Questions tagged [support]

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119 votes
12 answers
87k views

What good reference works on English are available?

Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic. What good reference works on English are available, and what kinds of questions are they good at answering? General ...
21 votes
1 answer
8k views

How much research is needed?

Please advise or enlighten me if such guidance already exists. For example, for this question, I sought to record my thoughts and opinions on how to gloss that sentence. Yet it was still closed as `...
user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
460 views

Do we have any general guidelines on flagging?

There are a number of Meta posts about flags, both here on Meta.ELU and on Meta.SE. Do we have any guidelines for flagging comment as offense? (mELU) Why can’t I flag a question as offensive? (mELU) ...
Andrew Leach's user avatar
  • 101k
10 votes
1 answer
261 views

How to act when you are being serial downvoted

Today someone downvoted my answers serially: The hostile downvoting activity took place within a short span of time. How should I act?
Mehper C. Palavuzlar's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
381 views

A single vote closes a question! Have I just been granted "superpowers"?

I just cast a closevote (duplicate) on this question, which at the time had no comments, answers, or votes. As I write, it says Marked as duplicate by FumbleFingers 2 minutes ago, and there's an ...
FumbleFingers's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
78 views

Not receiving any reputation from my answer being upvoted

This has happened to me before, but I never reported it, because I was busy, but now it felt like a good time. I'm attaching a screenshot, which you can also see in full size. As you can see, my ...
Frantisek's user avatar
  • 21.8k
30 votes
2 answers
324 views

Blacklist the [words] tag

The tag words has been heavily discouraged since the early days of the site. A few weeks ago I manually retagged every question that used words, and there are currently no questions with that tag, ...
JSBձոգչ's user avatar
  • 54.2k
29 votes
2 answers
365 views

The Great ELU Tag Clean-up Proposal of 2014

EDIT: So, none of this got done in 2014. Does this mean that we should just give up on tags? Doing almost any of these by hand will annoy people since they would all bump those questions to the top ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 134k
14 votes
2 answers
538 views

Will there be a 2014 Community Moderator election?

I've been a user for twelve months, and I would like to nominate one or more candidates for the position of ELU moderator. Generally speaking, the mods on ELU are doing a great job, with a few who are ...
Mari-Lou A's user avatar
  • 90.3k
10 votes
1 answer
290 views

Request for aggregate data regarding deleted questions with subjects containing CORRECT, GRAMMA, or RIGHT

This support request will require the assistance of a Stack Exchange employee, probably a kindly Community Manager. As shown at the bottom of this answer, I present some SEDE results on just how many ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 134k
6 votes
2 answers
292 views

Answers as comments

OK, so I'm new here, and I don't necessarily know my way around, but: It strikes me that on a lot of questions, people will answer the question, but post their answer as a comment to the question. ...
Judy N.'s user avatar
  • 255
5 votes
1 answer
84 views

Why is this question listed under the unanswered questions?

In Unanswered Questions there is an answered question. Why is it there? Can we get a fix, if this isn't intended?
user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
134 views

Should the 'language' tag be deleted?

The language seems like the ultimate cop-out tag. It has five questions with an accumulated score of -8, I expect it to sink further today with the question that made me stumble upon it. There is no ...
Helmar's user avatar
  • 5,427
10 votes
4 answers
398 views

About EL&U usage, purpose, and comments

I simply have to ask, and lash out (a tiny bit), about some of the comments and messages I have received on answers I've provided. I've had at least one moderator (I think?) and another senior member ...
Kace36's user avatar
  • 2,397
9 votes
1 answer
281 views

Do questions asking for the origin of a word and the etymology of a word ask different things?

Is a question about the etymology of a word asking for its origin? Is a question about the origin of a word asking for its etymology? As I understand it, the origin of a word could be the point from ...
apaderno's user avatar
  • 58.9k
7 votes
1 answer
126 views

Why can't I (101 rep) answer a protected question?

This question is protected: "To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site." I have 101 reputation, so why can I not post an answer?
Bennett McElwee's user avatar
5 votes
3 answers
167 views

What should be done with answers that contain just a link?

In other SE sites, answers that contain just a link (even if preceded by see, try, etc.) are not considered answers, and users are suggested to flag the answer. Is that considered the action to take ...
apaderno's user avatar
  • 58.9k
5 votes
1 answer
81 views

Closing a question: How are migration possibilities determined?

I was going to put a close vote with suggestion to migrate to writers.se on this question here (about the use of names in formal writing), but when I tried to cast the close vote, the only target for ...
Hellion's user avatar
  • 59.3k
5 votes
1 answer
184 views

What's the site policy for serial downvoters? [duplicate]

If users detect the presence of serial downvoters on ELU how should they behave? Are they supposed to post comments to the downvoters telling them to refrain from their improper activity or should ...
user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
154 views

Reached Question Limit

Can someone tell me why I've reached my question limit on the English Stackexchange site? All my questions are generally positive. I suspect it's because I gave out a 50 rep bounty when I was low in ...
NoName's user avatar
  • 231
2 votes
1 answer
109 views

Duplicate Question -- Already Been Answered

I was under the impression that "marked as duplicate--this question already has an answer" meant that OP's question had not only elicited an answer or answers, but elicited one that satisfied the OP ...
user avatar
1 vote
4 answers
311 views

Flag etiquette and effectiveness

Suppose a participant writes a rude or hurtful comment, and a flag is raised, and it's removed. As far as I can tell, nothing gets communicated to the participant -- the comment just quietly ...
aparente001's user avatar
  • 21.4k
1 vote
2 answers
155 views

Why are some questions shaded green? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Why are some questions on the question page darker than others? I've really tried to figure this one out on my own, but I give up. What determines whether or not a question ...
Callithumpian's user avatar
-8 votes
2 answers
310 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…...
Robbie Goodwin's user avatar
35 votes
3 answers
1k views

erm... I lost 2,134 in reputation

Yes, I know. When a user is removed, or they delete their accounts their upvotes and downvotes are removed. But tonight I lost 2,134 rep. That's a lot. Seriously. This is no laughing matter. I just ...
Mari-Lou A's user avatar
  • 90.3k
20 votes
4 answers
412 views

Call to action: fill in image descriptions

We had a request a couple of years ago to replace "enter image decription here" with some sort of generic text. I think this is a bad idea, as it doesn't add anything. Shog's comment on the proposal ...
Matt E. Эллен's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
316 views

What does ‘User removed’ mean? And why did I get a significant chop-down of reputation?

I was shocked to see 40 points dropdown in my Reputation this morning with the remark ‘User is removed.’ I have no idea about what it means! This happened after placing the question asking the usage ...
Yoichi Oishi's user avatar
  • 70.1k
12 votes
1 answer
101 views

Burninate [opinion], please

Today, a user contested the closure of his question with this comment: And yet there are opinion based questions all over this site. There is even an 'opinion' tag already. And he's right, there ...
Dan Bron's user avatar
  • 28.7k
11 votes
2 answers
167 views

How to discuss something with the mod team privately?

If I want to discuss some specific behaviors of a particular moderator with the broader mod team, how should I go about doing that? Without going into details, I worry that certain actions may ...
Dan Bron's user avatar
  • 28.7k
11 votes
2 answers
244 views

What to do with those questions which have received answers in comments?

Take this question, or many others on EL&U where someone answers in comment and OP, despite have got an answer in comment,will satisfactorily forget that question will still remain open and appear ...
Karan Desai's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
221 views

What's the best way to answer when there's a really good answer elsewhere?

In researching the question Which is correct, “buck naked” or “butt naked”?, I found a very thorough examination of this question at Language Log that I linked to in a comment under the OP. I feel ...
Callithumpian's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
227 views

Naming vs. Single word requests

It seems that naming is off-topic and single words requests are on-topic on this site. How do I identify whether I'm asking a naming question or I have a single word request?
Thomas Weller's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
70 views

Formatting poetry

What's the best way to format poetry, where preserving line breaks is important, but extra white space is not desired between lines? I encountered the situation for this question and was not impressed ...
Edward Brey's user avatar
6 votes
5 answers
350 views

About answers to heavily edited questions (re alibi)

I wonder what the community policy is respecting question edits that change the meaning, and existing answers to earlier version of the question. I looked around a bit but only managed to find several ...
anemone's user avatar
  • 6,206
6 votes
4 answers
203 views

Who is the judge in StackExchange?

Is there any guarantee that the accepted answers or the ones with the highest score on StackExchange are the correct ones? On the other hand, couldn't an answer with a low or even a sub-zero score be ...
Dia's user avatar
  • 1,097
4 votes
2 answers
178 views

Is it possible to edit a moderator attention flag?

I flagged a question, intending to suggest it be moved to the language learners site but realized after I submitted it that I had typed "ELU" instead. I did not see anywhere I could edit my flag ...
TecBrat's user avatar
  • 3,701
4 votes
1 answer
91 views

Chat: how do I use it right?

Now that I've figured out how to get to chat, I see that there's kind of a lot there. I see all sorts of weird things there. Before I ask about what's appropriate behavior, I'd like to know just how ...
Mitch's user avatar
  • 70.9k
4 votes
3 answers
317 views

Has traffic on ELU decreased recently?

Is it just a personal impression or after the implementation of the new layout on ELU traffic both in terms of question and answers is well below average? I realize it is just a few days but views on ...
user 66974's user avatar
  • 67.2k
4 votes
1 answer
127 views

Chat: How do I get to it?

I keep seeing people say in comments 'let's take this to chat' or 'this would be better in chat' But I don't know how to get to there. I've looked all over the FAQ and it mentions chat ...
Mitch's user avatar
  • 70.9k
3 votes
2 answers
90 views

Delete [puzzle] tag

I just noticed there were 4 questions with puzzle. I think it's a worthless tag, so I removed it from those four questions. Assuming that's a sensible thing to have done, what needs to happen to get ...
FumbleFingers's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
136 views

Why can't a user delete their own question that was just asked and has had no activity?

The reference for this is the question delete a question on here. Update 1: The actual answer seems to be that the user wasn't registered. However, this is not listed as a requirement on our question ...
Jason Bassford's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
144 views

Why is this question locked?

What words are commonly mispronounced by literate people who read them before they heard them? If it's not a good question for the site, why isn't it closed? I'd like to vote, at least. Maybe I ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 57.4k
2 votes
1 answer
76 views

Why are some questions on the question page darker than others?

I've noticed some questions on the questions page are tinted darker than others Looking at the CSS, I see that they have the same class applied to them as the normal-shaded questions on the page (and ...
yoozer8's user avatar
  • 8,770
2 votes
2 answers
83 views

Did some of my answers recently get deleted?

I did a rep recalc yesterday (for the first time in three days) and lost 55 rep. Curious, I found that my number of answers in my profile page went down by 4. Putting 55 and 4 together, I came up ...
Daniel's user avatar
  • 57.4k
2 votes
1 answer
122 views

How do I find deleted questions?

Our resident troll posted a question today which I thought he had asked before, and that seems likely because Reg closed and deleted it. While Reg was dealing with it, I tried to locate the earlier ...
Andrew Leach's user avatar
  • 101k
2 votes
2 answers
282 views

Too many up-votes (Again, fourth time lucky?)

Somebody out there in ELU land likes me. Which is really nice but this is getting a bit over-the-top. I'm getting a flood of up-votes in rapid succession, one after another. Take a look at my ...
Mari-Lou A's user avatar
  • 90.3k
2 votes
2 answers
181 views

Amount of reputation gained for one vote

How much reputation do you gain for upvotes in questions or answers? How much rep do you gain for different types of badges? Is there a place that tells you all this?
Phonics The Hedgehog's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
93 views

Why '@' salutation was not rendered

I just posted a comment beginning with @username, and my @username part of the comment was not rendered (it was the first word in the comment). Why is that so?
Vijin Paulraj's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
135 views

Can I know which deleted user caused my loss of reputation?

I just lost a load of rep today because a user was deleted and/or a post was removed: If I understand the second line correctly, the question mentioned was deleted, fair enough. I am wondering ...
terdon's user avatar
  • 21.4k
1 vote
1 answer
64 views

Meta badge : informed

My badge progress section tells me that my next badge will be "informed" on the meta site. As I know there aren't any tour pages on meta sites. Am I misinformed about this? (There is a little pun ...
Montag451's user avatar
  • 349