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 for formatting stellar software-recommendation questions? How should answers be provided?
"Sorry to ruin your fun, but poll/list questions are not allowed on any SE site, per the FAQ. Getting bad questions to stick around is not what Community Wiki is for."
Lol?
Not to over react - but that almost makes me wish AU was independent. We will always have fringe cases of that sort.
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@RolandTaylor Inkscape is pretty awesome indeed, but can it get the shadows and everything I have in my current avatar? Made this one when I was in Windows with Photoshop.
Gnome 3.2 Menu is not loading. I wanted to add a minimize and maximize to the right of my windows. So I did the following:
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"
logout and login that it per the instructions of this website: Instr...
So... on what @MarcoCeppi brought up. The problem, in its simplest terms, is that there are some types of info about Ubuntu that are not well documented anywhere else, but are also not suited to the Stack format.
Obvious approaches to fix this might be: - Make it tag wiki material, rather than Q&A - Retool it into a valid question - Make it an Ask Ubuntu blog post - Come up with someplace off of Ask Ubuntu to put it - Things I haven't thought of but you will since you are all so awesome.
- Retool it into a valid question *- What would make it valid? * - Make it an Ask Ubuntu blog post *- We have a blog?* - Come up with someplace off of Ask Ubuntu to put it *- Our blog? (2buntu?) | OMGUbuntu? WebUpd8?* - Things I haven't thought of but you will since you are all so awesome. *- Why thank you <3... but eh... what other options do we have?*
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 for formatting stellar software-recommendation questions? How should answers be provided?
The challenge with taking it to one place at all - is that everyone who has "a place" will want to be that place. It's either that or creating a completely new website - which requires resources - and again everyone will want to "be the one who did it". Then we have to consider pointing users to "that place".
To answer your first question, it is feasible, if time consuming. As you probably already read:
Normal Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. Previous Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 L...
@MarcoCeppi I think the main difference there is that a "software recommendation" as defined there is seeking the one right thing that they are looking for... lists are a whole different animal, because...
- They don't generally get maintained, as a "list of" is generally expected to be, so they aren't useful forever.
- They kind of warp the whole rep thing (this is why they used to be made CW) because rep is more dependent on the race condition than on having useful expertise to share.
- They end up having similar problems to just plugging the question into your search engine, as far as "the best" not floating to the top because there might not be a universal "best" answer.
(especially since people don't go back and re-vote every time stuff is added/changed)
- List questions tend to flood the site when they are allowed, in huge quantity and mostly-noise quality, to the point that better content isn't getting created just because lists are easier.
@jrg That wolud let people ignore the noise if they were registered and knew how to ignore tags, but it doesn't help the lack of maintenance, not providing more info than a web search, or getting too freaking many of them.... I'm not sure that they can consistently provide useful info as a format.
What about finding a really good place to put this stuff and doing some app-list-related sprints in chat?
A while back, some of us who help new Drupal devs get started tossed around the idea of making a "what's in my toolbox" webapp similar to Amazon Lists, where you can create a toolbox for a specific purpose, and people can search and either look at the apps most recommended for doing X, or the apps that a particular person uses, etc.
@MarcoCeppi I won't wave my magic wand of Community Management at you guys at this point, because all of the available options have down-sides, but here is what i would recommend:
1. Start marking all the big-list questions with a warning that they are historical in nature, and not actually allowed on the site any more, with a link to that blog post about CW, but that editing/improving the existing ones is appreciated. 2. Work on getting a toolbox webapp/site together as I described, or finding another suitable option, for solving what I do think is a valid issue.
2
Honestly, you guys don't have enough of them that it freaked me out until I saw someone posting on meta about how we can make posting big list questions easier. It's not exactly something we want to encourage en masse.
@RolandTaylor I said generally... we all know you are exceptional ;)
I think an offsite solution can work (we can host it actually) - but it will need agreement from some of the heavy rollers in this community (Marco and Jorge for example)
@HedgeMage If you have to be naughty - then it makes me uneasy as a solution...
Would you like me to add a sample warning/disclaimer to that one question and re-open it so you have an example, after which I'll leave it to you guys?
honestly, I think that once there is a really good offsite option, having one good Q&A about it that you can refer every "big list" Q. of this type to will work fine and dandy
There are many lightweight Linux distributions, but lots of them seem to have died out. I keep getting people asking me wich Linux distribution I'd recommend them installing on their 10 year old system with a 233 MHz processor or something of the sort. I've done some Googling and tried some thin...
What lenses are available for Unity?
If the lens has (a) scope(s) remember to add them to your answer as well.
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 for formatting stellar software-recommendation questions? How should answers be provided?
This question has a template already created for answering it. That is, instead of the answer textbox starting out empty, it starts out with this text in it:
[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]
[1]: http://image-url
[2]: http://clickthrough-url
Now, granted, a template like this would ...
Gnome 3.2 Menu is not loading. I wanted to add a minimize and maximize to the right of my windows. So I did the following:
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"
logout and login that it per the instructions of this website: Instr...
To answer your first question, it is feasible, if time consuming. As you probably already read:
Normal Ubuntu releases are supported for 18 months. Previous Ubuntu LTS (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 L...
