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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questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Could we get this question back from ELL, please?
The following question got migrated from EL&U to ELL
Is “It may be not” correct?
If we look at this question as people who just give "yes, that's grammatical" or "no, that's not grammatical" ...
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Editing a question for long-term value vs. preserving the original poster's point of view
A recent question on the main site requests an English equivalent of a Hindi proverb rassi jal gayi par bal nahi. Evidently the poster feels that a key feature of the Hindi expression is an element of ...
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What is the legal position re cut & pasting OED entries?
The most recent posts I can find on this subject date from 2015 and earlier. Does anyone know the authoritative up-to-date advice on whether that which is posted to the EL & U site constitutes &...
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Posts pending review, now around 250
The review queues could use your help. It's up to 250 now.
Yours truly.
NVZMod
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Discussion on reopening a specific question: "Do tenses in a time clause never back-shift in reported speech?"
The question Do tenses in a time clause never back-shift in reported speech? (which I'll call The Backshift Question or TBQ for convenience) has an answer that could be considered canonical for back-...
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Past Tense in Editor Statistics
Please advise me if this is better suited towards the main site. I posted the question here considering that it is about an ELU feature.
My question relates to the Editor Statistics above.
My area ...
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My question was incorrectly marked as a duplicate. Can this be reviewed again?
I believe there is a clear difference between my question and the question marked as a duplicate. I have edited the post to emphasize how it is different, now I'm posting here to see if someone can ...
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Reminder: You can vote on tag synonyms
We currently have 5 tag synonyms submitted that still need votes. Anyone with voting privileges should exercise them!
pejorative-language and derogatory Completed.
pejorative-language and insults ...
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Flagging Reviews
Sorry if this is a dupe, but I didn't see it all in one place:
Since hitting 10K rep, I've been actively reviewing flags, and my disputed flag count jumped from 0 to 15 in a few days. It occurs to ...
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2020: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network ...
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Something to keep your eye on: Question Wizard
So the “Help new users ask better questions” Wizard has been in the works on SO for a long time.
It has officially entered the testing phase.
Worth keeping an eye on. If it works there, I’d imagine ...
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New theme: fix serif-vs-sans font combinations
In what I hope is the correct spirit of bringing concrete, actionable suggestions for changes and updates to the new theme, I would like to ask for the fonts to be harmonized as tchrist went into ...
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ELL and ELU -- problems in distinguishing when googling
I've only been on this site for a week, but I've noticed that an awful lot of questions that should go to ELL go to ELU.
I also notice when I google: "English stack exchange" that the first hit I get ...
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Lower the requirement for voting on tag synonyms
Problem statement
The following text is shown about voting and suggesting tag-synonyms:
Users with more than 2500 reputation and a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms....
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What is the meaning of the "functions" tag?
A recent question asked about determining the "function" of a sentence, which to me isn't a concrete language construct the way that question implies. Seeking more information, I looked into the ...
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An answer was removed, but my flag was declined nevertheless - why?
This is the answer:
Mimpi menjadi kenyataan.? Bukan kah segala sesuatu berawal dari mimpi. Selama mimpi kita Masi di tekuni dengan niat & tekad yang keras, pintu kesuksesan pasti kita raih. ...
NVZMod
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Where can I find an English dictionary that I can search by number of syllables, transitive/intransitive, and other grammatical markers?
I need to find lists of English words that meet certain criteria, such as having a certain number of syllables, or being intransitive verbs. Is there an online English dictionary that will allow me to ...
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Significantly changed question
A user asked this question:
What would you call a person who is obsessed with being "normal"?
In the text body they asked for:
"someone who cannot bear to be different from other people"
...
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What's the tag "obscure-terms" for? Is it necessary?
We have the tag obscure-terms. It has 36 questions and the only thing obscure about them is the thought process that lead people to tag them with this tag. Mostly words that seemed obscure to the OPs, ...
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The answer to this question is great! But the question is closed and a bit hard to find
"Put me in touch with whomever created it"?
I think F.E.'s answer here is very good and complete--the best overview on the case of fused relative pronouns that I've seen on this site.
But ...
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I thought my question was a punctuation question
If I thought my question was a punctuation question (which would be on topic) and all the experts here thought it was a typography or style question (which is understandably off topic) how is it ...
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Is asking for people to think up new specific words on topic?
Regarding this question: I need a word for my obscure phobia for hard, smooth structures
The questioner seems to realize that his situation is... unique and all the answers are just trying to create ...
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Improving tag wiki excerpts
I have recently noticed a large number of tag wiki excerpts which are not particularly useful. For example, the mathematics tag wiki excerpt said:
For questions about mathematics in English.
It ...
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Search for common words
I have a question that must have been asked here many times. The question is about using "it is" versus "this is".
Attempted to search for it is and this is, with and without quotes, and the search ...
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Difference between [look-alikes] and [confusables]
I do not think a meaningful distinction can be drawn between the tags look-alikes and confusables. There is no category charter for the first; the second defines confusable as words and phrases which ...
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How to browse through this site
I love to browse through bookstores. You stumble across things you had never considered or even thought of. You find books whose existence surprises you. It's always an adventure. I'd love to do the ...
