Questions tagged [feature-request]
You have an idea for a new feature, or for a change to the existing functionality.
111
questions
33
votes
1
answer
297
views
Can a placeholder text be added to the question body box?
I posted this suggestion to another post, but thought it would be worth its own separate feature request.
Is it already possible to add a placeholder text to the question body box, or would the SE ...
- 5,605
6
votes
1
answer
157
views
Extend the list of SE sites presented when a question is being closed as off-topic
Actually, the only listed site is meta.english.stackexchange.com.
Is it possible to add other SE sites as well? Would not, for example, Writers and English Language Learners suit in that list?
- 58k
20
votes
2
answers
437
views
A simple proposal towards improving question quality
Encouraging Better Questions
I would like to encourage the asking of better, more substantial questions.
Every day we receive many brief, low-quality questions that are unlikely to elicit anything ...
tchristMod
- 128k
5
votes
3
answers
260
views
Proposal: Add a "too basic"/"uninteresting" off-topic option
Also see: Proposal: Require a whitelisted URL to close as General Reference
It is clear that many close-voters use the "commonly available references" option as a catchall for questions that they ...
- 17.9k
47
votes
7
answers
973
views
Warn people of the rules for [Single-Word-Requests] before posting
As everyone probably knows, very few people actually follow the main rule of single-word-requests:
YOU MUST INCLUDE A SAMPLE SENTENCE
Thus we have many low-quality questions, many of which get ...
LaurelMod
- 58.7k
15
votes
2
answers
274
views
50 question per month limit?
Shog9's answer to the SE meta question 50 question per month limit? appears to confirm that there is such a limit, but this ELU user appears to have asked more than 50 questions in the past week.
Did ...
- 134k
20
votes
3
answers
217
views
Hyperlinks could be improved for colourblind individuals
I quite like the design of the English StackExchange site - I actually think it's one of the best of all of them. I only have one rather serious complaint with it though, and that's the colour of ...
- 101
16
votes
1
answer
410
views
Proposal for narrowing the scope of the "reference" close vote
I strongly disagree that "questions that can be answered using commonly available references" should be considered "off-topic" at all, but I can at least understand why someone would want to close ...
- 17.9k
10
votes
2
answers
278
views
What about downvoting comments?
Comments are widely used (and misused IMO) for different reasons. At times they are real answers or elaborations of answers, at others they are used just to express personal impressions on questions ...
user66974
8
votes
2
answers
231
views
Stack sites should support primary and secondary language when defining user profile
I am not a native english speaker. If you see User profile settings defined by StackExchange, it does not contain primary and secondary languages. It just contains location but a non-native english ...
- 101
1
vote
4
answers
469
views
Renaming ELU to EnglishOverflow
May I suggest the following name changes:
I think English Language Learners (ELL) should change its name to English Language & Usage (ELU) and ELU should become EnglishOverflow, just like ...
- 775
27
votes
2
answers
304
views
Proposal to fix the uselessness of the new off-topic close options
Bait-and-switch Close “Options”
With the new close options recently implemented, when you click close on ELU, that takes you to a first-level menu of five different close options. From that first-...
tchristMod
- 128k
17
votes
3
answers
678
views
When a question is closed, tell them the procedure for reopening it
UPDATE: Version 2.1 of the trial is now live. The intention is for the last voter who closes a question to link to the trial in lieu of the link appearing in the notice of closure. Here's a template ...
- 37.7k
6
votes
1
answer
285
views
What to reference when answering a question? [duplicate]
I've seen a few questions dotted around, which require references to dictionaries or such-like (etymonline, wiktionary, OE dictionary, the Chicago Manual of Style), to make clear why a word or ...
- 1,782
35
votes
2
answers
520
views
As a site about EL&U, should we maintain correct grammar, punctuation, etc. throughout the site?
When a user goes to ask a question, the default text in the title bar is this:
Should this be changed to reflect the site's intent? In my opinion, this is a place where rules of the English language ...
user11550
10
votes
1
answer
121
views
Need a way to search for stop words
Since this site is about English usage, the standard search engine for the site which filters out "stop words" is going to be problematic since many of the questions on the site will be about stop ...
nohatMod
- 67.1k
5
votes
1
answer
288
views
Censorship of offensive questions
This recent question raised debate over the censorship of questions containing offensive language (or their titles, at least). I always understood the offensive-language tag to serve that purpose.
I ...
- 8,412
-5
votes
3
answers
222
views
Show native language with the answer
I would like to get community opinion on the possibility of "self-assigned badges"1 that would serve to distinguish for example
native vs. non-native English speakers
American vs. British vs. other ...
- 12.2k
-9
votes
1
answer
146
views
Why was one of my comments deleted on this question? (also, request to add a feature to the site to be notified of post and comment deletions) [duplicate]
Should we refer to a female "senator" as a "senatrix"?
I remember making a comment on why actor/actress and waiter/waitress are used but not author/authoress, but the comment is ...
user180089
14
votes
10
answers
1k
views
Should we fix backticks?
I would still like to look into doing this, because it is tedious in the extreme to edit every single instance of misused backticks into italics, and because almost no one ever fixes these. Therefore ...
tchristMod
- 128k
23
votes
5
answers
187
views
Allow Questions to be Closed as Off-Topic and Migrated to ELL
I would like to make a pitch that we add a "this question belongs on ELL" to the Off-Topic sub-menu, and begin closing questions as Off-Topic, rather than General Reference, when they don't belong ...
- 17.5k
2
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Exception to 30 character minimum for answers
Is there any way to create an exception for the minimum answer length for questions tagged "single-word request?" It seems wasteful and inconvenient and seems feasible from a coding perspective.
- 1,306
4
votes
6
answers
367
views
Are low quality questions and answers here to stay?
For a number of reasons the number of new users who post low quality questions or answers does not appear to be flagging by any measure. This issue had often generated stress among users who rightly ...
user66974
10
votes
7
answers
237
views
Poll: additional question types that should or shouldn't be added to help/on-topic
Today, I saw that Help Center/on-topic has this text:
Proofreading ("Is this right?", "Are there any mistakes?"), unless a specific source of concern is clearly specified. See below for hints on ...
- 28.5k
8
votes
4
answers
218
views
New theme: Banner, sidebars, footer
The new theming does not seem to be to anyone's taste, but we can't go back to the way the site used to look. Some features like fonts and page layout are now set across all sites, and we just have to ...
- 22.4k
-2
votes
5
answers
316
views
Should askers who never ‘accept’ answers be penalized in some way?
I've noticed that there are some users on EL&U who ask many questions, but rarely (or never) accept any of the answers given.
It appears that I am not the only one who regards such behaviour as a ...
- 26.5k
-7
votes
2
answers
305
views
Will you please insist on explanations for down-voting? [duplicate]
Despite "helpful" contributions from various Members, this Question doesn't at all have a previous Answer.
Without explanation, a down-vote can be very like a slap round the back of the head…...
- 2,321
31
votes
4
answers
552
views
Proposal for selective blacklisting
Enabling selective notifications on ELU
Other busy sites like Stack Overflow have pop-up notifications that trigger
on various titles and tags, but we do not. For example, this is an outright ban when ...
tchristMod
- 128k
5
votes
5
answers
365
views
Reputation score for bad questions
We often have high-rep users providing answers to questions when they should, in fact, be voting to close those questions, because the questions are duplicates, or because the questions are too poorly ...
- 26.1k
11
votes
1
answer
312
views
Declutter EL&U's "Newest" Page
Unclutter EL&U before quality drowns
It is my conviction that the site's health would benefit greatly by removing those very questions that plague the first two or three pages. As soon as an ...
- 86.1k
-4
votes
5
answers
287
views
Do something about puerile chat flagging
Recently I got suspended from the chat because 2 of my posts were flagged and the flag "accepted"; one referenced Islam as people believing in a "magic sky man" or something, the other mentioned ...
- 12.4k
-6
votes
6
answers
494
views
The first anonymous downvote
I'm sure I'm not the first one to discuss this, but bear with me. (I saw this, btw)
A few answers are poor. They get lots of downvotes, perhaps deservedly so.
Some answers are divisive. They get ...
- 20.8k
16
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Proposal to add small-capitals formatting directive
I propose that a new formatting directive be added to access the font’s small capitals.
For example, <smcaps>some text</smcaps> would work, but I encourage discussion on any syntactic ...
tchristMod
- 128k
15
votes
3
answers
203
views
Can't search for a question about "that" and "which"
I knew this question was there: When is it appropriate to use ‘that’ as opposed to ‘which’?, but I tried searching for it and couldn't find it. Many usage questions concern function words in English, ...
nohatMod
- 67.1k
13
votes
2
answers
155
views
Could the meta site be more clearly labeled?
I'm a new user. I was looking at the main site, and trying to learn more about how things work, so I clicked the FAQ link; then I clicked something else, I'm not sure what, and found a bunch of ...
- 384
11
votes
3
answers
256
views
Follow up to FF's question on 50 posts limit
"So if you want to enable this limit, make a meta post about this and gather some community support and discuss it. If there seems to be a consensus that it should be enabled, one of the moderators ...
- 54.7k
11
votes
5
answers
237
views
Make blockquotes inside blockquotes better distinguishable
Given the nature of this site, it happens that one wants to quote something that contains a blockquote itself, e.g., as an example sentence. For example:
A run-on sentence is something like this:
I ...
- 4,181
9
votes
2
answers
168
views
Providing links to ELL
Can a descriptive link to the ELL proposal be added to one or more of the following?
The FAQ
The General Reference description
A block in the sidebar or, if not, then as a sticky link in the "...
- 30.5k
8
votes
2
answers
153
views
Finding "duplicates" for hardy perennials
I'm sure others must have hit this problem after being on EL&U for a while. With some questions which crop up repeatedly, it can be quite difficult to find an earlier related or exact duplicate, ...
- 134k
4
votes
4
answers
228
views
Proposal: Require a whitelisted URL to close as General Reference
Also see: Proposal: Add a “too basic”/“uninteresting” off-topic option
It is clear that many close-voters use the "commonly available references" option as a catchall for questions that they just don'...
- 17.9k
16
votes
2
answers
196
views
Could ELU place an announcement for beginners linking to ELL?
Because the domain name of english.stackexchange.com uses an ambiguous word in its first element, I think you should prominently place some sort of “announcement” that anyone coming to ELU can always ...
- 109
13
votes
4
answers
365
views
Warning to a user who posts the "same (exact) answer" and answer "without any reference/research"
I have seen several times a user, mostly a newbie, post an exact same answer, i.e. in this question, What would be next after minor, major, …?. The chances are either Ugh didn't read the previous ...
user140086
12
votes
2
answers
300
views
How curious are you? — or — Tallied ELU “Asking-Day Badges”–Proposal Results
How we fare in the new badge proposal
In the MSE posting Asking days badges, there is a proposal to create a new trio of badges for asking “good” questions on distinct days. Its basic metric for ...
tchristMod
- 128k
11
votes
2
answers
225
views
Hoop-jumping for new users: multiple choice quiz!
Josh61's idea caused me to have my own idea for how we (try to) stop new users posting low quality questions: compulsory multiple choice quiz!
It's very easy for anyone to ignore the guidance on the ...
- 14.6k
11
votes
2
answers
126
views
Feature request: unflag
Can we have the option to unflag a post? If an issue is resolved before a moderator gets around to handling the flag, it we be nice if we could get rid of the flag and save someone the time of looking ...
- 8,614
9
votes
1
answer
117
views
Add ELL to list of sites for off topic questions
Reviewing this question:
What are the functions of each part of the principal parts?
Trying to flag it to be moved to ELL. Only, ELL does not show in the list of sites. Can ELL please be added?
- 3,167
3
votes
1
answer
70
views
Can we add a "follow question" option?
I don't like when one day I am contemplating answering a question, but then I reach my question limit or I want time to think about it, and forget to favourite the question. Then I go back the next ...
- 151
2
votes
1
answer
117
views
Basic problem with comment deletion
(Yes, I know this will be instantly marked "dupe", but if I ask my question on one of the "dupes" it will almost certainly be ignored.)
I understand why the person who deleted a comment is not ...
- 26.9k
2
votes
0
answers
53
views
Duplicate Comments & Un-flagging Comments
I've three related questions:
If I believe a comment is essentially a duplicate of an earlier one, what is the proper etiquette, if any? I assume it's better to up vote a comment I agree with, rather ...
- 652
2
votes
1
answer
171
views
Feature request: Private messaging
I know this is a common feature on social networks and I am the last person who wants EL&U to resemble Facebook, perish the thought, but I believe a system where one user can communicate privately ...
- 86.1k