47
votes
English Language & Usage's updated site theme is ready for testing!
Just because I want to be the first to say it. Me no likey :(
The original EL&U theme used to be beautiful. In 2010, the site's designer explained
“Alex and I agreed on the design direction for ...
- 90.3k
42
votes
Accepted
CyberBullying on SE
Thank you for letting us knowing what is going on. We will look into the serial downvoting and that will be reversed if we confirm that it is happening.
As for the comment harrassment, please flag (...
Kit Z. FoxMod
- 27.8k
39
votes
English Language & Usage's updated site theme is ready for testing!
See also these related and somewhat more patient MSE posts of mine:
Why do some parts of the standard theme use different fonts than the rest of the site?
Unchanging font size, leading, ...
tchristMod
- 134k
37
votes
37
votes
English Language & Usage's updated site theme is ready for testing!
The contrast here on the "load new answers" bit is completely unreadable:
There are plenty of tools out there that tell you whether the contrast is tolerable or not. Please use them, because this ...
tchristMod
- 134k
34
votes
How reliable is Google Ngram?
Google Ngrams has problems for ELU questions:
it is not speech, which is often the unspoken context of questions, even though we only research things through print.
it is not the web, which has more ...
- 70.8k
34
votes
Answers in comments
Option 3: Answers may be made in comments where the question is off-topic but we still wish to help the asker.
This seems to be standard practice; we try to be helpful.
Andrew LeachMod
- 101k
33
votes
Accepted
Is 'damn' offensive?
I understand why keeping the site from being offensive is important policy and good practice. However, I don't believe censoring the word "damn" accomplishes anything besides muddling titles and ...
- 22.3k
27
votes
Why I'm absent for a little while
Kit, we wish you all the very best of luck.
In this site you are a most essential part.
Take your time, and hang in there until you're well.
Zeal in modding must now wait - your health comes ...
- 4,885
27
votes
Accepted
Is using "colored girls" as an incidental example offensive or unwelcoming?
I flagged it.
I'm a woman of color (but not Black), and find the use of this example offensive and, in particular, unwelcoming.
Americans do NOT use "colored" in the twenty-first century, and we don'...
- 22.7k
26
votes
2016 Community Moderator Election Results
Welcome to our new moderators!
Farewell to simchona and thank you for your service!
And finally, a big thank you to all the candidates. It is a scary thing to put yourself out there like that and ...
Kit Z. FoxMod
- 27.8k
26
votes
Accepted
Regrets of a youth misspent
I tried to think of what the risks and benefits of editing old answers would be.
Risks
Someone might judge the modified answer and Downvote.
Someone might believe the edit was self-promotional.
...
- 22.3k
26
votes
Is using "colored girls" as an incidental example offensive or unwelcoming?
The problem for Lou Reed was, "people of color" just didn't scan. Apart from "the N word," the casual use of which should always be discouraged, the way to refer to African-Americans has changed over ...
- 151k
25
votes
Accepted
I "really" want a deleted post back
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Excessive self-deletion is a big red flag for us that a user needs to be contacted. It can mean a variety of things--from rage-quitting to severe ...
Kit Z. FoxMod
- 27.8k
25
votes
2016 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
A number of site participants feel that one major problem at EL&U is that bad questions remain open too long and take too much effort to close; some of these participants have argued in favor of ...
- 161k
25
votes
Is it unethical for a user who has answered a question to post a negative comment on somebody else's answer?
Is it unethical for any user to post a derogatory, belittling negative comment? Yes.
Let's be clear about what we're taking about. "Derogatory" or belittling comments are never OK, whether you've ...
- 80.3k
25
votes
Accepted
The antithesis of a serious problem: What do you do when you have hit 200 daily rep with hours to go, and have a good answer to a new question?
If you wait with what you consider to be a good answer, someone else might beat you to it. You'll then be posting a duplicate answer, which is Not A Good Thing To Do.
Don't forget that although you ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 101k
25
votes
English Language & Usage's updated site theme is ready for testing!
status-planned
There's a weird problem causing the offset letters in the banner. It's being looked at but will be fixed (on all of the sites getting hit by it). The status completed tag on tchrist's ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 101k
25
votes
Is this type of spammy Q&A permitted here?
In this case, the links contain more than just a link:
?utm_medium=stackexchange&utm_source=dd&utm_campaign=hqbl&utm_content=attestation
UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module
utm_source:...
Andrew LeachMod
- 101k
24
votes
2016 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
A perennial issue at EL&U is whether the site is unfriendly toward low-rep users and especially newcomers. Do you view clubbishness or hostility/rudeness toward recent arrivals at EL&U as a ...
- 161k
24
votes
Why I'm absent for a little while
It's not right that Kit should miss the Hat Dash. I think this "hat" expresses how we all feel about you:
- 18k
24
votes
Accepted
Should Scots language questions be considered in the English language community?
Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the status of the Scots language with respect to English:
Because there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing
languages from dialects, ...
- 28.7k
24
votes
Accepted
Support for Monica Cellio
Since this question has not been closed or deleted, I'll offer an answer.
While visibility of the problem is (kinda) important, if you really want to support persons who have been treated poorly by ...
- 55.2k
24
votes
Accepted
Why aren’t my questions being answered
I'll try and help by reviewing some of your questions and pointing out what might be putting people off from answering them.
Let's start with Why are most interjections a variation of God/Jesus’ name?...
- 29.1k
23
votes
Accepted
Is changing quotation marks from German style to English style a constructive edit?
In and of itself, yes it is constructive. The "German" quotation mark style is not used in any version of English that I know of.
However, it's not a substantive edit. If there are other formatting ...
- 14.8k
22
votes
What can we do to make this site more "intimidating"?
Changing the question length as Andrew Leach suggested might help some, but there are many long, bad questions and some short, good ones.
The problem for me is that when you come to a site named ...
- 17.8k
22
votes
Accepted
Should I approve or reject trivial edits from anonymous users?
The "goodbye"-to-"goodbye" change you mention is indeed exceedingly minor, but given that it brings goodbye into parallel with the way hello is handled in the twin example immediately preceding it, I ...
- 161k
22
votes
2016 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire
tchrist
A number of site participants feel that one major problem at
EL&U is that bad questions remain open too long and take too much
effort to close; some of these participants have ...
tchristMod
- 134k
22
votes
Accepted
Is SE enforcing "no answers in comments"?
There is no new initiative to eliminate answers in comment. They have always been discouraged.
The purpose of Stack Exchange is to get expert, peer-reviewed answers to good questions out on search ...
- 28.4k
22
votes
Is using "colored girls" as an incidental example offensive or unwelcoming?
If you get feedback that someone finds an example you used offensive, and the bit they find offensive isn’t crucial to your answer, you should find another example. For every person that feels ...
- 1,352
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible