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The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.

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77 votes
11 answers
3k views

What prewritten Pro-forma (aka AutoReviewComments) userscript comments can we use and share?

I'd like to gather a list of boilerplate comments (AKA canned responses) for Ask Ubuntu which can be used in combination with the awesome Pro-forma comments userscript. Post suggestions too, you are ...
64 votes
3 answers
6k views

When are questions about "ubuntu+1" appropriate?

"ubuntu+1" is the developmental release of Ubuntu, so it changes every day so it can cause people to have lots of problems and ask for help. So for example people asking 11.04 (aka natty) questions ...
Jorge Castro's user avatar
  • 72.9k
61 votes
6 answers
2k views

Are Linux Mint (and other unofficial derivatives of Ubuntu) questions on topic?

(Inspired by this question about Mint. ) You only have to look at Wikipedia to find a long long list of Ubuntu derivatives - should we allow, or even actively encourage, questions regarding these on ...
8128's user avatar
  • 28.9k
35 votes
2 answers
717 views

Why are you only allowed to comment with 50 rep?

Why are you only allowed to comment on other people's posts when you reached 50 reputation? In my opinion comments are a good way to ask people to clarify their questions or add additional information ...
fly.floh's user avatar
  • 121
18 votes
4 answers
789 views

How do I quickly gain reputation?

What is the simplest way to up your reputation points so that one can use all features offered by this site?
Ashish's user avatar
  • 307
29 votes
1 answer
592 views

What to do with non-English questions or answers?

What should we do with questions (or answers) that are written in a non-English language? I'm now talking about: Problem using any docks (Cairo, AWN, Docky) These can be downvoted, but what if the ...
Lekensteyn's user avatar
  • 177k
103 votes
1 answer
4k views

Please stop posting half answers and bad advice as comments

Ok so I've spent a few days doing hardcore cleaning and we have a problem with comments and people misusing them. People who are too lazy to write a real answer so they write a half finished one ...
Jorge Castro's user avatar
  • 72.9k
73 votes
1 answer
2k views

Style guide for questions and answers

Following the style guides on Stack Overflow and Wikipedia, I would like to propose that we create a style guide of our own. Let's hold ourselves to a high standard and create or promote questions ...
30 votes
1 answer
919 views

What do we do about mirror sites?

Following searching various things for this question, I found: http://askubuntu.greatknow.com/questions/294850/does-canonical-have-other-deals-with-companies-like-the-amazon-search-feature which ...
Wilf's user avatar
  • 30.6k
38 votes
6 answers
1k views

What are common canonical questions for our site?

So according to the Gospel of Spolsky 13:4, a core mission of Stack Exchange communities is to stop re-answering the same questions, and instead build a library of canonical answers. When general ...
Jjed's user avatar
  • 13.9k
35 votes
7 answers
1k views

Should we allow questions that are about releases which are considered End of Life?

I'd like to rehash this topic as I was under the impression that EOL releases of Ubuntu are off-topic. The site has grown a lot since it was original discussed so I'd like to see if this is something ...
Marco Ceppi's user avatar
  • 48.6k
17 votes
2 answers
538 views

Down voting consequences

I really understand that down voting should not be as easy as voting up over a good question/answer but the loss of rep associated with it makes it really something to avoid by a lot of users. I am ...
Bruno Pereira's user avatar
48 votes
10 answers
4k views

What to do with questions that describe bugs?

I always made the link to the bug report an answer, but I've also seen people adding that information as comment to the question. We probably should agree on one way to deal with such questions.
htorque's user avatar
  • 65.6k
25 votes
4 answers
788 views

Are "not only Ubuntu-specific" questions on-topic?

I know this question has been asked and answered already here: How do we tell if a question belongs here, or rather at stackoverflow/superuser? However this topic came up recently again in a ...
kos's user avatar
  • 40.9k
47 votes
1 answer
712 views

Editing tips and tricks

In the beginning there weren't that many high rep users who could edit questions. As that number grows I thought I would add some tips/tricks that I use for those of you striving to earn a badge ...
Jorge Castro's user avatar
  • 72.9k
33 votes
3 answers
834 views

Are bash/shell scripting questions on topic?

I have seen a number of users voting to close scripting questions as off topic. Is this the community consensus? Are bash questions not welcome here? How about other shell programming questions?
terdon's user avatar
  • 103k
13 votes
3 answers
565 views

EOL Question Handling Discussion... again

So, because of Darren Cook's answer to the EOL reminder I made back in May, and how people apparently don't like the status quo, I'm dredging this whole discussion back up. Because of Darren. So ...
Thomas Ward's user avatar
  • 77.1k
23 votes
5 answers
512 views

Are there any plans for localized Ask Ubuntu instances?

Is there a plan to spin off Ask Ubuntu into (community driven) localized versions? What I mean is something like: http://interrogerubuntu.fr or http://fr.askubuntu.com/ where people who are more ...
Lucian Adrian Grijincu's user avatar
21 votes
1 answer
283 views

Is it okay to ask a user to accept an answer for his/her question?

Recently I have seen questions where few good answers were given but no answer was accepted and no comment was left on any answer i.e no activity from the user who asked the question. Is it okay to ...
binW's user avatar
  • 13.1k
18 votes
1 answer
760 views

Why are questions about (specifically) Ubuntu based distros off-limits?

I can understand (in general) questions about non-Ubuntu distros being off-limits. But is there a reason that questions about distros like Linux Mint which derive directly from Ubuntu are also off-...
Karthik T's user avatar
  • 2,086
6 votes
1 answer
166 views

Do we need "brand/manufacturer" tags?

Today was a very sad day... I found that one of the questions that I (tm) like to answer (apt/dpkg tags) was tagged with toshiba... To my surprise, the OP hadn't even mentioned "toshiba" in the ...
Braiam's user avatar
  • 68.5k
71 votes
2 answers
8k views

How does Ask Ubuntu work?

We're in an odd situtation as Stack Exchange has long-established communities and so has Ubuntu. We need to ensure that we communicate best practices to the existing Ubuntu teams. How do Ask Ubuntu ...
31 votes
3 answers
517 views

What to do with abandoned questions?

It's inevitable that people will come to this site, ask a low quality question, and not return to follow up on comments requesting additional information. What should be done with these examples? ...
Marco Ceppi's user avatar
  • 48.6k
59 votes
2 answers
693 views

Alpha-testing a wizard

So over the past few days I've put some of my time into building a wizard. It currently stands as a 515 line user-script. And it's really still just a tech demo. Before we go any further, a screenshot ...
Oli's user avatar
  • 297k
48 votes
1 answer
2k views

PSA: When reviewing, don't post duplicate (and near-duplicate) comments!

As jrg♦ said (pinned in main chat): Hey folks who use "canned" comments: If you see one thats already there that expresses the same general idea, don't add another one. Thanks. :) This has ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
24 votes
16 answers
867 views

Minor site design updates

As you can see, Ask Ubuntu community site got a slight design update today. I have moved site's CSS to a newly refactor LESS system, so it's more maintainable for us to fix SE network CSS bugs ...
Jin's user avatar
  • 101
24 votes
5 answers
566 views

Unanswered questions - what to do?

Ask Ubuntu currently has the lowest Percent Answered of any Stack Exchange site. What do you think about this, and what should be done about it? Part of the problem is the attitude of questions asked, ...
Wilf's user avatar
  • 30.6k
14 votes
2 answers
714 views

Tag synonym suggestions

For future suggestions, make a separate post so we can keep track of how well we are doing with tags, as well as facilitating discussion on a specific tag. Thanks I don't have enough reputation to ...
67 votes
1 answer
907 views

Reviewers *need* to be mindful of their actions!

A new answer popped up on an old question earlier and it popped into the Late Answer review queue. Imagine you're reviewing... Does this look like a good answer? 0 Ubuntu Software Center “Failed to ...
Oli's user avatar
  • 297k
54 votes
7 answers
2k views

Do we consider "Ubuntu on Windows 10" the same as an official Ubuntu flavour? Do we support it? To what extent?

As many will have heard of, Microsoft will distribute a stock Ubuntu installation to be run on Windows 10. Source. Someone has made the point that being this the result of a partnership with ...
kos's user avatar
  • 40.9k
34 votes
7 answers
832 views

Are we truly "Eager to help"

This question was prompted by this one. At first glance I agreed that this looked like a horrible question with a lack of detail, then I recalled the initial slideshow when a new user installs ...
Elder Geek's user avatar
  • 36.4k
34 votes
4 answers
1k views

How do we tell if a question belongs here, or rather at stackoverflow/superuser?

I asked a question about vim in the ubuntu stackexchange, and someone suggested it should be taken to stack overflow or superuser. Would this be relevant, or should general Linux/UNIX software stuff ...
Jeremy Kerr's user avatar
  • 27.6k
29 votes
2 answers
4k views

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 ...
Marco Ceppi's user avatar
  • 48.6k
22 votes
2 answers
683 views

Are software recommendations on topic or not?

There are presently over 2 300 questions tagged with software-recommendation at Ask Ubuntu. However, now and then questions are closed on the basis of this tag being off topic. As an example, Thomas W....
Luís de Sousa's user avatar
19 votes
3 answers
846 views

Should questions seeking workarounds for bugs be allowed?

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.10 and had my alt + tab break. Fortunately, I found a question on Ask Ubuntu that had the solution. However, since this question was closed, the solution was posted ...
Brad Koch's user avatar
  • 127
17 votes
4 answers
540 views

Should questions about using end-of-life Ubuntu releases be closed? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Should we allow questions that are about releases which are considered End of Life? Should questions requesting advice using end-of-life (i.e., officially unsupported) Ubuntu ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
248 views

When should we use the versions tags?

For example, when someone asks a question and he is saying I am using Ubuntu 11.04. Should the question also be tagged 11.04 or not ?
Binarylife's user avatar
  • 16.6k
15 votes
3 answers
420 views

Questions seeking how to bypass security, off-topic?

Recently, this question appeared asking how to bypass a firewall using Ubuntu. What should we do about questions which seek out how to use Ubuntu to bypass security implementations?
Marco Ceppi's user avatar
  • 48.6k
13 votes
2 answers
458 views

I observed that my reputation decreases when I downvote answers, why?

Why does my reputation decrease when I down-vote answers? Isn't down-voting bad answers a good thing?
kernel_panic's user avatar
  • 11.9k
13 votes
2 answers
224 views

Encouraging (new) users to accept answers

I guess this might have been already covered somewhere on the Meta, but I have no idea on how to search for it - if so, please point me to that question. My problem is that I've noticed that since ...
Rafał Cieślak's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
310 views

What to do with questions whose OP hasn't visited the site for a long time?

On viewing unanswered questions I came across this question. While there was nothing wrong with the question, it is very old and the OP hasn't visited the site for a long time. Hence, any answers/...
VedVals's user avatar
  • 3,571
31 votes
10 answers
2k views

Ask Ubuntu Clean Up

tl;dr Go to http://cleanup.thepcspy.com and start cleaning! It only took a year but it's finally here: It's clean up time! But let's step back a bit... What on earth am I talking about? Well we get a ...
Oli's user avatar
  • 297k
30 votes
0 answers
426 views

Tag Warning Is Now Live for "Wireless"

Following up in the discussion about http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/14237/tag-warnings-on-ask-ubuntu, we have added a tag warning for wireless on Ask Ubuntu! We've only added one for now because ...
Thomas Orozco's user avatar
29 votes
26 answers
2k views

Community Promotion Ads - 2013 [duplicate]

As it is December 2012, we are now going to reset our Community Promotion Ads for the new year. What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads are community-vetted advertisements that ...
25 votes
2 answers
362 views

A note on flagging end of life questions

Recently in review, there seems to be a lot of questions flagged for end of life, the issue with these flags is that when the questions were written they were ON TOPIC, this is important, old ...
Mark Kirby's user avatar
  • 18.8k
24 votes
5 answers
701 views

Tag Warnings on Ask Ubuntu

Some time ago, we introduced "just in time" tag warnings on Stack Overflow. These warnings are meant to provide users with just-in-time information to help them avoid common mistakes in the tag they'...
Thomas Orozco's user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
625 views

Activate migration paths to Unix and Linux, should we?

First of all, lets remember the golden rule of the migrations: DO NOT MIGRATE CRAP That said, why don't we open the migration paths from AU and UL? There has been 10 migrations to UL in the last ...
Braiam's user avatar
  • 68.5k
17 votes
3 answers
37k views

Wubi discussion (AGAIN) - Supported Here on Ask Ubuntu? (13.04 and later)

According to what the Release team told me, wubi.exe appears on the images. Whether or not this means it's "supported" is open to debate among the ops, however, for all other intents and purposes, ...
Thomas Ward's user avatar
  • 77.1k
15 votes
4 answers
1k views

Policy Change Proposal: "End of Standard Support" for ESM releases is effectively the "Not Supported" date for a release on Ask Ubuntu

This is a proposal for adjusting a policy. The Community at large should vote on this change and determine whether or not they are in support of it. This will be as simple as upvoting the official ...
Thomas Ward's user avatar
  • 77.1k
15 votes
11 answers
1k views

Help spread this site....

Please help us promote this site... I know there are some ways in the sidebar. But can you come up with more interesting ways to promote this site? The SE folks have a post on how to help spread a ...

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