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"...the person or body who/which..." is not only a question about whether to refer to companies with "who" or "which"
"...the person or body who..." vs. "...the person or body which..."
As far as I can see, this question does not ask only about whether to refer to companies with "who" or "which". ...
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On "The" and null/zero articles - cross-post an answer from English Language Learners?
Several questions have come up about the definite article vs the null or zero article. I haven't been keeping track of them, but here are some examples from ELU's repository:
Scientific "control&...
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Request to reopen a dubious dupe
The question First, … Secondly, … &c, posted two years ago, asks whether there is any basis besides tradition for preferring first to firstly. Five days after it was posted, the question was ...
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List of tags that are blacklisted, burninated or under discussion
I had a look at the meta discussions that are about burninating, blacklisting/deleting or creating tags. I made a list of them. Why? It's for two purposes. Firstly, to have an overview about our ...
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Is there an online speech comparison programme
I work as an Assistant Language Teacher in Japan. There is a language sample for the textbook- the school (and nearly every teacher) is super boring about using the textbook. They'd like me to sound ...
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Review the duplicate linkage between the 'token list' question and the 'user account' question
The following questions are duplicates:
should a list of tokens be called a "token list" or a "tokens list"
"User accounts" or "users account"
The accepted ...
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Flag acceptance rate?
What's a normal percentage of declined/disputed flags for reviewers? 1%? 10%? 25%?
I've been trying to help with review queues and I want to make sure I'm not causing more headaches than normal.
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Reopen request: Another potentially interesting question that originally showed no research effort
On New Year's Day, a poster asked How, when and where did the phrase 'state of the art' originate? Unfortunately, those words were the entirety of both the question header and the question ...
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Why has this post been put 'on hold'?
My question Why is 'weird' given a sexual connotation nowadays?, has been put on hold as 'off topic', for the reason that 'it is not about the English language'.
Since it queries the current ...
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Why is the word for origin and destination off-topic?
The question: Word for an Origin and Destination without regard for route [closed] was closed as off-topic. I can't figure out why.
I know an (unfortunate) edit to the question indicated naming of ...
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"et al" usage question migration
Someone recently asked a question on Academia related to the usage of "et al" in a sentence. We closed it as off-topic, and we want to know whether it's fit for a migration to your site.
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Why trivial questions on EL&U are being downvoted while on stackoverflow there is competition to answer them?
As far as I have understand basic/simple/trivial/naive questions on EL&U are being systematically downvoted while on stackoverflow there is a hot competition to correct or improve and then answer ...
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Different ways to assess the quality of questions (also: how to find good and bad questions)
EDIT initially posted question had queries that might have returned wrong results, this is hopefully corrected now /EDIT
This is not really a feature request, but more of an analysis of current state ...
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Reasons for dupe-close on question with the tag question-tag?
Can someone tell me why this question on question-tags was closed as a duplicate of this other one?
As far as I can tell, the new question (though not particularly well-written by the standards of ...
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Question closed as duplicate but it wasn't
I asked a question about comma usage: Comma in "If in addition"
The question was closed as a duplicate. The question that my question is a supposedly a duplicate of is about parentheses and ...
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Introducing the "custom filter"
Do you remember back in the day when you could navigate easily between pages showing newest, featured, frequent, votes, active, and unanswered questions?
ca. 2017
Introducing Custom Filters
With ...
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Are we remiss in giving attributions to published images?
We have a requirement on the main to give attribution for quotes and text from other sources.
However, in some cases a question needs an image to help clarify what is wanted.
According to an ...
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Why are all the can/may questions marked as duplicates of the question about the weird sentence “Can/may/will you help me with this?”
I'm familiar with the idea of choosing one question as an (informal) "canonical" target for duplicates, but I was surprised to find that for questions about the difference between "can" vs. "may", the ...
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Proposed tag synonym: "get-be" as a synonym of "get-passive"
All of the questions with the get-be tag seem to be about the "get-passive" construction. For example, the top-voted question in the "get-be" tag, Why is “to get” sometimes used where “to be” could be ...
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Any online English dictionaries listing the previous pronunciation of words?
I am interested to know the pronunciation of words in the past fifty years or so. Does anyone know any online dictionaries which list the former pronunciation of words in English language?
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Is there a subsite of stackexchange where I can ask about the interface between different languages?
Is there a subsite of stackexchange where I can ask about the interface between different languages? I tried the following question, both it and the inverse (English words in Greek sentences), and it'...
user99677
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Please consider reopening my question
My question is closed as off-topic.
First, my question is not so elementary. It is not about the usual use of past perfect as in
When I came up with the idea of climbing all the statues taller than ...
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Merge [history] and [historical-change] tags
There are several tags that are associated with the background of a word:
[etymology]
[origin-unknown]
[phrase-origin]
[history]
[historical-change]
But for historical-change, both the definition ...
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Can "More formal word for know-it-all" be reopened?
More formal word for "know-it-all" was closed as duplicate of Know-it-alls--a synonym, which is duplicate of Is there word for this, other than know-it-all?, which is duplicate of One word ...
user140086