text:
Is video editing off-topic?
The FAQ currently says this website is for people who use Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games. However, Blender is a full-featured and very competent video editor. Especially since the release of Tears of Steel, the software is a state-of-the-art special effects tool for live action film. Should questions related to non-animation video and compositing be allowed, since this is a very large (although lesser-known) feature of Blender?

This was asked eight years ago and the help center page https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic still suggests that only questions about modeling and animation are on-topic. This should probably be fixed, as the non-modeling uses of blender are now well established.

No it is not, the site is about Blender, if topics such as the compositor, tracker and the game engine are on topic, so is the vse. However, the question must relate to a problem within Blender or with Blender's VSE and not about just video editing or video editing techniques etc.

NO
The FAQ is still WIP, so don't let that define your view of what the site is for. If you have good Video Editing questions or knowledge, feel free to add them/it.
(The yes I had originally was answering the question in the body of your question).


text:
Are platform-dependent questions off-topic?
Blender is, for the most part, cross-platform in nature. Surely, there will be some platform-dependent issues that might be relevant, especially for Unix/Linux users. However, most 'platform-related' questions are probably going to be outside of the actual Blender development process. For example, questions about image export, Blender's compatibility with other, OS-specific software, and external image manipulation software (IE GIMP and Photoshop). I feel these tags are going to have an abnormally high percentage of off-topic posts, so should we keep or ditch the platform tags?

In my opinion compatability issues are not off-topic. If the question involves Blender and possible issues, even if they are connected to other software, they are still Blender issues to an extent.
Let's say someone doesn't know how to import a certain file into Blender that's created with another software. The question will still include Blender.

Whether something is off-topic or not will be filtered naturally through voting habits. I suppose we will see soon enough how many degrees of separation will be considered appropriate by the community.
There will be instances where it is useful to include a platform tag, because platforms can have different behaviours. Think of keyboard shortcuts, path variables (for python related things), and graphics drivers.

I agree with @Leathe above.. as long as the majority of the problem is with Blender it is valid. Depending on how it is worded and what the OP seeks to achieve however, is what will be the deciding factor won whether it gets an answer etc.

I think that they will not be so many. Also, as the site is Blender specific and Blender is multiplataform is normal that you need to specify you system in the answer (if related).
For example I want to ask how to change Transform Orientation with keyboard because in Ubuntu (and many others) Alt + Space are a system combination to show app menu. I think this question is ok (although is my own question, so it may be a little biased viewpoint).

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
What would be wrong with tutorials as long as they describe a reusable workflow?
First bullet point in What questions should be definitely off-topic? is :

Requests for tutorials
Can anyone show me how to model/rig/animate X?
Can anyone make a tutorial on doing X?

although I strongly agree with all other points, this one causes me headache. As a beginner I guess that I would most benefit from tutorial-style Q/A.
Would this question What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron? considered as asking for a tutorial and therefore be off-topic?
What would be the benefit for beginners if typical beginners questions are banned as off-topic?

Stack Exchange is a network of Q&A sites. From meta stackoverflow:

Tutorials are neither questions nor answers. If a question needs a
  full-blown tutorial to answer, it is likely too broad and therefore
  "not a real question" or "not constructive". Your proposal of creating
  a format that greatly detracts from Q&A doesn't sit too well with
  Stack Exchange, whose very building blocks are questions and answers.
If something needs a canonical answer in our site, it should be an
  answer to a question, not a tutorial.

Generally speaking, tutorial requests are broad and show a lack of effort on the asker's behalf. The site would probably become flooded with these kinds of requests if we were to accept them.
I would describe What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron? as a question rather than a tutorial request. It addresses a specific problem and has a short, definitive answer.

What is the whole point of asking questions if not asking for help?
However... it is good to give at least some try to achieve what you want, and when you fail... well that you ask questions why.
Maybe we should tag beginner questions so everyone will know... it might be a basic question.

The tag beginner is a meta-tag, I think.

Meta-tags are generally frowned-upon on other sites.

I agree except for the last line.

Well, beginners have right to ask questions too. There are just lazy people too... but sometimes one just do not know where to put his hand in to begin - and this is my point here.

