28
votes
Accepted
How to deal with spam
There is only one correct way of dealing with spam on SE, and that is to flag the post as spam, and only that (in particular, do not downvote it):
Flagging a post in this manner doesn’t necessarily ...
- 423k
25
votes
Accepted
My signature, my style. How do I ask an advanced contributor to stop editing my question?
First of all, thank you for coming here and posting a civil and calm question about it. That is always appreciated. That said, this site is actually partly a wiki. The Stack Exchange sites were always ...
terdonMod
- 238k
20
votes
Is this site willing to curb the abusive downvotes (and close votes)?
Tim, I actually agree that your questions sometimes get an undeserved bad rap.
For example, I think this recent question of yours is a reasonable question, but when I first saw it, minutes after it ...
- 75.6k
18
votes
Accepted
why can't I close my own questions?
If your question can't be answered for some reason, you can skip over closing and just delete it yourself. Once the question gets answers it can't be unilaterally deleted anymore because other people ...
- 92.2k
18
votes
Is this site willing to curb the abusive downvotes (and close votes)?
Just so that it's not always @terdon having to be the face for the mods here on this particular issue.
You've continuously brought this issue up and want/expect the mods and/or Stack Exchange to ...
slmMod
- 366k
16
votes
tutorials/guidelines on posting
Moderators could well do editing, but there's only a few of us, and there's a lot of other users that edit questions too. Editing is done to correct formatting issues that otherwise would potentially ...
KusalanandaMod
- 327k
16
votes
Obstructions on valid posts
First, nobody accused you of anything at all! I have no idea where you got that from. The comment was:
how do you know that the pdf file requires repairing? .... perhaps it is some form of copy ...
terdonMod
- 238k
15
votes
Accepted
How did I get 15 points for an answer when there is not even one up vote?
You get 2 points for accepting an answer to your question -- the person who wrote the answer gets 15. So in this case user567 is the one who got +2:
See https://unix.stackexchange.com/help/whats-...
- 92.2k
14
votes
Accepted
What does the 'Z' stand for in timestamps?
"Zulu", the military time zone which is identical to UTC.
From Wikipedia:
The time zone using UTC is sometimes denoted UTC±00:00 or by the letter Z—a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone ...
KusalanandaMod
- 327k
14
votes
Accepted
Is an answer including commercial software on topic on U&L?
I don't think there is any rule against mentioning commercial software in an answer; indeed not all Unix variants are open source. I think we'd even be fine with pointing to software you're selling, ...
- 108k
14
votes
Can automatic deletion of "low-quality" posts be turned off?
Sorry, but this is a network-wide feature, not something that can be configured for each site. That said, this statement is really problematic:
Regardless of whether a post is truly low-quality or ...
terdonMod
- 238k
14
votes
Is this site willing to curb the abusive downvotes (and close votes)?
All I can say is what I've already told you in answer to your flags: moderators have no way of knowing who voted for whom, have no tools that allow us to affect voting (we can't undo a vote) and are ...
terdonMod
- 238k
14
votes
Is this site willing to curb the abusive downvotes (and close votes)?
TL;DR: My voting pattern isn't about you. I don't know you, I don't care about you. My voting pattern is based on what I think is best for the site, and the questions that are asked on it.
I'm ...
- 43.5k
13
votes
Accepted
Where to ask questions with a historical element
I don't really see anything about programming there. Yes, fork is relevant, but you're not asking about fork, you're asking i) whether rsyslogd is indeed a session leader and your book is wrong; ii) ...
terdonMod
- 238k
13
votes
Voting on questions. When should you give a upvote
Upvote button hover text:
This question shows research effort; it is helpful and clear
The fact that someone answers a question does not, de facto, make it a good question. Questions may have ...
- 72.3k
13
votes
Accepted
Flagging as SPAM too harsh?
The best flag to use for nonsense post is actually either "not an answer" or "rude or abusive". The rationale for which is nicely explained by Shog in this main meta post:
This is an utter waste of ...
terdonMod
- 238k
13
votes
Is this site willing to curb the abusive downvotes (and close votes)?
I think some of this is based on a misunderstanding you have of how Stack Exchange works.
I see in your profile you say:
A post without reply and with net downvote(s) or in closed state will be ...
- 2,063
12
votes
How to find your own questions?
There's a tab for it on your profile. You can also click the search box at the top-right and search for user:me is:question.
- 92.2k
12
votes
Accepted
My question had three upvotes, suddenly it is zero. What is going on?
Your question still has 2 upvotes. One upvote was removed and two downvotes were added which brings the total score to 0. Once you reach 1000 reputation, you become an "established user" ...
terdonMod
- 238k
11
votes
Accepted
Is an asker alerted when his/her question is nominated for close?
To answer the question in your title, no, the OP is not notified of close votes. The exceptions are votes to close as a duplicate or with a custom reason since those trigger automatic comments. All ...
terdonMod
- 238k
11
votes
Accepted
What has triggered the massive number of user removals?
No, this has nothing at all to do with your account. How could it? It also has nothing to do with the moderation team here. We didn't remove this user, someone from SE did. In fact, as a mod, I don't ...
terdonMod
- 238k
11
votes
Is it acceptable to paste shortened urls in posts on stackexchange?
That's a rather old Meta post; five years later, in 2016, URL shorteners were banned on Stack Overflow. I'm not sure why this hasn't been made a networkwide policy, maybe because of a lower post ...
- 805
10
votes
Accepted
Are polkit and policykit tags not the same?
You’re right that they’re they same. According to the Polkit Wikipedia article,
Since version 0.105, released in 2015 the name of the project was changed
from PolicyKit to polkit.
Also, the tag ...
- 12.7k
10
votes
Accepted
Is asking a series of questions discouraged?
No, it is not discouraged to ask follow-up questions.
However, avoid asking a series of very similar questions, and avoid using questions and answers as an interactive chat session to debug a ...
KusalanandaMod
- 327k
10
votes
Accepted
+8 -5 answer: how to improve?
I think including SpinRite in your answer makes it partly a vote about SpinRite.
At best, the way it is marketed rubs a lot of people the wrong way. (Including myself :-). Less charitably, when you ...
- 49.3k
10
votes
Accepted
Is it OK to point beginning users of Ubuntu to Ask Ubuntu?
Of course you can point Ubuntu users to Ask Ubuntu, but please don't give the impression that this site is somehow for experts only. It is absolutely not only for experts! We already have a problem ...
terdonMod
- 238k
10
votes
How can I list all my posts both deleted and nondeleted?
If you look in the help the full list of search operators is covered there. The page is titled: help/searching.
Deleted Posts (requires 10,000 reputation) When you earn the Access to
Moderator ...
slmMod
- 366k
10
votes
Accepted
Site not found: freebsd.stackexchange.com
The foo.stackexchange.com names are subdomains, they all go to the same actual IP. For example:
$ for i in unix ubuntu apple workplace english french; do ping -c 1 $i.stackexchange.com | grep PING; ...
terdonMod
- 238k
9
votes
How do I subscribe to a question?
You can subscribe by RSS/Atom using the "question feed" link at the bottom of the sidebar. But as far as I know there is no email notification.
- 8,728
9
votes
Accepted
Whose choice is accepting an answer?
What answer you accept is completely up to you. You should accept the one which you, personally, found most helpful. If that isn't the one you would consider objectively "best", so be it.
Accepted ...
terdonMod
- 238k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible