Questions tagged [discussion]

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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28 votes
3 answers
370 views

Best way to end a question post

When I ask a question on Ask Ubuntu, I usually end it with some kind of request for knowledge, like "does anybody know the actual meaning of this message?". A lot of newer people end the question with ...
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28 votes
3 answers
657 views

Clean-Up Week - Event planning

We (your moderators) have been mulling over an idea for a good way to deal with old, unanswered and unanswerable posts. We've been in discussion with the StackExchange team and while we're a long way ...
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28 votes
29 answers
2k views

Community Promotion Ads - 1H 2012 [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Community Promotion Ads - 2013 We... may have left 1H 2011 running a whole half-year long extra. Whoops. Well, now we begin-anew the next round of Community Promotion Ads! ...
28 votes
10 answers
446 views

What's wrong, Ask Ubuntu?: Low Voter Count

Let me preface this with a run-down of the reputation system: Users on the site can cast up- and downvotes and accept answers on their questions, each giving or taking reputation to or from other ...
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27 votes
6 answers
4k views

Questions that refer to using or installing ripped/pirated software

I note in the comments to this Question, that the user is using ripped software. umm, I just copied the folder of the game to my home folder.. thats it.. should I download the installation and ...
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27 votes
3 answers
252 views

Need help! What problems would be best solved by a wizard?

I've talked about a wizard to help people find existing questions and improve the quality of the ones they post if they can't find one. I've talked about this for so long without doing anything so ...
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26 votes
28 answers
1k views

Community Promotion Ads - 2015 [duplicate]

The dawn of a new year, 2015, now approaches, or has already approached, either way it means that it is now time to reset our Community Promotion Ads! What are Community Promotion Ads? Community ...
23 votes
2 answers
518 views

Migration Paths?

Migration paths allow for questions to be moved from Ask Ubuntu to other sites in the Stack Exchange network. The idea is that rather than simply closing questions as being "off-topic", then the ...
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21 votes
1 answer
351 views

Discouraging "Ubuntu" tags

Figured I might as well be the first to bring this up... Some relation to but not the same issue as: What ubuntu versions are covered? At time of writing, there are currently nine instances of the "...
21 votes
16 answers
1k views

Community Promotion Ads - 2016

It's 2016 now, and we've made some changes to the sidebar size. As such, we can now restart the Community Promotion Ads for 2016! Keep in mind, we have updated some of the guidelines compared to ...
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21 votes
9 answers
923 views

Are we better off with a general "Unix & Linux" stackexchange site?

Recently launched: Unix & Linux - Stack Exchange (Proposal ) Is Ubuntu perhaps a too narrow topic?
21 votes
1 answer
676 views

Lost 235 rep due to user removal

Is there any tidy way to let me know which user was removed? That's a pretty big hit to take from one user's removal. Just curious.
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19 votes
4 answers
2k views

StackExchange Data Dump Viewer - A Desktop Tool for Viewing the StackExchange Data Dumps

About: StackExchange Data Dump Viewer is a small Qt-based application that allows you to view the contents of the data dumps. This includes the Ask Ubuntu data dump. Code: The application is ...
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19 votes
1 answer
463 views

Changes to how we close abandoned questions

This is a heads up for people who regularly flag things as abandoned: The mods are stepping back We're not actually going anywhere and we'll still be dealing with most of the flags that come in but we ...
  • 287k
19 votes
4 answers
523 views

How do Mint users end up here?

It's clear to see how Ubuntu users arrive at the site. It's hard to Google for specific problem with "Ubuntu" in the query and not end up here. We're part of the documentation and we're featured (Ask!)...
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18 votes
3 answers
250 views

What to do about good suggested edits with very bad summaries?

In review, I've seen a number of edits that were good ...except for the edit summaries. Bad summaries are most often something like, "Improved question." This is a bad summary because any editor ...
18 votes
1 answer
168 views

Flag answers that should be comments?

As new users can't comment, they sometimes posts answers that would have been comments if they could. Should we flag them so they can be cleaned up properly, or leave them alone because that's how the ...
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17 votes
5 answers
669 views

What should we do with an invalid accepted answer?

Specifically with regards to these JAVA questions: https://askubuntu.com/questions/5567/how-to-install-the-sun-java-jdk https://askubuntu.com/questions/52154/how-do-i-install-the-latest-version-of-...
  • 171k
17 votes
3 answers
387 views

What should I do with answers about other Linux distros?

See this chat conversation for intense discussion. When I see an answer "here's how to do this in Windows", I flag it and leave a comment explaining that this is off-topic. All such flags have been ...
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16 votes
2 answers
314 views

Can we make some low quality tags synonyms, and outright remove some others? [duplicate]

Credit goes to jokerdino for making me aware of almost all of these tags. He sent me a list of tags he considered low quality, and asked me to post on meta about the ones I think we should take action ...
16 votes
3 answers
261 views

How to handle users that ask a question, and never come back?

Is there any set way to handle users, that answer a question. See the answer, and not do anything about it? Never come back? Example 1: User joins. Asks a question at 8pm. The answer is given at 8....
16 votes
2 answers
473 views

Get rid of Windows answers?

Isn't it time to get rid of this answer and enforce the policy of closing Windows questions, here, here, ... as off-topic? I'd rather leave a comment "We're sorry, but this site is all about Ubuntu ...
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15 votes
4 answers
278 views

How to handle duplicate answers that add nothing?

I'm not talking about exact copying, failure to give credit, or one person passing off another person's answer as their own. Rather, I'd like to know what the best practice is when one user answers a ...
14 votes
1 answer
233 views

How to get Vox Populi badge

If I know right i can use maximum 30 votes in day. How can i get Vox Populi badge when it needs 40 votes: Vox Populi Used the maximum 40 votes in a day.
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14 votes
1 answer
379 views

Is translating posts using Google Translate acceptable?

I've seen several questions in non-English, where a user (typically high-rep) puts it into Google Translate. Here's an example (Wayback Machine if it gets deleted). I do realize that post had other ...
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14 votes
0 answers
304 views

Out of context comments from the community bot

This question is quite clearly written, and has not been edited so far. There was a comment from the Community Bot (which I flagged): Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional ...
14 votes
3 answers
297 views

When do comments disappear?

I was browsing the main AU site, when I chanced upon the following comment in the question Why can't I turn on recommendations in software center?: Please provide additional information only by ...
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14 votes
2 answers
497 views

What do we do with homework-like questions?

Title's pretty clear on what i'm asking. But what should we do with questions like these: A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux Ubuntu Linux install xeyes command ... which rely on getting an answer to ...
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14 votes
3 answers
226 views

What to do if the good answer is in another question?

Problem More often than not I run into a question that had already been answered here. But the asker could not know it, because he lacks info on what to look for. Recent example: User asks if it is ...
14 votes
3 answers
738 views

Should one answer one's own question? [duplicate]

And if one does, is it bad form to then select one's own answer as the preferred one? Here's the particular case I have in mind: How do I add a program that must be run from within its own directory ...
14 votes
2 answers
227 views

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. ...
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14 votes
4 answers
258 views

Can we have a community blog?

Can we also have an AskUbuntu community blog like superuser.com?
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13 votes
3 answers
217 views

What to do with plagiarized tag-wikis?

