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I seem to observe that messages alike this one:

Please [ edit your question and ] provide the Ubuntu flavor you are using, its version, [and maybe your desktop environment (if you are using a non-default one)].

could stand a good chance in a contest for the most redundant piece of information entered into this website by its users.

I have looked at the following pages in the help center:

To my surprise, none of these two pages contain the word version with the intention introduced above.

The "on-topic" page already has a section titled "Information needed when creating a question", which seems to beg for this information to be included there.

At the same time, wouldn't this section belong rather on the "how-to-ask" page?

Even, wouldn't both of these pages benefit from a similarly titled section (even if the section content could be diverged, to align it better with the premise of the pages, correspondingly)?


Update:

I don't want this question to be mistaken for the tag debate.

We can and we should avoid mixing that question with this one.

I just want to see the version. I don't care how it's delivered.

Simply put, people asking questions need to know that we will need the version. Just let them know. Writing it there in plain text would already be a step forward from what we have now:

By the way, people answering your question will need the version number.

At this stage, no suggestion about how to deliver it.

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  • I've been a member of Ask Ubuntu for about 10 years now. And questions similar to this one pop up every once in a while to ask for the version of the distro. In general, it's somewhat a sensitive topic. As a community, we never agreed on a "community rule" for this. As a matter of fact, the on-topic section of the help page used to recommend tagging your question with the distro version but was later removed due to popular support.
    – Dan
    Feb 16, 2021 at 13:59
  • This is not about the tags. This is about seeing a version number without having to ask for it.
    – Levente
    Feb 16, 2021 at 14:39

1 Answer 1

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I think this makes perfect sense. It should be enough to simply add another bullet point to the "Information needed when creating a question" section. Something like this:

  • Always mention the Ubuntu flavor you are using, its version (e.g. "20.04") and if you have changed the default graphical environment, mention what desktop manager you are using. For example: "I am using Kubuntu version 20.20 with the Cinnamon desktop".
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  • YES and it may also help eliminate questions about non Ubuntu flavors.
    – David
    Feb 17, 2021 at 9:20

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