89
votes
What should we do about Kali Linux questions?
We've often talked in the chat about having a “reference question” telling people not to use Kali Linux. Well, here's my proposal. Edits welcome, but please keep the gist unless we decide on meta that ...
44
votes
Is it acceptable to transcribe images?
Absolutely. Yes indeedy. Thank you kindly. Editing a post to convert a non-editable image into malleable text is very helpful. Even if all the edit does is transcribe, it is absolutely a helpful edit. ...
terdonMod
- 235k
38
votes
Accepted
Has something happened to shift keys recently?
It's the downside of success: this site is growing, and that means we're attracting more and more people who don't necessarily know what they're doing.
Seeing a sloppily-worded question lowers my ...
34
votes
What should we do about Kali Linux questions?
Listening to my fellow networking security classmates from years back, when it was still called BackTrack Linux, I can fully understand this phenomenon. It's somewhat anecdotal, but Kali Linux is seen ...
- 4,927
29
votes
PSA: Please don't post images of text
About the only time it's appropriate to post a screenshot of text is when it's the appearance that is the issue, and the text itself is not important. Examples might include
problems selecting the ...
- 8,462
28
votes
What else can I do to make my question well-received and improve my chances of getting answers?
Welcome to our site! Interesting questions and answers about UNIX & Linux are what this site is all about.
Let’s get some basics out of the way; skip ahead if you’ve already covered these.
...
- 66.3k
27
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
The problem is that simply dropping a link to idownvotedbecau.se comes across as pretentious and condescending. Compare your comment:
idownvotedbecau.se/noresearch, idownvotedbecau.se/noattempt - ...
terdonMod
- 235k
23
votes
What should we do about Kali Linux questions?
What should we do about Kali questions?
I think we should treat them just like questions for any other distribution, perhaps with extra warnings in the tag excerpt and wiki. Just a quick reminder ...
- 66.3k
16
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
Teaching how to fish is not considered abusive. Slapping people with a fish is.
You did not teach the asker how to fish. Your comment consisted solely of:
The slap: a pair of links to generic advice ...
15
votes
Has something happened to shift keys recently?
I have been doing my share of i -> I changes and I feel your pain. We all make mistakes, especially if English is not the first language, but consistency in spelling is something one can expect IMO. (...
- 78.4k
15
votes
What should we do about Kali Linux questions?
IMO the flood of questions is not being per se about kali questions; it is just that a large number of questions about kali are badly formed, and most are a rush job from inexperienced users/people ...
- 56k
13
votes
"Teaching how to fish" considered abusive?
I personally dislike the comments with links to the "I downvote because" site because they are not helpful.
Just downvote, and if you feel strongly about it or have a particular reason to downvote ...
KusalanandaMod
- 323k
13
votes
PSA: Please don't post images of text
Counterexample: boot spew. Consider the case where a (possibly new) user cannot successfuly boot, but gets a large quantity of boot spew (e.g., white text on black background) before abend. Should not ...
- 1,275
11
votes
Has something happened to shift keys recently?
Maybe not an answer for the exact situations you're encountering, but from the little German I've learned, I know Germans capitalize nouns. So, maybe they would have a tendency to write something like ...
11
votes
Is it acceptable to transcribe images?
Acceptable? Sure, why not, it makes the question easier to read, search and use.
Should you be expected to spend your time on that? I don't think so.
The original asker is quite likely to already ...
- 134k
10
votes
What should we do about Kali Linux questions?
I stand ready to be flamed for this but here goes........
First of all I need to say I agree with @Gilles post Why is Kali....etc but I think something is missing.
It seems true that many of the '...
- 4,673
6
votes
Accepted
Question ban persisting based on newbie questions over a year old
The majority of my questions have been neutrally or positively received but there are three very slightly naive questions which were downvoted
You actually have quite a few downvoted questions, they ...
- 91.6k
6
votes
How can I improve a question on history?
Well, IMHO, it’s still a little short of crystal-clear.
I still don’t see a single sentence that says,
I’m looking for historical references
that describe the decision-making process
that led ...
6
votes
need help improving a question
Keep it and accept the bad reputation and good reputation that will come.
I think the question would be bad without your answer (because of lack of research effort) but it's at least decent with the ...
- 19.4k
6
votes
Should we improve posts that are common Google results?
Ideally, closure (apart from duplicates) should be a temporary state. A question should either be open or deleted. If a question is closed, it means that we aren't confident that we can provide ...
6
votes
discourage images of text on /questions/ask?
This is actually already implemented to some degree for new users. It's just that at 15 rep, the warning message goes away so that more experienced users don't see it any longer. New users that ...
- 3,359
5
votes
Accepted
What to do if the question itself is wrong?
Yes, it appears you've misunderstood the concepts involved. You've at minimum confused two meanings of a port being "open". (Being open in a firewall like iptables means something different than what ...
- 108k
5
votes
How to reopen my "on hold" question?
When you edit your closed question, it's automatically put into a list for other users to review and possibly vote to reopen. This has already happened twice with your question (you edited, it was ...
- 91.6k
4
votes
How to merge my own duplicate question?
Since the question has already been marked as a duplicate, you can simply click on the button to accept the dupe target:
For more information on this feature, see:
New UI encourages askers to confirm ...
terdonMod
- 235k
4
votes
Accepted
Question downvoted with no comments as to why
This comes up from time to time.
The best advice I can give you is to look at how other questions are structured on the site that are popular and possibly related to the area you're asking your ...
slmMod
- 364k
4
votes
What else can I do to make my question well-received and improve my chances of getting answers?
As one dumb user less experienced user to another:
Make your question novel:
most of the people on this site are wizards and they get bored by questions they've seen 10s or 100s or 1000s of times ...
- 5,836
4
votes
Is"How to stop running e4defrag without damage my data?" as unclear?
Well, you've told us absolutely nothing about what you are doing. I suggest you edit your question and add details such as:
The operating system you are using
Explain exactly what you're doing. Are ...
terdonMod
- 235k
4
votes
Requesting constructive criticism for a question
This is, of course, my personal opinion. I didn't vote on any of your questions.
The main issue I see is that you seem to be asking why a person is using two specific commands in a 50+ minutes ...
- 9,941
3
votes
What else can I do to make my question well-received and improve my chances of getting answers?
To write a good, welcomed question, I would advise:
keeping it on-topic to the main subject of our stack/group;
not addressing several subjects at once, in a single question;
researching the facts ...
- 56k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible