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2023/04/07 | 557 | 2,222 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing a `printer.cfg` Klipper file for my Tronxy VEHO-600. It is quite a challenge as there is not much info regarding this printer online.
Is recovery velocity something that I have to tune while the printer is operational, or can I give it an arbitrary value?
I have a CFG file for a VEHO-600 that a friend of mine put together, and he has it set to 300, but his printer is modified, so I'm unsure if this value would be the same for my standard VEHO-600. Hoping someone can advise me of what the feature is, so I can tune it myself.<issue_comment>username_1: The only "recover velocity" I'm aware of is the [one for pause\_resume functionality](https://www.klipper3d.org/Config_Reference.html#pause_resume) and should just be a reasonable travel velocity for your printer (probably the same as your max velocity if that's set correctly). 300 is quite low, probably fine for the X and Y axes of any printer that's running 24V motors or higher. The only potential problem might be if your max\_z\_velocity isn't set to limit Z; if it's not, resuming after pause where the toolhead is parked near the point where it was paused would put nearly the entire 300 mm/s on the Z axis. That's fine if you have a Z limit set to limit it, but if you don't, it would fail on most printers. So just make sure your Z velocity limit is set right and you should be fine.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: **Recovery velocity** refers to the maximum speed at which the printer's extruder can move while recovering from a pause or filament change. When the printer is paused or filament is changed, the filament is retracted to prevent oozing and to ensure a clean start. Recovery velocity determines the speed at which the extruder moves during the priming process.
It should be set based on the capabilities of your printer's extruder and the speed at which it can reliably prime itself. If the value is set too high, the extruder may not be able to keep up, resulting in under-extrusion or other issues. If the value is set too low, the priming process may take too long, resulting in wasted time during the print. Typically, it is set higher than the normal printing speed.
Upvotes: 1 |
2023/04/08 | 443 | 1,678 | <issue_start>username_0: Hypothetically, if one has a print consisting of very simple shapes at some z-heights but very complicated shapes at other z-heights, it seems like it might be a good idea to run the overall mesh with different layer heights at different parts of the print.
Is there a common way to convince slicers to do this in general?
(Specifically is there any way to make Cura do this?)<issue_comment>username_1: [**Adaptive Layers**](https://ultimaker.com/learn/print-detailed-objects-faster-using-adaptive-layers-in-ultimaker-cura) should be the function you are looking for.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VUFd0.png)
It allows the slicer to change the layer height dynamically throughout the print, based on the complexity of the geometry being printed. This can lead to improved print quality in areas where high detail is required, while still maintaining print speed in areas where less detail is needed.
PrusaSlicer's equivalent is [**Variable layer height**](https://help.prusa3d.com/article/variable-layer-height-function_1750).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Slic3r has an "Adaptive Quality" setting. The roll-over tool tip says, "Automatically determine layer heights by the objects topology instead of using the static value..."
I used it to print a bushing, oriented vertically, with large chamfers on ID and OD. I set layer height to 0.3 mm and turned on Adaptive Quality. Adaptive Quality includes a Quality parameter that I left at the default of 75%. It printed the layers at the chamfers at 0.16 and 0.17 mm and the rest at 0.3 mm layer heights.
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/04/12 | 484 | 1,833 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm using a 65W heater cartridge and T-D500 type NTC thermistor. This setup has been working fine since I installed it sometime last year. Suddenly today, the temperature reading started jumping around 5-25° below the set temperature, but only while printing. It holds temperature solid at idle, and PID autotune produces numbers like normal.
How should I go about diagnosing what component is bad? Is it necessarily the cartridge or thermistor (or rather their wiring) or could it be noise or voltage instability or something else?<issue_comment>username_1: [**Adaptive Layers**](https://ultimaker.com/learn/print-detailed-objects-faster-using-adaptive-layers-in-ultimaker-cura) should be the function you are looking for.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VUFd0.png)
It allows the slicer to change the layer height dynamically throughout the print, based on the complexity of the geometry being printed. This can lead to improved print quality in areas where high detail is required, while still maintaining print speed in areas where less detail is needed.
PrusaSlicer's equivalent is [**Variable layer height**](https://help.prusa3d.com/article/variable-layer-height-function_1750).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Slic3r has an "Adaptive Quality" setting. The roll-over tool tip says, "Automatically determine layer heights by the objects topology instead of using the static value..."
I used it to print a bushing, oriented vertically, with large chamfers on ID and OD. I set layer height to 0.3 mm and turned on Adaptive Quality. Adaptive Quality includes a Quality parameter that I left at the default of 75%. It printed the layers at the chamfers at 0.16 and 0.17 mm and the rest at 0.3 mm layer heights.
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/04/20 | 724 | 2,682 | <issue_start>username_0: After encountering an issue where the original heater cartridge (~40 W) for my generic MK6 hotend was unable to reach/maintain stable temperature at ~260 °C (for PETG) I replaced it with a higher wattage heater (60 W). The new heater heats up faster and can maintain temperature, but I noticed that if I try to print too fast it will become unstable and the printer stops with a heater error, even with a lower temperature of 250 °C. This can be seen in the temperature plot below.
I have performed PID tuning (see the nicely flat spots on the temperature plot), so I don't think that's the issue. The thermistor is well-secured to the block.
I am using a BTT SKR Pico V1.0 control board with Klipper over UART to a Raspberry Pi A3.
Does anyone have experience with an issue like this? Could it be that the SKR Pico is not supplying sufficient power while also running the motors and heated bed?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/R97dd.png)<issue_comment>username_1: This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question [Diagnosing sudden problem with hotend temperature](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20823/diagnosing-sudden-problem-with-hotend-temperature), where the root cause seems to have been a bad thermistor - internal conductors probably broken in a way that they intermittently make reduced contact during toolhead motion. But I didn't have a problem while heating like your graph shows, only during motion, so it's also plausible that the wiring to the heater is bad. Since these aren't expensive components it might make sense to just replace the thermistor, heater cartridge, and any asssociated wiring if you don't want to spend time fighting with the problem.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The nozzle quality you use for your printing device is very important. The quality of the material should be chosen so that the temperature is evenly distributed at every point.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/V4OMc.png)However, I can recommend a temperature sensor with a high reference range that you can use before the nozzle in devices that do not work stable. You should use your preference for the inductive sensor.
You can track this sensor you will use on matlab.
I hope it will be useful for you.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wr2EG.png)
You can make the connection like this.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DIiW.png)
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/04/22 | 681 | 2,426 | <issue_start>username_0: I've been facing an issue with my 3d printer for the past couple of months: My inner layers are not sticking together when I print something vertically.
I'm trying to print white PLA at 200ºC with the following Cura settings on an Ender 5 Pro:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yJ8nL.png)
Here's the result:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mmHBy.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/C23NQ.png)
I've tampered with my settings a bit, but still, it doesn't seem to make any difference.
I'm pretty convinced it's a setting issue... Any idea?<issue_comment>username_1: This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question [Diagnosing sudden problem with hotend temperature](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20823/diagnosing-sudden-problem-with-hotend-temperature), where the root cause seems to have been a bad thermistor - internal conductors probably broken in a way that they intermittently make reduced contact during toolhead motion. But I didn't have a problem while heating like your graph shows, only during motion, so it's also plausible that the wiring to the heater is bad. Since these aren't expensive components it might make sense to just replace the thermistor, heater cartridge, and any asssociated wiring if you don't want to spend time fighting with the problem.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The nozzle quality you use for your printing device is very important. The quality of the material should be chosen so that the temperature is evenly distributed at every point.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/V4OMc.png)However, I can recommend a temperature sensor with a high reference range that you can use before the nozzle in devices that do not work stable. You should use your preference for the inductive sensor.
You can track this sensor you will use on matlab.
I hope it will be useful for you.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wr2EG.png)
You can make the connection like this.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DIiW.png)
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/04/24 | 585 | 2,142 | <issue_start>username_0: What kind of 3D printer (filament vs resin) and what kind of filament is recommended for individual LED diffusing?
The issue is that I am using a WS2812B-2020 LEDs (2mm x 2mm) so the size of my prints are quite tiny.
I am looking for a semi-opaque/frosted finish like on an LED strip diffuser.
For reference, I found a Youtube video which uses a regular filament printer with 0% infill, [LED Mood Lamp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfRFWxaPOLY):<issue_comment>username_1: This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question [Diagnosing sudden problem with hotend temperature](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20823/diagnosing-sudden-problem-with-hotend-temperature), where the root cause seems to have been a bad thermistor - internal conductors probably broken in a way that they intermittently make reduced contact during toolhead motion. But I didn't have a problem while heating like your graph shows, only during motion, so it's also plausible that the wiring to the heater is bad. Since these aren't expensive components it might make sense to just replace the thermistor, heater cartridge, and any asssociated wiring if you don't want to spend time fighting with the problem.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The nozzle quality you use for your printing device is very important. The quality of the material should be chosen so that the temperature is evenly distributed at every point.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/V4OMc.png)However, I can recommend a temperature sensor with a high reference range that you can use before the nozzle in devices that do not work stable. You should use your preference for the inductive sensor.
You can track this sensor you will use on matlab.
I hope it will be useful for you.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wr2EG.png)
You can make the connection like this.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/0DIiW.png)
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/04/24 | 726 | 2,987 | <issue_start>username_0: for my graduation project I have to compare cells in a 3D- Model to one another in regard of their volume, side faces and the corresponding forms and their numbers.
First, I have about 300 Tif-Files of microscopic planes of cells (black and white) that I want to create a 3D-Model orientating on the cell membranes.
Second, I need a code or program that can differentiate the cell membrane (white to grey in TIF) from the cytoplasm (black in TIF), kind of trace it and then analyze the volumina of each cell and side faces in regard to their forms (what types of polygons they resemble) and the number of each form in the whole 3D-Stack (not bound to the cells where they occur, just a numeric listing).
Can you recommend a program for these problems? Or for the individual programms?
I am unfortunately not very knowledgeable in this field and would greatly appreciate your advice.<issue_comment>username_1: In 3D printing, the opposite is usually the desired project, that is, to take a solid and slice it into layers. Many options abound in that respect.
For your objective, one might arbitrarily assign a thickness to each layer in order to provide for the third dimension and cluster each layer appropriately.
One can possibly use a program known as [OpenSCAD](https://openscad.org/), free multi-platform. The code that comes to mind is to import the bitmap (which will have to be converted to SVG) and use linear\_extrude() to create a thickness. Each image will then be translated in the z-axis to stack them with a minimal overlap to ensure manifold status (required for 3D models). The overlap can be as small as 0.0625 to minimize the overall effect, which can match the extrusion thickness as appropriate.
OpenSCAD uses implicit union to form the complete model, creating a result of one cell structure.
I see complications in that your TIFF file is grey scale and the process I describe is two-bit, black and white. If you can convert the bitmap to SVG and filter out by a threshold value, it may work.
OpenSCAD supports scripting but I think the key factor will be greyscale to two-bit and whether you can separate the images you have in a manner suitable for your objective.
To that end, consider to post in the [graphic design SE](https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/) for a suitable program and/or method to solve the bitmap problem. Alignment of each layer is going to be based on the position in the original bitmap and the subsequent SVG file creation. If they are not properly aligned, some manual adjustment may be required.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Your problem can be solved by the "Marching cubes" algorithm and is more appropriately placed in a 3D modeling stack exchange.
Here is an answer to a similar question about constructing 3D models from CT-scans: [Conversion of DICOM files to STL files](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/2736/conversion-of-dicom-files-to-stl-files/2739#2739)
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/05/03 | 579 | 2,391 | <issue_start>username_0: Ever since I got this printer for my 15th birthday the cooling fan has made a grinding sound when the nozzle was near the wall. I thought it was just the clear wall vibrating but now when I start a print it makes the sound all the time and it's getting really annoying. How can I fix this?<issue_comment>username_1: In 3D printing, the opposite is usually the desired project, that is, to take a solid and slice it into layers. Many options abound in that respect.
For your objective, one might arbitrarily assign a thickness to each layer in order to provide for the third dimension and cluster each layer appropriately.
One can possibly use a program known as [OpenSCAD](https://openscad.org/), free multi-platform. The code that comes to mind is to import the bitmap (which will have to be converted to SVG) and use linear\_extrude() to create a thickness. Each image will then be translated in the z-axis to stack them with a minimal overlap to ensure manifold status (required for 3D models). The overlap can be as small as 0.0625 to minimize the overall effect, which can match the extrusion thickness as appropriate.
OpenSCAD uses implicit union to form the complete model, creating a result of one cell structure.
I see complications in that your TIFF file is grey scale and the process I describe is two-bit, black and white. If you can convert the bitmap to SVG and filter out by a threshold value, it may work.
OpenSCAD supports scripting but I think the key factor will be greyscale to two-bit and whether you can separate the images you have in a manner suitable for your objective.
To that end, consider to post in the [graphic design SE](https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/) for a suitable program and/or method to solve the bitmap problem. Alignment of each layer is going to be based on the position in the original bitmap and the subsequent SVG file creation. If they are not properly aligned, some manual adjustment may be required.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Your problem can be solved by the "Marching cubes" algorithm and is more appropriately placed in a 3D modeling stack exchange.
Here is an answer to a similar question about constructing 3D models from CT-scans: [Conversion of DICOM files to STL files](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/2736/conversion-of-dicom-files-to-stl-files/2739#2739)
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/05/03 | 1,180 | 4,324 | <issue_start>username_0: This is kind of hard to explain but I have a 2 mm disc that has text on the top, it's a stamp effectively. I want my text to start right on the top after the top layer of the base (if that makes sense), but it's starting the text a few layers down into the top which is making the infill lines a right mess
The text seems to start a few layers down in the top of the base, and it's causing it to look a mess as it's going around it all.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZC5SL.png "3D rendering of a disc with outlines for 'Happy Fathers Day'; the word 'Day' is extruded upwards")
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/raaiH.png "Zoomed in screenshot of a slicer's preview showing the path of the filament being extruded")<issue_comment>username_1: You should have tagged this with the slicer you're using. Presumably that's Cura, and this is likely the "Skin Edge Support Thickness"/"Skin Edge Support Layers" feature.
Because you have some infill layers before the top layers, Cura is putting lines underneath the edges so they have something solid to build on. Otherwise you'd be likely to get top surface gaps or features on top that easily break off.
While you can turn off the skin edge support, what I would do if you find it undesirable here is to increase the number of bottom layers slightly so that there are no infill layers in between. It looks like you only have 2 layers of infill, and having them there is just making problems; you'd do better to make the whole part print solid.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Your problem has to do with the top layers of your part surrounding the raised text. The infill for your raised text continues a bit because it's not yet close to the top.
The print becomes a mess because the inner walls for the raised text don't hit any infill material like the top layers in this Benchy: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ol2Zw.png)
To remedy this, you can try several different things.
1. Connect Infill Lines. Assuming you use the Cura slicer, you can use the Connect Infill Lines option which is specifically designed to create extra support for top layers.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJW0N.png)
If the option isn't visible yet you can find it in the additional Infill settings:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AWU82.png)
2. Increase infill density. You can increase the infill density ans check if the corners hit (or are very close to) the infill after slicing. In the example below, I raised the infill density from 10% to 25% and all corners are well supported by the infill. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSsYH.png)
This is often not the best solution because it will severely increase the print time and used material.
3. Change infill pattern. You can play around with different infill patterns to see if another pattern is more favourable for the unsupported walls. I changes the infill pattern to `Lines` in this example and it supports the top layers a tiny bit better.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8gvJf.png)
4. If all else fails, you can add another piece and set the [Per Model Settings](https://support.makerbot.com/s/article/1667411288884) for the overlapping regions. I added a simple cube and increased the infill density for the overlaps to 50% and got this result:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tQWlo.png)
Of course there are al lot more things you can try but these are some options that have worked for me in the past. Hope it helps!
Upvotes: 2 |
2023/05/04 | 970 | 3,649 | <issue_start>username_0: I replaced the nozzle on my S1 Pro with a Tungsten nozzle, but the issue is that the nozzle is too high. I think the nozzle I bought is a tad shorter than the stock nozzles. The CR touch sensor touches the bed before the nozzle does. The bed is level, and the gantry isn't quite square (different issue I need to fix), but the left side is higher than the right so that should have helped me in this situation. Is it possible to lower the heat break to bring the nozzle down a millimeter or so?<issue_comment>username_1: You should have tagged this with the slicer you're using. Presumably that's Cura, and this is likely the "Skin Edge Support Thickness"/"Skin Edge Support Layers" feature.
Because you have some infill layers before the top layers, Cura is putting lines underneath the edges so they have something solid to build on. Otherwise you'd be likely to get top surface gaps or features on top that easily break off.
While you can turn off the skin edge support, what I would do if you find it undesirable here is to increase the number of bottom layers slightly so that there are no infill layers in between. It looks like you only have 2 layers of infill, and having them there is just making problems; you'd do better to make the whole part print solid.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Your problem has to do with the top layers of your part surrounding the raised text. The infill for your raised text continues a bit because it's not yet close to the top.
The print becomes a mess because the inner walls for the raised text don't hit any infill material like the top layers in this Benchy: [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ol2Zw.png)
To remedy this, you can try several different things.
1. Connect Infill Lines. Assuming you use the Cura slicer, you can use the Connect Infill Lines option which is specifically designed to create extra support for top layers.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EJW0N.png)
If the option isn't visible yet you can find it in the additional Infill settings:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/AWU82.png)
2. Increase infill density. You can increase the infill density ans check if the corners hit (or are very close to) the infill after slicing. In the example below, I raised the infill density from 10% to 25% and all corners are well supported by the infill. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/aSsYH.png)
This is often not the best solution because it will severely increase the print time and used material.
3. Change infill pattern. You can play around with different infill patterns to see if another pattern is more favourable for the unsupported walls. I changes the infill pattern to `Lines` in this example and it supports the top layers a tiny bit better.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8gvJf.png)
4. If all else fails, you can add another piece and set the [Per Model Settings](https://support.makerbot.com/s/article/1667411288884) for the overlapping regions. I added a simple cube and increased the infill density for the overlaps to 50% and got this result:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tQWlo.png)
Of course there are al lot more things you can try but these are some options that have worked for me in the past. Hope it helps!
Upvotes: 2 |
2023/05/11 | 626 | 2,814 | <issue_start>username_0: I've recently gotten into Resin 3d printing with a refurbished Elegoo Mars 1 but I've run into a weird bug where the printer would not expose any resin to the LCD.
I tested it by taking off the build plate and basin and looked at the LCD when it was exposing the layers. I've tried updating the firmware and tested about 20 odd prints of various sizes and detail. With those I saw that prints with large individual layers essentially stopped the LCD entirely (The exposure would flash on the LCD for a second then the LCD would not turn on again until I completely restarted the printer). What is more bizarre is that the first test print I did worked perfectly and still does for some reason (which was the tugboat and a random miniature).
For specific printer details I have an Elegoo Mars with the C type motherboard. There are no burn marks on the wiring or circuits and the LCD screen was replaced recently with a brand new one. And nothing is misaligned or unplugged. I even double checked that the LCD was still functional with the test exposure tools on the printer.
From my observations it is a data streaming issue with how it is connected with the USB drive. But that is a software issue that I am not capable of knowing.
Any ideas on what could be wrong or if this has happened before?
**EDIT**: Discovered that the Firmware needed to be updated to the latest version. Also, after testing out several very different print files the original print file that was having this issue was corrupted in some way as rebuilding it and printing the new version more or less worked. I also did another go around with cleaning everything and making sure that both the plate was level/tightened, FEP replaced, and that there was no IPA leftover on either.<issue_comment>username_1: Resin particles or residues can accumulate on the LCD screen, hindering its proper operation. Check that the connection cables are not loose or damaged.
Before performing a firmware update, I suggest making a backup.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I've tried updating the firmware...
-----------------------------------
aaand here is most likely your problem. Your Firmware update most likely did not handle properly, resulting in a corrupted firmware. Reinstallation of the firmware might be in order.
You might want to test a different USB drive, in case it is a problem with just that specific dongle. Sometimes a USB stick might be ill-formatted or too large to allow running an update.
To verify it is a problem with the USB driver, in many machines one could also slice a model, connect to the printer via a cable and print directly from the computer's slicer. If the problem is the USB port, then this should print properly, but it is not always an option.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2023/05/11 | 938 | 2,973 | <issue_start>username_0: My printer is the Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo printer. Firmware is factory new.
You can see the problem below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZemP.png)
As you see, the long rectangle on the bottom is getting cut off when printed. Outline shown in red shows the path the printer is really taking. *(you can ignore the gray area, it is only there because both long rectangles are part of the same .stl file)*
Here is another view of the sliced print:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nZ9Kl.png)
Additionally, you can see in this other picture:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tRprm.jpg)
* The print started quite a bit from the left edge
* The start G-code, which prints lines on the left, printed lines closer to the left edge than where the print started
Here is the start G-code:
```
; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G28 ; Home all axes
G29 ;
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move over to prevent blob squish
```
Slicer settings:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BlCKU.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PCO7.png)
How can I fix this? Is this due to the slicer? Due to the firmware? In either case, how do I change it?<issue_comment>username_1: If I look at the printed middle rectangle, it appears that the printer is printing way too far to the right, or, your slicer used an incorrect bed size.
You should look into question [How to center my prints on the build platform? (Re-calibrate homing offset)](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6375/how-to-center-my-prints-on-the-build-platform-re-calibrate-homing-offset) or [Recalibrating Home-position](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/6399/recalibrating-home-position?noredirect=1&lq=1) to center the print area and try to re-print the object again. Furthermore, as far as can be interpreted from the low res images, your printer may need some better leveling as some parts are too high and some too low.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your firmware and slicer operate on different sizes.
----------------------------------------------------
You need to update the firmware to update the bed size (and the 0-Offset) from the factory setting to the actual size. There is no way to alter the Maximum sizes via a direct connection.
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/05/15 | 423 | 1,470 | <issue_start>username_0: A small [7 cm long x 5 cm high x 10 cm deep] hard plastic piece of my old luggage broke (see attached). The manufacturer does not have spares for this old model.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vsvl2.jpg "Broken part of luggage")
Is there any way to scan the working piece on the left with an Android app and order a 3D printed one-off one?<issue_comment>username_1: You absolutely could try using [Polycam](https://poly.cam/) to try to scan the piece on the left, and then create a model from it. That's not "plug-and-play" though - would take some modeling prowess to get it to what you need.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think 3d scanning would be practical here since this is a small and very simple part. [You can model it using reference pictures in Fusion360 instead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLso-cx9vyA). The program is free for personal use too. Plus learning how to do this means you can start fixing other stuff on your house using the same method later.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I used some thermoplastic. It does not look exactly like the original as I had to give it shape with my own hands, but certainly does the trick. It also costs less than $10 USD. Let's see how long it lasts.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zuPiU.jpg)
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2023/05/17 | 572 | 1,981 | <issue_start>username_0: Sorry this is kind to embarrassing to post compared to other images but this is our first attempts. It starts out roughly acceptable then does this waffle thing. I tightened the belts and leveled the plate.
I have a Creality Ender 3 which I use together with UltiMaker Cura slicer. I print in PLA at 220 °C. The print bed is set to 70 °C. I use a print cooling fan at 60 %. The layer height I set to 0.[?] mm, the line width [line width/extrusion width] from the 0.4 mm nozzle. The Printing Speed is set to ? mm/s for walls and [?] mm/s for infill]. My retraction is [?] mm/off at [?] mm/s.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LH06F.jpg)
Problem seems to be solved, thanks everyone. I dropped the temperature to 200 and fan speed to 100% and print looks much better.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a severe under extrusion problem.
What slicer are you using? It could be a filament diameter setting issue.
Are you using Cura? I don't know about the most recent version but older versions defaulted to 2.85 mm filament diameter which is the diameter the Ultimaker printers use (as Cura is developed by Ultimaker) but the Ender 3 uses 1.75 mm diameter filament.
Have a look at [this question](https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8439/ender-3-severe-under-extrusion) where a similar issue is discussed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You've probably checked this already but offering a basic issue I've had before on my Ender 3 with the filament not unraveling cleanly from the spool hanger (gets caught on the post or bound up on itself).
When this happens it would produce a similar result to your picture...started fine and then turned into wispy/burnt layers before ending entirely.
When this has happened I just need to untangle the filament, clean the nozzle, cut a clean starting point on the filament, and empty the Bowden tube of the old filament.
Upvotes: 1 |
2023/06/04 | 895 | 3,856 | <issue_start>username_0: Is 3D printing progress (the one you check on the display of a 3D printer) linear or not?
By linear I mean that equal differences in percentual progress will take the same clock time.<issue_comment>username_1: There are lots of ways in which one could interpret this question, but in pretty much all senses I would say no, the progress is not "linear", unless you're talking about a progress bar whose values were computed based on a detailed computation to predict times.
Progress is not linear because different moves the printer makes take different amounts of time. Some may be performed fast, others slow. Even if you requested everything (travel, perimeters, infill, solid fill, etc.) to take place at the same speed, they would still take different amounts of time, because physics. Just like your car doesn't immediately start and stay at 65 MPH just because the highway speed limit is 65, the printer does not immediately start and stay at the requested speed. It has to speed up and slow down gradually (accelerate/decelerate), both from stops and when entering/leaving curves.
As a result, portions of the print with lots of detail take **a lot** longer than portions with mostly long, straight or almost-straight lines.
On top of that, for the print process itself to look "perceptually linear", you'd need a similar amount of time to be spent in each layer. However, some layers take a lot more time just by virtue of the amount of material in the, even if detail weren't an issue.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think for all practical purposes, the time can be considered linear, yes.
Sure, there are some differences in print speed depending on the shape of the layer (e.g. ratio of infill, different disconnected surfaces, etc. etc.), but those are all independent of what I believe the real question here is. Assume that one has an object that is very wide at the bottom, but very thin at the top. One could assume that the progressbar is based on the height of the print. In that case, the print would of course not be linear, since the top layers would be printed much faster.
This is not the case, since the percentage is normally calculated on the number of gcode instructions done and to be done. So aside from minor differences in speed of different instructions, it would be near-linear.
The only exception to this would be the heating-up. For most slicers this is not counted into the prediction of time, and is also a very non-linear part of the print.
OP's comment under @username_1's answer indicates that this this is the question he really had. The progressbar being stuck for long periods of time cannot be explained by difference in speeds of certain regions in the model.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: If you are using a resin DLP 3D printer. (The kind that projects the entire mask in one instance).
Then 3D printing progress is linear (except for the first layers which are cured for longer).
And the depends on the height of your 3D print, not on its complexity.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Short answer: **Usually not.**
Longer answer: **Depends on the printer.**
Many consumer grade 3D printers show progress by how many layers are printed in relation to how many layers in total. But some layers take a lot longer than other layers, so it's just an approximation, at best.
Some higher tier 3D printers calculate differently, and as a result the progress indicator is more precise.
For example, the current models of Bambu Lab printers are pretty good at showing precise progress on the display. I think most resin printers are fairly accurate as well.
I think that if we look back at this question in 5 years or so, the answer should probably be changed to: "Yes, usually", since printers get better and better each year.
Upvotes: 2 |
2023/06/08 | 736 | 2,801 | <issue_start>username_0: I have PrintrBot Simple Metal and over the course of today's use, I managed to get a piece of filament stuck in the hotend, just below the extruder gear. There's not really much to grab at, and my tweezers aren't that strong. How should I go about getting the filament out of the hotend? If it matters, I'm using [1.75mm MH Build Series PLA](https://www.matterhackers.com/store/l/gray-mh-build-series-pla-filament-175mm-1kg/sk/M-PL0-Q8ZD).
Though I solved my problem, I would still like for members of the 3D community to share solutions that work for them.<issue_comment>username_1: Ok, so I finally figured out a way to get it out:
I heated the hotend to the melting temp. of the filament, and then used another piece of filament to push it through. Just make sure that the other piece of filament is connected to the spool you want to print from :).
Thanks to @username_2 for teaching me that this is called a purge.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Cold Pull
---------
The technic is nigh the same as for a bowden machine:
* Do **NOT** cut the filament!
* First heat the hotend to your filament's print temperature or about 20 °C lower
* Then pull at the filament, possibly using a pair of grooved tongues.
If you want to get rid of residue, especially after printing a high-temperature material, you might want to purge the nozzle too.
But the filament is short...
----------------------------
If the filament is too short already, purging it is the solution:
* try to cut the filament to just after the extruder gear
* Heat the hotend to printing temperature of the stuck filament
* insert any other filament that has the same or lower melting temperature behind and (using pliers) make sure that it will line up with the filament path.
* Push the stuck filament through.
* Best perform a purge now.
Purging
-------
I mentioned above purging. Purging is just pushing *extra* filament through. As it melts and gets pushed out with extra force, it takes with it all the residue and old filament. You pretty much purge the old material from the system. It might be easier for you to use a different color, as then you can see when you have purged the previous filament fully.
If you still need to clean more or want to swap the nozzle, you can let the hotend cool down to about 20 °C below the printing temperature of your now-loaded filament and return to a cold pull.
I generally have good enough success by performing a cold pull and then purging some centimeters more after the filament is of even color.
Nozzle geometry warning
-----------------------
Core-Heating nozzles are very complex and doing a cold pull in them is very hard to impossible. It is best to not cold-pull and instead just purge forward if possible.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2023/06/11 | 1,465 | 5,589 | <issue_start>username_0: Recently, I've been noticing what looks like under extrusion. My first thought was a clogged nozzle, but it only occurs in some places:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1VvYB.jpg)
My printer is a PrintrBot Simple Metal, using [MH Build Series 1.75 mm PLA](https://www.matterhackers.com/store/l/gray-mh-build-series-pla-filament-175mm-1kg/sk/M-PL0-Q8ZD) and the model was sliced with Cura 5.1.0. What could be causing this, and how should I fix it?
Slicer settings:
* infill density 10 % (pattern: cubic)
* layer height: 0.2 mm
* print speed: 50 mm/s (travel: 150 mm/s)
* print temp: 200 °C (bed: 0 °C)
* retraction: enabled (Z-hop: disabled)
* cooling: enabled (fan speed: 100 %)
I'm not printing faster than usual, and I watched some of this print print, and there were no obvious issues like a clicking extruder. I find it strange that it occurred regularly along the edge of one piece, but the piece next to it was perfect. It seems to occur around two sharp corners. The other piece didn't have those sharp corners.
Another doubtful theory by me:
I've had some issues with a loose plug recently. Could this be causing a drop in temperature?<issue_comment>username_1: Ultimately, your printer is pushing out less filament than the gcode is telling it to (which you know, but its worth focusing on the exact problem).
If your stepper motor isn't missing steps, then that leaves just a few possibilities:
1. The extruder's hobbed gear is slipping against the filament
2. The extruder's hobbed gear (or whatever is being driven by the extruder motor) is slipping on the motor shaft.
3. You got a bad spool with short lengths where the filament diameter is substantially out of tolerance (in the negative direction).
#3 seems extremely unlikely though is still possible. The filament need not be noticeably under spec, it just needs to narrow enough that the hobbed gear can't grab onto it well enough and you get slippage.
#2 is also unlikely but its so easy to check, might as well.
#1 is what my money is on.
Now we have to think of what could be causing filament slippage. This occurs when the hobbed gear's ability to grab the filament is overpowered by the resistance to flow through the nozzle.
This can either be from too little grip, or something causing unusual and intermittent resistance to flow that causes the hobbed gear to shred the filament.
* If there is too little grip, you simply need to tighten the screw that has the spring that pushes the idler arm and idler pulley against the filament more pressure means better grip for the hobbed gear).
* Your hobbed gear might have gunk between the teeth preventing it from gripping well and merely needs to be cleaned with something sharp.
* Your idler pulley might have be broken, check for any play or unsmooth rotation on the shaft
Once you're certain grip is nice and strong, that leaves something causing resistance to flow:
* There might be a spec of debris with an irregular high aspect ratio shape in your hotend. It can't exit through the nozzle, but it also can't completely block it either, and is constantly moving around and only becomes a problem some of the time.
* One of your hotend's thermistor wires might have an intermittent short, or the thermistor itself has cracked. Low/short circuit resistance ends up getting interpreted as really high temperature, so no power is sent to the heater until a good enough thermistor connection returns. This can result in the hotend getting too cold for short periods. This option seems plausible since there seems to be a rough correlation between the print head position and when it happens, which is consistent with a broken conductor issue. The connection goes bad when the wires are positioned in certain ways, basically.
And it could of course be any combination of these things cooccurring and all contributing.
Unfortunately, under extrusion has so many potential causes that you just have to start going down the list from easiest to hardest thing to fix, and hope the problem is more towards the easy end.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would strongly follow Teach Tech's calibration guide. It's entirely possible that there are a number of things out of whack, contributing to the overall print quality. In this case, I'd look at doing a PID tune and seeing if your print temps are consistent.
Also, as the filament is fed into the nozzle, that lowers the temp, and if your temperature is not consistent, it might be lowered to a point where it starts to solidify, this would account for the results you get but again, could be a number of things. Even wet filament.
The filament you are using has a temp range of 205 +/-15. That means anything from 190 to 220. Even in your pic you can see the issue starting at lower layers.
Calibration is clearly the first thing to do before anything else.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: **Solved! Finally...**
So after having this issue off and on, an extreme case appeared. It turns out that filament was resisting coming off the spool, and when the extruder and hotend (the Simple is a direct-drive) pulled away from the spool it created tension in the filament, effectively pulling it out of the hotend, though only just enough to cause this issue. In this specific case, it seems that the long edge before the side of the piece was pulling the filament.
Shoutout to @username_1 and @username_2 for their answers. I'm still calibrating my machine, so they'll useful.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer] |
2023/06/28 | 1,238 | 4,968 | <issue_start>username_0: From day one I've always had my spool so that filament comes off "the top", but recently I wondered if it mattered, or there were any advantages/disadvantages to which side of the spool the filament came from. I did find [this](https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/original-prusa-i3-mk3s-mk3-general-discussion-announcements-and-releases/should-filament-spools-feed-over-the-top-or-from-under-the-bottom/), but it proved inconclusive. So, does it matter which side of the spool the filament comes from. Are their any pros/cons to either side? Or is this just a matter of personal preference?<issue_comment>username_1: Ultimately, your printer is pushing out less filament than the gcode is telling it to (which you know, but its worth focusing on the exact problem).
If your stepper motor isn't missing steps, then that leaves just a few possibilities:
1. The extruder's hobbed gear is slipping against the filament
2. The extruder's hobbed gear (or whatever is being driven by the extruder motor) is slipping on the motor shaft.
3. You got a bad spool with short lengths where the filament diameter is substantially out of tolerance (in the negative direction).
#3 seems extremely unlikely though is still possible. The filament need not be noticeably under spec, it just needs to narrow enough that the hobbed gear can't grab onto it well enough and you get slippage.
#2 is also unlikely but its so easy to check, might as well.
#1 is what my money is on.
Now we have to think of what could be causing filament slippage. This occurs when the hobbed gear's ability to grab the filament is overpowered by the resistance to flow through the nozzle.
This can either be from too little grip, or something causing unusual and intermittent resistance to flow that causes the hobbed gear to shred the filament.
* If there is too little grip, you simply need to tighten the screw that has the spring that pushes the idler arm and idler pulley against the filament more pressure means better grip for the hobbed gear).
* Your hobbed gear might have gunk between the teeth preventing it from gripping well and merely needs to be cleaned with something sharp.
* Your idler pulley might have be broken, check for any play or unsmooth rotation on the shaft
Once you're certain grip is nice and strong, that leaves something causing resistance to flow:
* There might be a spec of debris with an irregular high aspect ratio shape in your hotend. It can't exit through the nozzle, but it also can't completely block it either, and is constantly moving around and only becomes a problem some of the time.
* One of your hotend's thermistor wires might have an intermittent short, or the thermistor itself has cracked. Low/short circuit resistance ends up getting interpreted as really high temperature, so no power is sent to the heater until a good enough thermistor connection returns. This can result in the hotend getting too cold for short periods. This option seems plausible since there seems to be a rough correlation between the print head position and when it happens, which is consistent with a broken conductor issue. The connection goes bad when the wires are positioned in certain ways, basically.
And it could of course be any combination of these things cooccurring and all contributing.
Unfortunately, under extrusion has so many potential causes that you just have to start going down the list from easiest to hardest thing to fix, and hope the problem is more towards the easy end.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would strongly follow Teach Tech's calibration guide. It's entirely possible that there are a number of things out of whack, contributing to the overall print quality. In this case, I'd look at doing a PID tune and seeing if your print temps are consistent.
Also, as the filament is fed into the nozzle, that lowers the temp, and if your temperature is not consistent, it might be lowered to a point where it starts to solidify, this would account for the results you get but again, could be a number of things. Even wet filament.
The filament you are using has a temp range of 205 +/-15. That means anything from 190 to 220. Even in your pic you can see the issue starting at lower layers.
Calibration is clearly the first thing to do before anything else.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: **Solved! Finally...**
So after having this issue off and on, an extreme case appeared. It turns out that filament was resisting coming off the spool, and when the extruder and hotend (the Simple is a direct-drive) pulled away from the spool it created tension in the filament, effectively pulling it out of the hotend, though only just enough to cause this issue. In this specific case, it seems that the long edge before the side of the piece was pulling the filament.
Shoutout to @username_1 and @username_2 for their answers. I'm still calibrating my machine, so they'll useful.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer] |
2023/07/06 | 1,137 | 4,653 | <issue_start>username_0: I have managed to strip the threads on the mounting holes of the motor.
The extruder motor doesn't stay in place of the Bowden mount. It kinks to the left-hand side when the motor is extruding.
I was wondering if could I repair the stripped hole or do I need a new motor?<issue_comment>username_1: Ultimately, your printer is pushing out less filament than the gcode is telling it to (which you know, but its worth focusing on the exact problem).
If your stepper motor isn't missing steps, then that leaves just a few possibilities:
1. The extruder's hobbed gear is slipping against the filament
2. The extruder's hobbed gear (or whatever is being driven by the extruder motor) is slipping on the motor shaft.
3. You got a bad spool with short lengths where the filament diameter is substantially out of tolerance (in the negative direction).
#3 seems extremely unlikely though is still possible. The filament need not be noticeably under spec, it just needs to narrow enough that the hobbed gear can't grab onto it well enough and you get slippage.
#2 is also unlikely but its so easy to check, might as well.
#1 is what my money is on.
Now we have to think of what could be causing filament slippage. This occurs when the hobbed gear's ability to grab the filament is overpowered by the resistance to flow through the nozzle.
This can either be from too little grip, or something causing unusual and intermittent resistance to flow that causes the hobbed gear to shred the filament.
* If there is too little grip, you simply need to tighten the screw that has the spring that pushes the idler arm and idler pulley against the filament more pressure means better grip for the hobbed gear).
* Your hobbed gear might have gunk between the teeth preventing it from gripping well and merely needs to be cleaned with something sharp.
* Your idler pulley might have be broken, check for any play or unsmooth rotation on the shaft
Once you're certain grip is nice and strong, that leaves something causing resistance to flow:
* There might be a spec of debris with an irregular high aspect ratio shape in your hotend. It can't exit through the nozzle, but it also can't completely block it either, and is constantly moving around and only becomes a problem some of the time.
* One of your hotend's thermistor wires might have an intermittent short, or the thermistor itself has cracked. Low/short circuit resistance ends up getting interpreted as really high temperature, so no power is sent to the heater until a good enough thermistor connection returns. This can result in the hotend getting too cold for short periods. This option seems plausible since there seems to be a rough correlation between the print head position and when it happens, which is consistent with a broken conductor issue. The connection goes bad when the wires are positioned in certain ways, basically.
And it could of course be any combination of these things cooccurring and all contributing.
Unfortunately, under extrusion has so many potential causes that you just have to start going down the list from easiest to hardest thing to fix, and hope the problem is more towards the easy end.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would strongly follow Teach Tech's calibration guide. It's entirely possible that there are a number of things out of whack, contributing to the overall print quality. In this case, I'd look at doing a PID tune and seeing if your print temps are consistent.
Also, as the filament is fed into the nozzle, that lowers the temp, and if your temperature is not consistent, it might be lowered to a point where it starts to solidify, this would account for the results you get but again, could be a number of things. Even wet filament.
The filament you are using has a temp range of 205 +/-15. That means anything from 190 to 220. Even in your pic you can see the issue starting at lower layers.
Calibration is clearly the first thing to do before anything else.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: **Solved! Finally...**
So after having this issue off and on, an extreme case appeared. It turns out that filament was resisting coming off the spool, and when the extruder and hotend (the Simple is a direct-drive) pulled away from the spool it created tension in the filament, effectively pulling it out of the hotend, though only just enough to cause this issue. In this specific case, it seems that the long edge before the side of the piece was pulling the filament.
Shoutout to @username_1 and @username_2 for their answers. I'm still calibrating my machine, so they'll useful.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer] |
2023/07/08 | 1,172 | 4,841 | <issue_start>username_0: When printing with basic budget PLA, what are the consequences of having it slightly over temperature. For example 5-10 deg above the recommended temperature for the brand, or significantly over temperature such as 50 deg?
How will this be seen on the print, and what are the inherent risks - if any - to the printer?
Presuming that the print is allowed to complete, and there are no other external factors that might effect either the printer or the print.<issue_comment>username_1: Ultimately, your printer is pushing out less filament than the gcode is telling it to (which you know, but its worth focusing on the exact problem).
If your stepper motor isn't missing steps, then that leaves just a few possibilities:
1. The extruder's hobbed gear is slipping against the filament
2. The extruder's hobbed gear (or whatever is being driven by the extruder motor) is slipping on the motor shaft.
3. You got a bad spool with short lengths where the filament diameter is substantially out of tolerance (in the negative direction).
#3 seems extremely unlikely though is still possible. The filament need not be noticeably under spec, it just needs to narrow enough that the hobbed gear can't grab onto it well enough and you get slippage.
#2 is also unlikely but its so easy to check, might as well.
#1 is what my money is on.
Now we have to think of what could be causing filament slippage. This occurs when the hobbed gear's ability to grab the filament is overpowered by the resistance to flow through the nozzle.
This can either be from too little grip, or something causing unusual and intermittent resistance to flow that causes the hobbed gear to shred the filament.
* If there is too little grip, you simply need to tighten the screw that has the spring that pushes the idler arm and idler pulley against the filament more pressure means better grip for the hobbed gear).
* Your hobbed gear might have gunk between the teeth preventing it from gripping well and merely needs to be cleaned with something sharp.
* Your idler pulley might have be broken, check for any play or unsmooth rotation on the shaft
Once you're certain grip is nice and strong, that leaves something causing resistance to flow:
* There might be a spec of debris with an irregular high aspect ratio shape in your hotend. It can't exit through the nozzle, but it also can't completely block it either, and is constantly moving around and only becomes a problem some of the time.
* One of your hotend's thermistor wires might have an intermittent short, or the thermistor itself has cracked. Low/short circuit resistance ends up getting interpreted as really high temperature, so no power is sent to the heater until a good enough thermistor connection returns. This can result in the hotend getting too cold for short periods. This option seems plausible since there seems to be a rough correlation between the print head position and when it happens, which is consistent with a broken conductor issue. The connection goes bad when the wires are positioned in certain ways, basically.
And it could of course be any combination of these things cooccurring and all contributing.
Unfortunately, under extrusion has so many potential causes that you just have to start going down the list from easiest to hardest thing to fix, and hope the problem is more towards the easy end.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would strongly follow Teach Tech's calibration guide. It's entirely possible that there are a number of things out of whack, contributing to the overall print quality. In this case, I'd look at doing a PID tune and seeing if your print temps are consistent.
Also, as the filament is fed into the nozzle, that lowers the temp, and if your temperature is not consistent, it might be lowered to a point where it starts to solidify, this would account for the results you get but again, could be a number of things. Even wet filament.
The filament you are using has a temp range of 205 +/-15. That means anything from 190 to 220. Even in your pic you can see the issue starting at lower layers.
Calibration is clearly the first thing to do before anything else.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: **Solved! Finally...**
So after having this issue off and on, an extreme case appeared. It turns out that filament was resisting coming off the spool, and when the extruder and hotend (the Simple is a direct-drive) pulled away from the spool it created tension in the filament, effectively pulling it out of the hotend, though only just enough to cause this issue. In this specific case, it seems that the long edge before the side of the piece was pulling the filament.
Shoutout to @username_1 and @username_2 for their answers. I'm still calibrating my machine, so they'll useful.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer] |
2023/07/18 | 1,719 | 6,816 | <issue_start>username_0: I have a Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro that I'm trying to figure out.
I was able to make 3 solid prints using white Creality-branded PLA without issue and with just an initial auto-level pass, but after that, I had problems with small parts de-adhering halfway through my prints; the first 5 or 6 layers will print fine, and then small bits of the first layer will just slide off the print bed while the extruder is moving.
I think my first layer is maybe not going down well enough, though the pieces that do stick seem to be down pretty well (they require a decent amount of force to get them off of the PEI bed) - the image below is pretty close to the sort of thing I'm seeing with normal prints.
If it matters, my extruder temp is 200 °C and my bed temp is 60 °C. I left everything as the default settings and tried using both the latest Cura and Creality settings.
I think the issue is the globbing that's happening when the extruder changes directions when it hits a cold raised blob it just has too much torque and flicks it off. My leveling procedure is going through the manual leveling UX with the bed heated, sticking a piece of paper under the center and 4 corners (one at a time), and adjusting the wheels as best as I can until it slightly drags; once I'm satisfied with that I do an auto-level pass.
Below is an image of my first layer test grid; any ideas for what I can try? Is there anything I can do with the flow rate or first layer width to get better adhesion, or do I need to monkey with the Z-offset and leveling more? My gut is saying that the Z-offset is too low but when I raise it I have issues with even the outer nozzle-wiping passes not sticking (the straight lines that the default Cura profile prints usually stick fine, but the initial skirt around the part do not).
Is this just too small of a piece to print maybe? I printed two of these [Articulated Shark](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3845304) initially and they did not have any issues with de-adhesion, and they have similarly-sized first-layer parts.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xHnVx.jpg "Photo of part of a 3D printed model that broke off")
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qLTVs.jpg "First Layer Test Grid")<issue_comment>username_1: Ultimately, your printer is pushing out less filament than the gcode is telling it to (which you know, but its worth focusing on the exact problem).
If your stepper motor isn't missing steps, then that leaves just a few possibilities:
1. The extruder's hobbed gear is slipping against the filament
2. The extruder's hobbed gear (or whatever is being driven by the extruder motor) is slipping on the motor shaft.
3. You got a bad spool with short lengths where the filament diameter is substantially out of tolerance (in the negative direction).
#3 seems extremely unlikely though is still possible. The filament need not be noticeably under spec, it just needs to narrow enough that the hobbed gear can't grab onto it well enough and you get slippage.
#2 is also unlikely but its so easy to check, might as well.
#1 is what my money is on.
Now we have to think of what could be causing filament slippage. This occurs when the hobbed gear's ability to grab the filament is overpowered by the resistance to flow through the nozzle.
This can either be from too little grip, or something causing unusual and intermittent resistance to flow that causes the hobbed gear to shred the filament.
* If there is too little grip, you simply need to tighten the screw that has the spring that pushes the idler arm and idler pulley against the filament more pressure means better grip for the hobbed gear).
* Your hobbed gear might have gunk between the teeth preventing it from gripping well and merely needs to be cleaned with something sharp.
* Your idler pulley might have be broken, check for any play or unsmooth rotation on the shaft
Once you're certain grip is nice and strong, that leaves something causing resistance to flow:
* There might be a spec of debris with an irregular high aspect ratio shape in your hotend. It can't exit through the nozzle, but it also can't completely block it either, and is constantly moving around and only becomes a problem some of the time.
* One of your hotend's thermistor wires might have an intermittent short, or the thermistor itself has cracked. Low/short circuit resistance ends up getting interpreted as really high temperature, so no power is sent to the heater until a good enough thermistor connection returns. This can result in the hotend getting too cold for short periods. This option seems plausible since there seems to be a rough correlation between the print head position and when it happens, which is consistent with a broken conductor issue. The connection goes bad when the wires are positioned in certain ways, basically.
And it could of course be any combination of these things cooccurring and all contributing.
Unfortunately, under extrusion has so many potential causes that you just have to start going down the list from easiest to hardest thing to fix, and hope the problem is more towards the easy end.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would strongly follow Teach Tech's calibration guide. It's entirely possible that there are a number of things out of whack, contributing to the overall print quality. In this case, I'd look at doing a PID tune and seeing if your print temps are consistent.
Also, as the filament is fed into the nozzle, that lowers the temp, and if your temperature is not consistent, it might be lowered to a point where it starts to solidify, this would account for the results you get but again, could be a number of things. Even wet filament.
The filament you are using has a temp range of 205 +/-15. That means anything from 190 to 220. Even in your pic you can see the issue starting at lower layers.
Calibration is clearly the first thing to do before anything else.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: **Solved! Finally...**
So after having this issue off and on, an extreme case appeared. It turns out that filament was resisting coming off the spool, and when the extruder and hotend (the Simple is a direct-drive) pulled away from the spool it created tension in the filament, effectively pulling it out of the hotend, though only just enough to cause this issue. In this specific case, it seems that the long edge before the side of the piece was pulling the filament.
Shoutout to @username_1 and @username_2 for their answers. I'm still calibrating my machine, so they'll useful.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer] |
2023/07/25 | 1,103 | 3,852 | <issue_start>username_0: I recently installed the CR-Touch onto my CR10-V3 printer. I updated my firmware to Marlin 2.1.2M and set my probe offsets and selected level bed which checked 81 points on the print bed and it said bed leveling was complete.
I tried printing something that I had already created G-code for from Prusa Slicer, and on the initial wipe and perimeter print the nozzle was way too high (maybe 10-15 mm off the print bed surface)
I searched for how to enable using the auto bed leveling mesh using Prusa slicer, and I found a couple of places mentioning adding `M420 S1` to the G-code to enable using the auto bed leveling mesh, but even after adding that, my print did the same thing and during the wipe and perimeter print it was way too high.
Below is the start G-code that I'm using in Prusa Slicer
```
G90 ; use absolute coordinates
M83 ; extruder relative mode
M104 S150 ; set temporary nozzle temp to prevent oozing during homing
M140 S{first_layer_bed_temperature[0]} ; set final bed temp
G4 S30 ; allow partial nozzle warmup
G28 ; home all axis
M420 S1 ; Enable use auto bed leveling saved mesh
G1 Z50 F240
G1 X2.0 Y10 F3000
M104 S{first_layer_temperature[0]} ; set final nozzle temp
M190 S{first_layer_bed_temperature[0]} ; wait for bed temp to stabilize
M109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]} ; wait for nozzle temp to stabilize
G1 Z0.28 F240
G92 E0
G1 X2.0 Y140 E10 F1500 ; prime the nozzle
G1 X2.3 Y140 F5000
G92 E0
G1 X2.3 Y10 E10 F1200 ; prime the nozzle
G92 E0
```
If I'm understanding the last part of that G-code, it should be 0.28 mm above the print bed when it does its nozzle wipe, but it's 10 mm or more off the bed when it does that.
I did some additional testing this morning, and the problem seems to be the z-values after auto homing. I have a z-probe offset entered of -2.122 mm that I got using the z-probe offset wizard in the Marlin firmware, and that offset visually seems reasonable for where the probe triggers vs the nozzle height.
After auto homing all axis, if I manually change the z-axis to be 0.28 mm, then the nozzle is still about 7 mm above the print bed which is where my prints are starting off.
If I manually deploy the touch sensor and lower the print head, the touch sensor engages with the print surface at around a z position of -5 mm, and then with the z-probe offset of -2.112 mm it's about 7 mm too high.
Where is this extra height coming from? I've checked and rechecked the z-probe offset, and like I said, the values seem reasonable, but I'm not sure where this extra height is coming from.<issue_comment>username_1: Although I cannot be sure, I suspect that your bed-leveling is working fine.
An auto-bed-leveling-sensor only takes care of relative bed leveling. That means that you have to manually add a Z-offset in the printer menu. Do this by running the auto-leveling, then auto homing and then adjusting the Z-value by moving the Z-axis in the menu until the head barely touches the bed. Note the value and fill this in for the Z-offset value in the configuration menu of the printer.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I have no idea what happened the first time I initialized everything, but I started over from the beginning and ran the `Initialize EEPROM` command from the UI, and then saved the settings, and then went to the probe offsets and reset my probe offsets to exactly what they were before, but now after auto homing the absolute Z values look accurate and if I manually move the Z axis to 0 it is right at that 0.1 mm height of a sheet of paper.
The first time I initialized the EEPROM I ran auto home immediately after and I was getting an error on the main page `ERR: too far` and maybe in the process of trying to fix that I messed something else up, but it appears that everything is working how it should now.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2023/07/25 | 345 | 1,390 | <issue_start>username_0: We need to move our Formlabs Form 3 printer to a new room and I would like to remove the resin from the resin tank. Is there a standard way to do this and can I reuse the resin once I remove it?
Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: when moving the printer to a new room I would just remove the tank and then carefully move the tank to the new room after you moved the printer.
If you really need to empty the tank: The tank usually has a small indent in one of the corners. Just dump the contents of the tank through a resin strainer (a paper coffee-filter-like cone) back into the container it came in. Do this in a well ventilated area with no direct sunlight entering the room and don't let it spill on your skin. (no big deal if you touch it, just don't let it happen too often)
Don't forget to clean the tank thoroughly with paper rags and alcohol afterwards. Everything that stays will be stuck after some time
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It really depends on the resin. In some resins like ESD components can sediment down to the floor of the VAT. In that case the best option is really to empty
the tank and shake the bottle / container. Its one of the benefits of the [Solidator 3D-Printer](https://www.solidator.com) that the Solidator Resins do not sediment and you can keep the material in the tank for several keeps without issues.
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/08/09 | 881 | 3,384 | <issue_start>username_0: Relatively new to 3D printing but have learnt a lot, I just need some help on the finishing process. I currently have some print-in-place PLA figures I need to sand down and some have holes I need to fill in (we made a bit of a mistake on layer thickness). I have a fair amount of hands-on experience with sanding and filling from my tenure making sculptures from foam/cardboard and the like but I'm unsure on the materials for plastic.
That being said, is regular poly-filler or wall filler okay? This is what I've used before while making sculptures, so I have the most experience with it. Or should I be looking for something more specialist or specific like using a two-part resin for filling and sanding that down? (I do have access to a well ventilated space I can do this in.) Should I simply go over everything with a soldering iron?
These figures will be primed and painted afterwards, so I would prefer if the filling material was relatively easy to paint over. Colour doesn't matter as long as it gets the job done though. :-)<issue_comment>username_1: CA Glue
-------
for very small holes or print defects, I like to use a droplet of CA glue, which fills those small defects.
In combination with baking soda, it can fill even larger gaps and voids. Glass or plastic pearls and sand also can work as material for filling, as can sanding dust.
Filler-Primer Spray
-------------------
While not useful for moles larger than about half a millimeter, filler primer sprays can cover over and hide dimples, scratches from sanding as well as layer lines.
Filler paste
------------
Be it Plasto, Tamiya putty or wall filler, small to medium defects and dimples can be filled with these compounds. Plasto in particular has a rather aggressive solvent in it, that strips through paint, so keep that in mind. Among similar products, Tamiya has a range of filler pastes I have good experience with, very similar to Plasto, and is available in different styles for different plastics.
In even larger packaging, 3M 05096 is a very decent acrylic filler and comes in industrial-sized 411 g/14.5 oz compared to the about 30 grams of hobby fillers.
PLA soldering
-------------
If you have a **clean** soldering iron or 3D pen, you can use spare filament pieces to melt and fill gaps or even join parts.
2 Component Resin
-----------------
A favorite of mine for smoothing over organic surfaces is coating them in two-component resin and letting that dry. The result is usually super smooth, but this is not useful to fill in larger holes that need to be built up first.
"Greenstuff" et al
------------------
A better alternative for filling up medium to large holes in a print is using a material akin to Greenstuff, Milliput, or any other glue putty, such as Pattex Repair Express, Uhu Epoxy Repair All or many others. These two component resins start as two strips of gumlike consistency and after mixing turn into a hard polymer over the next 5 minutes to 12 hours, depending on the formulation. This stuff can make a structural replacement for even the largest holes, and be smoothed mechanically.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I've had good success with UV-cure glue as a filler. It's reasonably hard when cured yet sands easily. It takes paint well. It has the advantages of unlimited working time and a very quick cure time.
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/08/22 | 965 | 3,149 | <issue_start>username_0: How do I add a base to the surface I'm trying to print?
Target machine is a Creality Ender 3 Pro.
I'm using numpy-stl and surf2stl to come up with the desired surface in python:
```
def SOquestion():
pᵢs = [i / 100 for i in range(50, 96, 1)]
pⱼs = pᵢs
X, Y = np.meshgrid(pᵢs, pⱼs)
Z = pₖGivenpᵢAndpⱼ(X, Y)
stlFile = "surfaceOfCriticalValues.stl"
surf2stl.write(stlFile, X, Y, Z)
theMesh = mesh.Mesh.from_file(stlFile)
plotFromStlFile(stlFile)
@np.vectorize
def pₖGivenpᵢAndpⱼ(pᵢ, pⱼ):
a = pᵢ * pⱼ / ((1 - pᵢ) * (1 - pⱼ))
return a / (a + 1)
```
I want this surface to be printable. I figure I could add the base to the mesh but I don't know how to draw all the triangles?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iMWq2.png)<issue_comment>username_1: CA Glue
-------
for very small holes or print defects, I like to use a droplet of CA glue, which fills those small defects.
In combination with baking soda, it can fill even larger gaps and voids. Glass or plastic pearls and sand also can work as material for filling, as can sanding dust.
Filler-Primer Spray
-------------------
While not useful for moles larger than about half a millimeter, filler primer sprays can cover over and hide dimples, scratches from sanding as well as layer lines.
Filler paste
------------
Be it Plasto, Tamiya putty or wall filler, small to medium defects and dimples can be filled with these compounds. Plasto in particular has a rather aggressive solvent in it, that strips through paint, so keep that in mind. Among similar products, Tamiya has a range of filler pastes I have good experience with, very similar to Plasto, and is available in different styles for different plastics.
In even larger packaging, 3M 05096 is a very decent acrylic filler and comes in industrial-sized 411 g/14.5 oz compared to the about 30 grams of hobby fillers.
PLA soldering
-------------
If you have a **clean** soldering iron or 3D pen, you can use spare filament pieces to melt and fill gaps or even join parts.
