Questions tagged [best-practice]
The best-practice tag has no usage guidance.
45 questions
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$ (prompt) in command line instructions
I noticed a minor 'edit war' in an answer (NB: broken link, I'm guessing the answer was deleted) regarding whether or not we should promote $ at the front of command line instructions.
Is one of ...
- 28.9k
29
votes
2
answers
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How to ask and answer Software Recommendation Questions
We get quite a few software-recommendation questions. I'd like to bang out an expected format for these questions to prevent them from melting into too localized or subjective trite.
What are tips ...
- 48.6k
27
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4
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Should we recommend inexperienced users to refrain from using advanced tools?
After a disagreement I had with another user in the comments to their answer recommending that the poster of the question uninstall ccsm after breaking Unity with it (after, of course, running an ...
- 14.9k
27
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Are animated GIFs of screencasts welcome at Ask Ubuntu?
Should we include a animated GIF of a screencast in our answers? Or should we post a series of screenshots instead? Or is a link to a video hosted externally preferable?
Here's an example of a ...
- 42.5k
19
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3
answers
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What do you do about unexplained downvotes?
Too often do I see a question that is downvoted, without any explanation for why it was downvoted, and I cannot find anything downvote-worthy about the question.
Often times I consider (and sometimes ...
- 4,060
18
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6
answers
512
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What to do with "half-hearted" edit suggestions?
I noticed there are many edit suggestions which fix a handful of issues with the post, e.g. some typos & capitalisations, spelling & grammar issues, line breaks etc., but leaves out many more. ...
- 69.8k
16
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2
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What is the meaning of OP?
I regularly see the abbreviation OP used in comments and in questions on the meta site. What does it mean?
Should a glossary be included in the FAQ? Or should OP be included in an existing glossary I ...
- 29.1k
14
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4
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How should users share long log files?
For underdeveloped troubleshooting questions like this one I want to look at whole log files such as /var/log/syslog.1 or /var/log/kern.log.1, which can be several thousands of lines long.
How should ...
- 77.8k
14
votes
2
answers
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Is it possible to "over edit"?
Hi!
Since it's beta I want to make sure we have high quality questions and answers. As a result I've been doing some editing, but a bunch of it things like capitalization, spelling, formatting, etc. ...
- 72.9k
14
votes
2
answers
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Ability to close a question as a bug report.
We're getting an influx of questions of people having problems that are best served by them reporting bugs. We should use the information for this question to allow us to close questions as bug ...
- 72.9k
13
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1
answer
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Crossposting to other Stack Exchange sites if question is unanswered on Ask Ubuntu
I am relatively new to Ask Ubuntu and stack exchange in general, but I read that x-posting is relatively frowned upon here. Is it acceptable to post a question to another Stack Exchange site, say, ...
- 353
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Is it OK to post a link to my question in the general chat room, to publicize it?
If I ask a question and want to draw attention to it, is it OK to post links to it in the general chat room? Or is this considered bad, since there is already a questions feed and if lots of people ...
- 119k
12
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2
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225
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How do I demote my own answer and encourage people to see the more detailed one?
In this question Bertrand's answer is better because he linked to a blog post from an upstream developer with much better information.
I think my answer got top voted because I happened to post first ...
- 72.9k
11
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2
answers
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Does this sound a bit condescending?
I discovered this old answer thanks to an edit suggestion which may look somewhat unnecessary. The suggestion was to remove the following phrase from the answer
and read a basic bash programming ...
- 69.8k
11
votes
2
answers
276
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How to give credit to someone else when writing an answer based on a comment?
Let's say I posted a question. I did or didn't get some answers. But I also received some comments. Among them, one comment either answered my question or gave me hint to answer my own question. What'...
- 2,305
10
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1
answer
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Does paste.ubuntu.com remove all old snippets?
I was reading this answer comments: ambiguous package name 'libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0' with more than one installed
There are few links to logs uploaded to paste.ubuntu.com back to June 2012. All of them ...
- 48.7k
10
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1
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Is there a URL to ask a pre-tagged question?
I'd like to say, on another web site, please ask a question on AskUbuntu tagged foo, and make that a link to the 'ask' form here with the tags already populated, so that it's more likely the right ...
- 9,329
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2
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What is the appropriate way to deal with "Can I do X" questions?
I don't know how better to phrase this, so here are a few examples:
Ubuntu Derivate with Rolling Release? Possible?
Kiosk that is able to transfer videos to a thumb drive
Is there any way a can buy ...
- 13.9k
10
votes
1
answer
271
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Is it good practice to recommend users install software from third-party app stores?
There is a good amount of Ubuntu software that is not currently in the Software Center, but that users still want to install. When this happens, we usually tell them to do something like:
tar xf ...
- 13.9k
8
votes
1
answer
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What is a good attribution while reusing StackExchange content within StackExchange ?
Context :
As I just hit the evil reputation, 666 (don't worry it's already over), I eventually did something bad here : copy-paste content, forgot to mention the source and got caught by the author, ...
- 3,900
7
votes
13
answers
342
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What's the best name for Debian packages?
Whenever I'm writing a software package related question or answer, I ask myself how to call those .deb files, since everybody keeps calling them what he wants. Options I came up with are:
deb ...
- 14.5k
7
votes
3
answers
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How should I decide which duplicate to close?
Should I vote to close strictly the newest one, or the one that has the most constructive content?
What if both have constructive content, as is the case with these two questions?
bind software to ...
- 77.8k
6
votes
3
answers
225
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What is our stance on pad.lv URLs?
