The Rec Center

Andy

3:55 AM

I wander through @RubyJunk.

Journeyman Geek

5:05 AM

lol

I do sleep

sometimes

Certainly at half past 5

asrock.com/Microsite/Beebox looking at once of these for my next home server

Interestingly I can chuck three drives into this in theory

Hardware Recommendations Meta

8:54 PM

1

Q: Should this site be called "Hardware Search"?

I'm just thinking out loud here. Folks often ask me where they should ask a question about their stuff, and when they start focusing in on "Hardware Recommendations", the conversation inevitably goes something like this: Author: Can I use your Hardware Recs to ask why my TV wont connect to t...

ArtOfCode

9:11 PM

45.05% of our questions are closed... jebus

Adam

Oh boy

ArtOfCode

Phew. I'm digging into stats to answer Robert's question. Boy do we have a problem here.

Half of our closed questions are closed for being technical support.

Adam

This is all pretty much the basis of why I sent Robert that email.

Undo

I'm not sure it's really that big of a problem, though

We're still closing them, and it's not like it's burdensome

ArtOfCode

@Undo That's one of the highest close rates on the network. And half of them are for one reason? That's not their fault, that's our fault for not making it clear enough.

Adam

9:22 PM

I actually think it is burdensome. Tons of closed questions looks really bad to most people.

ArtOfCode

^

Undo

@Adam That's probably the biggest reason, yeah

ArtOfCode

We can close 'em all we like, but if people come along and see the entire front page closed, they're not going to want to ask their questions here.

We do want to grow.

Adam

So what options do we have?

Undo

Well, there's the name change

ArtOfCode

9:23 PM

I'll drop this here:

Adam

Changing the name will only fix a small amount

ArtOfCode

1

A: Should this site be called "Hardware Search"?

We have a problem with technical support questions. I'm not just saying that; I went and dug out the stats. In the last 90 days, we have had: 444 questions asked 200 of those closed (45.05%) 81 of those closed as technical support (40.50% of closed). That's a problem. Not only is our close ...

Undo

We could also ask for the guidance in the sidebar on hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/ask to be changed

ArtOfCode

@Undo That would be useful.

Undo

and say "We don't answer support questions" in bold, italic, flashing print

ArtOfCode

9:24 PM

In fact, it would be more useful to be able to edit that. Feature request time.

Undo

@ArtOfCode You won't get that implemented.

It's CM-only for a reason.

ArtOfCode

Which is?

Undo

The sidebar text

ArtOfCode

Yeah, the reason I mean

Undo

We can throw together a meta post, point a CM to it and get the text changed.

(IIRC)

ArtOfCode

9:25 PM

What's the reason?

Undo

Oh. There's generally no reason to be making rapid changes to that.

And it's something that every user asking a question sees, so CMs want to be on top of whatever we do to it

ArtOfCode

True, but we can edit the help center, can we not?

Undo

@ArtOfCode Fewer people see the help center, though

ArtOfCode

And don't the CMs get pinged when we edit the help center?

I'll have a go. It would be useful.

Undo

@ArtOfCode I think so.

ArtOfCode

9:26 PM

Where's Shog's guidance on writing feature requests?

Undo

@ArtOfCode Worth a shot. You'll get upvotes from me

ONE upvote. Only one. :P

Adam

TWO

Undo

On the topic of options, we could ask for the interstitial to be shown to every new user asking a question. Not sure if we do that now.

ArtOfCode

@Undo That would also help.

Undo

And probably ask for the text on the page to be changed to make it really clear

Adam

9:28 PM

We definitely need some way to force (more or less) the rules on people.

Undo

Should we move this conversation to public chat?

ArtOfCode

OK, my answer up there says I'll be writing some more meta posts. There's a few of them to start with.

Adam

@Undo That would do some good

ArtOfCode

← 49 messages moved from The B Team (private room)

Undo

FYI, ongoing conversation about the name change and what other courses of action we can take in the Rec Center. — Undo ♦ 10 secs ago

ArtOfCode

9:30 PM

cheers

OK, I'm going to have a go at this feature request, then I'll get something together about editing that sidebar text on our own meta.

Undo

So to summarize: (1) name change is an option. (2) There are other routes we should explore to get guidance in front of people.

ArtOfCode

^

that

Undo

We just have to find a good name that still conveys that we don't do support.

in Software Recommendations, Mar 16 '14 at 14:17, by Undo

ArtOfCode

@ArtOfCode Hmm, I tried but the title: "I Can't Find This Piece of Hardware or I Have a Pre-Purchase Question SE" just didn't fit :P — Robert Cartaino ♦ 43 mins ago

ArtOfCode

9:52 PM

0

Q: Allow moderators to edit the sidebar text on the ask page

TL;DR: Moderators should be given the ability to edit the sidebar text on /questions/ask. Moderators can edit various documents and texts around their sites that the community can't. The help center's /on-topic page is a good example of this. This is good, because it lets the community make ch...

feature-request moderator-tools

Undo

@ArtOfCode Well written. Nice.

ArtOfCode

@Undo Shog's guidance is good stuff. Someone should make a book of it.

Undo

The Book of Shog

ArtOfCode

10:16 PM

Hey @Undo @Adam should we feature this for a while?

0

Q: What can we do about technical support questions?

Recently, I posted an answer here on meta. In it, I realise that we have a problem with technical support questions - essentially, going on half of our questions are closed, and going on half of those are technical support. This is the answer: We have a problem with technical support question...

discussion closed-questions

And anyone else who wants to weigh in :)

Undo

No reason not to. Done.

Adam

^

ArtOfCode

Cool :)

Hardware Recommendations Meta

10:29 PM

1

Q: What can we do about technical support questions?

Recently, I posted an answer here on meta. In it, I realise that we have a problem with technical support questions - essentially, going on half of our questions are closed, and going on half of those are technical support. This is the answer: We have a problem with technical support question...

discussion featured closed-questions

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