2 Component Resin
-----------------
A favorite of mine for smoothing over organic surfaces is coating them in two-component resin and letting that dry. The result is usually super smooth, but this is not useful to fill in larger holes that need to be built up first.
"Greenstuff" et al
------------------
A better alternative for filling up medium to large holes in a print is using a material akin to Greenstuff, Milliput, or any other glue putty, such as Pattex Repair Express, Uhu Epoxy Repair All or many others. These two component resins start as two strips of gumlike consistency and after mixing turn into a hard polymer over the next 5 minutes to 12 hours, depending on the formulation. This stuff can make a structural replacement for even the largest holes, and be smoothed mechanically.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I've had good success with UV-cure glue as a filler. It's reasonably hard when cured yet sands easily. It takes paint well. It has the advantages of unlimited working time and a very quick cure time.
Upvotes: 0 |
2023/08/26 | 559 | 2,217 | <issue_start>username_0: I have just purchased the Creality Ender 3 Printer and tried to print the model that comes with it on the SD card and the print was completed successfully with amazing quality details. So far, so good. After that, I downloaded Cura 3D printing software and installed it on my machine, and then tried to slice a model that I had just made with Fusion 360.
On the first try, I chose the standard quality Cura profile and saved it to the printer to print it but the print failed in the way the uploaded video. After playing around with some settings and trying to use some of the profiles that I found online, the same case with each new profile so I came across an idea if there is a way to extract the settings from the G-code file within the printer SD card and use to print the new 3D model.
Is there a way to extract the profile settings from in my case the `cat3.5h.gcode` file?
Or any other working solution for my problem such as a good cura profile to print with PLA filament
[Video of print failure](https://streamable.com/p22shx)<issue_comment>username_1: That is not your Cura settings, it's just because your nozzle is too high off the print bed.
Any profile you use will fail unless you correct the nozzle height. Look up instructions for bed levelling on an Ender 3. It's pretty easy to do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As the question is specifically asking for profile settings and not the problem with the Z-offset, this answer addresses the question at hand:
>
> Is there a way to extract the profile settings from in my case the `cat3.5h.gcode` file?
>
>
>
No, you cannot get the profile settings from the G-code file.
But, looking at the video, your nozzle is way too far from the bed. It looks as if the bed is too low (loosen the leveling screws) or lower the Z endstop.
Note that slicer settings in Cura do not affect the distance between the bed and the nozzle (this much as shown in the video), unless:
* You have installed a plugin allowing you to create an extra offset between the bed and the nozzle, or
* your model has not been dropped to the heated bed (unlikely, as this requires you to manually turn this off in the settings).
Upvotes: 1 |
2023/08/31 | 956 | 3,267 | <issue_start>username_0: So I'm having a bit of a strange issue where I'm getting gaps between perimeter walls, but only on part of the print. Even more strangely, it doesn't happen with every print, though it will happen consistently on the same model if I print it more than once.
I know the go-to answer for an issue like this is `"You're under-extruding. Fix your e-steps or increase your extrusion multiplier"`, however I'm not sure that's the only issue at play here. I did try increasing my extrusion multiplier (tried both 1.05 and 1.10), and while the issue did improve, it didn't fully solve it. The print shown below was printed with an extrusion multiplier of 1.00.
Also worth noting is that there is a bulge in the side of the print toward the bottom, but I'm not sure if it's related to the perimeter wall gaps issue. I have no idea what would cause that.
---
Basic Info
----------
Printer: Ender 3 Pro
Filament: Hatchbox PLA ("gray blue")
Slicer Software: Slic3r
---
Slicer Settings
---------------
>
> Note: I am only adding the settings I believe are relevant to the question. If you would like to see a setting not shown here, please let me know and I'll add it.
>
>
>
* Print temperature: 200 °C
* Bed temperature: 50 °C
* Installed nozzle is 0.6 mm.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WFhg2.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yj3xg.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TlZSM.png)
---
Print Images
------------
This first picture is to show the orientation of the print on the print bed:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rNB1C.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TBnv5.jpg)<issue_comment>username_1: I had this in 3 new Ender 3 pro's. It was the nozzle was too small. I checked the output of the nozzles by extruding and measuring the filament after it hardened right at the nozzle. A good nozzle will measure exactly to the size.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: You are using a larger than "standard 0.4 mm" nozzle. Large diameter nozzles cause flow volume to increase when the extruder etrusion speed is kept the same as for the standard nozzle which can cause extruding problems like underextruding.
The nozzle diameter increase appears marginal (as in "it is just an extra 0.2 mm in diameter", but actaully the nozzle increases 50 % in diameter), but has significant effects on the volume flow of the extrusion.
As seen from the table below, when increasing the nozzle diameter for the same printing speed, the volume flow increases from 1.26 mm³/s to 4.24 mm³/s which is a 337.5 % increase of the flow for the selected layer height (0.3 mm).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mVxfB.png)
This increased flow must be created by your extruder/nozzle assembly and might fall out of the range it can produce for the current setting. Generally this **requires you** to **increase the printing temperature** or **decrease the printing speed**.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2012/02/14 | 624 | 2,438 | <issue_start>username_0: I would like to open the meta discussion on the criteria for closing.
I think we should be a little more open than the rest of the SE community when it comes to questions that are
* **Localized**: academics travel a lot. Something that is localized today may not be localized for us tomorrow. I worked in 7 different countries since I started and I am still not done.
* **"List-like" or "opinionated"**: there are topics that may involve a list of options, and often, academia is not a "this way" kind of answers. Occasionally, there may be things that you have to agglomerate from different sources, in order to get a "better strategy". I am thinking, for example, about best practices for visas, which may favor different inputs from different people having different backgrounds. The "correct" answer may come from someone that is unmarried, and another answer from someone that is married. The first answer may not be useful to a future reader, but the second one will. It's the usual "bad subjective/good subjective" I think.
Opinions?<issue_comment>username_1: I had this in 3 new Ender 3 pro's. It was the nozzle was too small. I checked the output of the nozzles by extruding and measuring the filament after it hardened right at the nozzle. A good nozzle will measure exactly to the size.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: You are using a larger than "standard 0.4 mm" nozzle. Large diameter nozzles cause flow volume to increase when the extruder etrusion speed is kept the same as for the standard nozzle which can cause extruding problems like underextruding.
The nozzle diameter increase appears marginal (as in "it is just an extra 0.2 mm in diameter", but actaully the nozzle increases 50 % in diameter), but has significant effects on the volume flow of the extrusion.
As seen from the table below, when increasing the nozzle diameter for the same printing speed, the volume flow increases from 1.26 mm³/s to 4.24 mm³/s which is a 337.5 % increase of the flow for the selected layer height (0.3 mm).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mVxfB.png)
This increased flow must be created by your extruder/nozzle assembly and might fall out of the range it can produce for the current setting. Generally this **requires you** to **increase the printing temperature** or **decrease the printing speed**.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2012/02/15 | 901 | 3,608 | <issue_start>username_0: In reference to [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49/what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-being-a-professor) about being a professor, this is impossible to answer within the context of how SE wants us to answer questions. There's no definite answer, and even more so, there's no "right" answer. That being said, the question is valid, and probably fairly common. Should we allow that sort of question here?<issue_comment>username_1: Based on the [example questions asked in the definition phase](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617?phase=definition), I think Academia.StackExchange will have more subjective questions than technical questions. Many of the people who have committed to this site, including myself, seek advice and wisdom from those who have more experience in academia about people, institutions, etiquette, best practices, and personal preferences--all very subjective ideas. This is very different from the objective questions and answers about programming found on other StackExchange sites.
Some of these subjective questions will veer too far from the realm of usefulness. But some will be very useful. If you look at the top voted questions on many StackExchange sites, the open-ended ones are often the most popular. Nonetheless, the StackExchange blog has some [general guidelines](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/) for which of these "subjective" questions should be allowed:
>
> * Great subjective questions inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”.
> * Great subjective questions tend to have long, not short, answers.
> * Great subjective questions have a constructive, fair, and impartial tone.
> * Great subjective questions invite sharing experiences over opinions.
> * Great subjective questions insist that opinion be backed up with facts and references.
> * Great subjective questions are more than just mindless social fun.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, we should allow some of these sort of questions here. Occasionally.
But certainly **not** during the private beta, when we're trying to build up a body of exemplary questions and answers.
I think this question <https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/49/96> , and any others like it, should be considered as deletion candidates **during the private beta**.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I voted to close on the particular example of the [What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a professor?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/49/96) question, but I think that most of the time the question can be rephrased to focus on the specific case of the OP. Here, jeremy is considering moving to academia, he can be really specific and ask targeted informations.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Ok, here are my 2c.
We all agree this SE can be more opinion-based than the rest of the club. Most of the stuff we deal with are relative to local lore, habits, or unwritten rules of conduct that may or may not depend on the institute, country, contract type, and professor attitude, and group mechanics.
About the question under discussion, yes, it is potentially less on-topic than the rest, but it's only one, not a class of questions. We take the tooth out once and for all. the question just sits there with its (mostly good) answers, it's technically "on-topic" for the site, and it's very likely to be asked in the future by anyone having this curiosity.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Well, I think it's a good question ;)
Upvotes: 1 |
2012/02/15 | 1,192 | 4,982 | <issue_start>username_0: This particular SE has the significant problem that many answers will be "soft" in nature; there's no real literature on much of this, making many questions answerable only through "in my experience..." answers. [This answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/90/73) is a fine example of this... the answer may be correct, but only for a certain subset of the interested population, and there may not even *be* a "definitively correct" answer. That last point is the major problem... many of these questions will not have a definitive answer, but the "soft" answers will often do the job of addressing the question. [This question about seminar attendance](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/39/73) is similar... there's no real answer, but there are a few conjecture-type answers that seem to satisfactorily address the question.
So, how should we deal with "soft" answers to questions that demand them?<issue_comment>username_1: I know I'm answering my own question, but I want to put forth the argument that **these style answers should be acceptable on this SE**. In my mind, this SE serves the purpose of transmitting the "lore" of Academia to aspiring graduate students, new graduate students, new faculty, and the like. Much of this lore is not "official", but it is highly useful nonetheless.
That being said, given that the answer to each question is likely going to vary significantly based on the particulars, I think we should customize the use of tags on this site to specify the particulars. Specifically, **each question should have a tag that identifies the field of research**; if none is there, the poster should be asked to provide one. This will always be relevant to the question; answers to a question about note-taking styles will be different for mathematics and history, for example. Additionally, we may want to consider asking for:
* BS/MA/PhD/postdoc/professorship
* country
* institution (not sure about this one)
I strongly think we should add some text on the "new question" page strongly suggesting that the poster includes tags for each of these, if relevant to the topic.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: There's nothing inherently wrong with questions that seek advice and wisdom from those who have more experience than themselves. And there's nothing wrong with sharing that wisdom here, if you can…
**…back up your statements with constructive, sound reasoning.**
But where these *questions* **go wrong** is when they become so generic as to stop soliciting hard-earned wisdom and **veer towards simply polling the community.**
The blog post [**Good Subjective, Bad Subjective**](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective/) should be required reading for this community.
The earmarks of *bad subjective* is when the answers fill with *"I did this"*, *"I did that"*, and *"I did blah blah blah"* responses. When answers don't even purport to explain why their solution is better than any other, it goes from being Q&A to just a poll of the community. Overly broad questions are just soliciting a collection of random answers. Folks will vote this stuff up, but it's just not good Q&A.
[**The Trouble with Popularity**](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/01/the-trouble-with-popularity/)
It's a tough sell, but if you want this site to survive, you need a place where people are asking very interesting and challenging questions, not the uninspired poll questions that have all been asked 100 times before on every other site on the subject. If this site wants to rehash the same old conversations found in any random message forum, there's really no point in trying something different here.
If we can avoid questions that are simply asking, *"Let's hear what everyone has to say about…"*, we can maintain the ideals of great Q&A in the face of completely subjective topics. This is especially true early in the beta when the site is new. The earliest questions on a site will set the tone and topic of the site for a long time.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Many of my answers to advice questions tend to be of the "in my experience" category. For these questions, there is never enough information to be able to give a definitive correct answer. What we *can* do is give "in that case, I did X and the consequences were Y" type answers - then let the original poster determine which answer better fits their situation. Older folks have found that giving direct answers to questions to younger folks results in the advice getting ignored, so that more circumspect answers actually get listened to. As for your second link, I don't think that young folks understand just how much politics goes on in the real world.
What we do as a "community" will change over time. Some of the other sites here preferred such answers in the past, but now discourage them. This has lead me to quit visiting a number of other stack exchange sites.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/02/15 | 731 | 2,505 | <issue_start>username_0: By looking at the site today, it seems that "higher education" is an euphemism for "doctorate". The definition stage however doesn't imply that ([1](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/16618#16618) [2](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/16618#16618) [3](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/22982#22982)...)
Is Academia only about PhD, postdoc and teaching positions? Are questions about Master's, Bachelor's, High School etc. off-topic?<issue_comment>username_1: I would not define "higher education" as including high school. The usual definition includes college and above (in other words, after having completed the equivalent of a high school degree). In practice, though, I would expect a SE devoted to academia to have most of its participants at the level of a graduate student (or at least "rising" graduate student).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Is Academia only about PhD, postdoc and teaching positions? Are questions about Master's, Bachelor's, High School etc. off-topic?
>
>
>
This SE is about academics and Academia. Questions about Master and Bachelor degree are on-topic, unless they are specific to a given university course. That is, if your question is about required documentation to apply to university X, in my opinion it is on-topic. If it's about a course or a professor at a given university, it is off-topic.
High school is off-topic.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I really like @JeffE's comment:
>
> Most questions, even in the definition stage, seem to be from people who are (or aspire to be) employed in academia (as instructors or researchers), rather than people who are only enrolled in academia (as students).
>
>
>
And I think that is the guideline we should use for higher education means. Basically, education that leads towards academic life.
So a question like
>
> I am a highschool senior aspiring to be a scientist. What should I focus on in undergrad?
>
>
>
Would be more about higher education than
>
> I have a bachelor's degree in accounting. Will a master's program increase my employability in finance?
>
>
>
Even though the second question is about a 'higher level' (Masters usually comes after Bachelors) of education, it is not higher in the sense of not really leading to academic life.
That being said, I think we should be cautious about admission questions and advice for people applying to undergrad.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/02/16 | 1,153 | 4,586 | <issue_start>username_0: Based on my answer in [this question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/13/73), I propose that we modify the tag placeholder text (currently "at least one tag (graduate-school note-taking science), max 5 tags") to strongly encourage the poster to provide a tag identifying the field of research being discussed:
>
> 
>
>
>
The proposed text is:
>
> must include field of research (american-history mechanical-engineering), max 5 tags
>
>
>
My rationale for this change is that if the poster does not provide the field of research, 9 times out of 10 they will be asked for it in the comments immediately after posting. If they don't, then 9 times out of 10 the answer they receive will be too broad to actually help them. (I'm noticing that most people - myself included - don't realize how many fields of research there are.)<issue_comment>username_1: While the experience of individuals will be mostly limited to one particular field and likely a specific geographic area (e.g. Europe or U.S.A. or Australia etc.), I believe we should strive for answers that generalize across *all* fields and areas. Otherwise the utility of any particular question and answer is severely limited in scope.
In anecdote, so far on the site I haven't seen any general advice given by individuals in STEM fields that don't in large part apply to social sciences. In general (I suspect) were likely to find more similarities than differences.
Hopefully as the site grows differing perspectives become represented, so if pertinent differences between fields exist for any particular question they are noted, but I don't think assuming *a priori* that differences exist is a good idea. And forcing tags naturally perpetuates such an artificial division.
---
**EDIT**
To reify my perspective in address to the comments by @eykanal and @username_2, I think it best to be more specific about what I mean when I say advice should generalize to all fields. This does not simulataneously mean the answer is broad (and purportedly unuseable)!
The vast majority of posters on the site so far are not from social science fields, yet it is difficult to come up with answers that, at least in some respects (if not entirely) are applicable to my personal experiences (criminology graduate student in the USA).
For examples of questions/answers by people not within my field, but the responses IMO would be reasonable to generalize to my field;
* [How important are my grades to the rest of my PhD career?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/173/3).
* [How do you judge the quality of a journal?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/101/3)
* [Teaching Assistanships and research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/58/3)
* [How do I select a graduate program?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/18/3)
You could arbitrarily insert into any of these questions specific field X (e.g. "How important are my grades to the rest of my PhD career in Mathematics"), but this immediately implies that experiences in other fields are not pertinent (which is not the case). Nor are the answers to the above "too broad to be useful" because they generalize across multiple fields.
---
It is difficult to say much more speaking widespread about the site (so far we have all made very general statements, and we could all find anecdotal situations as evidence for our positions). But I don't see how suggesting such a tag system is benifitial to the site, and I believe it could be harmful.
Asking for clarification on questions seems to be a regular occurence across the SE sites. Although it can be annoying at times, it is not a noxious enough problem to need such a novel solution as you are presenting.
---
As a side note, although I understand the motivation of the original poster, the proposed usage of tags in this instance is a "meta" tag. See the SO blog post by <NAME> on the subject, [The Death of Meta Tags](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/) for why such tags should be avoided. Although you could probably argue for their utility in other respects, they certainly don't *describe the content of the question*.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I'm inclined to agree with Andy that we'd really like to have questions which make sense across field and location, even if the answers don't. In other words, it seems more important to have *answers* specify the field and location, but get multiple answers reflecting different areas.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/02/16 | 440 | 1,798 | <issue_start>username_0: I would vouch for accommodation questions to be on-topic, as long as they are clearly focused for academic hosting (that is, "Channels for accommodation for 6 months at VU-Amsterdam" is on-topic, "Looking for accommodation in Centralia, Pennsylvania" is not). Also, direct "Does anybody here have a room available from/to? write me at" are completely off-topic.
The focus is to give *tools*, not *solutions* to the problem. The tools will stay valid and useful to other readers in the future. The "I have a room, write me" will not.
The reason is that relocation and quick finding of accommodation channels for short term rentals is a complete and necessary part of the academic lifestyle. Very, very often, the universities provide little or no facilities or preferred contacts for such task. Networking, unknown but dedicated services, local traditions, safest channels (e.g. commercial vs. private) on this regard is a necessity we have to endure as much as we have to endure applying for grants.<issue_comment>username_1: There's a narrow line between "how does a person find short-term housing near such-and-such university" and "does anyone here have a place I can sublet for six months?" If accommodation questions are allowed, both the phrasing and the answers will have to be very sternly moderated.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It seems to me that answers to such questions are going to age very badly: the answer I'd give for London today is very different to what it would have been 3 years ago, which would have been different again from ten years ago. That would seem to go against the StackExchange vision, where, as I understand it, the intention is to build a lot of content that ages well, and is not too localised in time or space.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/02/16 | 1,054 | 4,406 | <issue_start>username_0: This site should be pretty easy to publicize; simply post flyers around the various departments. Would someone with design skills be willing to throw together a flyer to be around the various campuses by Academia SE users?<issue_comment>username_1: I have some design skills. I suggest that people should think of (and post as answers) some things that could be said about this site. Attractive catchphrases and details are important to attract students. Examples would be like:
"Confused about the academic world? Turn your browser to Academia StackExchange for answers to your questions!"
This is just an example to start of your imaginations. A poster should appeal to a general audience, have a short catchy phrase, and contain a short description of what this site is about.
I can produce black and white as well as colour versions in vector format suitable for a variety of sizes, and others who can design can also try as well!
I think this is a good idea and I would definitely put up a few posters on the bulletin board in my department.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would suggest picking particularly good questions from the site, and making a poster that just has the question in its usual SE theme (so that users will recognize the site if they come from the poster) and then says something like:
>
> Want to know the answer? Come to academia.stackexchange.com
>
>
>
This also allows you to make tailored posters for specific departments.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Another place to put a small banner is the side-bars of sister-SE sites, mainly TCS, MATH, physics, STATs, etc.
This is how I learned about the existence of other SE's (and also about the existence of *meta*.. :).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I think a lot of universities would be interested in this as a resource. At the University of Bath (United Kingdom) we have a small team devoted to generic skills development for postgraduates. Perhaps it's worth publicising to similar teams within other universities? PG student societies would also be interested, I think.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Well, since no designers answered the call, I'm going to expand it to designers. Since I'm a member of the "not a designer" crowd, I figured I'll make the first poster.
[Click here to see an Academia.SE poster, which you should print and stick in public places in your university](http://erikdev.com/AcaSx.pdf)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's not going to win any awards for awesome design, but it is better than nothing. My requests to the crowd are twofold:
1. Please print these out and put them in public areas. I'll probably kindly ask you to re-post it when the fall semester starts and the new crop of grad students show up.
2. The original call for someone with some semblance of actual design skills still stands. Please feel free to make something that, you know, looks *good*.
[Here's the same link again, just because I like writing links.](http://erikdev.com/AcaSx.pdf) Please post it wherever it makes sense to post it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Is there a way to get a blurb on the Chronicle of Higher Education, or Inside Higher Ed ? there are some friendly bloggers there who might be willing to mention the site.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Could we somehow get Academia.edu interested? They had something like ask-a-question back in the day. I'm not sure what happened to it, but there definitely ought to be some scope for cooperation. I'm not very good at networking or making contact with humans in general, but what do others think of the idea. Perhaps we could form a contact committee?
Another place to get grad-students, especially those in the depth of despair would be Phinished.org.
Would sending a short email to one of the mailing lists (listservs) count as spam? Perhaps more senior people can comment on the appropriateness of such an act. At the very least we could offer a suggestion to take the more flamey (but important) topics to stackexchange, something like the entire Elsevier situation, discussion of responses, etc.
I would appreciate hearing from the more experienced what they think of the appropriateness of these steps in terms of academic etiquette.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/02/21 | 704 | 2,390 | <issue_start>username_0: In order to promote the site, it would be good to post a notification on some of the existing online forums where academics congregate.
* What online forums exist?
As side points
* What community does the forum contain? How big is the community?
* What rules exist regarding promoting other site in the community?
By way of example:
* <http://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicPsychology/> contains almost 2000 subscribers; Reddit permits posting links; links that the community likes get upvoted and then receive greater exposure.<issue_comment>username_1: * [Physics Forums](http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=139). Check the Academic Guidance forum. Even people in other fields (like chemistry) end up going there.
* Reddits like [AskAcademia](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia) and the private subreddit known as ScienceLounge (you have to be a panelist in [/r/AskScience](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience) to get in, but being a panelist isn't difficult at all).
* [The Grad Cafe](http://www.thegradcafe.com)
* [PhysicsGRE.com](http://www.physicsgre.com)
* [Quora](http://www.quora.com/Graduate-School) (the Academia and Graduate School sections)
* PhDComics used to have a Proceedings forum but now it's gone
* [The Graduate School subforum of College Confidential](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/)
* [The Chronicle](http://chronicle.com/forums/) (though the forums there are more for faculty members)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think it might be worthwhile to advertise on the Metas of existing academic or close-to-academic SEs. A partial list of ones I am familiar and see academics active on:
* [cstheory.SE](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/)
* [cogsci.SE](https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/)
* [linguistics.SE](https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/)
* [math.SE](https://math.stackexchange.com/) and [MathOverflow](https://mathoverflow.net/)
* [scicomp.SE](https://scicomp.stackexchange.com/)
I think it is alright to mention SE sites on the metas, but this will only come to the attention of the 'regulars' who tend to be pretty abreast with new SE sites anyways, so it might not get that many new academics.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: [Academia.edu](http://academia.edu/) - social networking for people in Academia. I think they're claiming to have just passed 1 million users.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/02/22 | 955 | 3,809 | <issue_start>username_0: We have a new user who is being more disruptive than helpful:
[First question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/323/what-makes-an-undergradute-in-computer-science-with-a-1-2-degree-more-employable)
The initial question was not ideal for SE, so people voted it down and to close it. That sparked outrage and:
[Second "question," closer to a rant](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/339/use-of-stackexchange-looking-for-answer)
What is supposed to be done about users doing this? Are they supposed to be flagged as spammers? Is something else supposed to be done about that?<issue_comment>username_1: It's a good question, I was also wondering what one can do. In my experience on some forums, the best to do is usually to ignore them, because they usually enjoy the fight, but I'm not really familiar with the spam-flagging mechanism of SE. Does it prevent them to create a new account?
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This [blog](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-hellban.html) by Jeff seems to talk about such users, though I wonder whether it has been implemented in SE. Here's an excerpt:
>
> But in the absence of some system of law, the tiny minority of users out to do harm – intentionally or not – eventually drive out all the civil community members, leaving behind a lawless, chaotic badland.
>
>
> Our method of dealing with disruptive or destructive community members is simple: their accounts are placed in timed suspension. Initial suspension periods range from 1 to 7 days, and increase exponentially with each subsequent suspension. We prefer the term "timed suspension" to "ban" to emphasize that we do want users to come back to their accounts, if they can learn to refrain from engaging in those disruptive or problematic behaviors. It's not so much a punishment as a time for the user to cool down and reflect on the nature of their participation in our community. (Well, at least in theory.)
>
>
> Timed suspension works, but much like democracy itself, it is a highly imperfect, noisy system. The transparency provides ample evidence that moderators aren't secretly whisking people away in the middle of the night. But it can also be a bit too … entertaining for some members of the community, leading to hours and hours of meta-discussion about who is suspended, why they are suspended, whether it was fair, what the evidence is, how we are censoring people, and on and on and on. While a certain amount of introspection is important and necessary, it can also become a substitute for getting stuff done. This might naturally lead one to wonder – what if we could suspend problematic users without anyone knowing they had been suspended?
>
>
>
I'm wondering whether it would work here or not - Mods(since being in public beta, I don't think any of the normal users are mods anymore) should act on this...
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Spam flags on Stack Exchange sites carry a heavy penalty, 6 flags delete a post and the user gets -100 reputation for a successful spam flag against him. They should only be used for spam, posts that are purely promoting some product or site.
If there are direct insults towards other users you can flag those posts or comments as offensive, enough offensive flags will also remove a post. If there is a general problem with the behaviour of a certain user you can flag for a moderator and use the "other" reason to explain the situation. This site doesn't have any community mods yet, so it will be handled by SE employees.
Both questions have been dealt with, one is closed and the other one deleted, so there is no need to do anything there at the moment. If you notice any further disruptive behaviour, I'd just flag for a moderator.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/02/22 | 1,167 | 4,863 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm wondering whether we should loosen the criterion for "too localized" in this forum. My intuition is that many questions on this forum will be very localized, but the answers will be more general in nature. For instance, [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/363/career-advice-for-a-recent-social-psychology-graduate) about social psychology + art seems very localized, but the answers will probably be relevant to both social psychology *and* art majors, rather than only the intersection of the two. I think this will be a common phenomenon. In fact, I can't really think up with a good case of "too localized" for our forum. **Should we avoid closing questions as "too localized" at all?**<issue_comment>username_1: In my mind, it should at least be possible for someone searching the site a month from now to find it helpful. It's a fine line, but there is a difference between "A question about me" and "A question about people *like* me".
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To talk about the specific question, I would call it as localized and would probably prefer it with the following edits. All edits have been placed in `this form`. Rather than directly editing it, I wished to pass it through the community. I agree with @EpiGrad and I hope my edit provides for that difference.
(Edited) Question:
------------------
---
This is my situation: I've completed my masters in social psychology approximately 4 years ago. At this point I am about to complete my bachelors degree in fine arts. `I have a background in Psychology and Fine Arts.` I've found that finding a job in the social sciences is pretty difficult, if not impossible without work experience (pretty much a vicious cycle).
My passion lies with doing scientific research *and* making art. So ideally I would be able to do both, or use one to support the other.
But since finding steady income with a degree in fine arts is even more impossible, I would very much like to provide a steady income for myself by working in the social sciences (preferably doing research). I've had countless bad jobs to support myself through both of my degrees, and I don't see myself becoming very happy doing that my whole life.
**At this point, I have several options, and I would like some advice on what you think would be the best way of proceeding (the points are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and if you have a better idea, please, do suggest it):**
1. I could specialize myself even further, by doing a masters in visual anthropology or a related field (it would be useful for combining the arts and psychology degree (and I love this field of research), but I hear that there is not much work in this field, so the risk is having another worthless degree and wasting a lot of money and time).
`I could do a masters (or even a PhD) in a field which aligns with my academic and research background. However, this could risk another worthless degree with no job and waste of time and money`
1. I could move to another area, where hopefully social psychologists (without work experience, sigh) are in higher demand. Where I could get a job, earn a living and support my other passion (the fine arts).
`I could move to a field which is in higher demand, get a job and support my other passions.`
1. Continue working as a freelancer in the social sciences to build my experience in the field (not really something I'm looking forward to, as I've been doing this for a while now, and it didn't really amount to much. I got some assignments, but in general felt i was doing the same as someone with a steady job, but with a lot less pay, and a lot less security.).
`I could freelance to build experience but this is usually as taxing as a normal job minus job security and pay.`
1. Maybe after point 1. try to find a suitable phd career path (something I would love, but I think the chances of this happening are pretty slim, so this might not be very attainable).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I would cite as an example of "too localized" the following question:
[Suggestions for mathematics courses that would be essential for research in homological algebra and ring theory](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/381/suggestions-for-mathematics-courses-that-would-be-essential-for-research-in-homo)
The original post asks for information on what courses to take for a specific concentration within a specific program in a specific university drawn from the same school's course catalog. That would definitely fall under "too localized" rubric, in my opinion.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In my experience, "too localized" is code for "uninteresting," and questions that are sufficiently juicy but only useful to a specific person are almost never closed as "too localized."
