Questions tagged [feature-request]
You have an idea for a new feature, or for a change to the existing functionality.
106
questions
19
votes
2answers
410 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 ...
31
votes
1answer
273 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
votes
1answer
153 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?
4
votes
3answers
254 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 ...
14
votes
2answers
265 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 ...
21
votes
3answers
205 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 ...
18
votes
1answer
355 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 ...
8
votes
2answers
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 ...
-1
votes
4answers
447 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 ...
28
votes
2answers
302 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-...
17
votes
3answers
662 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 ...
6
votes
1answer
239 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 ...
35
votes
2answers
507 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 ...
11
votes
2answers
265 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 ...
10
votes
1answer
119 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 ...
4
votes
1answer
271 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 ...
-5
votes
3answers
219 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 ...
-9
votes
1answer
141 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 ...
23
votes
5answers
177 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 ...
2
votes
2answers
568 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.
4
votes
6answers
353 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 ...
8
votes
4answers
208 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 ...
-3
votes
5answers
309 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 ...
-6
votes
2answers
210 views
Will you please insist on explanations for down-voting? [duplicate]
Without explanation, a down-vote can be very like a slap round the back of the head… painful but in no way useful.
With explanation, a down-vote can be very useful. It would be in no way necessary to ...
30
votes
4answers
539 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 ...
14
votes
10answers
998 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 ...
5
votes
5answers
353 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 ...
11
votes
1answer
297 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 ...
-5
votes
5answers
280 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 ...
-6
votes
6answers
466 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 ...
43
votes
7answers
856 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 ...
15
votes
3answers
197 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, ...
14
votes
4answers
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 ...
12
votes
2answers
150 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 ...
11
votes
3answers
255 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 ...
8
votes
2answers
161 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 "...
7
votes
2answers
148 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, ...
4
votes
4answers
218 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'...
16
votes
2answers
185 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 ...
12
votes
4answers
353 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 ...
11
votes
2answers
119 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 ...
10
votes
2answers
289 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 ...
9
votes
1answer
113 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
votes
1answer
65 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 ...
2
votes
1answer
114 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 ...
2
votes
0answers
51 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 ...
2
votes
5answers
256 views
Should we automatically convert straight ' and " quotes into nicer “…” and ‘…’ quotes?
Well, I guess the (long) title says most of it. When people write "an inline quote", it would be nicer if it were “an inline quote” (see the oriented “” quotes instead of "").
Many content management ...
2
votes
1answer
168 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 ...
1
vote
2answers
122 views
Could we migrate or cross-post excellent questions and answers to ELU from ELL? [duplicate]
I think a lot of questions that native English speakers would have difficulty answering get asked on ELL as opposed to ELU. And as a result, many questions get asked on ELU that are essentially a ...
1
vote
0answers
83 views
How to handle questions with acceptable comments as answers but no answer itself? [duplicate]
My question is-
What do we do for questions that have (very) acceptable comments as
answers (even accepted by OP) but due to absence of an answer, the questions tend to remain un-answered.
I've ...
