. That typo doesn't appear on the first page, and also it does have questions asked with this tag. What's stranger is that all the surrounding tags also have "0 questions" but they do have questions, which I think is SE's fault. Also, it shows the real tag info if I hover over it.
But I'm not focused on that.

So is this odd typo the fault of Stack Exchange, or did someone here make an oopsie? I think it's the first one, right?

All tags are suggested and created by us users, rather than being forced upon us by Stack Exchange ;)

@Zhaph-BenDugid That's not what I meant. I meant that someone merged it or something and that the Stack Exchange database didn't sync or something, or maybe someone forgot about it.

Yes, I merged them back in 2014 - you can see this from the All Synonyms page. This is feature of the site - all synonyms behave like this - if you go to the last couple of pages of the "popular tags", you'll see all the "empty" tags that are mostly synonyms.

Somebody made an oopsie, but it has been corrected by making techinc a synonym of technic: see https://bricks.stackexchange.com/tags/technic/synonyms.

This often happens with misspelled tags; retagging would work too, but somebody else is bound to make the same mistake again. The synonym will help them find the correct tag, instead of creating a new one (if they have the 150 reputation to do so) or wondering why they can't find the one they want (surely, there must be a tag for Lego Techinc, right?)

Indeed we could burn it, but it's likely to come back again at some point, so often easier to keep them around as synonyms.

@Zhaph-BenDuguid: You need a certain reputation to create tags and you should get a warning that you are about to create a tag, so the risk should be rather low. Also note that you can merge the tags, so it does not say techinc on some question.

@Wrzlprmft True, it's less likely to come back now that we're out of beta, and running at full rep - it was probably created when the requirements to create tags were lower - but someone must have created it, even with those warnings for me to create the synonym back in 2014...

@Zhaph-BenDuguid until you have a design, you're still using the beta privilege levels ...


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Is it okay to ask for opinions here that relate to a question on a different SE site?
Question
LEGO-related questions sometimes appear on Worldbuilding SE. I know this because I have posted them occasionally myself.
I currently have two such questions. I'm wondering if it will be okay to:
(a) Ask a supplementary question here that will get me some extra information
(b) Somehow 'advertise' here that I would like help from this expert community. You might say that this question itself is such an advertisement! There is some truth in this but it is not all the truth.
For those who are interested, I'll post the links but hide them to avoid being too blatant.

 https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/184560/lego-as-a-defence-against-barefoot-warriors

 https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/184565/is-it-possible-to-melt-and-accurately-mould-lego-plastic-using-only-neolithic-te

I have other LEGO Worldbuilding question going back awhile.

You can certainly ask questions here related to your questions elsewhere, but as with all questions on Stack Exchange, please ensure that they are good, standalone questions ;)
For example your second question (which seems to have some great answers already, thankfully which didn't appear to harm any actual LEGO) might also already be answered in part by Damage Boiling LEGO Bricks noting the melting point of ABS in general.


text:
Should video embedding be enabled?
On the gaming SE site YouTube videos are automatically embedded into answers. Could we get something like that too?
It would be very useful for showing mechanical parts/creations in action, especially LEGO robotics.

I'm honestly not completely certain whether we still offer this option, but if it is desired, I would encourage you to make a new Meta post to discuss it.

The best way to make a case for this is to demonstrate a need for video on this site. If video would improve your answer, start linking to videos in your posts!
Assuming they're actually useful, this provides some concrete data for judging how and where they're appropriate, lets you create guidelines for their use, and lets us see that adding support for embedding them directly would be beneficial to the site.

That makes sense - so far the only questions where I feel this would help would be [tag:technique] questions where someone would want to illustrate a step-by-step build process, but even then I think showing one image for each step would be appropriate in most cases.

70 days into beta we have 19 answers and 6 questions that include at least one link to Youtube. The most popular tags associated with these posts tend to be mindstorms, building and power-functions.*
Questions based on robotics and mechanics tend to include videos, which can help explain a complex mechanism. A video alone isn't usually enough to answer a question so users should be encouraged to expand on important points.
* The search term used was url:"*.youtube.*" combined with is:question or is:answer


text:
Useless tag - [brick]
I noticed there's a brick tag... It seems redundant, given that this literally is the Bricks stackexchange. Do we really need it?

There doesn't seem to be any use for this tag so I have removed them from the two questions they have been used on.