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/02/24 | 1,231 | 5,194 | <issue_start>username_0: When I saw this new StackExchange site, it first reminded me a lot of a tool that's being used in an increasing number of college-level courses called [Piazza](https://piazza.com/). Each "instance" of Piazza is a single semester of a single course offered at a university where students can ask questions and other students (or the course instructor) can create a "wiki-style" answer.
Having been a user of it for a year, it has some terrible shortcomings (questions are sorted only by the date their originally posted, making useful threads terribly difficult to find; formatting of posts are limited to a small set of HTML; etc) that StackExchange has usually found elegant solutions.
This may be the wrong place to start this discussion, though it would be great to see StackExchange offer a service as a Piazza alternative. It would seem the current Academia software already exceeds the functionality of Piazza, it would simply need to be instanced for courses to have the ability to adopt it. Is this something we could expect in the future?<issue_comment>username_1: In my mind, it should at least be possible for someone searching the site a month from now to find it helpful. It's a fine line, but there is a difference between "A question about me" and "A question about people *like* me".
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To talk about the specific question, I would call it as localized and would probably prefer it with the following edits. All edits have been placed in `this form`. Rather than directly editing it, I wished to pass it through the community. I agree with @EpiGrad and I hope my edit provides for that difference.
(Edited) Question:
------------------
---
This is my situation: I've completed my masters in social psychology approximately 4 years ago. At this point I am about to complete my bachelors degree in fine arts. `I have a background in Psychology and Fine Arts.` I've found that finding a job in the social sciences is pretty difficult, if not impossible without work experience (pretty much a vicious cycle).
My passion lies with doing scientific research *and* making art. So ideally I would be able to do both, or use one to support the other.
But since finding steady income with a degree in fine arts is even more impossible, I would very much like to provide a steady income for myself by working in the social sciences (preferably doing research). I've had countless bad jobs to support myself through both of my degrees, and I don't see myself becoming very happy doing that my whole life.
**At this point, I have several options, and I would like some advice on what you think would be the best way of proceeding (the points are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and if you have a better idea, please, do suggest it):**
1. I could specialize myself even further, by doing a masters in visual anthropology or a related field (it would be useful for combining the arts and psychology degree (and I love this field of research), but I hear that there is not much work in this field, so the risk is having another worthless degree and wasting a lot of money and time).
`I could do a masters (or even a PhD) in a field which aligns with my academic and research background. However, this could risk another worthless degree with no job and waste of time and money`
1. I could move to another area, where hopefully social psychologists (without work experience, sigh) are in higher demand. Where I could get a job, earn a living and support my other passion (the fine arts).
`I could move to a field which is in higher demand, get a job and support my other passions.`
1. Continue working as a freelancer in the social sciences to build my experience in the field (not really something I'm looking forward to, as I've been doing this for a while now, and it didn't really amount to much. I got some assignments, but in general felt i was doing the same as someone with a steady job, but with a lot less pay, and a lot less security.).
`I could freelance to build experience but this is usually as taxing as a normal job minus job security and pay.`
1. Maybe after point 1. try to find a suitable phd career path (something I would love, but I think the chances of this happening are pretty slim, so this might not be very attainable).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I would cite as an example of "too localized" the following question:
[Suggestions for mathematics courses that would be essential for research in homological algebra and ring theory](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/381/suggestions-for-mathematics-courses-that-would-be-essential-for-research-in-homo)
The original post asks for information on what courses to take for a specific concentration within a specific program in a specific university drawn from the same school's course catalog. That would definitely fall under "too localized" rubric, in my opinion.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In my experience, "too localized" is code for "uninteresting," and questions that are sufficiently juicy but only useful to a specific person are almost never closed as "too localized."
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/02/26 | 1,020 | 4,200 | <issue_start>username_0: I was wondering whether we should allow questions about academics searching for industry positions. [This question on jobs outside of academia](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/441/what-opportunities-exist-in-the-industry-for-a-researcher-in-computational-astro) was closed, based on our brand-new FAQ, but I thought the question was a good one. **Do we want to allow those sorts of questions here?** This would include questions about...
* Which industries may be a good match for a particular field of researchers
* Networking with industry while in academia
* Any questions from non-research master's students
I personally (and quite biased-ly) feel that this is relevant to academicians, as the move from research to industry is quite common, and it is something many academicians will want to know about. What's your thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly not. There's a risk as it is that there are several posters treating this site as a careers advice forum. That's only slightly mitigated by the fact that they're asking about academic careers.
Whereas the post in question, was seeking careers advice for a future career **outside** academia.
This question should be downvoted and closed.
Indeed, all careers-advice questions should be closed, whether about careers in or out of academia, as off-topic.
This is not a forum; nor should it be a careers advice centre.
There may be questions related to careers in academia which would fit under the usual StackExchange remit: that is, questions to which there are factual objective answers, that are of interest to the broader internet, and not localised to a specific place, specific time, or specific narrow readership.
But the example given is not such a question.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think there is a thin line between academia and industry, and in general, I wouldn't exclude questions concerning industry that are related to research (after all, the New Oxford American definition of academia is "the environment or community concerned with the pursuit of research, education, and scholarship", so I would say that somehow, a company like Microsoft Research could fit in).
That being said, it's clearly not a forum where one could ask for particular advices, and I think the rule that there should be no "question about me" but only "question for people like me" should also apply in this case. In other words, if someone asks what companies are active in research in a given field, I don't see any problem. But I think questions like "I've done a Master in X, where can I go find a job?" should closed as off-topic. So, in your bullet list, I wouldn't have any problems with the first two, and be careful about the last one.
As for the question you mention, I think the question was wrongly formulated, there was not enough context given, in particular what kind of jobs was the OP looking for. And the question of the edge form computational astrophysics over analytical/observational astrophysics was a bit too localized without any further explanation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think we should allow these questions, as long as there's a particular link to academia in the question. This site is about *academia*, not *people with advanced degrees*.
But there are definitely some questions I can see being appropriate to this site that serve as examples as to why I don't think there should just be a blanket ban.
* Dealing with, or working in, areas of academia with a heavy industry focus - engineering, pharmaceuticals, etc.
* Transitioning to and from academia and industry. Are there ways to do research outside the "Ivory Tower"? How do Business-Academia partnerships work? Once I leave academia, can I come back? What's the environment like at research companies - or government labs, compared to universities.
Those are just two that popped to mind. I think since academia can lead into industry, and isn't solely devoted to the perpetuation of itself, questions about the interaction between the two can work on this site, as long as its not just a job question where the OP happens to have a Masters.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2012/02/26 | 1,451 | 5,688 | <issue_start>username_0: I've noticed that it's only possible to mention another SE user using the "@" symbol in a comment thread where the user appears, and I was wondering if it was a feature or a bug. In particular, I couldn't find any easy to refer to another member, or just to draw the attention of another member to a particular question. Similarly, on [this question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/51/proposed-faq-what-kind-of-questions-should-i-not-ask-here-entry), eykanal mentioned my name in a comment, but I didn't receive any message, although I would have liked to.
I know that the point of SE is not to create a mail platform, and clearly there should be some kind of regulations, but I wouldn't mind indicating a list of users who can "refer" me (or say, put a default level of reputation), so that I don't miss out a potentially interesting question.
I don't know if such a mechanism already exists, but somehow it could be nice (with an opt-in mechanism, so that by default, nobody can refer to you).<issue_comment>username_1: There are no plans right now to introduce any sort of notification feature along these lines. Stack Exchange is by design avoiding social networking features, including things like this.
Adding a feature that'd allow someone to ping a user from anywhere would go against the design philosophy we've adopted here. Comment notifications are a concession to the fact that the intended use of comments is for clarifications and they often involve some amount of back-and-forth communication.
In the example you give, eykanal should've posted that comment on your answer instead of on the question. It's unfortunate that you didn't get notified, but it's entirely by design.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If you want to be available for contacting at any time, just hang out in the main chat room of the site. As long as you were recently in a chat room, you can be pinged there and the notification will land in your global inbox.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This recent question:
[Is it my responsibility to point out that a paper has been plagiarized from another researcher's blog?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11972/is-it-my-responsibility-to-point-out-that-a-paper-has-been-plagiarized-from-anot)
seems like a good reason to provide moderators (at least) the ability to ping a particular user. For those who haven't read the thread, the OP has a question about alerting a blog owner about plagiarism against the blog owner, and it turns out that the blog owner is @Suresh, a member of this community.
Obviously, there are other methods (the OP can contact @Suresh through his blog, or more sneakily through a previous comment where "@Suresh" would send Suresh a message), but I think it would be a good idea to allow moderators the ability to email/ping a user (and maybe this is already the case).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I think notifications are really beneficial. I think private messages are not generally useful and go against what I like about the SE network. There might be a few cases where a private conversation would be useful, but I think that they are few and far between.
Chat provides a means of alerting a user while keeping everything out in the open. I personally think it is much better than @user type notifications buried in comments.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: We did try setting [something like this up on Physics](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1159/4066).
It's a question on meta, where people who want to be pingable, each give a single answer, in which they state the specialities on which they want to be pinged.
And then, in theory, if anyone wants to ping you about a question, they can just leave a comment on that meta answer, with a link pointing to the question. Once you've answered the question, the comment can then be deleted.
Nice theory, huh?
Only thing is, it's almost never been used.
It's also worth quoting what [David Z](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/users/124/david-z) said in a [related meta.physics question](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1156/4066):
>
> Sure, having a meta question where people can "register" their interest in being pinged sounds fine - at least, there's no rule against it. It wouldn't hurt to try it and see if it helps at all. It wouldn't be [featured](/questions/tagged/featured "show questions tagged 'featured'") forever, but we could probably put [faq](/questions/tagged/faq "show questions tagged 'faq'") on it if you word it the right way (e.g. "How can I ask someone specific to answer a question?").
>
>
> However, I would encourage anyone who would be interested in participating in such a system to also do the following three things:
>
>
> 1. Include your areas of expertise (those in which you would like to be "pinged" if a pinging system were available) in your profile text blurb. If you have enough reputation to have a "user card" (the thing that pops up when the mouse hovers over your gravatar), then make sure your areas of expertise show up there.
> 2. Also include those areas in your chat profile.
> 3. Stay logged into [our chat room](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/academia) as much as possible, and check it periodically to see if you've been "requested." Let's make that the central place to recruit people to help with specific questions.
>
>
> I think this is the best way to use the existing system to accomplish the goal here - and at worst, it's not going to interfere with the meta post.
>
>
>
(I've amended the links to point to academia rather than physics)
Upvotes: 1 |
2012/03/04 | 549 | 2,109 | <issue_start>username_0: Many of the current answers begin with "It depends on your field" / "There is no one answer".
Indeed, each field is unique, although they share common grounds.
For questions that depend on the specific field, I would expect to see **many** answers, each for its own field, rather than having an answer that says "it varies" and that only gives a brief description of the common grounds.
For instance, for the question
>
> Should I publish my recent result in a journal or a conference?
>
>
>
I would expect to see
* **Anser A**: "In CS, conferences are very important and you should publish there (and then submit the ful version to a journal"
* **Answer B**: "In our field, , there are no serious conferences, thus one should aim for journals..."
(see also [this related question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/58/including-country-region-and-discipline-in-qa-for-which-it-is-relevant))
Do you agree with this paradigm? How do we lead the community to avoid "it depends on your field" kind of answers and replace them with "In field XXXX, the answer is.."?<issue_comment>username_1: I think we should allow domain specific questions and cultivate domains within this server.
we should delineate the domain in the question title and use tags
e.g., tag medicine, life-sciences, mathematics, physics, psychology, etc...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: IMHO there are two things:
* questions explicitly related to a selected discipline,
* questions where it is implicit or not well defined.
In the first case we may consider migration to a dedicated SE site (especially if it is technical; if not - it may stay here).
In the second case when the asking person may be not aware if a specific issue works in the same way in every country, in every field etc.
So my approach is the following:
* encourage to add some additional data (e.g. field, country),
* encourage general answers if they make sense,
* then, post factum, change the question title e.g. to *How to blah-blah in CS in EU?* (if the later are affecting the answers).
Upvotes: 0 |
2012/03/06 | 762 | 3,178 | <issue_start>username_0: I'm relatively new to Stack Exchange, so I'm not sure if there is a universal policy for closing questions across sites. But I've noticed here that there are questions with low or negative scores or questions that are similar to ones asked and answered before, and they're left hanging on the front page. Turnover seems slow compared to other SE sites.
I just wanted to put this out for discussion, I don't have a terribly strong opinion about it either way.<issue_comment>username_1: It's a good remark. In general, I think it can be good to leave the time for the OP to reformulate the question before closing, but there should be some kind of time limit. For instance, [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/518/do-professors-at-private-universities-have-more-freedom-than-professors-at-publi) has been there for 4 days, and it is still quite vague.
Is there some kind of mechanisms to trigger a poll to close a question?
EDIT: After seeing Artem's answer, I realized that it was possible to reopen a question. In this case, I change my opinion, and think that indeed, it should be better to vote to close any poor quality question immediately, leave a comment, and see if the OP edit his/her question accordingly.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The main problem here is that there are far fewer moderators, so most posts don't reach the number of close votes necessary to close. The solution to this is (1) flag offending posts so that site-wide mods can vote to close, and (2) vote to close if you have the capability to do so.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I wanted to offer an alternative to @CharlesMorisset's answer.
Closing a question is not an end-all to a question. It is not deleting (which is almost never done). The OP can *edit a question after it is closed*, thus I think vague or very-weak questions should be proactively closed with a comment letting the user know that they should edit their question and request for re-open on meta.
Three reason I think we should close questions:
1. If a vague question is not closed, then someone might spend time trying to answer the question. After, the original question cannot be made unvague because it might render the original answer off-topic. I don't think we are in a slum for questions, but it is very easy to ask poor questions, and we should try to avoid those.
2. Asking bad questions is sometimes a chronic condition. In the beta period, a single user seeding with a lot of poor questions can really lower the quality of a site. I think there might have been issues with this in the early period of cogsci.SE. Closing a question sends a very clear message to the user that their question is not upto the standards of the site.
3. We are not starved for questions, and we have a lot of academics on the site who seem to be participating actively. However, I think this SE is particularly vulnerable to quick weak questions that can overwhelm the front page and make it hard to attract new users, or scare away existing expertise.
In other words: I think we have reasons for closing, and not many against it.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/03/07 | 349 | 1,479 | <issue_start>username_0: Since we're about two weeks into the public beta now, I would think that it would be time to start considering adding more moderators (right now, I believe Anna is the only moderator, and she's with SE, as opposed to being a member-moderator.
Is it time to begin the process of adding [*pro tempore* moderators](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/07/moderator-pro-tempore/)? I think it would help improve board "flow", and keep things moving in a more productive direction.<issue_comment>username_1: **Yes**. This community, while still small, has had it's share of low-quality questions and trolls, and internal moderators could handle that sort of stuff much quicker than outside.
Also, people here so far have been very forthcoming with discussions, and if a moderator acted in a way which upset the community, I have faith that the community would discuss it in meta in a healthy way, and if necessary the mod would reverse the action. We've got a good crowd here :)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree, there has been recently several low quality posts, where it seemed that the intention was just to ask as many questions as possible, without taking the time to address the comments and concerns on previous posts. There has also been a spam yesterday, but the SE moderators removed it quite quickly.
And as username_1 mentioned, I think that if there were any problem, the community would easily sort it out on the meta.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/03/23 | 301 | 1,236 | <issue_start>username_0: How can we fix [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/842/should-a-postdoc-obey-when-is-asked-to-do-things-she-knows-little-about) to be more focused on helping postdocs and less argumentative and provocative?<issue_comment>username_1: **Yes**. This community, while still small, has had it's share of low-quality questions and trolls, and internal moderators could handle that sort of stuff much quicker than outside.
Also, people here so far have been very forthcoming with discussions, and if a moderator acted in a way which upset the community, I have faith that the community would discuss it in meta in a healthy way, and if necessary the mod would reverse the action. We've got a good crowd here :)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree, there has been recently several low quality posts, where it seemed that the intention was just to ask as many questions as possible, without taking the time to address the comments and concerns on previous posts. There has also been a spam yesterday, but the SE moderators removed it quite quickly.
And as username_1 mentioned, I think that if there were any problem, the community would easily sort it out on the meta.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/03/27 | 420 | 1,796 | <issue_start>username_0: I note that this question implicitly prefers questions with a general topic but in fact very localized content (one's life story + a question of type 'What should I do?').
For example, one I asked a general question (i.e. if one can use his/her personal e-mail instead of institutional) then it was pointed out that in fact there were such question before (as a side part of a compound/story type question).
AFAIK it is not a good practice for a SE site.
First, it makes things less reusable.
* An answered question makes less sense to others.
* It is harder to find.
Second, it makes harder to make meaningful answers.
* If there are more subquestions and answer covering only some may be accepted.
* As a specific context is given, the answer may not be true in a more general one.<issue_comment>username_1: **Yes**. This community, while still small, has had it's share of low-quality questions and trolls, and internal moderators could handle that sort of stuff much quicker than outside.
Also, people here so far have been very forthcoming with discussions, and if a moderator acted in a way which upset the community, I have faith that the community would discuss it in meta in a healthy way, and if necessary the mod would reverse the action. We've got a good crowd here :)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree, there has been recently several low quality posts, where it seemed that the intention was just to ask as many questions as possible, without taking the time to address the comments and concerns on previous posts. There has also been a spam yesterday, but the SE moderators removed it quite quickly.
And as username_1 mentioned, I think that if there were any problem, the community would easily sort it out on the meta.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/05/04 | 1,843 | 7,138 | <issue_start>username_0: We've had a couple questions since the dawn of Academia.SE asking for advice about undergraduate-related topics, the most recent being [this well-formulated and generally pretty solid question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1407/73). In the past, we've [discouraged these kinds of questions](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/38/73). That was a while ago, though, and we've matured as a forum since then. Given how many upvotes the current question has received in such a short time, I'm curious what the community's current view is on undergraduate-related questions; should we continue to discourage them or should we allow them?<issue_comment>username_1: You make a good point. For me, what I really want to avoid, are questions like: "I like this and that, what program should I choose?" or "shall I take this class or this other class?", I can see a lot like that on Reddit, and this is hardly generalizable.
I have the feeling that many questions asked by undergraduate students looking for a program are usually not generalizable, and that's the main problem. However, in this case, the question you mention is very general (how to prepare for university as an adult rather than after leaving high-school).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: What I wonder about undergraduate admissions questions is whether anybody here can seriously address them, in a deeper or better informed way than just repeating information available from their college's admissions web site. I think very few faculty and almost no students could do this, at least in the sorts of systems I'm familiar with (private research university in the U.S.). For example, I have no idea how admissions officers evaluate applications from adults, or how the criteria vary between schools.
There are plenty of widespread ideas about how admissions decisions are made, which may or may not be true. Unless we either get answers from people involved in the process or get answers that point to authoritative information sources, there's a real likelihood of voting answers up based on how widely they are believed rather than how true they are.
I'd also be a little concerned if admissions officers started showing up to answer questions, since I imagine that would be incredibly popular and could easily take over the entire site.
So I'd be inclined not to expand the site's mission to include undergraduate admissions questions, even though this particular question is important and well formulated.
As for other sorts of undergraduate questions, I think there's less of an issue than with admissions questions, but I'd still restrict the focus quite a bit. From my perspective, a good undergraduate question should either deal with students who hope to become academics or with how academia works. I imagine that most requests for undergraduate advice would not fall into these categories, but some would.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Is this site supposed to be for serious academics of graduate level and above, or not? The FAQ says that it is.
If we welcome undergrad questions, let's be explicit, (and anyone who wants a serious academic site, can go look elswhere). How junior do we go? Kindergarten and above?
But if we're sticking with the FAQ as it is, then let's close and delete all undergraduate (and lower) questions. On-topic vs off-topic counts for more than upvotes.
Candidates for closure as off-topic:
* [Attending university as an adult freshman](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1407/96)
* [Distance Learning vs Free Online Education](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1417/96)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: I "request to expand academia to include undergrad questions".
I know that "Please do not bring undergraduate questions to academia. The Academia FAQ makes it clear that such questions are off-topic. They will be closed, and then deleted. Repeated deletions will earn you the suspension of your question-asking rights."
You might "doubt that a new site is really needed for undergraduates, and this site appears to support a smaller audience than some sites."
So if academia S.E. still doesn't want to "cater for undergraduates", I propose a new site <http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/47320/undergraduate>
quotes from <https://area51.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8165/is-this-proposal-needed-considering-academia-can-be-expanded-in-scope-via-its-m/8170#comment13588_8170>
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I think AC.SE should **stop excluding undergraduates**. Reasons:
* Undergraduates are academics too. [The dictionary](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/academia) defines academia as "the life, community, or world of teachers, schools, and education", which includes undergraduates. Notably this definition also includes high schools and primary schools and even kindergartens, but as [another dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/academia) points out "academia" usually refers to universities.
* Because undergraduate admissions is an essential part of most universities, questions about undergraduate admissions should not be excluded. I've only seen [two objections to including this](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/113/84834). The first is that nobody "here" can answer them. The other is that if the people who can actually answer them shows up, they might swamp the SE. Neither are convincing. First, professors aren't the only people in academia, and we already have questions which most professors probably cannot answer ([example](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/93341/if-i-request-a-paper-through-my-university-library-must-they-pay-a-substantial)). Besides, that's kind of the point of SE - one can get answers from whoever knows them, regardless of who they are; furthermore if one doesn't know the answer chances are someone else does, and they can write an answer. Secondly, there are also a lot of questions about graduate admissions. I don't see why a canonical answer ala [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38237/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-the-us-particularly) wouldn't work for undergraduate admissions.
* Many undergraduate questions are answerable, in fact [many of them](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/undergraduate) are already asked, upvoted, and answered.
* If undergraduate questions aren't asked here, where should they be asked? I certainly can't imagine an "Undergraduate.SE" since that would overlap so seriously with this one.
* Finally one could argue that undergraduate questions are often [not-generalizable](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/112/84834). I don't find this convincing. First, the two examples ("which program should I choose?" and "which course should I take?") are both applicable to graduate studies as well. Second, one can always vote to close.
I think AC.SE should set its scope as all things specific to universities, including undergraduate concerns. (This would mean that questions on university housing is also within scope.)
Upvotes: -1 |
2012/05/08 | 428 | 1,760 | <issue_start>username_0: I would love to ask a question on the tenure system that is in vogue in US. I see a few publications in Google, and also a few blog posts talking about the pros and cons of the system.
I wish to know the following:
* Is the tenure system efficient as such?
* Is it likely/probable/possible that it will get overhauled in the near/far future?
* Why do we not have an annual incentive-based system (or something similar) instead of tenure?
* Are there universities which have begun to do away with tenure already?
I am a bit doubtful if these questions are permissible or if they belong to community-wiki or if they belong at all. Most importantly I am afraid the answers may result in camps of people. Any idea how I should approach this? Thanks :)
PS: First post in meta, excuse me if I am not supposed to ask this here.<issue_comment>username_1: I think that all of this discussion will fit in very well into most academic discussion forums. It's a discussion you're after, after all.
StackExchange is not a forum, and is not a place for discussion. It's a place for questions with factual objective answers.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I somewhat agree with @EnergyNumbers; the questions, as you phrased them, are discussion questions, and are not suited to this forum. The first asks for pure opinion, the second asks for speculation, and the third asks for conjecture. The fourth is actually applicable, but I would suggest that a simple google search may be useful in providing an answer.
That being said, if you have a directed question about how the process works, or how to best pursue tenure, or questions about departmental handling of providing tenure, that would be applicable.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer] |
2012/05/10 | 758 | 3,106 | <issue_start>username_0: I was looking over our stats on area 51, and we're doing poorly on two counts: #questions/day and number of visits. I'm more concerned about the latter than the former for now (because fixing the latter will probably fix the former).
I was hoping this could become an open thread for ideas on how to boost the visit numbers, so we don't go the way of econ.SE and theoreticalphysics.SE.<issue_comment>username_1: It's a good question, I've been also wondering what we could do about increasing the number of visits. We've had several discussions on the meta about publicizing the site, but I'm sorry to say that I've been a bit too busy lately to really take care of that.
I guess one of the good suggestions was to contact academia.edu, and see if we could come up with some kind of unofficial partnership. Is there anyone with a good account on academia.edu who would be ready to contact the organizers?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: One of the stats you see on area51 is the number of daily users. If you've been watching that number, it's been steadily rising over the past few months. There are a few mod tools that show statistics, and it definitely looks like we're growing, albeit pretty slowly. I don't think we're at immediate risk of being shut down.
That being said, we could probably benefit significantly from some in-house advertising. Personally, I'm a fan of posting flyers, as they're cheap, easy to post, and pretty visible (in the right areas). [I posted a pretty mediocre one earlier](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/87/73), and if anyone else wants to make one that looks more professional (or less professional, I'm not judging you) please go ahead.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think the causation is reciprocal, but that "we" can choose to ask more questions.
Web traffic ultimately tends to largely be driven by Google. And this is generated by having lots of unique and high quality content. If you look at <http://stackexchange.com/sites#questionsperday> you'll see that the ratio of questions to visits seems fairly predictable. It does vary, presumably based on the content domain, but as a rough ballpark it is often around 1 visit per day for each question on the site.
Thus, I think active users should be encouraged to ask more questions. The site has an excellent answer rate. I don't think the site would be overwhelmed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I notice that there are some members - especially those with very high 'scores' - who have 50x as many answers as questions.
Perhaps those members, who clearly know a lot, could be encouraged to ask questions for which they already know the answers. After all SE sites allow you to answer your own question.
Also, in case anyone feels it is being arrogant to post a question you already know the answer to, I would say that my greatest concerns are that I might not even know enough to know which questions I should be asking and I would not consider it arrogant to ask and answer a question that you know many people *should be asking*.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/05/24 | 1,103 | 4,057 | <issue_start>username_0: You love your site and we love your site, but there is a whole world of people out there who might not even know it exists. When they do find it, their first impression will either scare them away or keep them around. Given this, let's take a hard look at the questions and answers here and make sure newcomers see the site at its best!
Below you'll find ten questions randomly selected from this site. What do you think about each of them and their answers? Are they the best they can be or can they be improved? Would they look interesting and inviting to an outsider or are they a little embarrassing?
Upvote the corresponding post here on meta when we're awesome. Downvote when our content just isn't quite up to par.
Oh, and do comment to let everyone know your thoughts and take part in this conversation. :)<issue_comment>username_1: [What do principal investigators (PIs) look for in prospective post docs?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1051/what-do-principal-investigators-pis-look-for-in-prospective-post-docs)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [A major journal in my field is published by Elsevier. How can we move the field to a less objectionable, more open publisher?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1018/a-major-journal-in-my-field-is-published-by-elsevier-how-can-we-move-the-field)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [Considerations when negotiating a promotion from postdoc to researcher?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/963/considerations-when-negotiating-a-promotion-from-postdoc-to-researcher)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_1: [How should students approach quals?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1006/how-should-students-approach-quals)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [At what point do you decide to jump into research?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/966/at-what-point-do-you-decide-to-jump-into-research)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [Priority of application materials for admission decision](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/958/priority-of-application-materials-for-admission-decision)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [How important are citations when applying for jobs or promotions?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/933/how-important-are-citations-when-applying-for-jobs-or-promotions)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_1: [Data publication basics - where, why, how, and when should I publish my unpublished data?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/987/data-publication-basics-where-why-how-and-when-should-i-publish-my-unpublis)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [Can a researcher get his full salary from a European Project?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1004/can-a-researcher-get-his-full-salary-from-a-european-project)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: [Interview strategies for faculty positions - to focus on their research or your own?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/946/interview-strategies-for-faculty-positions-focus-on-their-research-or-your-own)
What do you think about this question and its answers? Vote and comment to let everyone know.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/06/12 | 2,418 | 9,831 | <issue_start>username_0: I've noticed that many of the [recent questions asked by newcomers to the site](https://academia.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts) are low quality and/or off-topic, dealing with "what's the best university for discipline X?" and "how can I get into field/program X"? On a similarly worrying note, there have not been any new users asking more academic-related questions, such as those asked by site regulars. To me, this suggests that we are attracting the wrong kinds of users, and we are *not* attracting the kinds of users we want. My interpretation of the data is that we are attracting typical SO users, who make up a very diverse (and typically non-academic) population, and we are not marketing this site well enough to the general academic crowd.
My question is, what do you think of this? Do you agree? If so, what should we do to fix this? If you disagree, what do you make of the trend?
---
In response to the comment below:
1. **[What academic discipline does “Productivity Science” come under?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1884/what-academic-discipline-does-productivity-science-come-under)**
This question is completely unrelated to Academia and is unlikely to benefit any future readers of this site.
2. **[How can I make up for weak grades while applying for a masters?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1992/how-can-i-make-up-for-weak-grades-while-applying-for-a-masters)**
This question is almost impossible to answer. Sure, it's common, but there are far too many factors for a definitive answer.
3. **[Part-time/non-degree computer science studies](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/part-time-non-degree-computer-science-studies)**
Off-topic, as it pertains to undergraduate work.
4. **[How to get enrolled in a German university for Ph.D. in computer science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1987/how-to-get-enrolled-in-a-german-university-for-ph-d-in-computer-science)**
This type of question is the most dangerous, because the information is freely available on department pages of individual programs. Many questions like this here will significantly decrease the value of this site, as all answers will be "check [this](http://example.com) link" and "-1, check department webpage".
We have had some very good questions recently (e.g., [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2067/paper-reprints-of-articles), [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1999/how-does-a-faculty-member-get-to-work-at-two-universities-or-more), and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/849/can-i-pursue-a-phd-while-working-as-an-instructor-lecturer)), but of those three, two were asked by "old" site members, while only one was a newbie. My main worry is that new folks are viewing the site differently than we are, and that the way they're viewing it isn't good for our long-term health.<issue_comment>username_1: I agree that there has been several low quality questions recently, but I guess it's a combination between the fact that the "regulars", and in particular those who have been there from the beginning, have somehow run out of questions to ask, and that Academia SE starts to be found on search engines, thus attracting a diverse population.
I guess that any site such as this one is bound to attract the population asking how to apply for this particular program, and what's the best university, and we shouldn't worry too much about that. However, I agree that it also means that we are not attracting enough academics.
In order to fix it, I'd say that we "just" need to publicise the site more. But I honestly don't know how :(
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think the flood of low-quality questions is in itself a bad thing, but what is a problem is the lack of new academic users asking higher-level questions. We got some promotion on the SE blog/G+ feed that's probably drawing in the generic users. I too don't know how to promote things better, except to keep hitting on places like Inside Higher Ed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree but I don't think it's a major problem as long as such questions don't get much upvotes. It's still the kind of most upvoted questions on a SE site that drives me to participate regularly or not at all on that site. Here Academia.se does pretty well. There is a lot high-quality content.
Also, if too much low quality questions are on the front page, pushing some of the better questions with unaccepted answers to the top is a good way of attracting new academcis and not drive them away by the flood of low quality questions.
The low quality questions I noticed in the recent past here were often very localized personal advice questions with bad titles ("What should I do"), unuseful tags, no clear personal context. I'm not really sure if such questions are on/off-topic. There are student consultants for this at local universities. The answers will often vary pretty much for different nations and university bureaucracies. So a question tagged with *personal advice* should also have a *nation* tag, otherwise it's hard for new user asking the same low quality question here to find that one and we produce a lot of duplicates/noise. **Noise/redundancy is what drives the majority of interesting user away in my opinion, rather than low quality questions**. Most suggested criterions when voting to close a question (too localized, not a real question,...) try exactly to avoid this noise and redundancy, low quality is rather handled by rep voting/filtering. Questions on which uni's to choose/are best are imho off-topic, there are "rankings" and choosing the best uni with the highest demands on students is often not the best choice for the average student.
If my SE feed is full of low quality redundant questions, I unsubscribe. There are now so many SE sites, that browsing SE via feeds is the only way for me to notice new and interesting questions, browsing <http://stackexchange.com/questions> or a specifics site's frontpage is too time-consuming. **So what you can do as a high rep user with privileges is edit and tag question titles in a clear way, avoid redundancy**. Redundant/duplicate questions should be deleted instead of being closed and therefore still popping up in my feed. If I cant deselect all the *personal advise* questions on <http://stackexchange.com/filters> because they are not tagged as such, it's likely I unsubscribe.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: What may be low quality to you may not be so to the next person. Lets ask the question. What criteria determines a quality question on Academia SE? And as you have pointed out, there are varying level of quality of questions. Are we only abiding by 'Low' and 'High' quality or are we going to introduce some middle ground?
We would not want to detract others from the site by merely closing their perceived low quality question. And especially closing their question without a valid reason. This I had found to be a real nuisance on SO when what I perceived to be be a totally valid question. Giving a general reason (e.g. This question is not a good fit for Stack Overflow ..) is open to abuse by moderators who merely just wants to 'clean up low quality questions'. Being curtious in ones answer and **giving an appropriate reason** when closing questions is the way to go instead of the plonking down a generalised answer leaving the person who asked the question at times scratching their heads. If you have moderator rights (which can be perceived as senior), then behave accordingly. As academics we are more precise in our ways when answering our assignment/research questions, lets do the same for the questions on A.SE.
We must bear in mind that people from all over the world with **vast cultural differences** vists the SE sites. Being mindful of this is of utmost importance. Politeness and curtiousness is the right and safe route to take when answering questions. Would you be short and abrupt when answering an 'high quality' question? I would think not. hence we should show respect when answering/closing questions of those that may not be aware that their question is perceived to be 'low quality'.
Given the name of the website (academia.stack...), if one just glances at that while knowing that the 'stackexchange' sites answers questions, one would think that you could ask any academic related question including ones like 'which unviersity is best to study flying pigs'. Let me put that as an example. I know there is a 'Golf' stackexchange site, hence my thoughts would be I can ask anything thats Golf related including 'Is it legal to eat pork chops while playing a round of golf'. Disclaimer, I no absolutely nothing about the game of golf. But these are the questions we should expect and its all on how we handle these questions. I think it will grow your reputation in more than just points when one can handle that scenario's accordingly.
Attracting academics. Of course we want to attract new academics. Those that are brand spanking new, those that left academia and came back as well as those that has been around forever. The experienced academics can sift through a pile of questions with ease picking up only what they need and ignoring the rest without breaking a sweat or batting and eyelash. I would think that the majority of people asking questions would generally be newbies. We want these newbies to stay. A sure fire way of driving away a newbie is to treat them and their question with disrespect.
So whilst it may be frustrating that there are 'low quality' questions about, I would rather have those questions around and close them with appropriate comments/reasons. The world is full of 'low quality' questions. There's no escaping it.
Upvotes: 1 |
2012/06/24 | 213 | 847 | <issue_start>username_0: Well this question is bound to be controversial. What should we do?
[What is being done to make the academic environment more women friendly?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2113/319)<issue_comment>username_1: My feeling (mentioned in comments) is that the second part of the question (asking for references to work studying this issue) is legitimate and concrete. The first part involves discussion and so is not well suited. This also eliminates the need to discuss "why" one should care about the issue - I personally think that's troll bait, but there's no point arguing it on the forum itself.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think a subtly changing the question from what "CAN" be done to what "IS" being done might make it less "discussion" oriented without changing the meaning too much.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/06/27 | 390 | 1,641 | <issue_start>username_0: As a followup to DQdlM's [question about pedagogy](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/104/are-questions-on-pedagogy-on-topic), are questions about student recruitment, success, or retention on topic even if they are not related to curriculum development or instructional design?
For example:
My institution does a little general recruitment. Most recruitment is handled in the academic departments. I am not a college recruiter. I assume that research has been done on targeting and recruiting students who are likely to be successful, but since my research background is in chemistry, I do not even know where to begin looking for this kind of information. Would a question on locating resources on recruiting undergraduate students be on-topic?<issue_comment>username_1: I would definitely imagine this is on-topic. It's related to academia and specific to academics. I would suggest that, because recruitment/retention in academia requires specialized techniques not used in other fields—unique approaches to finding students, unqiue ways of selling the lab, unique methods for differentiating yourself—that such questions would be fine here.
I'd love to hear what others think.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would agree that this is on-topic. Questions related to achieving positive outcomes, such as improved learning as well as retention, would definitely be relevant. The only thing is that focus should be on teaching at the college level or above.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, questions about student recruitment and retention are definitely on-topic.
Upvotes: 1 |
2012/07/04 | 631 | 2,470 | <issue_start>username_0: I've just been to the stats of travel.SE and I found their stats phenomenally better than ours. While 8 questions and 1800 visits per day is excellent, I do think that some part of this has to do with the objective of the site: academia is much more exclusive than travel; in other words, all academics can have travel queries at some point of time, but some or many travellers may never get academia-related queries.
This is the basis of my question: how sound is it to judge different SE sites based on the same set of criteria? Should A.SE shoot for the same targets as others?<issue_comment>username_1: According to the SE "targets" A.SE is currently weak in questions per day (4.6/15) and visits per day (448/1500). I think we currently do not generate enough content to make people want to visit A.SE regularly. I would like to see a much greater number of questions per day. Three times as many, for a total of 15 questions per day, seems reasonable to me. So I think the target set by is for A.SE, independent of how other sites are judged.
I think in order to get to out target questions per day, our visits per day needs to increase. It wouldn't surprise me if this also needed to increase by a factor of 3 to get 3x as many questions. So again the SE target seems reasonable for A.SE.
Then there is the question of can we get to 15/1500. I think there are enough people in academia with on topic questions that we can.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with Suresh, somehow, these levels are transverse. We probably won't make it very soon up to 15 questions and 1500 visitors per day, but the minimum is 5 and 500, which sounds more reasonable to expect. One of the nice things about AcSE, is that the overall quality of the questions is pretty high, and we're slowly, but surely, building a base of good questions.
As Daniel said (and others before him), the number of questions is directly related to the number of visitors, so we only need to attract (and retain) users :)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I used to be a mod on another SE site whose stats were similar to those of Academia, if not a bit worse. It was also a rather "specialized" site. In private communication with <NAME>, I was told not to worry much about the stats -- they understand that for more specialized sites, those standards are not necessarily the right ones to judge the health of a site.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/07/23 | 821 | 3,555 | <issue_start>username_0: In this [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/2545/929), the user has decided to provide a evidence for what makes him qualified for answering the question. While I can see it as potentially useful, I am not sure it is needed or desirable. Has the practice of prefacing answers with qualifications been discussed?
My concern is that providing qualifications could intimidate junior people. It seems like such statements are saying "I am so important that my answers should be given extra weight". I think our site rep (and past question/answers) should give the indication of the type of person who submitted the answer and how much extra weight the answer should be given (if any).<issue_comment>username_1: I think that for this particular answer, it's quite similar to many other ones, where the answerer starts with "I've been doing this in the past", and since many questions bring subjective answers (based on personal experience), I guess it's helpful to have a better idea of what kind of persons submitted this answer. So, as long as the qualifications are directly relevant to the answer, then I see no problem with it.
EDIT: Concerning the fact that junior people might be intimated, it sounds like a reasonable concern, but somehow, not relevant to the particular question you pointed out. Somehow, there are not so many "junior" people (i.e. students, postdocs) who could understand perfectly how an undergraduate committee work, and those who can shouldn't be intimated.
I guess that would be different in a more "scientific" topic. Like, I can imagine that if on cs.SE, if there was a question like "How to do that in Java", and someone would answer with "I've been a Java programmer for the last 20 years, and this is the way to do it", it could intimidate some junior people. But I can't really see the same problem for Academia (or at least, not on this particular question, but I understand that you want to generalize it).
EDIT2: Just to make things clear, my position on this question is that I don't see any problem with people stating their qualifications, as long as it is directly relevant to the question and it's not blatant bragging, even though it can intimidate junior people (I actually think that junior people should not be intimated, in general, even if they're speaking against a Nobel Prize winner). However, I'd be happy to look into any particular case where the qualifications are borderline.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As a somewhat junior person (PhD student), I am not intimidated, but *encouraged* by the observation that senior scientists participate in this website. For a forum like this one, it really does make an important difference who answers the question. I've found myself several times clicking on peoples' nametags to see if they provide any relevant background information there.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: As a person who has answered many questions in the past ... (ok I'm kidding)
But seriously I think this example seems perfectly fine. Many of the questions on academia.se are the kind where there's no right answer per se, but there are answers that differ based on experience. So explaining the nature of that experience is helpful. It's much like how we often clarify which area we have experience in when we answer a question. This is different from questions on technical sites like cs.se where the answer usually can be evaluated and discussed independent of the credentials of the participants.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer] |
2012/08/03 | 333 | 1,321 | <issue_start>username_0: I was going to ask a question about graduation and I didn't find the tag I was looking for. I was thinking that an "events" tag would be useful for questions about different events that academics go to (e.g., graduation, new student invocation, thesis defenses, fund raising).
**EDIT** In response to aeismail's answer, I am thinking of questions more from the faculty side of these events and not the student side, although student side questions would also work. For example a question about etiquette when walking in the graduation procession as a member of faculty.
What do people think about an EVENTS tag with a description of
>
> about what can be expected of and by attendees at different academic
> events including graduation, thesis defenses, and tenure review
> meetings.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: Perhaps "milestones" is a more appropriate tag than "events?" It's a better descriptor, at any rate. "Events" could imply conferences and other items, like seminars or training workshops.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: **No.** Looks like no action has been taken on this in 9 years, so I'll formalize it with an answer. We already have tags for `graduation`, `defense`, and `workshop`, so it's hard to see what value a catch-all tag like this would add.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/08/12 | 368 | 1,527 | <issue_start>username_0: I am thinking specifically of [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2772/are-there-any-specific-teaching-techniques-to-handle-virtual-classroom-session#comment4504_2772), where my answer would be wholly different based on the type of virtual teaching environment. I would like to provide separate answers for each environment so that they can be evaluated (and voted on) separately. Some answers may be more useful than others.
I know that I have the ability to provide more than one answer to a question. If the two answers are substantively different, is that preferable to a single long, rambling answer of the type "In situation A, do this, ............ and in situation B..... this other thing"?<issue_comment>username_1: The vote is done to the answer as a whole. You would probably get higher votes for a more complete answer, or even several answers.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I tend to prefer them being put in the same answer using headers or bullet points or something to distinguish them for a few reasons:
1. Two 50-point answers does not a gold badge make ;)
2. If you provide two excellent answers, it removes any conflict about which one to accept as "the" answer
3. It keeps your two-part answer together, so that variation in voting doesn't split them off. This is less of a big deal if they can truly be separated with no harm done, but I find this to be fairly rare.
4. It makes referring to @CleverUser's answer somewhat confusing.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/08/23 | 168 | 622 | <issue_start>username_0: I know that the site stats (on the left side of the front page) include visitors/day. I'm guessing that is averaged over some time frame. Is there a place that I can see the number of visitors on each particular day?<issue_comment>username_1: Unfortunately, they don't make that data public. The number you see is pretty good for gauging trends, though.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You can see that information on the Quantcast site:
<http://www.quantcast.com/academia.stackexchange.com>
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2012/08/31 | 522 | 1,888 | <issue_start>username_0: Are questions on software on topic?
This question on [writing software](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3054/openoffice-vs-libreoffice-vs-msoffice-for-academic-writing) seems almost identical to questions on [poster](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1880/software-to-use-for-creating-posters-for-academic-conferences), [illustration](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1095/software-to-draw-illustrative-figures-in-papers), [notebook](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1085/software-app-for-electronic-research-notebooks), [citation](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36/how-do-the-various-citations-management-software-programs-compare), and [data analysis](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1098/what-are-the-most-common-types-of-software-used-for-data-analysis-by-scientific) software. The citation and data analysis questions were closed. All but the data analysis questions are highly voted.<issue_comment>username_1: As I stated [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2993/73), I think software questions are definitely **on-topic**. I think it would fall under the rubric of "Life as a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, university professor", which is on-topic as per our FAQ.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think according to the rules software list questions are off topic since the are not "practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face"
That said, I think other sites (e.g., tex.se) have a history of allowing long list type questions.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Across StackExchanges, asking for recommendations for products is strongly discouraged.
As are long-list questions.
As are questions where there is no one right answer.
These software questions hit all three of those. **Let's close them all.**
Upvotes: -1 |
2012/09/05 | 856 | 3,280 | <issue_start>username_0: In [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3086/opportunities-in-industry-after-a-phd-in-organic-chemistry), the OP wants to know the opportunities in industrial R&D after a PhD in organic chemistry. In general, industry vacancies and requirements do not have anything to do with academia, so Charles has rightly cast his vote to close the question.
But on a previous date, we have enthusiastically answered [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/96/what-kind-of-opportunities-exist-in-the-industry-for-someone-with-a-ph-d-in-theo?rq=1), which asks almost the same question for CS.
How do we decide if a particular question asking about industrial R&D opportunities for PhD and post-doc scholars is on-topic or not? Asking about software jobs after MS is obviously out of scope, but aren't professors in academia better informed than most about research opportunities? Shouldn't we give a concession to questions about industrial R&D after PhD/post-doc alone?<issue_comment>username_1: **No.** Questions about careers outside academia should be off-topic.
They're suitable to a career-advice site for the world **outside** academia. This isn't a career-advice site, and it's a site about the world **of** academia.
Furthermore, the questions will attract subjective answers, and answers localised to one time / place.
NB: this is just my opinion. I'm only giving something for people to vote down or up, as they (dis)agree; I have neither the will nor the ability to dictate site terms
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with EnergyNumbers, I think that by default, question only about opportunity in industry are not on topic, but it's not a very strict rule. A question asking the difference between academia and industry might be more on topic. A question stating that the OP wants nothing to do with Academia is not really on topic on a website dedicated to academics ...
That being said, the *quality* of the question is also a very important factor, and that was a main reason for closing that question: it was not really on topic, so I didn't see the point of leaving a low quality question open.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: See my comment on [this recent question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/183/73). This question to me seems perfectly on-topic. The questioner is in academia, and has questions that relate to life as an academic, namely, what else can I do outside of working as a professor? Given that statistics (which I'm too lazy to look up now) suggest that most PhD students go on to careers outside of academia, this is actually a *very* relevant question.
That being said, I agree with @Charles that this particular question was poorly phrased, and could have had a better reception if it was worded better.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I agree with Bravo. I think that professor should know a decent amount about how to help their students prepare for life outside academia. So I think that in fact **academia.SE is a very appropriate place to ask such question**. When posted here, the **questions are likely to be seen by professors, as well as by other grad students who may be preparing for similar jobs**.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/09/05 | 500 | 1,931 | <issue_start>username_0: I saw [a question](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/190453/is-it-morally-right-and-pedagogically-right-to-google-answers-to-homework) on the ethic of googling one's homework. The questioner, though having posted it on Math.SE, asks about the "pedagogical" merit of doing the same. This question has been closed as **not constructive** on Math.SE, but many would opine it is off-topic as well.
Does the question belong here? The way it is phrased may refer to math problems, but it is an issue that is certainly faced by most professors and students. A (kind of) compelementary question on how a professor should keep himself ahead of the homework-googling menace has been asked by Dave [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1705/setting-exercises-and-assignments-when-everything-is-on-the-web).<issue_comment>username_1: Funny you bring this one up; they had asked us whether we wanted it, and I turned it down as being too pedagogical. This is becoming a recurring issue here; do we want to focus exclusively on research-level academia questions, or do we want to branch out to all aspects of university-level education. We're definitely solidly in the first branch now, but as more users join I'm seeing more and more questions that relate to the second. Personally, I think that, given that we're still in Beta, we should bring this question back up.
Given the current focus of the site, though, it's pretty clear to me that this question is off-topic here.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As it currently stands I do not think that question belongs here and I would rather not see the go that way. It is an "undergrad" question about how to be a student. A question about how to deal with students who google homework problems might also be "off topic", based on our current focus, but I think it would be a reasonable way to expand the site.
Upvotes: -1 |
2012/09/14 | 239 | 1,053 | <issue_start>username_0: Are questions that are US-specific on-topic on this site? (i.e., only relevant to academia in the United States)
(Do people want to see those kinds of questions tagged or marked in any particular way?)<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, these questions are fine. As of now we're not tagging these questions specifically as such; just indicate the target audience in the question.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: US specific questions are fine. They're frustrating when a question doesn't indicate that it is US specific, when it in fact is. It is a sign of cultural and institutional arrogance not to indicate the culture of institutional-system for which your question or answer applies.
Ideally, if the site's traffic is high, system specific questions should be tagged to allow users to ignore or favourite tags.
Ideally, we might think about whether each particular question that appears to be system specific, is, in fact a useful opportunity to supply a full answer for all major systems.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/10/02 | 382 | 1,524 | <issue_start>username_0: Some users create tags while adding question; some are highly useful and some are simply meaningless. Do SE have any mechanism to encourage users to add tag wiki as well, on creating tags?
Esp. see this question [In conference review process, what do “author response” and “author notification” mean?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3022/in-conference-review-process-what-do-author-response-and-author-notification) What actually the tags ([wording](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/wording/info)) ([dates](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/dates/info)) ([call](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/call/info)) mean?
So, if the tag creator him(her)self propose a tag wiki, it is good for the community.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think there is a way to "encourage" a tag creator to edit the tag wiki. However, you can retag the question, by removing the tags that either do not make sense or are not explained.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is a pretty common problem on the main SO site as well; people tag questions with seemingly ridiculous tags in the hopes of... well, I'm really not sure, but I guess they think that adding weird tags increases the chance they'll get an answer. There isn't really much we can do for these people, since they clearly didn't search to see other related stuff and then read the instructions next to the tag box that state to enter related tags. Not much we can do for those users.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/10/14 | 2,696 | 10,520 | <issue_start>username_0: **What is this community’s take on deleting closed questions? What are the criteria for deletion?**
In the past few days, I have voted on deleting some of the closed questions that seemed to have absolutely no value to the site ([way off-topic](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3203/extraction-of-jpegs-of-slides-from-a-video-recording-of-a-lecture), [way too localized](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3534/need-help-working-through-the-pros-cons-of-two-schools), that kind of stuff). I do it on other sites, as part of the “janitorial” activities of high-rep users.
The questions gathered no other delete vote, so I flagged a few others (e.g., [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1845/njit-vs-university-of-oklahoma-health-sciences-center) and [there](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1153/java-developer-or-sap-softwares)). The mods declined to delete, saying “there's no need to flag a question as low-quality if it's already been closed”.
So, I wonder: does this site have a deliberate policy of not deleting these very low quality closed questions? Argument has been made in other parts of the SE network, including by the SE team itself, that deletion is the final destination of many closed questions. For example, see [here](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/04/the-stack-overflow-question-lifecycle/):
>
> Why would you *delete* a question? Isn’t closing it enough?
>
>
> * Some questions are of such poor quality that they cannot be salvaged. They’re literally nonsense. Not every byte of data that is created in the world is infinite and sacred.
> * Some questions are so incredibly off topic that they add no value to a programming community.
> * The mental cost of processing these closed questions is not zero, particularly for users who are actively engaged and scanning questions to find things they can help answer.
> * If users see a lot of closed questions, they’ll note that we don’t enforce the guidelines, so why should they? Without any final resolution, asking questions that get closed becomes something we are implicitly encouraging — a broken windows problem. If this goes on for long enough, we’re no longer a community of programmers who ask and answer programming questions, we’re a community of random people discussing.. whatever. That’s toxic.
> * If enough of these closed questions are allowed to hang around, they become clutter that reduces the overall signal to noise ratio — which further reduces confidence in the system.
>
>
>
Or see [there](https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4058/24799):
>
> Closed questions should be kept on the site when:
>
>
> 1. They are a duplicate of another on topic question. As there are many ways of asking the same question it's good that we have the different examples on the site.
> 2. ....
>
>
> Well that's it really.
>
>
>
I could see no meta post on the topic, hence I create one. **When does the community feel it is appropriate to delete closed questions?**<issue_comment>username_1: There are three main types of deletions that I personally have made:
1. [Answers that should have been comments](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/86/73); the answer may look like it was deleted, but it was just converted to a comment
2. Answers that were completely off topic, and do not add anything to the conversation.
3. Answers that are abusive/trolling/spammy/*ad hominem*/etc.
I believe that this is the way the other mods deal with deletions as well.
That being said, moderators are people too, and you'll probably find differences between how username_3, Charles, and I deal with flags. It should be noted that your posting here is exactly how you should handle this sort of thing; if you flag something and you think we didn't respond appropriately, make a thread such as this one specifically related to the post at hand and we'll respond. (As mods, we get a notification every time someone post a new thread in meta... we'll see it.)
---
EDIT: Having discussed this with mods from other sites, I'm going to reshape my opinion. It seems that a "closed" marker on a question is actually an indicator stating, **"Please either edit this question so it's site-appropriate or delete it**". In that vein, we should look at each closed question as a request to fix the question up so it's salvageable. If we can't do that, it *should* be deleted, as suggested by [Grace Note](https://security.meta.stackexchange.com/a/683) (and brought to my attention by [F'x in his answer below](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/209/73)).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As a personal viewpoint, I'm for deleting as little as possible. We don't really have storage issues, and any information is good. In particular, if someone wants to ask a question, searches on the site first, and finds similar questions that were close, then this person knows that the question is not a good fit.
We have a search engine, it's not like one has to go through all the questions one by one, and be bothered by the closed questions in the process.
It goes the same with answers and comments. I only want to delete offensive, *very* low quality content and spam. For the rest, the community can close and down vote, and I believe it's enough. I don't feel like have closed questions is a problem right now, maybe it's worth to reconsider this position if it becomes one.
EDIT: I also completely agree with username_1's point of saying you're doing the perfect thing by putting this on meta. As for the two questions you mention, I don't feel the urge to delete them, because I don't think they are harming the site right now. But I would have nothing against their deletion either. I guess the main point is that, as a mod, I don't want to make alone the decision to delete them (the usual reason: I prefer to have low-quality questions on the site than good questions deleted, and I don't want to be alone in setting the limit). Hopefully, this question on the meta might give other people the willingness to vote to delete them!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think having the record of the question being asked and "shut down" is more useful than deleting them outright. Something that is offensive or spam should, of course, be deleted. But something that is merely off-topic or inappropriate for the board should probably stay for archival purposes, particularly if an answer *was* received.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: **Edit**: I finally managed to find the [exact quote](https://security.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/681/why-is-this-closed-question-not-being-deleted/683#683) I was looking for. This is from Grace Note, a community manager from the SE team:
>
> With the exception of duplicates (which we keep around for searchability), closing is intended to be a temporary state for a question. **There are only two states in the future of a closed question - getting deleted or getting reopened.** The primary purpose of closing is to serve as a sentence to eventual deletion.
>
>
>
and
>
> unless a question has some chance to be considered for reopening, it should be deleted
>
>
>
So, the SE policy is not to ask “which closed questions should be deleted?” but “which closed questions should be kept?” (as done, e.g., on the [computer science meta](https://cs.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/512/first-review-of-closed-questions-which-ones-should-not-be-deleted)).
---
*For the record, and for others to comment on it, I'll add here my opinion:*
I think **closed questions should be deleted if**:
* they have not been answered
* they are not duplicates (“closed as duplicate” can be found in searches and lead back to the main question, so they are useful)
The reason for this is basically the same as summarized in my question: off-topic or low-quality closed questions reduce the signal-to-noise ratio (they turn up in searches, for example) and don't give a good image of the site.
---
I would be happy to have them deleted via high-rep users (and not moderators), if moderators think it's not the best use of their time. But we need a policy for that, and people then have to check regularly for recent delete votes.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: I'd like to add an additional reason to be careful in deleting questions:
>
> **As long as the software does not inform users that their post has been deleted, we should be extremely careful in deleting questions.**
>
>
>
To elaborate a bit more: for any question where we can assume good faith, the question must not be deleted. Closing informs a user that a question is offtopic or not suitable. Deleting leaves a user confused and annoyed.
On a personal note, I've had a question deleted on English SE and I have thoroughly confused and quite annoyed. *Where had my question gone?
Why had my question disappeared?* Finally I had to waste peoples time by asking on Meta if someone know what happened to my question. Meanwhile, I got very annoyed and almost decided to leave English SE because of this bad treatment.
Only 10k-users can see deleted question. But deleted questions from 10k-users are probably very rare. Therefore, as long as the software does not inform users about deleted posts, we should only close questions that are obviously not in good faith.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: [Candidates for deletion can be found here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?tab=votes&q=duplicate:0%20closed:1%20migrated:0). **Each and every question on that list, should either be deleted or edited & reopened**. If you have 2000 rep or over, please do go to that list, and spend a little bit of time going through some of the questions, and for each one, either vote for its deletion, or edit it into shape so that it can be reopened.
As username_4 wrote, the [Stack Exchange policy](https://security.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/681/why-is-this-closed-question-not-being-deleted/683#683) is this (my emphasis) :
>
> With the exception of duplicates (which we keep around for searchability), closing is intended to be a temporary state for a question. **There are only two states in the future of a closed question - getting deleted or getting reopened**. The primary purpose of closing is to serve as a sentence to eventual deletion.
>
>
>
and
>
> unless a question has some chance to be considered for reopening, it should be deleted
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/10/16 | 392 | 1,450 | <issue_start>username_0: Following up on our recent discussion [on closed questions](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/205/what-should-happen-to-closed-questions), I'm wondering if it might not be a bad idea to create a tag for closed questions. This might help us to "corral" them a bit better.
Thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: That's a good idea, I was actually looking for a way to search only for closed questions.
EDIT: The keyword "closed:1" seems indeed enough, as pointed out by username_2 and <NAME>, so it's probably not necessary to have a tag.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: You can simply use `closed:1` in the search query - no need to abuse tags for this.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You don't want to "corral" your closed questions.
Closed questions should be destined for one of two fates.
1. Deletion.
2. Reopening.
Time will tell which route a question goes, but having a "pool" of them around is defiantly not the idea you want to promote. As [noted by TheifMaster](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/213/3844) you can already find them for the purposes of doing site cleanup using `closed:1` as part of a search query.
If nobody has expressed any interest in getting the question whipped into shape to re-open (or if it's obvious that isn't going to happen from the get go), they should be deleted. Otherwise they need to be poked until they are ready to open.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/10/16 | 754 | 2,869 | <issue_start>username_0: There has been some discussion recently here about deletion. What I could suggest, in order to avoid having one question here for each content we might want to delete, is to post as an answer to this question any other questions, answer or comment one would like to delete.
**If you have at least 2000 reputation**, you can directly vote on posts for deletion: please do so as appropriate. You will also be able to see [recent posts that have accrued some delete votes](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tools?tab=delete&daterange=last30days): click on the `most votes` and `recent votes` headings to see them all.
**If you do not have at least 2000 reputation**, then please vote on the proposed deletions below: An upvote on the answer means that the post should be deleted, a negative one means that the post shouldn't. All comments are welcome. By default, if after a few days, there has not been any comment *against* deletion, the post will be deleted.
What do you think of such a process? It can also allow to keep track of the deletion, and the reason pro/against. Furthermore, it would move some parts of the deletion discussion from the hidden mod room to a more open space.
As F'x pointed out, good candidates for deletion can be found [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?tab=newest&q=-%22possible%20duplicate%3a%22%20migrated%3a0%20closed%3a1)<issue_comment>username_1: A rhetorical question [What is IRDAM Journal?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3690/what-is-irdam-journal), where I am the only answerer.
Should the community keep it? IMO, the question could have been edited, but eventually closed.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: <https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7722/2700>
>
> This question has been closed because it's not really answerable. Clearly, the level of difficulty for studies is something very subjective, and it wouldn't make sense to quantify it. Also, the point here is not to post (non constructive) opinions, and an answer such as "I found my master quite hard" is not suited for here
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I wonder if this question has now served its purpose. I believe when the question was asked we really hadn't come up with a consensus of when to delete. I didn't even realize closed questions could/needed to be deleted. The number of [undeleted closed questions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=-%22possible+duplicate%3A%22+migrated%3Ano+closed%3A1+) is relatively small, and none are more than 3 weeks old. I personally have decided to let questions set in the closed state for at least a couple of weeks to see if they get edited.
By not using this question we would lose some of the discussion, but I would hope the discussion would happen at the close stage and not the delete stage.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer] |
2012/10/21 | 971 | 3,227 | <issue_start>username_0: Stack Exchange sites that have graduated run so-called “Community Promotion Ads”: these run in the right sidebar of each page, and are designated according to votes on the Meta of each site. For example, see [on Physics.SE](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/980/community-promotion-ads-2012) how it works.
The good thing about these ads is that the new visitors they bring are, for the most part, already users on other Stack Exchange sites, and they now how the system works. Over at [Chemistry](http://chemistry.stackexchange.com), we have [placed an ad on Physics.SE](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1334/91) and it does bring us some traffic.
**I’d like to propose that we come up with an ad to run on our sibling SE sites**. I see three points to deal with:
* finding a nice motto or a catchy sentence
* creating the ad itself (having a nice graphics improves one’s click-through rate, but it's not absolutely necessary)
* coming up with a list of sites we want to target: I’m thinking [Mathematics](https://math.stackexchange.com/), [Physics](https://physics.stackexchange.com/), [Theoretical Computer Science](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/), [TeX - LaTeX](https://tex.stackexchange.com/), [Mathematica](https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/), [English L&U](http://english.stackexchange.com), [Electrical Engineering](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/) (sorted roughly in decreasing order of suitability IMO)
What do you think?<issue_comment>username_1: It's a good idea to plan. But the problem is technically we haven't graduated yet. We're still in beta mode. We need to get the number of questions up a little higher. (About 15%, if my math is right.)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: **Edit:** second version incorporating Daniel’s suggestion
Comments very welcome!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: There are a lot of academics over at tex.sx, I wonder if we could get someone to help design us a coat of arms. It might be useful also when we graduate. I would be happy to use some of my tex.sx rep to offer a 500 rep bounty.
I have asked: <https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/79147/draw-a-coat-of-arms-in-latex>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Okay, I'll add an answer to keep track of the other sites’ meta where ads were posted for voting. **Please go there and upvote!**
* [Physics](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1571/91) (now running; check stats [here](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/ads/display/980))
* [Mathematics](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/a/6441/3406) (now running; check stats [here](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/ads/display/3278))
* [English L&U](https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3235/3479) (now running; check stats [here](https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/ads/display/2223))
* [TeX](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2840/3734) (now running; check stats [here](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/ads/display/2046))
* [Mathematica](https://mathematica.meta.stackexchange.com/a/812/700) (now running; check stats [here](https://mathematica.meta.stackexchange.com/ads/display/577))
Upvotes: 1 |
2012/10/23 | 691 | 2,644 | <issue_start>username_0: When tagging this question: [How can I apply to be an adjunct faculty?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/4930/344), I came across four tags that could either be synonyms or at least have more distinct definitions.
To be clear, I think that these could either be merged into two or even one tag with synonyms.
For reference, here are the current definitions of these tags:
* [career](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career "show questions tagged 'career'"): Career is a person's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". Questions related to academic career comes under this tag.
* [career-path](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-path "show questions tagged 'career-path'"): Queries related to progression of academics in various capacities from a student to a professor and the various stages involved in the process.
The following should be considered as well:
* [job](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/job "show questions tagged 'job'"): Refers to academic job, its advantages and disadvantages. Also related to duties and responsibilities associated with an academic job and academic job search.
* [jobs](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/jobs "show questions tagged 'jobs'"): (no summary)<issue_comment>username_1: [job](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/job "show questions tagged 'job'") and [jobs](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/jobs "show questions tagged 'jobs'") are definitely synonyms, and they have been merged.
I'm not as sure about [career](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career "show questions tagged 'career'") and [career-path](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-path "show questions tagged 'career-path'"), but I'd love to hear what everyone else about those.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Intuitively, I'd say that [career](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career "show questions tagged 'career'") and [career-path](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-path "show questions tagged 'career-path'") are equivalent. More precisely, I don't see many questions that would qualify for one tag but not the other.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: job now seems to be frequently misapplied, as per its own description and that of job-search. Sometimes people use both (which is reasonable but perhaps not optimal for job); other times they don't use job-search. Can someone help me figure out if there's a process to do something about that?
Upvotes: 0 |
2012/10/27 | 574 | 2,475 | <issue_start>username_0: As a community, where do we want to draw the line between editing old off-topic closed questions and changing them completely? This [recently edited question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1525/how-do-you-avoid-favoritism-and-personal-relationships-from-affecting-grading) has received many comments (well, a few comments with many upvotes) that the edit was over the top. I think I do agree, because while the theme of the question is the same, the question has completely changed (and not only by being more constructive). In particular, the answers given (and upvoted) already some months ago are now completely irrelevant to the question.
So, what do you think should happen to this sort of questions? (meaning: questions closed, with existing non-trivial answers, who cannot be salvaged by minor edit or simple removal of subjectivity)
1. No edit, delete
2. No edit, delete, ask the improved question as a new question
3. Invasive edit, delete all answers (and all comments, which was actually done)
In my opinion, option #2 has the best benefits: it increases the value for our site by adding a good question, and does not create an unclear situation with mismatched question/answers/comments. Also, it properly attributes the good question to its rightful author (though it probably is a minor point).<issue_comment>username_1: For the question involved, the question was changed, the comments were deleted because they "were no longer relevant," and the people who gave answers to the original question were asked if they wanted to revise their answers. In short, the old question and comments were, in effect, deleted, and the old answers needed to be updated. You might as well make a new question.
For the question involved, I recommend option number 4: No edit, (no delete), ask the improved version as a new question.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am not moved by the fact that the original question should have been deleted (eventually). That is the proper fate for it. If we are concerned for Ran G's rep just wait sixty days before killing it; but that period has already elapsed, so we've even good that way.
On the other hand, I think the rule that edits should not make large changes to the meaning of other peoples posts or to any question that already has developed and upvoted answers should be a bright line.
Please, delete the offending questions and ask the new question separately.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/10/28 | 615 | 2,078 | <issue_start>username_0: Along the lines of "[Third excellent..."](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/178/third-excellent-on-area-51-congratulations-to-all-nearly-ready-for-graduat), we now have [no more "needs work" categories](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia), having just bumped over the 5 questions/day mark. This is more of an announcement than a question, so it can be removed later if necessary.<issue_comment>username_1: Thanks for posting, good job to everyone who's participated and made this site as good as it is.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Congrats to all on reaching this nice milestone! (and there's no need to be modest: a lot of SE sites in beta have a hard time maintaining a steady stream of questions after the initial excitement)
Being a newcomer, if I may take this opportunity to give my main impression for my first month here: by increasing our userbase more we will be able to cover more fields of research… and this diversity will bring even more value to the site. Academia is a broad church!
---
A related reminder (yes, I saw someone say “more like nagging”): we have proposed an ad to run on our sibling Stack Exchange sites, but **they need our votes to run**. If you have an account on the following SE sites, please go up vote the ad:
* [TeX](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2840/3734): only 1 last vote needed
* [English L&U](https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3235/3479): 2 more votes needed
* [Mathematics](https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/a/6441/3406): 3 more votes needed
* [Physics](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1571/91): 4 votes needed
PS: the [ad itself](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/238/community-promotion-ad-to-run-on-other-ses) is a graphics I created with Daniel’s advice… but I am in no way emotionally attached to it, so please consider improving on it or proposing a better design [in the relevant meta discussion](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/238/community-promotion-ad-to-run-on-other-ses).
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/11/10 | 805 | 3,378 | <issue_start>username_0: What all we know, we (i.e. academia.SE) are hacking the system for objective verifiable Q&A for the purpose of advise questions. (And, IMHO, we have hacked it successfully).
However, I have some doubts when it comes to accepting answers. On StackOverflow it's obvious if an answer solves your problem. Then, out of such, you can choose the approach you actually took.
For soft-questions you don't have "I copied and pasted your code, it works, thanks". Usually there are piece of advice and wisdom in many "answers". And none of it "solves" the problem (actually differences in opinions are often fruitful and show academic landscape).
Of course sometimes there is an answer which is worth to be singled out among other. But in other cases, **when there are more compelling answers - what to do?**<issue_comment>username_1: If there is no clear right answer possible, then the question doesn't belong on the site. It should be closed as "not a real question" or "off-topic", and then possibly deleted.
If a clear right answer is possible, but it is split across several existing answers, then the thing to do is to write a synthesis of all the right things into a single answer.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: **What were you looking for?** When you ask a soft question, you're definitely not looking for a unique actionable “that solved it thanks” solution, as you say. You are usually looking for ideas, advice, viewpoints different from your own, etc. So, I would suggest to:
1. Mark as accepted the answer that provided you with the most useful advice. It may not be easy to decide, but probably one of them has a point of view that you wouldn't have considered by yourself, or an answer backed by quotes or statistics.
2. If you can't make up your mind, choose a good answer amongst the later ones: late answers tend to receive less exposure, and thus less votes.
3. Possibly write a comment below it, explaining how you found it useful, and that you really appreciated insight given by the others.
An alternative would be not to accept any answer. I think it's not very satisfactory, because it sends the message that “none of this helped me” (of course, if that's true, then don't accept any answer) and, less importantly, it lets a good +15 rep go to waste.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Additionally to username_2 answer, I would like to mention **another point of view**. The point of view of a **person who will look at the Academia site for some answers and will read your question in the future.**
If the person is very interested, he or she will read all the posts and think about their value by himself (herself), not just the accepted one. *In this case it does not matter which answer you will mark.*
Most of the people will probably read just few top rated answers. In this case, you can proceed according to the point 2. of username_2 answer. **Give the privilege to an answer which is bellow but you find it valuable and help others to learn more in this way.**
(if the person will read just the accepted answer or the first one, he or she is probably not that interested in that matter and again *it does not matter what you will mark out*.)
**So, If you have doubts which answer to mark, you can think about which answer will be the most beneficial for other possible readers in the future.**
Upvotes: 1 |
2012/11/10 | 1,435 | 5,711 | <issue_start>username_0: Informally watching our stats on Area 51 leads me to the conclusion that our number of users and visits per day have increased faster than our questions per day. We use to be averaging a question per 100 visits and now we are averaging a question per 200 visits. I am concerned that we do not have enough questions to keep the interest of our new visitors. Should we as frequent users ask some general interest questions, by which I mean questions we had earlier in our careers and now know the answers to, to try and keep interest/visits high. Hopefully more questions would encourage new users to ask more questions.<issue_comment>username_1: Before we jump to conclusions, do we have statistics about the rate of question generation on "graduated" sites?
It may be that we're getting a lot more "casual users," who just want answers to a particular question. When they find it, they don't need to ask it, because it's already there.
That said, if there are a few "low-lying fruit" questions, then we could certainly encourage them to be asked! Not quite sure of the best way to go about doing this, but I'm open to suggestions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Stats aren't bad and, AFAIK, they are going up (from time to time I check them).
The later is a think that SE admins care them most so I bet that we are not in danger. I really doubt if they care at all about views/question; but if there is a single parameter they want to be high, it's views :).
And personally, I think that the number of questions is not bad. Compare to other sites. Especially when subtracting piss-poor quality questions.
When it comes to seeding - why not? But it would rather generate more views, that (much) more questions :).
I would rather think about extending scope (e.g. also to a bit more localized questions).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If you look at some other [far more](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/11464/code-review) [popular](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/4/audio-video-production) [beta sites](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/7080/physical-fitness), you'll see our question rate is pretty typical. Without having access to the stats, do note that as we get more popular (and as more questions are asked), more people will arrive here from google search results, see their answer, and then leave. That's not necessarily a bad thing at all. Hopefully they'll stay in the longer term, but I wouldn't be too worried.
This is a good time to put in another plug for advertising, though. If you're in a university, post flyers, tell students to use the site, ask the administration to send students here, install rootkits on students research computers to send them here instead of google, whatever works to generate more traffic.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: “Seeding” can happen very naturally, by the regulars simply asking more questions. It is good to ask questions, even hypothetical, that come to your mind or come up during lunch discussions with colleagues or friends. Even if you think you have an answer, even if it doesn't apply to you, as long as it fits the site (not overly broad, not too localized, etc.). I regularly do it (in fact, more than 25% of my posts are questions), here and on other SE sites, just like I would ask a colleague at coffee (“hey, I was wondering about …, maybe you know the answer or have an idea on that”).
Organic growth is healthy. All the statistics I've seen indicate that's what Academia.SE is experiencing, so we shouldn't worry overmuch.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: To answer your question *Why aren't more questions being asked?*
Obviously, **people in the community around the Academia beta site rather think twice then ask a question** that maybe down-voted or closed for some reason (too localize, too broad, off-topic, duplicate...). As username_3 and username_2 mentioned, it is typical for beta sites. The community around beta sites are more interested in the forum and StockExchange in general comparing to majority of non-beta sites visitors. **"Beta" users** will probably become users with +200 (500,1000,...) reputation in the future. These people **generate content of higher quality but as we all know, it is very difficult to have both quality and quantity.**
---
On the other hand, if you take a look at normal sites (non-beta), you can see very often people with 1 point of reputation, several times per day. These people are new (as I was once) and most likely did not know about StockExchange before. They do not care much about the community, they want they questions answered. Of course, **their questions do not have high number of votes and are often closed**, but, **there is nothing wrong with that(!!)**. ([this is](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/97407/now-i-see-there-are-a-lot-of-duplicate-questions-on-stack-overflow) a very nice discussion tree regarding duplicate question in stackoverflow; Academia will not suffer that much because there will be no question about programming and stuff.)
([one interesting](https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3014/why-are-there-so-many-meta-questions-about-how-so-many-main-questions-are-being) from AL&U meta about a lot of closed and down-vote questions)
What I am trying to say is that if the Academia site is going to become a non-beta, sooner or later it is going to happened and we should not be surprised. Users are here to ask (and answer) and core users to moderate, to make the content as much valuable for others as possible.
*With a little bit of humour we can say: When there will be more questions? When you will see a lot of them closed :D*
Upvotes: -1 |
2012/11/12 | 2,450 | 6,212 | <issue_start>username_0: Moderators have a view of the site's statistics, but they cannot share the specifics. So, I'm starting this post to keep track of the evolution of our statistics over time. Please feel free to update it every now and then:
```
Date Qs/day Visits/day A. ratio Total users Avid users
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2012-07-04 4.6 448
2012-10-04 4.0 700
2012-11-12 4.0 994 2.5 1986
2012-11-19 3.7 1005 2.6 2048 184
2012-11-28 5.2 1068 2.6 2123 190
2012-12-03 5.7 1068 2.6 2154 192
2012-12-10 3.9 1093 2.6 2194 195
2012-12-17 4.4 1109 2.5 2275 200
2013-01-01 3.1 765 2.6 2361 207
2013-01-07 3.5 772 2.6 2402 209
2013-01-14 4.9 1056 2.6 2471 212
2013-01-21 6.1 1308 2.6 2549 216
2013-01-28 6.0 1392 2.6 2640 222
2013-02-04 6.1 1397 2.7 2786 235
2013-02-11 6.1 1452 2.7 2835 237
2013-02-18 5.5 1312 2.7 2903 240
2013-02-25 4.5 1361 2.7 2978 244
2013-03-04 4.9 1449 2.7 3101 248
2013-03-11 6.2 1533 2.7 3173 254
2013-03-18 6.5 1557 2.7 3240 262
2013-03-26 5.8 1653 2.7 3324 271
2013-04-02 5.0 1651 2.7 3486 283
2013-04-08 5.7 1621 2.7 3545 288
2013-04-15 6.0 1572 2.7 3612 292
2013-04-22 6.6 1497 2.7 3684 293
2013-04-29 6.9 1485 2.7 3749 296
2013-05-14 4.5 1458 2.7 3861 303
2013-06-10 5.7 2008 2.7 4142 318
2013-06-18 4.6 2008 2.7 4198 322
2013-07-15 5.4 2139 2.7 4465 329
2013-07-29 6.8 2392 2.7 4656 339
2013-08-19 6.6 2503 2.7 4914 351
2013-08-26 7.1 2739 2.7 5049 356
2013-09-09 7.0 3127 2.7 5188 369
2013-09-17 7.6 3251 2.7 5279 372
2013-09-23 7.8 3256 2.7 5341 372
2013-09-30 6.9 3350 2.7 5414 390
2013-10-07 6.9 3568 2.6 5504 392
2013-10-14 7.4 3572 2.6 5595 401
2013-10-21 6.9 3863 2.6 5666 408
2013-10-28 6.1 3954 2.6 5754 411
2013-11-04 5.9 4229 2.6 5851 419
2013-11-12 6.5 4408 2.6 5951 425
2013-11-19 7.1 4711 2.6 6082 430
2013-11-25 7.9 4938 2.6 6180 438
2013-12-02 6.0 4452 2.6 6284 443
2014-01-10 9.5 3932 2.6 7118 473
2014-01-17 10.3 6332 2.6 7408 487
2014-01-24 9.3 6409 2.6 7603 493
2014-01-31 9.3 6264 2.6 7832 501
2014-02-07 10.9 7012 2.6 8109 507
2014-02-14 11.9 7351 2.6 8308 518
2014-03-14 10.9 8138 2.6 9418 565
```
I use the [Area51](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia) page as source for those stats.
---
Graphs of the visits/day, number of users, and questions per day:
And here's the Quantcast estimate of site traffic, with a sparkline for the last 6 months, mean number of visitors per month, and highest and lowest daily visitor count in the last 6 months:
[](http://www.quantcast.com/academia.stackexchange.com)<issue_comment>username_1: I didn't want to make the post overlong, so I paste here the Mathematica code used to make the graphs from the raw data (multiline string stored pasted in variable `s`):
```
t = StringSplit /@ StringSplit[s, "\n"];
time = ToExpression@StringSplit[#, "-"] & /@ t[[All, 1]];
values = ToExpression@t[[All, 2 ;;]];
GraphicsColumn[{
DateListPlot[Riffle[time, values[[All, 2]]]~Partition~2,
PlotStyle -> Directive[Red, PointSize[Large]],
PlotRange -> {All, {0, Automatic}},
DateTicksFormat -> {"MonthNameShort", " ", "YearShort"},
FrameLabel -> {None, "Visits / day"}],
DateListPlot[Riffle[time[[3 ;;]], values[[3 ;;, 4]]]~Partition~2,
PlotStyle -> Directive[Red, PointSize[Large]],
PlotRange -> {All, {0, Automatic}},
DateTicksFormat -> {"MonthNameShort", " ", "YearShort"},
FrameLabel -> {None, "Users"}],
DateListPlot[Riffle[time, values[[All, 1]]]~Partition~2,
PlotStyle -> Directive[Red, PointSize[Large]],
PlotRange -> {All, {0, Automatic}},
DateTicksFormat -> {"MonthNameShort", " ", "YearShort"},
FrameLabel -> {None, "Questions / day"}]
}]
```
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Any news on the stats? It feels like we are getting more traffic these days
Upvotes: 0 |
2012/11/14 | 439 | 1,801 | <issue_start>username_0: I am currently in my grad program in CS, and I am interested in studying software engineering processes, project management, and metrics in a PhD program.
Can I ask here or on the main Academia site which universities are currently focused on researching the areas in which I am interested?<issue_comment>username_1: That's not really the point of Academia.SE. The goal of this board is to collect questions and advice on problems related to all of academia, not just tools that can benefit one discipline, or especially one subdiscipline.
The general rule about what should go on the board is to ask: "can the answer to this question help someone who is in a different department at a different school?" If yes, then it's appropriate for the board. If not, it probably won't work.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I agree with @username_1 regarding the subdiscipline, as those are very localized, but I'm wondering whether we should relax this for broad disciplines (i.e. mathematics, history, political science, etc). Note that we already [allow questions specific to a single location](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/188/are-us-specific-questions-ok); many approve of that, with no negative feedback on that at all. On the other hand, we have also agreed that university-specific questions are too specific (I couldn't find a link for that one, but that's how we tend to vote). I don't see how disciplines are different from locations in that respect.
As an example, [this question was flagged as off-topic](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2377/73). While I agree it's argumentative, using the above argument it's sufficiently broad to be relevant to many users, and with a simple edit it could be quite useful.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/11/17 | 1,540 | 6,214 | <issue_start>username_0: I have noticed a lot of computer scientists, physics, and a few more subjects but I think there is a lack of people from a lot of other major fields, for example Biology.
How do we attract people to contribute to the website from less computer-centric areas?<issue_comment>username_1: Maybe ore or more of the more creative ones among us could contact <NAME> ([PhD Comics](http://www.phdcomics.com/)) to see if he is interested/willing to promote Academia Stack Exchange with a nifty, amusing comic. For this we would need to find a shared interest. Our interest is to get attention (particularly in under-represented fields), his aim is to entertain people with funny, thoughtful comics. If he likes the idea of our site it might not be impossible — it never hurts to try.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Is there some way I can help via exposure through Mendeley?
If it makes you feel any better, I don't understand much about how to get people to contribute to Mendeley either ;-)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Is there any mileage in the idea of one of us writing an article about SE.Academia for publication in a high profile academic magazine? An example of such a publication in the UK would be The Times Higher Education Supplement. This journal doesn't have a particular subject bias - it is read by folk from all disciplines.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: First of all, Academia SE grew from Stack Exchange (Overflow), Programmers SE, etc. It's no surprise that many of our audience come from computer science.
Compared to other SE sites, I think Academia SE is not that bad. By its nature, academians are minorities in most societies. So, it's no surprise that we have a little less readership than other SEs.
Of course, that's not to say that we don't want to grow. We do.
I live in Taiwan. The population here is 23 million. There are approximately 1 million people here who's got masters/PhDs. But, it seems to me that there are only a few people in Taiwan hanging around on this site. I can tell that by observing the activity of this site during the local time interval 1pm - 3pm.
I do have friends in Taiwan who are academians and have encountered issues. Some of them came to me to ask for help. In some cases, I pass the links on our site to answer their questions. Sometimes, I cannot find the right Q&A for them.
In those cases, I tried to encourage them to ask their questions on Academia SE themselves. So far, my attempts have *not* been successful. The major reasons I failed are:
**1. English.**
They know how to write their field-specific papers in English. But, they have problems with stating their academia-specific issues in English. Sometime, it's really hard to do so. If you're a native-English speaker, you can tell that I am not a native-English speaker. The reason I can write in the way most people can understand is because I lived in US over 30 years and I have many years of hard time writing in English after a lot practices. And I still do have hard time with writing in English. For example, it took me an hour to write this answer. I suggested them to use our English Language & Usage SE. Some of them did. I myself looker at that site sometimes. I saw quite a bit down-votes and closed questions, much worse than our site. I am just stating my observation here. No complaint.
**2. Anonymity.**
Everyone I talked to expressed anonymity concern. One of the reasons is again, English writing. They are so afrid that they are going to be laughed at when their questions get down-voted or closed due to poor writing. I told them don't worry. People will help to edit. Still, no avail. Again, I am simply stating my observation. No complaint.
Most of our participants on this site are fluent English speakers. I can tell that because they write better English than mine. So, I think we can attract more people from everywhere by helping others to encourage them to ask questions when the questions are not so well-written in English. The help can be in many ways. We can help them by editing the questions. We can help them by making comments to ask questions to clarify what they are asking, etc. Just my two-cents here.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> I have noticed a lot of computer scientists, physics, and a few more subjects but I think there is a lack of people from a lot of other major fields, for example Biology.
>
>
>
I see it that way too. Take computer science or theoretical physics. Both are mostly concerned with theories and if experimental (e.g., particle physics) than still in a relatively "dry" manner (i.e., experimenting by means of sitting in front of a computer screen mostly). In contrast, biologists and chemists spend a lot of their time in labs getting their hands literally dirty. My point is, that accessibility, as well as opportunity costs might be a part of explanation for the lack of people from "wet" disciplines. Another issue could also be deeper computer literacy (knowledge of what wikis are good for etc.).
>
> How do we attract people to contribute to the website from less computer-centric areas?
>
>
>
My point above was meant to sketch a hypothesis about inherent limits and hurdles for recruiting people from some disciplines, especially those heavily experimental, or field-work requiring ones.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: To attract people in specific field, it would be nice if they could track their field questions via a tag and follow such tag. E.g., medicine tag, computer science tag, economics tag.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: I do see a lot of people from math and computer science but perhaps that is just the people who are posting. Are there others who come but do not post?
It would help if we could track users by their discipline. I think adding something about their discipline to users' profiles would help us to know who is really here and who is posting. Once we know we don't have any biology people, we can focus on getting some biology people. Then, continue on to the other disciplines.
I, for one, don't see many posts about economics/business (except mine). I would love to see more.
Upvotes: 0 |
2012/11/17 | 406 | 1,713 | <issue_start>username_0: Currently, most of questions here are very general. It also reflects in upvotes per question (which is very, very high, compared to any other SE site I know.)
It is good that we are able to produce high-quality content, appealing to a broad audience.
But... maybe it means that we are too unforgiving for valuable, but localized, questions?
Sure, some localized advice questions are hard to answer (because they are too subjective, or requires additional knowledge, or can't be answered with anything better that "check department website, and if it is not there - make a phone call"). But others may be valuable (even if only for a dozen of people).
And more importantly, restricting ourselves to only broad may lead to an end.
Related to: [Why aren't more questions being asked?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/273/why-arent-more-questions-being-asked)<issue_comment>username_1: This is a valuable comment. I think in general that field-specific questions could have some merit as questions.
However, anything that's tied to a specific program or school (or a field so narrow it's only offered at a handful of schools) is probably still too narrow for the board.
I think I'll let the board collective operate on this one before taking a final position on the issue.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Personally, I agree we could have more localized questions, that could even be field specific (after all, one can ask questions on StackOverflow that are specific to a given programming paradigm). I guess what I would prefer to avoid are questions asked by students such as "I like this and this, please tell me what to do and where to apply!".
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/12/03 | 1,250 | 5,037 | <issue_start>username_0: I have recently acquired moderator privileges. Academia is the first SE site where I do so, so I was curious to see what they are like.
One thing that struck me is how quickly some questions get deleted. For example, [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5495/1033) (only visible with moderator privileges) was asked Nov 27 at 22:50 and deleted Nov 28 at 13:36, e.g. less than 15 hours later. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5494/1033) was even deleted within an hour. The instructions in *Access to moderator tools* state that *You must wait for a question to be closed for 2 days before you can vote for deletion*.
From previous experience elsewhere on the SE network, a user asking a question gets no notification if the question is deleted, and is unable to view the question or the comments. They will simply get error 404. With such a quick deletion, it's quite possible that the OP never got the chance to read the feedback and learn how to ask better questions.
Would it be wise to wait a little longer before deleting questions? Personally, I think even 2 days is a bit quick. Closing is clear enough to signal "this is off-topic". Does it really hurt to leave the question for at least a week to give the OP opportunity to read and consider the feedback?<issue_comment>username_1: Closed questions are broken windows: they give a bad first impression of the site to new users, and can (if in sufficiently large numbers) clutter the main page.
The alternative is to downvote these questions as well as close them, because a question of score –3 or lower will disappear from the questions list. I think that alternative is harsher for the user (people tend to react badly to downvotes).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This topic has received a [good deal of attention here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/205/what-should-happen-to-closed-questions). I suggest reading the linked post for context. In short, it seems that the (active contingent of) the community has taken the stance that deletion should happen sooner rather than later, to prevent off-topic closed questions from piling up over the long term. (As a point of reference, the main SO site has over 50,000 questions with close votes just sitting around.)
Personally, I hear both sides. It definitely doesn't hurt to leave it around. That being said, it doesn't help anything, either.
If you (the OP) (or anyone else, really) have a particular opinion on how these should be handled, feel free to post as an answer here and let the community vote on it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In those two particular cases, they were so bad as to beyond rescue-by-edit. So I'm glad to see the back of them, sooner rather than later.