It seems the Stack Exchange community as a whole "really, really hate" URL shorteners (source).
But what's our (Ask Ubuntu community) stance on pad.lv, the "site-specific redirection service for ...
- 69.8k
6
votes
2
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105
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What should I do if I've solved an issue for myself and think it would be good to have out there?
I just spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to easily use the keyboard to split the screen between two windows (turns out I needed the Compiz Grid plugin from compiz-fusion-plugins-extra). I ...
- 358
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1
answer
65
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Is there a preferred convention as to how key sequences are noted?
Is there an unwritten convention that is considered more appropriate than others in reference to key sequence notation when replying to questions? Specifically, which is considered more appropriate?
...
- 1,511
5
votes
2
answers
134
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How do I (and should I) move a question to SuperUser?
First I asked this question at superuser which required me to upgrade away from Ubuntu's ancient ffmpeg. Then I asked this question at Ask Ubuntu whose answer requires Ubuntu's ancient version of ...
- 2,423
5
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1
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How should answers which basically equate to "give up and use x instead" be handled?
Let's say we have a question of the form "How can I make X do Y?" and it is a perfectly valid, on-topic question. Now suppose someone then posts an answer which basically says "Forget X and just ...
- 14.9k
5
votes
1
answer
103
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Improving boot/grub questions and answers
If you look at the grub, grub2, and boot tags you'll likely find pretty vague and incomplete questions and answers. I personally consider these 3 tags as the ones that we could improve the most on ...
- 72.9k
4
votes
3
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98
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My question and answers are being changed without explanation by another user
I asked a question, and it got a lot of answers. Two of which were better than the others. Now, I believe both the question and the best answers are being stripped of essential details. I rolled back ...
- 31.3k
4
votes
2
answers
231
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Need to edit the content of a constantly changing canonical question
After I flagged this canonical question: Is a clean install better than upgrading? to be locked to prevent it from being deleted after it had already received 3 delete votes, my flag was reviewed as ...
- 119k
4
votes
1
answer
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What to do when an answer is just a (very good) request for information?
What should I do when I come upon a question that's missing some information, which has been requested...but only in an answer that does not actually attempt to answer the question, nor even to ...
- 119k
4
votes
1
answer
68
views
Could we migrate outdated answers to community wiki mode?
One trait that makes AskUbuntu different from many SE communities is that our subject matter changes at a six-month clip. The answer for new versions is often very different from the answers for older ...
- 13.9k
4
votes
1
answer
70
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How much confusion is justifiable in the name of simplifying comment "threads"?
Suppose I leave a comment to a question or answer suggesting a change that I cannot make myself or don't wish to make because of uncertainty as to whether or not I'm missing something. Then the change ...
- 119k
3
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1
answer
83
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unpleasant comment
I got into a difficult situation where I can't use my primary laptop. I posted a question on Ask Ubuntu seeking for help and the first comment I received feels arrogant. is it OK? IMHO it doesn't ...
3
votes
1
answer
138
views
Should I ask the same question again?
A long time ago I wrote a question on ask ubuntu ( How can I install another version of Ubuntu on my computer and then uninstall it without messing up my bootup process? ) and I never got a great ...
- 6,230
3
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1
answer
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How do I choose comments to be the best answer?
Sometimes users make the best answer on the comments, what should I do to make them best answer?
- 2,244
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2
answers
215
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Are questions about design decisions considered constructive?
This question was closed as nonconstructive, which seems wrong to me. (The creator of the question also did not think it was right for it to be closed.) It's a question about a design decision (or ...
- 119k
2
votes
2
answers
172
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Does it make sense to kill this question?
I noticed this old software-recommendation question is closed (rightfully so, imo) as "too broad":
Video editing software options?
I also noticed it has attracted some delete votes too.
Does it ...
- 69.8k
2
votes
1
answer
71
views
What's good practice when given too many good answers?
I'm often presented with a list of answers where one just barely is the best answer, so I give it a checkmark. Is there anything to do with the two other good and useful answers besides voting them ...
- 2,423
2
votes
0
answers
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Version tags on questions involving upgrades
On questions where the person posting had upgraded their Ubuntu version (for example, from 11.04 to 11.10) prior to / while experiencing an issue, how should the version tags be properly handled? ...
- 14.9k
1
vote
1
answer
49
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How to deal with questions that turn out to be a result of the user overlooking something?
Let's say a user asks a question and that question is because of an error on the user's part. Here is an example:
Missed snapshot tab in virtualbox
Another example is when one asks a question like ...
- 26.9k
0
votes
1
answer
124
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What is the best way to write a reply to a comment?
I see at least 3 ways to reply to a comment while mentioning the user:
@user: Bla-bla-bla
@user, Bla-bla-bla
@user - Bla-bla-bla
Which one is the proper or the best way to do it?
- 2,305
-2
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2
answers
81
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How to continue discussions important to a meta question?
Are long comment threads on meta questions discussing issues directly pertinent to the question considered bad, even if they do not become repetitive? I know this is considered bad on main...but meta ...
- 119k
-2
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3
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Questions candidates that should be closed for historical reasons?
I got this comment regarding this question expressing that "if that was a-ok, why mine is not". Hence to prevent further problems with these kind of questions lets close and archive it for its ...
- 68.5k
-3
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5
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305
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EOL Policy Revisited: a case for letting Ubuntu questions be on-topic
I wonder whether it is time to re-address the question about the (currently enforced) policy of treating EOL releases as off-topic. It strikes me as not only highly unintuitive but ultimately ...
- 1,057