dupe, OP abides (see edit)

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in username: Error while loading shared libraries: libdb_cxx-4.8.so by Ashok Mxicoders on askubuntu.com

@Natty report askubuntu.com/a/1022970/22949

[ Natty | Sentinel ] Link to Post No Code Block; Low Rep; 1.5;

This chat message (linking to this article) reminded me about that wrongly closed question that we should reopen. Note that I don't know anything much about those particular bindings, but the question should never have been closed in the first place.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL-only title, bad NS for domain in body, bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, +5 more: www.bluesupplement.com/steel-rx/ by user816044 on askubuntu.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in body, pattern-matching website in body: Stone and Aggregate Production Line with Automatic Controlling System by DSMAC on askubuntu.com

@EliahKagan voted to reopen

@SmokeDetector that's not exactly a clickbait title

related to those meta posts about recommending another distro...

That is why, when discussing moderation of AU and other SE sites, I do not agree with using the term "off-topic" in the broader sense "doesn't belong here according to our rules." It absolves us from having to articulate what rules we are talking about, check if those rules really exist, and figure out if what we are saying is really coherent. I suppose we might end up deciding to delete that answer. But it is not "off-topic," because that term is not meaningful for answers.

An answer might fail to answer the question that was asked, and the way a question is interpreted is definitely affected by the OP's choice to ask it on Ask Ubuntu rather than elsehwere. But if an answer doesn't answer the question, that's NAA, not "off-topic."

[ Natty | Sentinel ] unity Is Ubuntu 4K-ready? By: Tito Lukić 5.5;

@Zanna I have commented.

thanks :)

Normally I would comment to suggest that this commenter post an answer. But they did post one... and then they deleted it? What's going on there?

@EliahKagan yeah, I was wondering too

I'll comment.

Unclear.

indeed... is there such a file type?

Not that I know of.

@Zanna I've commented. If the main site automatically converts tiny answers to comments (like the meta site does) then my comment is potentially confusing. But that's just on meta, right?

the first (now removed) comment about downvoting due to lack of research was extremely harsh in that case (the case that there is no file type identified by i) :)

@EliahKagan oh I don't know! I forget when that happens...

@Zanna I flagged that as no longer needed and I am pleased it is gone (I suspect it may even have been deleted by is author, after they looked at the i vs. d issue and realized it didn't apply). But my main concern was not related to harshness: the comment was communicating to the OP that if they did more research than they had done then would learn about the totally real situations where ls shows a leading i in permission strings!

haha many hours of research later, still baffled...

I added the files tag to that question because the tag wiki has a list of all the file type characters

(or all the ones I knew about when editing the tag wiki...)

Are you suggesting that people read tag wikis?

Because, if so, then our site's tag wikis need a lot of work...

Most of them are nonexistent, plagiarized and not helpful, or just otherwise not very helpful.

People don't read tag wikis.

That's guaranteed

:D

I have written many comments advising people to read tag wikis haha

That tag's wiki is far far better than most. Thank you for writing it!

However, I have some criticisms an idea for possible improvement.

In that tag wiki, are the phrases under "Meaning" taken from official documentation? If not, then I think it would be better to define l as "symbolic link" and c as "character device." (If so, then I'm not sure what the best course would be to clarify things, aside from linking to the source.)

The OP of this question has confirmed that it's just about misreading d as i. Apparently they were attempting to work from the screenshot or something, but had not actually produced it themselves. Anyway, we can close it as OT -> no repro (or as unclear).

@EliahKagan oh thanks :)

edited... I think I was basing what I wrote on the output of stat, but I'm not sure. I often make really silly careless mistakes

@BhargavRao that's annoying :/

yeah :(

@Zanna Thanks.

I feel that the time I checked to make sure to pass the correct device name when zeroing out a hard disk with dd, but failed to realize that I was SSHed into a different machine than the one that had the hard disk I wanted to overwrite, is a better example of a "really silly careless mistake" than using "special file" to mean the kind of filesystem entry known as a "character device" or "character special."

ouch O.O

Is this upvoted comment somehow useful and I'm just missing why? It's not a meaningful comparison because it is actually possible to try to compile that code on Ubuntu and get errors. It's bashing the one tiny part of the question that isn't unclear. I flagged it as "no longer needed," not as "rude or abusive," in case its was intended for some purpose other than insulting the OP.

I don't see how this meta question could be considered unclear.

[ Natty | Sentinel ] pdf PDF files made using inkscape does not show everything when opened in windows By: Buscape 4.5;

I decided that a grammatical adjustment would make the question that meta post is about more clear and less dupey

@EliahKagan Sorry, most probably I didn't understand and/or I'm taking this out of context. Is there an automated feature that converts tiny answers to comments?! How does that even work? That sounds horrible! I've seen many cases where tiny answers suffice to address the issue(s) raised in a question.

Personally, out of all the answers I've written here, I'm most proud of this one: askubuntu.com/a/973906/480481 :-D

@pomsky Yes, me too

@pomsky haha who would guess it would make a difference! I always automatically press modifier keys bottom to top and left to right

[ Natty | Sentinel ] boot Ubuntu boot failed, can't modify bios setup to remove secure boot By: Who knows 6.0;

@Natty tp

@Zanna Hehe it sounds like a troll-answer, but it isn't.

@pomsky On meta there is, or has been, such a "feature." And yes, I agree -- even on meta, where the boundaries around what's a question or answer are often fuzzier, and where it's usually consider fine for comments to accumulate more than on the main site, I do not agree with that feature and I am only aware of situations where it had bad effects, not good effects. (Of course, I might not notice in cases where the effects are okay..)

But on the main site I do very very much hope that never happens. I am just not sure. The SE system has gotten really really complicated, over the years.

The last post Natty mentioned was edited by the OP to include a workaround right after I had downvoted and flagged it and voted to delete it. I undid my downvote and retracted my flag, but I can't remove my delete vote, annoyingly

time to request a feature that makes the SE system even more complicated...

not that this is the first time I've wanted to retract a delete vote :S

@Zanna That post was edited?

oops no... clearly it was not! I meant that one

[ Natty | Sentinel ] usb Security Context By: KI4JGT 5.0;

@Natty tp

it's a dupe imho.

dupe same question that was posted twice

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Mostly non-Latin body: just a question : \] by sum bizniz on askubuntu.com

dupe

(and wholly hammerable imho)

[ Natty | Sentinel ] partitioning How to automatically mount swap partition? By: Ayrat Bulatov 5.0;

nothing wrong with this question imho

Got closed :( What should be done?

@Zanna Edit and vote to reopen?

This one looks off-topic.

@Zanna If you (or someone else) edits the question for reopening, please ping me; I'll vote too.

[ Natty | Sentinel ] intel How to update Intel microcode properly? By: user282981 4.5;