For those of us who aren't diamond-mods, but have access to Delete Votes, we can't cast a delete vote for a proposal until the two days have passed. So the two-day minimum is enforced for us, by the software.
And you can only cast five delete votes per day.
In general, closed questions should either be edited and reopened; or, if an edit can't save them, they should (ISTM) be deleted. The exception is duplicate questions, where the closed duplicate is allowed to hang around as bait for search engines.
Anyway, [here's a bunch of closed questions awaiting your attention for delete votes](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?page=1&tab=newest&pagesize=50&q=closed:1), now you've got them.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I agree that deleting a question too fast might be a bit harsh, in particular if the OP does not know about (I wasn't aware of the fact that you can't your own content, even if it has been deleted). One of the reason why I tried to launch [this thread](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/215/102) was to keep track of the deletion we can do, especially when they are not obvious (we've had some cases of spam/offensive content).
That being said, if the question is not salvageable, then there is little interest in leaving it around, since it's more likely to be forgotten, and to lie around until someone flags it for deletion. The first question you linked was, I believe, in this category, and the fact that the OP visited the site after the closing of his question, but without commenting on it, added to the fact that his profile contains potentially offensive content (even though it's probably a joke), doesn't really provide any incentive in leaving it around any longer.
The second case is a bit different, since you can observe that in the comments of the question, the OP himself said that he tried to delete the question, without being able to do so. In that case, the OP was perfectly aware of the deletion.
I don't really think that the speed of deletion is a problem, but rather the fact that the OP doesn't know about it, and cannot access his original content at all, which is weird, since the content still exists anyway. Maybe it's a feature we would need.
Upvotes: 2 |
2012/12/20 | 825 | 3,412 | <issue_start>username_0: Is there any sense of when we'll be able to leave beta ? I've been watching the stats, and while the number of questions/day bounces around the magic 5.0 mark, all the other markers seem quite strong (and the number of visits/day is steadily increasing).<issue_comment>username_1: A site graduates out of beta whenever The Powers That Be™ decide that the site is ready to graduate out of beta. [Here's a good post from one of the other beta sites in which a Stack Exchange moderator described how the whole thing works](https://christianity.meta.stackexchange.com/a/847). I will state, though, that increasing visibility, asking solid, relevant questions, providing thorough answers, and generally being highly involved in the site is exactly what we need to do, and (in my opinion) we're doing very well on those fronts. Keep up the good work!
On a related note, though, for what it's worth, there's really not that much of a practical difference between where we are and being out of beta. Graduated sites get a new paint job and elect their own mods (aeismail, Charles, and I are currently serving as [Moderators Pro Tempore](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/07/moderator-pro-tempore/)... you'll get to elect your own mods via public election when we graduate). Other than that, there's nothing magical about being out of beta that makes the site better or anything. Its still up to us—the community—to keep the material relevant and thorough and the participation high.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't really understand the difference between beta/not beta, but it seems to me that our questions per day is still on the low side. I think if we want to encourage repeat visits by people willing to answer questions, we need more questions. I also think we need to discuss delete/close/off topic issues a little more than we do (possibly in chat). Finally, the our tags still need a little work. I don't know if any of these things will directly lead to graduation, but I think they would help the site.
As for when, I am guessing on our beta birthday.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I'll answer to highlight some of the differences that there are between non-beta and beta sites. For starters, graduated sites can launch promotional operations and get some financial support from Stack Exchange for doing so, while it is much more restricted for sites still in beta. Second, graduated sites get more exposure (e.g., they are linked to in all SE page footers, which increase their search-engine ranking) than beta sites. Thirdly, the customized interface helps somewhat build a specific site identity… very popular sites can even hope for more of that (see how Gaming.SE became Arqade).
Finally, there is at least one drawback to graduating too early: rep levels for privileges are higher, which means upon graduation a lot of regulars will loose their mod-like powers (which can lead to more work for the mod team).
---
Regarding the timing, traffic still needs to improve (both in term of page views and question rate). It is growing quite slowly (check our [stats](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/283/2700)), so we'll get there eventually. But organic growth is good, it gives the community time to create the best site possible.
So, while I hope Academia will soon graduate, I wouldn't hold my breath… but that's not a bad thing.
Upvotes: 3 |
2012/12/20 | 772 | 2,994 | <issue_start>username_0: [Here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5879/any-suggestions-to-create-and-maintain-a-good-research-atmosphere "here") I got a close vote. I have no issue with it **but** how can I know the intention behind closing voters. How to get their attention. Are voters required to explicitly justify their actions?
Apparently, I see nothing off-topic or not constructive with its current shape. It discusses possible academic activities to encourage collaborations.<issue_comment>username_1: Close votes are anonymous by design. You can't specifically message the person who submitted the close vote and they aren't required to specify why. It's intended to be a "anonymous majority" deal.
Consequently, you'll occasionally have questions with lone close votes, such as yours. Someone, for whatever reason, voted to close. The community clearly has—through their *not* voting to close—voted otherwise. This is fairly common, and you shouldn't let it bother you.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: username_1 has answered regarding the mechanisms of SE. I'll add a point about the vote to close: it is not mine, but I hesitated to cast one, so I'll explain my reasons.
So-called “big list” questions are discouraged, as being not constructive:
>
> “this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, **polling, or extended discussion**”
>
>
>
The idea is that asking “what activities can we do to improve research group atmosphere?” is not so different from “what is the best programming editor?”, “what are good resources on research ethics?”, and so on. Basically, if one can come up with 20 totally different but all equally valid answers, it means there is something wrong with the question. As the [FAQ](https://academia.stackexchange.com/faq#dontask) says:
>
> **What kind of questions should I not ask here?**
>
>
> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.
>
>
> Your questions should be reasonably scoped. If you can imagine an entire book that answers your question, you’re asking too much.
>
>
>
[The question you linked](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5879/any-suggestions-to-create-and-maintain-a-good-research-atmosphere) is somewhat borderline. To me, you gave it enough specifics (“what can a PhD student do”, e.g.) to make it viable, but by some aspects it is very broad (look at the variety of answers you got).
---
Finally: it appears to me, as a moderator on two other SE sites and someöne who joined the Academia.SE fun recently, that **the Academia community allows itself more leeway on this rule than other SE sites do**. Good for us, as long as it doesn't lower the quality and usability of the site. We should keep that goal in mind when we cross this type of question and wonder whether to close them or not.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/01/20 | 381 | 1,487 | <issue_start>username_0: (I don't know if it fits better to meta or nor meta.)
As we see very often, many problems in/about academia are not suitable for close-ended questions. Also, some important things involve polling questions, like software, university, scholarship, conference or journal recommendations.
(For example, I'm involved in projects about creating new software for new ways for collaboration and discovery sharing, <https://gist.github.com/4540942>, and I have a lot of related questions, but all of them are open-ended.)
So:
* do we have a good place to redirect people asking such open-ended question?
* or: should we start one?
* or: maybe we should start a blog on Academia.SE?<issue_comment>username_1: Chat is as close as we've got to a place for open-ended discussion. But it sounds like wht you're after is a forum. We don't do that round here (and I've hugely scaled down my contribution to forums since getting active here: they just seem so archaic and pointless now, and suffer from Eternal September syndrome much more than we do here)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Quora accept open-ended questions about academia. You could redirect there.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I would recommend thefora.org, which is an offshoot of the forums formerly hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
(But - warning - it is fairly snarky, and it is (just because of the participants and maybe the origin) US and humanities oriented.)
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/01/23 | 951 | 3,832 | <issue_start>username_0: Sometimes we get [questions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2113/how-can-we-make-the-academic-enviroment-more-women-friendly) which can be deemed too broad. Broad not precisely because the question is too general and thus would have many specific partial answers, or be subjective, but too broad because the answer is not simple - a book could be written about the topic. However, these could get asked frequently. **Should we delete such questions, or keep them in order to at least explain in the answers specifically why the question is non-trivial?**
This question is inspired by the discussion [we had here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/215/which-of-these-posts-should-be-deleted/306#comment1481_306).<issue_comment>username_1: We should definitely *not* delete these questions. If this is truly the case, indicate as such in an answer. Remember, sometimes the only answer to a question is "there's no easy answer to this". Considering that most questions of the nature you're discussing are deep, complicated, and likely very good questions, closing them would discourage good questions, which we definitely don't want.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: While <NAME> understand the SX network, I don't know if he understands this particular [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2113/how-can-we-make-the-academic-enviroment-more-women-friendly). In fact, I am surprised the question was even closed, and am surprised that we are discussing deleting it. In the interest of disclosure, I did provide an "answer", despite not having that expertise to really answer the question (I attempted to skirt the issues and point the OP in a direction.)
The question in fact contains two questions:
1. What can a department do to make studying computer science more
appealing to women?
2. Are there any studies on the ways of improving the working
conditions for women in academia?
The second is concrete, focused, and definitely answerable in a few words. I don't see how it is anything but a good fit for our AC.SX. The first is broader, possibly subjective, and maybe requires a long answer, and therefore may not be a great fit. That said, my guess is that someone who understands gender issues in the workplace could provide an excellent, evidenced base, concise objective answer. We just don't happen to have that someone here yet.
I would hate to see questions like this deleted and I am even surprised that this question has been closed. In fact, I am voting to reopen now ...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Closed questions should either be improved (if possible) or deleted. The exception is duplicates, because they can help future users better find existing questions.
When I say *should*, I refer to the general Stack Exchange policy. Here is a [quote from Grace Note][1], a community manager in the SE team:
>
> With the exception of duplicates (which we keep around for searchability), closing is intended to be a temporary state for a question. **There are only two states in the future of a closed question - getting deleted or getting reopened.** The primary purpose of closing is to serve as a sentence to eventual deletion.
>
>
>
and
>
> unless a question has some chance to be considered for reopening, it should be deleted
>
>
>
So, the SE policy is not to ask “which closed questions should be deleted?” but “which closed questions should be kept?” (as done, e.g., on the [computer science meta](https://cs.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/512/first-review-of-closed-questions-which-ones-should-not-be-deleted)).
---
I don't see how this overly broad question is different. It's not a good fit for the site, it should go away (or edited into a much more specific answerable question).
Upvotes: -1 |
2013/01/24 | 831 | 3,561 | <issue_start>username_0: I think we need to be nicer when closing questions. I think of new people look at having their question closed as being a slap in the face and a real turn off for the site. The automated messages are informative, but not that nice. I don't think they suggest welcoming edits to improve the question. We have had a couple of recent questions be closed/edited/reopened very quickly and I think that is a good thing.
I think the last (generally the 5th unless you have mod powers) person who votes to close a question should post a "personal" comment. This should only get added when the question actually gets closed since the OP will not find out about close votes until the question is closed (unless they have enough rep, and then they presumably understand the process).
I would propose something like:
>
> Your question was closed as a duplicate. A link is provided at the top of your question to the possible duplicate. If you don't think your question is really a duplicate, please edit your question to highlight the differences and then we can reopen it.
>
>
>
Obviously something different would be needed for localized and not constructive questions.
What do people think? Can we just change the automated text to be nicer?<issue_comment>username_1: I think is an *excellent* idea. I find myself writing something like that very often (one example [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7196/long-distance-bachelor), others exist on mostly deleted posts). Having that text show up automatically—particularly with instructions to message me (the closer) after editing—would save me a lot of typing. I'd *rather* people edit questions and become a regular then close the question forever and drive the questioner away.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Changing the automated text would be a tall order, as that would be done network-wide and the SE team is understandably resistant to such changes. Besides, there's something odd about trying to make an automated message have a personal touch. It means more coming from one of the actual close voters.
I'm a moderator on Physics and when I close questions there, I almost always leave a comment roughly of the form
>
> Hi *[username]*, and welcome to Physics Stack Exchange! This question is inappropriate for this site because *[reason]*. If you'd like to *[make specific changes]*, I'll be happy to reopen it. See our [FAQ] for more information.
>
>
>
which I think helps at least some new users not to be too put off by the closure.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'd like to bring to everyone's attention the [AutoReviewComments](https://stackapps.com/questions/2116/autoreviewcomments-pro-forma-comments-for-se) userscript, which I understand is exactly done for this purpose. It gives you (editable) templates for the most typical comments one can leave under new users' questions.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: As a very junior user of SE sites, I have found myself in the position of having questions closed on numerous occasions, without explanation or the chance to improve my question. All I'm left with is an impersonal and officious comment which does nothing to help me to understand why my question was closed or to help me improve future questions. I'm left with the feeling of having been cut out of a very cliquey community, unwelcoming towards new members.
A more friendly and helpful, personalised comment would be *very welcome* indeed. I just wish that more SE site communities recognised this!
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/01/24 | 1,104 | 4,280 | <issue_start>username_0: I think we down vote too often here. SE has some reasonable guidelines about when to down vote.
>
> Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy,
> no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps
> dangerously incorrect.
>
>
>
Our answers and questions often are a little on the subjective side, but nowhere in the guidelines does it suggest down voting just because you disagree (which I think is why many down votes get cast).
I would really like to see more explanations as to why things are getting down voted. This would allow people to fix the problems instead of just slapping them in the face. I understand this will make the down vote not anonymous, but I think it is a nicer way to go.
I see this as more of a problem when down voting answers. I can provide examples from my own answers which have received down votes. I am using my own answers since I can easily find ones with down votes and not because I need justification or want the down votes reversed.
[Why should the scientific community avoid double submissions?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6100/why-should-the-scientific-community-avoid-double-submissions/6102#6102)
[Is it ethical to use another university's journal subscription if yours doesn't have access?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5206/is-it-ethical-to-use-another-universitys-journal-subscription-if-yours-doesnt/5216#5216)
[What are the various designations/stages in the academic career of the person](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3163/what-are-the-various-designations-stages-in-the-academic-career-of-the-person/3197#3197)
I also have a question with what seems a spurious down vote:
[Are abstracts confidential during the review process?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3600/are-abstracts-confidential-during-the-review-process)
Again, I am not complaining about these down votes, it is the fact that it happens to new people also.<issue_comment>username_1: Okay, I first thought you were thinking about “heavily downvoted newcomer questions”. I asked for specific examples because I think, overall, Academia is doing quite well in leaving nice and helpful comments below newcomers' posts to help them improve.
Regarding your examples, it does happen to all of us: while we can remind people to leave comments explaining downvotes, **in the end it's up to them** to use downvotes to mark questions they deem invalid, and more importantly **answers they deem wrong**. **It's a subjective call**, and that's part of what makes SE a democracy and not a technocracy; i.e. you're not guaranteed that upvoted answers are correct, but only that people think they are correct (and similarly for downvoted). Which means: **there will always be some noise**, and we shouldn't care too much (I'm sure that –1 vote on a +12 answer does not make you sad at night!).
And, coming to your point, I think new people will also see it as it is. If they have a good upvoted answer with an unexplained downvote, they won't care too much. If the answer was borderline between “meh” and “bad”, they will maybe get a –1. We should continue to ask people to comment when they downvote, but there's nothing more we can (or should) do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Academia.SE has one of the most active voting userbase among all the SE sites, based on discussions with site-wide mods. Many questions which I find pretty trivial receive 5+ votes easily, sometimes many more. As far as I'm concerned, that's great.
One side effect of this may be a more active *downvoting* population as well, which I'm also not too concerned about. Without looking at specifics, the site generally manages its voting well. The only "bad form" downvoting I've seen is that some questions which have already been closed continue to garner downvotes, which I view as hitting someone once they're down; no need to downvote, the question is closed. However, the questions you point to all have one downvote, which you should safely ignore; many agree, one disagrees, consider it an overall win.
For what it's worth, I just checked the mod tools and it doesn't look like there's one person "out to get you". Just shrug it off.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/01/25 | 896 | 3,728 | <issue_start>username_0: We've got another [question with a background in humanities](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7455/what-is-the-factor-that-made-us-higher-education-system-so-potent-and-popular) which was closed almost immediately. Another such is discussed [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/347/should-we-delete-too-questions-which-have-too-extensive-answers-but-its-diffic). The reason in both cases was that it's too subjective, rather argumentative and no objective answer could be provided. It seems to me this might be a pattern we need to be careful about. It seems to me that both questions and discussions around them implicitly assume that the question cannot be objectively answered. That however rules out any scientific discourse based on softer criteria. I argue that such questions should not be closed so quickly, there indeed might be good answers to them rooted in research in humanities, history, sociology, etc.
Considering the discussion [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/299/how-do-we-attract-people-from-all-research-areas), my feeling is that due to the current composition of academia.SE audience which is skewed towards people from exact scientific disciplines, we might be too dismissive about questions from humanities. This way, we won't succeed to attract people from those areas. We should rather find a way to embrace such softer questions.<issue_comment>username_1: As somebody with a strong liberal arts background, I can sympathize that most of the questions here *do* come from people with a science background—but that makes sense, given the host of the board!
However, the question you cite at the top of the page is **way** too broad for the Q&A format Stack Exchange promotes. "Why is *X* the way it is now?" questions are usually poor fits for formats like SE sites.
As a moderator, however, I will keep an eye out for questions that are being given too short a leash. I prefer to keep things community-moderated (since I am a volunteer, not an elected mod), but will step in if things are getting out of hand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am a little confused about why the linked question leads to this question, but in general I think we are closing some of these broad questions too quickly. It seems the decision is that the answer will be subjective and long. I think for many of these types of questions someone with the expertise could write a really good reasonable length answer. We don't have very many unanswered question, so leaving some of these open wouldn't be a big problem and we could see if eventually we get people with the required expertise.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm not sure to see the connection with humanities. The form of questions and answers does not depend on the underlying academic field, but on common language. Whether you're a philosopher or a physicist, the objectivity of a question is identical. You can bring facts from social sciences, humanities, history, or anything else, as long as they are facts. Whenever it starts with "I believe that ..., but I don't have anything to support it", that's not objective.
>
> That however rules out any scientific discourse based on softer criteria. I argue that such questions should not be closed so quickly, there indeed might be good answers to them rooted in research in humanities, history, sociology, etc.
>
>
>
They can have root in research in such fields, and if there are corresponding publications, they become facts. If there is question where the answer can be: "yes, look at the paper published by X in Y", then regardless of the underlying field, that's an objective answer.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/01/25 | 228 | 963 | <issue_start>username_0: We currently have two separate tags for [publications](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications "show questions tagged 'publications'") and [papers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/papers "show questions tagged 'papers'"). As far as I can tell, they're identical; both discuss research articles. I propose to merge them, but just in case I'm missing some nuance, I wanted to bring it up here first.<issue_comment>username_1: I imagine that publications is broader than paper: a book chapter is a publication, it's not a paper. Probably, so is a popular science contribution (I've never heard those referred as “papers”, more like “pop sci articles”). Now, whether that difference is used in practice, I cannot say.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree. I recommend that they be merged. They are 99% overlapping, and in practice seem to be used more or less interchangeable.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/01/28 | 445 | 1,815 | <issue_start>username_0: [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7508/4227) had certain comments by 2 users( JeffE , and scaaahu ) which although were not strictly on-topic, but nonetheless added to the discussion by providing a different viewpoint. Why were they removed ?<issue_comment>username_1: Comments are ephemeral and disposable across most Stack Exchange sites (math.se and MathOverflow.se are notable exceptions). If there's anything useful that comes out of a comment that applies to the post it's commenting on, then the post should be edited to reflect the comment accordingly.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'll take a little less of a hard-line stance than EnergyNumbers; comments often add a lot to the discussion, but oftentimes users request that off-topic flags be deleted to make the answers cleaner. I suggest the following:
* If you have something to say which directly related to the question and is *not* a request for clarification or more information, **post it as an answer**.
* If you want to add something to an answer, you can either add that point as a comment, or if it's appropriate, edit it in!
* If you want to clarify a point related to to an answer, add as a comment.
* If you want to discuss an answer, [bring it up in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2496/academia), and feel free to add a [link to the chat discussion in the comments](http://chat.stackoverflow.com/faq#permalink) so others can join the discussion.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As the one responsible for deleting those comments, the comments were flagged as no longer relevant to the discussion. Having reviewed the changes made to the text of the question, and the texts of the comments, I believed the flags had merit, and deleted them.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer] |
2013/01/29 | 680 | 2,780 | <issue_start>username_0: I find that the [writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing "show questions tagged 'writing'") and [scientific-writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-writing "show questions tagged 'scientific-writing'") tags are used interchangeably in existing questions… [I suggest we make them synonyms](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/scientific-writing/synonyms). Please give your opinion in answers, so the mods can make it happen if the community feels it's okay.<issue_comment>username_1: This is messy and I think there is a bigger question. At the most basic level, should the tag be [scientific-writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-writing "show questions tagged 'scientific-writing'") or [writing-scientific](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing-scientific "show questions tagged 'writing-scientific'")? I think they mean fundamentally different things and I am not sure we need to break down writing or science into sub categories. We also have [scientific-productivity](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-productivity "show questions tagged 'scientific-productivity'"), but no [productivity](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/productivity "show questions tagged 'productivity'") tag. I think I would vote for getting rid of the sub-categories and let people decide if it is [science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/science "show questions tagged 'science'") or [writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing "show questions tagged 'writing'") or both.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Why should [writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing "show questions tagged 'writing'") and [scientific-writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-writing "show questions tagged 'scientific-writing'") be synonyms ? After all, there's a lot of academic writing that's not scientific. Admittedly, this site is very tech-heavy, but that's not by design, and we'd welcome academics from non-science disciplines as well.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with the other answers. And I propose that:
* as scientific-writing is a subset of writing;
* and given that because the context is academia, all the writing we'd talk about is scholarly writing, even when for a lay audience;
then the main tag be [writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing "show questions tagged 'writing'"), and that [scientific-writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-writing "show questions tagged 'scientific-writing'") be a synonym of it.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/02/05 | 575 | 2,315 | <issue_start>username_0: I see a trend among some members to shoot down questions they *presumably* not have an straight-out answer for. I don't think this makes much sense. Nobody has answers to all thinkable questions, besides we don't all think (and express our thoughts) alike. Shooting down questions that you might not have an answer for prevents others who might actually have an answer (especially if the users "shooting-down" are high-rep users).
I am a supporter of productive critique instead of destructive attitude and can imagine the above mentioned attitude hurting this site in the future.
Am I the only person who feels this way?<issue_comment>username_1: Questions that are closed usually have run afoul of the FAQ's for the board. It's not a sign that there isn't a good question to be asked—it's an acknowledgment that there are problems with the question *as it is currently being asked*. Not having anything to contribute is *not* a reason to close a question.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that you might be misinterpreting: the criterion for closure is not *“they do not have an answer”*, but rather *“cannot receive good, objective, fact-based answers”*:
>
> **not constructive**
>
> As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ for guidance
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> **not a real question**
>
> It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.
>
>
>
There are many questions that get no immediate answer, and it's fine. Some of mine have been in that category, taking a month or more to get an answer. That's fine, unless several users (5) think that it simply *will not* get such an answer: not because they don't know, or because they don't think someone knows, but because the question is inherently impossible to answer in the “Stack Exchange” Q&A style.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/02/06 | 1,163 | 4,537 | <issue_start>username_0: [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7817/representing-experimental-data?noredirect=1) about representation of experimental data was migrated to [CrossValidated](http://stats.stackexchange.com), the SE site for “statisticians, data miners and data analysis”. Below, I make the case that this question is actually a pretty good fit for our site, too, and that it should be reöpened. I welcome comments on this position, and would like to know the feeling of the community at large.
---
First, let me state that there is no doubt that the question is on-topic on [CrossValidated](http://stats.stackexchange.com). However, I think it is not off-topic for Academia.SE. That case (a question on topic on two or more sites) happens from time to time (for example between Physics and Chemistry), and the SE policy for such a case is clear: the first step for migrating a question is “is it off-topic?”. If it's not, it stays, even if it might be a “better fit” for the *other* SE site.
Now, is [that specific question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7817/representing-experimental-data?noredirect=1) on-topic at Academia? Our FAQ says on-topic categories of questions include:
>
> * Requirements and expectations of academicians
>
>
>
**The question is *exactly* about the requirements and expectations of plotting data in an academic context.** It's a common question for people to ask, an usually a topic about which people have not received formal training, even if great books exist (see: [Tufte, E.R.](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)). So, in my opinion, it is both on-topic and of great interest. It's not a specialized data-analysis question (which *would* probably be off-topic), but rather a common question.
I welcome other people's comments, in particular those of people who voted to close and migrate. I genuinely don't understand how this question was judged off-topic, so I'd be happy if you could explain it to me. In particular, *if it is judged off-topic*, how can it be modified to be on-topic? (I know it cannot be edited now that it's migrated, but it can be reäsked.)<issue_comment>username_1: As the one who prompted the migration, I believe that the question was purely statistics. The only element that made it "academia"-specific was the issue that it was a disagreement between a student and a professor. If you change the people making the argument from student and professor to co-workers in a lab, or an employee in a factory and his boss, the "academic" aspect of the question goes away.
A good question for Academia.SE (or any other board) should be one where changing some of the details *does not* change the relevancy to the board.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm not sure I agree with your argument that this is an Academic topic. The question being asked here could have been asked in an aeronautical engineering forum, or a financial engineering forum, or a jelly bean sales forum. Simply replace the work "professor" with "boss" and it's completely generic. The fact that it occurred in an Academic setting does not automatically make it an Academic question. Personally, I support the migration.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm not sure about the exact policy for migration, since at the same time, I think [cross posting is frowned up](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/64073/179702). So if the question could be a better fit, it might be better to migrate the question rather than posting it twice.
I also agree with you, from a personal point of view, that the question is not strictly off-topic, in the sense that presenting data can be an academic problem. However, in that case, where do we draw the line? For instance, you voted to close <https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7706/should-i-italicize-sans-in-a-paper-especially-math-cs-econ> (although it's more used in academic papers, than, say, in recipes), or <https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7607/who-is-the-author> (authorship is a big problem in academia).
I would say that in the end, the community should decide. The examples you gave of other questions do not have any close vote, why the original question you mention had already three close votes, before the migration.
In conclusion, I don't have any strong feeling either way, but based on the community reaction, I don't think it was wrong to migrate it. The detailed answer obtained after migration seems also to be consistent with the migration.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/02/11 | 923 | 3,499 | <issue_start>username_0: Continuing with my push towards more liberal stance on deleting questions (we are developing here some [deletionists vs. inclusionists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia) issues, I guess), let me ask the following:
>
> Suppose we've got a trivial, localised, or otherwise not-that-good question, but thanks to a slight shift in its interpretation and seeing through the question somebody provided quite valuable, even though only tangentially related answer. **Should we delete such a question?**
>
>
>
Before diving into the review of (currently 43! proposals to close), I would like to get an idea of the moderators'and the community's opinions whether my, openly inclusionist, stance has any merit and approval.
I am referring to questions, such as these:
* [Distance Learning vs Free Online Education](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1417/distance-learning-vs-free-online-education), or
* [Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7338/funding-for-belgian-student-to-do-a-phd-in-uk)
In the first one, the answer by Charles is something worth to keep, and in the second one it's the rmounce's reply.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> [Distance Learning vs Free Online Education](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1417/distance-learning-vs-free-online-education)
>
>
>
This seems to be a very good question which happens to be worded very poorly. If anyone cares to edit this, I think it's well worth salvaging. To me, the close votes only reflect that the question body does not reflect the title. The question in the title seems to be a good question.
>
> [Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7338/funding-for-belgian-student-to-do-a-phd-in-uk)
>
>
>
Again, to me this question just looks like it needs a little editing. The current question is actually fine—"what alternative funding sources exist?"—but it could use some editing to make it read smoother.
---
Broadly speaking, just because someone voted to close doesn't mean any closing is necessary. As a beta site, anyone can vote to close, and lots of questions with close votes are perfectly fine. This is particularly true of the older ones you're looking at, as we were still defining the site scope when those were asked.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: We have good strong guidelines, the FAQ, and the wider Stack Exchange culture.
The only criteria that matter for old questions, are the same criteria we apply to new questions: if they are off-topic, not constructive, or not real questions, they should be closed.
If we leave open questions that are not in line with those criteria, then we're leaving broken windows around, and the site will decay and fall apart. Bad questions should be closed, then either deleted, or ideally edited to a fit state and reopened.
Both the questions you've cited are not appropriate as they stand. So let's close them, and then see whether they get deleted, or edited & reopened.
We should also be a lot less precious about crowd-pleaser questions that are not constructive. Yes, lots of people are tickled by them. But if they're not constructive, or not real questions, or off-topic, they should be closed.
For example, [What are the advantages or disadvantages of using LaTeX for writing scientific publications](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5414/96)
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/02/27 | 1,096 | 4,431 | <issue_start>username_0: I noticed [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7231/what-is-tvl-13-position) which made me wonder what the policy here is regarding localized questions. There seems to have been a discussion of "too localized" questions based on research area specific questions, but only meta question regarding country specific questions is about whether or not US-specific questions are on-topic?
Does the current state of the "rules" approve of country specific question, if so to what extend?<issue_comment>username_1: As I said in a comment to [Are US-specific questions OK?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/188/are-us-specific-questions-ok) I am not sure questions are really ever country specific. I believe your example question [What is a "TV-L 13" position?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7231/what-is-tvl-13-position) is pretty localized, but not so much because of the German nature of it. I think the question is potentially useful for anyone in Germany, anyone applying for a German job, or anyone considering hiring someone currently working in Germany. It also has limited use for people trying to understand the employment status of graduate students across different countries.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I believe some questions are very much country-specific. For example, there are quite some differences between the usual PhD programmes in the US and the UK and I have spent some time trying to think of an answer before somehow inferring that the question refers to something I wouldn't know about.
I don't see this as a problem as such (after all, academia is very international and people move between continents all the time), but I would like to have a way of pointing out to the reader whether the question is (potentially) country-specific or not. Otherwise there will/might be answers that don't apply to the question at all, and readers can happily skip the ones that they won't be able to answer.
I think there should be a tag/tags or at least a convention for questions to point out the country in the same way as people generally point out their particular discipline.
Any opinions on that?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I want to support the comment by username_2 about adding country and discipline. At the same time I think such restrictions should not prevent answers from being more generally applicable if they provide new insights or provide a different perspective. I have experienced answering a question that seemed general but later turned out to be changed to country specific. The answer then seemed a bit out of place but I still would maintain that a wider spectrum of answrers is a positive.
I think many who pose questions do not realize they are in an international arena, hence the many "too localized" and other forms of narrow questions. So finding a way to be constructive both in the specific and in the general would be a beneficial as I see it.
So should then answers also be "labelled"? and will the site members support wider ranges of answers to narrow questions for the benefit of everyone? those are some of the question which I keep thinking about.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Few hours ago [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1987/how-to-get-enrolled-in-a-german-university-for-ph-d-in-computer-science) question was deleted. Even though not the best question ever, I think it offers some good perspective. It's localized to country? Yes. Are the answers specific to a particular discipline? No. Now how about [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1644/what-percentage-of-admitted-phd-students-comes-from-waiting-lists) question? Or [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6032/switching-from-one-area-of-graduate-study-to-another), [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8772/issue-on-conditional-phd-admission), [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8633/pumping-up-my-gre-score-or-getting-some-publishing-under-my-belt) and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7490/how-common-are-phd-interviews-in-the-u-s)?
**I think, we should be very careful not to make out of this site a US-centric place with otherwise some valuable discussion about general academic topic. In my opinion questions about admissions to universities around the world are appropriate here.**
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/03/07 | 1,151 | 4,445 | <issue_start>username_0: I flagged a question as off-topic but it was declined, with the comment:
>
> declined - Please use the closing vote mechanism
>
>
>
Close votes require 500 reputation, correct? Why would this be declined if I **can't** do that? What is the purpose of being able to vote as off-topic if I am not supposed to...?
The question was: [I and my advisor have a crush on the same woman, what should I do?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8209/i-and-my-advisor-have-a-crush-on-the-same-woman-what-should-i-do)<issue_comment>username_1: As I said in a comment to [Are US-specific questions OK?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/188/are-us-specific-questions-ok) I am not sure questions are really ever country specific. I believe your example question [What is a "TV-L 13" position?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7231/what-is-tvl-13-position) is pretty localized, but not so much because of the German nature of it. I think the question is potentially useful for anyone in Germany, anyone applying for a German job, or anyone considering hiring someone currently working in Germany. It also has limited use for people trying to understand the employment status of graduate students across different countries.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I believe some questions are very much country-specific. For example, there are quite some differences between the usual PhD programmes in the US and the UK and I have spent some time trying to think of an answer before somehow inferring that the question refers to something I wouldn't know about.
I don't see this as a problem as such (after all, academia is very international and people move between continents all the time), but I would like to have a way of pointing out to the reader whether the question is (potentially) country-specific or not. Otherwise there will/might be answers that don't apply to the question at all, and readers can happily skip the ones that they won't be able to answer.
I think there should be a tag/tags or at least a convention for questions to point out the country in the same way as people generally point out their particular discipline.
Any opinions on that?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I want to support the comment by username_2 about adding country and discipline. At the same time I think such restrictions should not prevent answers from being more generally applicable if they provide new insights or provide a different perspective. I have experienced answering a question that seemed general but later turned out to be changed to country specific. The answer then seemed a bit out of place but I still would maintain that a wider spectrum of answrers is a positive.
I think many who pose questions do not realize they are in an international arena, hence the many "too localized" and other forms of narrow questions. So finding a way to be constructive both in the specific and in the general would be a beneficial as I see it.
So should then answers also be "labelled"? and will the site members support wider ranges of answers to narrow questions for the benefit of everyone? those are some of the question which I keep thinking about.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Few hours ago [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1987/how-to-get-enrolled-in-a-german-university-for-ph-d-in-computer-science) question was deleted. Even though not the best question ever, I think it offers some good perspective. It's localized to country? Yes. Are the answers specific to a particular discipline? No. Now how about [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1644/what-percentage-of-admitted-phd-students-comes-from-waiting-lists) question? Or [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6032/switching-from-one-area-of-graduate-study-to-another), [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8772/issue-on-conditional-phd-admission), [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8633/pumping-up-my-gre-score-or-getting-some-publishing-under-my-belt) and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7490/how-common-are-phd-interviews-in-the-u-s)?
**I think, we should be very careful not to make out of this site a US-centric place with otherwise some valuable discussion about general academic topic. In my opinion questions about admissions to universities around the world are appropriate here.**
Upvotes: 3 |
2013/03/14 | 1,202 | 5,016 | <issue_start>username_0: There is a lot of questions asking for life advice, e.g. describing a problem with their PhD advisor (or the head of the department). It's very common that there is a list of possible decisions and the asking person wants to pool what do people advise?
On one hand side, they are not good questions in the SE sense - as they are subjective, mixing a lot of questions in one, and somewhat localized.
On the other hand - very often they raise important problems, or *contain* questions that could be extracted.
More than often such questions remain open.
EDIT:
My main point is not to set criteria for closing questions, but to ask what should we do is a question is "asking for a general life advice, given the described situation"?
* Close first, ask later?
* Suggest to focus on one topic or split into subquestions?
* Leave it as it is, because it captures important issues?
Bear in mind that such question come mostly for people who are not yet familiar with SE, and may be not aware that open-ended subjective questions (and even worse - invitations to discussions) are not welcome here.
But at the same time they might be eager to rephrase the question.<issue_comment>username_1: I think an important aspect for such questions is: is the answer likely to ever help a 3rd party?
For example, *[Sex worker/student offering her (legal) services](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8194/1033)* is a good what-should-I-do question; it's quite possible that other people — now or in the future — face the same problem.
On the other hand, many what-should-I-do questions should simply be closed as *too localised*.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Questions on this board will necessarily be more subjective than on other SE boards, but I think that the topic that we're covering is by definition more subjective, since most of what we're dealing with is interpersonal relationships.
So, I think the standard is to ask, as username_1 suggests, if the question can help someone else. I don't really get the sense that *that* many questions are very localized. However, whenever I see one that is, I try to "abstract" the question and make the answer of greater general validity.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm strongly in favor of using comments to suggest improvements (option 2 above). Premature closing will necessarily lead to alienating new users, as that conveys a very mod-heavy community culture, which we don't want. Leaving the question open leads to a cluttered forum. Following the "teach a man to fish" idea, if we subtly convey via comments that a given question could be improved by splitting it up/clarifying the question/removing *ad hominem* or other inappropriate content, we can not only enlarge the community, but we can gain *positively contributing* community members, which are the best kind.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I would not try to judge such questions on their "objective" merit. I rather see this site as a place for providing *useful* answers to relevant questions people have. We can't say what people find useful over time (perhaps it can be measured by view count over time, links how did they arrive here, etc.). My concern rather is to ensure that even when we have a speculative question, we should make sure that
1. the question is broad enough to possibly help 3rd parties;
2. the question is worded, tagged and answered in such a way that it will be likely found by people having a similar problem in the future.
My stance derives from observing myself often typing into a search engine a vague question in the hope to get something what either a) speaks about my problem and provides a useful perspective; or b) advances my search for my own answer further. Clearly, if a question is speculative, answers to it often can advance somebody's search for help and I would say that is good enough achievement for a Q&A site like ours is.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I've just browsed the recent questions and they are very heavy on the "what should I do"/life advice side of things. While I don't see localization as a big issue, many of the questions only apply to the very specific situation of the person who asks the question and aren't of particular interest to anyone else - and they're not even necessarily "academic" questions. E.g. ["shall I move away to a good university or shall I stay here and go to a not so good university"](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8737/what-to-think-about-when-choosing-phd-program) (edit: especially given the answers this type of question seems to attact) is life advice and has not much to do with academia.
I was hoping that academia SE would be of general interest to researchers/academics, but it seems to become more of a place for confused grad students to ask for life advice. (Disclaimer: I'm a grad student.)
So I would prefer a stricter policy of closing questions that are very specific and personal, in favour of quality.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/03/14 | 471 | 1,914 | <issue_start>username_0: Recently, someone posted the question "[Fee surcharge for international students](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8565/73)", which was an undisguised rant. Someone mentioned this in the comments, and the user tacked on a question. To me, the question as added is likely off-topic here; it's a legal question about academia, not an academic question. However, the fact that the question was tacked on as such indicates to me that the user is looking more for discussion than an answer. I would vote to close, but my vote is automatically binding, so I wanted to see what the community thought. Do you think this question should be closed as "not a real question"?<issue_comment>username_1: I agree that this as it stands this is not really a question. There might be one in there, but it is pretty buried. I am also think the question has a strong personal bias.
As for not using your mod powers, I think you are correct. We now have a fair number of users who can and do vote to close. I like thye idea of letting the community decide and bringing attention to possible questions with meta/chat like you did here.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I did not vote to close this question simply because I was in the OP's shoes many years ago.
Personally I am on the OP's side. However, I believe this question is solicting opinions and could stir up endless debates, not suitable for our site.
It is more about public government policies than just academic one. If it is a decision made by state government, how do you overrule it?
For example, every state university in the US I know of impose tuition charges on in-state residents and out-of-state residents differently. From in-state resident's position, this is fair. Out-of-state residents feel this policy is unfair. Endless debate.
Thanks to those who voted to close. Save me a lot struggle.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/03/27 | 616 | 2,721 | <issue_start>username_0: Let's get real here. Academics in mathematics ARE different from acedemics in medicine. We should embrace the real world !
This is not to prevent general questions.
For example a general tag of tenure promotion could have multiple questions in different fields. Just like on StackOverflow questions about X-Path could be asked specifically to various languages (Java, C, Perl).<issue_comment>username_1: Academia in mathematics is not *always* different from academia in medicine. There are plenty of aspects (publications, career, PhD supervision, etc) that are shared across disciplines. That's the whole point of this site. And this is very real.
EDIT: For instance, consider your question [Are there Conference Proceedings that have impact factor?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7211/are-there-conference-proceedings-that-have-impact-factor). You just tagged it with "medicine", although the notion of Impact Factor is common to every publication-based field. walkmanyi's answer (that you accepted) is not specific at all to medicine. My answer is actually only for computer science.
In other words, your question is very generic, and could interest any one who cares about publishing into a conference. However, now, it has the tag "medicine", which might make some people think that it's a medicine-specific question, and ignore it. I can't see anything gained by adding this tag, but I can clearly see what you've lost.
In the end, it's your question, so you can do pretty much what you want with it, but please be aware that tags that are considered as unnecessary might be removed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The question of field explicit vs. generalized questions on this site seems to be a great divide.
I can see that some aspects of certain fields are just that, field specific. At the same time, I have seen many good questions, which when given a general answer, turns out to have been written in an implicit understanding they are very specific. The general answer then gets lots of comments about "not applying" to this and that and in addition, the question gets changed to become narrow and more specific.
Ok, so a specific question is probably better than a general one since it can be answer very specifically. But then we end up with many similar questions each specifically targetting a narrow field (duplicates?). In addition we close questions that are too narrow. So it seems to me that being general is what we are looking for and acccepting answers that apply to the question in the general sense.
The problem as I see it is to make new users aware of the fact that answers may be more general than what they expect.
Upvotes: 2 |
2013/03/29 | 926 | 3,832 | <issue_start>username_0: My understanding of the answers and votes on the [question whether software-related questions are on-topic](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/174/are-questions-on-software-on-topic) is that indeed, questions on software as tools for work in academia **are on-topic**. Now [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8578/how-to-physically-handle-hundreds-and-hundreds-of-papers/) was closed recently. To my understanding, the question is about tools too. Perhaps it is on something many would regard as too lowly and dirty issue, but I think it's relevant to work people in academia perform. So I would like to finally see how to deal with questions regarding tools, be it software, hardware, or otherwise practical things making life of a teacher, or a researcher easier.
P.S.
As I expressed already elsewhere, I'd rather take an inclusive position regarding deleting question on this site. This should be a place to provide answers of whatever kind relevant to academia, rather than a list of FAQ for academics. Hence my question above.<issue_comment>username_1: That question is well-phrased as an academic concern, and I agree with you that it's on topic here.
To the broader point, I agree with you; if something is well phrased an academic concern, I would definitely rather keep it here than delete it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with you that this question is basically on-topic. To be honest, I'm also a bit annoyed by the fact that the question was closed and deleted without a single comments or explanation as to why the closers/deleters believed it was off-topic, meaning that the OP had no chance to improve his/her question.
I'm going to undelete and reopen the question (there is only one vote missing for the undeletion and two for the reopening, so I don't feel like abusing moderator privileges).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I also agree with this sentiment. Technology plays an essential role in all areas of life, but the needs of academics can in some cases be quite specific. I don't particularly like the attitude of several 'experienced' acad members who tend to punitively close academic specific questions but relating to software, websites, etc on the general presumtion of 'not relevant to academia', despite receiving several constructive responses and healthy discussion. Just because one doesn't personally find it interesting doesn't mean that other people with academia don't find it useful. I do like this site, but in generally I feel that these types of questions are not welcome, despite having no other natural home (for example the first question I asked here got several answers and a good discussion, but was then migrated where it still has virtually zero response).
I would like to get more involved, as this area is personally particularly interesting to me, but I don't see the point in contributing if my efforts are permanently deleted from the ether due to other people's biases.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I'm confused about the inconsistent application of questions about tools and whether they're on topic or not.
For example:
<https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10597/how-can-i-use-the-ms-onenote-application-for-my-lierature-search> was closed and received downvotes.
[How to read and take notes on research papers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/10578/how-to-read-and-take-notes-on-research-papers) is open and has a number of upvotes.
The close votes for one is that it is off-topic (rather than, for example, being "not constructive"; arguably the second question shows that the some solutions have been attempted, whereas the first one does not illustrate this preparation) but at the core these questions have similar styles.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/04/02 | 1,395 | 5,412 | <issue_start>username_0: I was reading [this post from the main site](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/phd-at-a-low-ranked-university-leading-to-frustration) and found myself confused why there are four votes to close. As my comment there says, I think the underlying question (though it could have been asked in a better way) is widely applicable. While the question is about a personal situation it seems to me a situation that many students may find themselves in.
I saw [this meta question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/99/personal-advices-instead-of-general-questions-means-low-reusability) and it is similar but I don't feel that other question really answers my question.
My question remains, if a question is generalizable, then even if it is about a personal situation, shouldn't it be on-topic? Should we edit the question to make it more generalized?<issue_comment>username_1: The question as it stands is "What should I do to make my life better?". I can see how it is generalizable since the situation that is causing the unhappiness is fairly common, then the question is: What should one do to make one's life better?
This type of question seems to be chatty and open ended so is not a good fit for the site. See the [FAQ](https://academia.stackexchange.com/faq#dontask) for guidance.
I guess I should add that I didn't vote to close yet. I think there is a question buried in there and before voting to close I would want to write a comment that may lead to a helpful edit, and I haven't had time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_1: I am a little surprised that someone cast the final closing vote without making a comment on this meta question. Similiarly, there are 3 reopen votes. We need to build a consensus about what is on/off topic and discussing questions like this is key. As I said in my other answer, it is not that I disagree with the vote to close, but rather the lack of discussion. The 19 up votes and 3 favourites says something about the question/topic that we need to be aware of. Is there an edit that can save the question. Can we ask a new good question that will appeal to those who liked this question?
We want to avoid a close/reopen war.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I see the point of the other answers. However, in the past few months and weeks I found myself to advocate a more inclusive stance on this site. I know that my position probably clashes with FAQ, but my view of this site is that it should provide useful advice, rather than well-phrased questions. Under *useful advice* I mean content which can be found by mere use of a search engine and providing valuable insights. Often questions are ill-phrased, but answers are valuable. IMHO, we are too quick to close/delete such questions.
Regarding the [question in consideration](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/phd-at-a-low-ranked-university-leading-to-frustration), I voted for re-open because I find the **answers** to the question useful. Is the question subjective? Yes. Is it generalisable? Probably yes, but at the moment it is too localised. Will people who put a question similar to the one asked into a search engine find answers useful? **Absolutely!** Hence my re-open vote. Not because of the question, but because of JeffE's answer which is an **extremely valuable piece of advice**.
Let me illustrate what I mean. During my first postdoc I felt overwhelmed by whatever came on me. I complained to my former thesis adviser and asked him for advice. His response was laconic: *Something is wrong with your time management.* Then I started to look for advice around the Network, eventually finding [this piece of text](http://www.scriptmag.com/features/primetime-juggling-writing-and-a-job-figure-it-out). In the core the question is the following:
>
> if we want to be writers, how are we supposed to write if we’re working 17 hours a day?
>
>
>
Would such a question fly here on this site? Probably not. Does it contain a sound advice? Absolutely!
To conclude the story, I printed out on a A3 paper the acronym `F.F.O.` and glued that above my desk. Worked very well for me and I am deeply convinced answers to the [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/phd-at-a-low-ranked-university-leading-to-frustration) in question would work for somebody else too.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Apparently, there have been many people to comment, enough people to vote to close, not enough to vote to reopen, and **none have edited it** into better shape. That's sad.
**If you want to see that question stay, improve it!**
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I think this disucssion is as good as it is difficult. In my view, a personalized question is fine if there is something general in it. The problem is that the OPs usually want a personal answer and generalized answers tend to be voted down or at least not voted up at all. So, I think the big question is, how do we get across to OPs that a personal question is fne but that the site expects some generality in both questions and answers, in short: that this is not a personal problem solving site?
I think we could do wth some standard greetings to new OPs so that in this case the message about generality comes across. Other sites such as [TeX.sx uses such a system](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/q/430/19384)
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/04/04 | 472 | 1,823 | <issue_start>username_0: [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9105/whats-the-best-researchers-could-do-for-their-native-country) on what's the best researchers could do for their native country was closed. It reads like a sentimental question and may even lead to chatty answers, but doesn't it have some potential? I cut off the emotional and patriotic part and this question seems to ask for thoughts on how to transcend country-borders in academic collaboration. With a minor edit, shouldn't that be on-topic?
Another grouse is with the answer: 1) it is fitting as a comment. 2) it does not answer the question. 3) it reads like a rant. Somehow the irrelevant answer has got 5 votes.<issue_comment>username_1: I agree with the the closing. The question is not really related to Academia; it's asking about how academics can be patriotic. That's a nice goal, but being patriotic doesn't have anything to do with being in academia.
Additionally, the question is very broad; what's "the best" someone can do is hardly an answerable question. The best they can do towards what end? Improving academics? Improving science awareness? Helping out research causes?
The question may be salvageable, but I agree with the closing as-is.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I voted to close this question because it does not seem a real question. It is more like advocating an idea. And as I emphasized in my answer, it approaches the idea from a wrong direction.
I think I should defend my answer too. The main point of my answer is: in order to attract any collaboration in any academic activity, the responsible organizations "must" 1. provide strong incentives, 2. maintain a productive and (less bureaucratic) academic atmosphere. Then, academic collaboration will happens naturally.
Upvotes: -1 |
2013/04/04 | 643 | 2,507 | <issue_start>username_0: Over the last few days, we have had rapid closing votes on [a question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/how-to-deal-with-the-frustration-of-doing-phd-at-a-low-ranked-university), followed by reopening. Even in questions which are ostensibly off-topic, but not on careful thought ([example](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/how-to-deal-with-the-frustration-of-doing-phd-at-a-low-ranked-university)), the closing votes have been dealt swiftly.
For a site like ours with [4 excellent](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia) grades and 1 Okay grade, is delaying the graduation out of beta harmful? More users with fewer points may have the privileges and there is the possibility of handling them without care.
For now, we could appeal to all for sincere consideration before downvoting or closing. We would want to be welcoming to new users and their questions. We also do not want to shuttle back and forth between closing and reopening.<issue_comment>username_1: To answer your question, no, I do not think so. The goal of any SE site is to increase the audience and hopefully maintain an active community. The fact that we're having disagreements as to how to deal with questions is probably a sign of a healthy, growing community, which is good. The fact you're asking about it here is a sign that you guys know how to handle it, which is even better :) We *want* more non-diamond mods, and we want everyone to know how to manage the site.
The only constructive criticism I have is that non-diamond mods (and diamond mods as well, myself included) should search the meta to be familiar with decisions already made by the community so that issues don't arise repeatedly.
On a related note, a reminder to everyone: Please don't ask about graduation from beta. It will happen when it happens. We have no control over it; it's purely a decision by the Stack Exchange team. So far as I can tell using my Super Sekrit Mod Powers™, we're doing great.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If anything I think it suggests that we are NOT ready to graduate. We need to learn how to discuss closing/reopening/tagging/editing etc within the confines and tools we have.
I personally think we vote to close way too quickly. I would like to see more discussion about closing gray area questions. I think this could happen in either the comments, chat or meta, but right now we are not doing it and not encouraging new users.
Upvotes: 1 |
2013/04/04 | 1,266 | 4,905 | <issue_start>username_0: Welcome to the academia.SE Community Poll thread! (shamelessly stolen from [TeX.SX](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1564/tex-community-polls))
This thread is used for opinion and usage polls around Academia and academia.SE. The poll questions are added as "answers" to this "question". Their answers have been added as comments below them. To participate simply up-vote the comments which apply for you. If there is no suitable answer yet simply add it as comment by yourself. You can't up-vote your own comments but the comment author will be counted manually. Please do not add any other comments to these posts. General comments can be added to this "question".
Rules
Rules
-----
* Community poll questions are placed as "answer" posts below. Feel free to add your own1.
* Answers to these poll questions are placed as "comments" below them. Because this is also an opinion poll subjective questions are welcome.
Please do not ask too specific questions and allow for multiple choices and votes, e.g. instead of something like "My absolute favorite for X is .." use something like "For X I often use ...".
* To participate up-vote the comments which apply for you.
* If required add a new answer as a comment.
If applicable hyperlink the entry to allow other users to learn more about it. Feel free to flag comments for moderator attention if they should be modified for some valid reason (wrong/missing hyperlink, etc.)
* Feel free to up-vote the poll questions ("answer" posts) as well to indicate that you liked the question. This will push the most favorite questions to the top.
* Do not post any other answer posts or comments. Please provide feedback and critic on the [corresponding discussion thread](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/468/discussion-about-academia-community-polls) instead.
**Some things they learned over at TeX.SX**
* Edits to polls after they started should not change the meaning
* Subjective topics are okay
* Yes/No question are okay
1 Should you be affected by the "Trivial answer converted to comment" feature simply post a longer dummy text and then edit it down to the correct content.<issue_comment>username_1: Comments on this [answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/437/929) made me curious on our demographics. Which countries have academic systems you are familiar with?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_1: Comments on this [answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/437/929) made me curious on our demographics. What fields would you consider yourself part of?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Are you currently working in Academia (i.e., employed by a university with a primary duty of performing research)?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Is English your mother tongue?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: If you are not currently working in Academia, do you have one or more advanced degrees?
(My reasoning behind this poll is whether there are people like me who have been in grad school or worked in academia and are interested in it)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: which of the following "roles" describes you best?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Which time zone (UTC +/-?) are you in primarily?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: How many publications in peer-reviewed journals have you made in your career?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: Did you do a part of PhD studies at another institute (for instance to learn a new method), if so for how long?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Seeing as we have more "senior"s than students here on AC.SE ([at least according to the poll](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/474/5674)), and also considering that many nationalities are represented here, I would like to know how important academics think of their titles. In other words, how important do you think it is that people address you with your title at work/uni?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: If you received an email from an author of a new paper, whom you'd had no contact with previously, bringing their new paper to your attention, letting you know that they'd cited one or more of your papers in it, and thanking you for your work, what would be your reaction?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: Are/were you happy in your PhD program?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: What is your gender?
*Please feel free to add the term you feel most comfortable with.*
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_12: What software do you use to manage papers?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_13: What continent do you currently reside in?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: How many professional societies are you a member of? (Motivation: [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/151218/what-fraction-of-scientists-are-members-of-professional-societies-and-or-associa).)
Upvotes: 0 |
2013/04/04 | 1,805 | 7,153 | <issue_start>username_0: Please discuss any ideas and issues about [Academia Community Polls](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/467/academia-community-polls) in this thread to keep it tidy.<issue_comment>username_1: Regarding the question "Are you currently working in Academia (i.e., employed by a university with a primary duty of performing research)?"
I'm not sure how a student should answer this one.
If s/he gets the salary form the university? If s/he is on fellowship?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Well, since we are a site of academians here is my curmudgeonly take on polls like these. Feel free to upvote/downvote or discuss.
Problems with interpreting polls like these
-------------------------------------------
* It isn't a random sample of the population of academics, so inferences about the distribution of responses for *Academics* in general can not be made, under any reasonable circumstances.
* Even questions that focus specifically on the population that participate here on the Academia site, it isn't a representative sample, so inferences *to even the characteristics of individuals who use the site* are very questionable.
It is fairly simple to illustrate the problematic aspects. Those more active on the sight are more likely to participate in meta. Thus non-response in polls is not a random sample of the individuals on the site. Some might argue this is a good thing (if you are more active you should be given more weight), but to suggest this results in any reasonable inference is tantamount to saying two wrongs make a right.
This doesn't even cover other problematic aspects of voting on the comments that may prejudice the results, such as comments that are placed first have higher exposure, and after accumulation of so many comments some are collapsed from the view. Both these circumstances will be likely to bias polls to already up-voted answers, making long term collection of the polls potentially *even more* sytematically biased.
I don't deny such poll questions can be fun and intriging, but lets be serious about what useful information that can be gleaned from such things. Potentially more useful ways to carry out some of the analysis that motivated the poll question are to utilize the [Stack Exchange data explorer](http://data.stackexchange.com/) (when we get out of beta), or to just scrape info. from user pages. I realize some of the questions are not possible from here, but that isn't a reason to pretend like comment polls are a reasonable solution.
For instance, in regards to whether we are CS centric, it wouldn't be trivial to scrape the data, but if you just go to user pages you could look at the reputation on other sites. You could then look at the distribution of users here to determine if people from either of the computer science sites *post* a disproportionate number of the questions/answers here. In terms of location data that would be pretty simple when we are out of beta (see [a similar question and answers on the stats site](https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1408/1036)).
(For fairness these are both problematic as well, for people don't need to connect there accounts and people don't need to supply location information, but again, problems with these approaches don't *justify* innapropriate polling!)
---
To place the distinction between these polls and generally interpreting upvotes/downvotes anywhere on the StackExchange sites, the (typical) goal is to ask a question and receive an answer. Votes (and checking as answered) are generally taken as tokens of the correctness/usefulness of the answer to the original question to outsiders.
While upvotes/downvotes on any question are similarly suspect to critiques of making inferences, any answer can be evaluated *in absentia* other context by a reader and determine its usefulness. That is, the poll of up and down voting is not the goal of asking a question, and if the site blinded them tomorrow the questions and answers currently on the site would not suffer from it.
The *question* that these polls attempt to measure is merely what proportions of the community conform to certain categories. Usefulness, should (I hope) be measured in how *accurate* an estimate they provide. Here, the upvotes and downvotes are the answer, and I've already provided reasoning as to why *they aren't likely to be a very good answer to the question*.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The phrasing in "Are you currently working in Academia (i.e., employed by a university with a primary duty of performing research)?" is overly narrow in excluding anyone whose primary duty isn't research. This amounts to saying many faculty members aren't academics at all, for example those in liberal arts colleges, teaching-focused comprehensive universities, community colleges, etc., as well as many adjuncts or teaching faculty in research universities.
I'm not sure how to fix this, given that we don't know whether the answers so far are based on the narrow interpretation or not, but it's worth keeping in mind in the future to avoid causing offense to academics who aren't primarily researchers.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Two recent poll questions have been added by @user8005.
[Do you agree that evolution is the best explanation for the origin of human life on earth?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/506/929) and [Do you think there's a purpose of life?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/507/929).
I am not sure what the purpose of the poll questions are, but these seem so far off topic that I think they should be deleted.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The [time zone poll](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/476/1010) got a bit confused, because it appears that some people answered based on daylight saving time (summer time) for their time zone, whereas others answered based on standard time.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Doing little clean up of the poll page. There was a question regarding this comment/answer
[Academia Community Polls](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/467/academia-community-polls/1596#comment7229_1596)
Which adds a non-binary gender type. I think it is covered at <http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Non-binary>
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: The polling format does not let people change their answers when their status changes.
The following questions for example have answers that vary in time:
[Which of the following "roles" describes you best?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/474/10643)
[How many publications in peer-reviewed journals have you made in your career?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/490/10643)
[Are you currently working in Academia](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/471/10643)
This one, without going into the details of how "happy" is an ill-defined descriptor, probably has an answer that varies frequently:
[Are/were you happy in your PhD program?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1533/10643)
People can up-vote another answer, duplicating entry, but not cancel their previous votes.
Upvotes: 2 |
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