As I was going through the tag-wikis today to try to add excerpts to those that are lacking, I found many plagiarized tag-wikis and excerpts. Examples: libvirt octave google-drive pango anacron ...
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13 votes
1 answer
203 views

Under what specific conditions should a question be flagged as "very low quality"? [duplicate]

I was going along doing some editing and whatnot on the main site when I hit a question that just looked so ugly quality-wise that I could not think of how one might be able to edit it back into ...
13 votes
3 answers
346 views

How to know which questions should be closed, a reprise

Recently Luis went SPACESHIP and brought the 1000-or-so items in the review close queue down to zero. A truly epic effort that I'm sincerely grateful for. Shortly after, he posted on Meta about his ...
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13 votes
1 answer
1k views

EOL Notice: Raring (13.04) is now past End of Life

This is a notice regarding releases of Ubuntu that have reached end of life. The following versions of Ubuntu and derivatives are officially end of life as of January 27, 2014: Raring 13.04 New ...
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13 votes
0 answers
172 views

Should we blacklist the freeze tag?

The wiki of freeze says: Do not use. This tag is in process of removal. If your software is freezing then you likely need to file a bug, as freeze problems are usually off topic here and will ...
  • 190k
13 votes
1 answer
247 views

Please don't abuse of the custom close reasons (nor just agree with the previous close voters)

I've seen this for a while now. We are (miss)using the custom close reason: Has anyone spoted the problem here? As you can see, both say the same with different wording. Why should we close it with a ...
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12 votes
3 answers
208 views

Should we target Social Media?

Update This project as been added to GitHub the current planning board is on PivotalTracker With the recent addition of this question: Gwibber and OAuthcalypse I began realizing an opportunity to ...
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12 votes
4 answers
330 views

Is it okay to both answer and mark a question as duplicate?

When I find that a question is duplicate, I just caste a vote to close it. But sometimes I've got another answer to that question, in that case first I vote to close then I post my answer on the ...
  • 53.3k
12 votes
2 answers
105 views

Request: Burnination and Blacklisting of [error] tag

One of the most overly used tags in the site is error. In almost every case, there are many other tags which are far more descriptive. All 303 questions using that tag aside, I believe the tag ...
  • 71k
12 votes
7 answers
383 views

404 Image Nominations

All the other sites seem to be doing this... We need an image that will be displayed when users try to bring up a page that does not exist. Please quote the source so the team can negotiate rights ...
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12 votes
1 answer
149 views

Would a off-topic tag warning be a good-idea? [duplicate]

Here on Ask Ubuntu we have quite a lot of tags for various Linux distributions/Operating Systems/things that could be off-topic if specific about them: debian, mint, fedora, crunchbang, windows, ...
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11 votes
1 answer
205 views

Adding a comment = audit failed?

I just failed my first audit on this question. I got the question in first post review where it was displayed without any comment, I began writing a comment suggesting to add a screenshot to clearify ...
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11 votes
2 answers
320 views

should people who answer a question actively prevent duplicates?

If I see a question I can answer, I answer. If I know it has been answered recently. I point to the existing post in a comment. However if you have to search actively before giving (every) answer if ...
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11 votes
8 answers
443 views

Giving feedback on the design

Thanks to Mat and Jin the new design is live. Here's how to report bugs. If you find a problem with the design that is CSS related, for example something doesn't line up right or look wrong, then Jin ...
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10 votes
5 answers
670 views

Ask Ubuntu new site theme coming soon [duplicate]

You might have seen the featured post Rollout of new network site themes on Meta Stack Exchange already, but here are the relevant parts for Ask Ubuntu again: As mentioned on meta.stackexchange.com ...
10 votes
9 answers
786 views

Ask Ubuntu new site theme is live

We rolled out the new site theme for Ask Ubuntu. It is now live. What new theme? If you're like, "What the heck are you talking about?", then you should read the Meta Stack Exchange post entitled ...
10 votes
0 answers
146 views

Reviews for first time posters need to improve?

So I was wondering how all these first time posts are getting through but the number of First Posts in the review queue is always low or zero. One reason might be that people are ignoring junk in the ...
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10 votes
12 answers
603 views

Community Promotion Ads — 2019 [duplicate]

2019 is here! And with the new year, as usual, comes a new iteration of Community Promotion Ads! Let’s refresh these for the coming year :) What are Community Promotion Ads? Community Promotion Ads ...
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