As an example from another site, Ask Ubuntu, sometimes we have simple questions that cover wide areas and have long answers:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/62001/am-i-using-unity-or-unity-2d/
https://askubuntu.com/questions/48535/how-to-customize-live-ubuntu-cd
https://askubuntu.com/questions/162075/my-computer-boots-to-a-black-screen-what-options-do-i-have-to-fix-it

These are not similar to tutorials in their scope, but some may appear so in their length or in that they may have different answers for the same question (as in more than one way to do a single action).
Such questions are not off-topic to the site in question, they are just a a bit atypical in nature. They should not be discouraged, because the point is ultimately to become a place where people can swiftly get concise answers to their questions.
Of course, we would not allow questions asking things like:

"How do I do xyz for my homework?" (We don't do homework for people, though we can assist with specific issues encountered in the process (depends on the situation presented)).
"How do I model a star ship?" (What star ship?)
"How do I make a sky dome?" (Overly broad; because a sky dome can be done in different ways).

Questions similar to those above might work though.
For example:

"How do I create a transparent sky dome with opaque clouds?" (There are only so many ways to skin a cat).
"How do I create a laser beam for my starship?" (The question could be answered with a method that works in cycles, and another that works in Blender internal. In fact these could be included in one answer).

See these questions as examples.

How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?
What is the simplest way to generate a dodecahedron?

They are small and concise and can quickly be answered with a few images and a couple lines of text. What the post above clearly says should be off-topic is requests for tutorials or what we in the Blender community know to merit an actual full length tutorial.
For eg. How do I model a car in Blender?
This is not an ideal question for several reasons as it can be done many different ways and it wouldn't be ideal if one were to attempt to fully answer it and not just give tips and pointers. There would be several things to consider too such as best practices etc.
So in short, you can ask for help on small matters, how to quickly model folds in cloth etc, just not full blown things as asking how to rig, model or animate an entire character or object.
Update: Regarding questions and answers as tutorials

I think tutorials, and the culture of tutorials for everything, has lowered the bar for a lot of people, and I have mixed feelings about whether that is good or not. But at the moment there are so many tutorials, they start to duplicate effort. And at present most non text based tutorials aren't searchable without a transcript, and if you have timestamped-transcript you are in luck.
As seasoned users how often do we look for information only to find that the bit we wanted to know was a paragraph or word or a 10 second bit of video of a tutorial. Often we are only looking for the missing information that allows us to investigate further on our own.
For newcomers with no 3d experience it helps to have a narrative, initially. But this need diminishes proportionally to the amount of self-directed effort put into learning Blender (searching and reading the docs, the wiki, the various tutorials sites) until newcomers become intermediate and start to push away the hand holding of tutorials. And they too will start to favour narrow questions and answers.
Newcomers with prior 3d experience tend to be more exact with searches and questions, and generally progress to intermediate or advanced rather fast because they already have the vocabulary or have learned how to learn.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
What constitutes an "expert" question, and what quantifies being an expert?
I (and many other long time Blender users) may get accused of not asking expert questions, or not doing enough research, because we simply don't know that Blender can for example, make your tea in the morning.
Not everyone has read every iota of documentation or followed every tutorial out there, of course. However, how do we know what constitutes an "expert" question?
What makes someone an "expert" vs "intermediate" vs "newbie"? Just using Blender for x number of years is not enough, of course.

I think it's better to define what is not an expert question. "How do I make a game in blender" is not an expert question. The site should be welcoming to newbies, but we should still hold a quality standard for their questions.

@Luke that's actually a good answer.

There are many things that constitute to how a question is perceived. Your grammar, choice of words, formatting and what you intend. Here is an article that goes into how one can write a 'perfect' question.
A key point is

Question title
When a reader first sees your question, they're likely to be scrolling
  down a list of snippets. The most eye-catching part of the snippet
  will be the title - so use that text wisely.

and another is

The Golden Rule: Imagine You're Trying To Answer The Question
Once you've finished writing your question, read it through. Imagine
  you were coming to it fresh, with no context other than what's on the
  screen. Does it make sense? Is it clear what's being asked? Is it easy
  to read and understand? Are there any obvious areas you'd need to ask
  about before providing an answer? You can usually do this pretty well
  however stuck you are on the actual question. Just apply common sense.
  If there's anything wrong with the question when you're reading it,
  obviously that will be a problem for whoever's actually trying to
  answer it. So fix the problems. Improve the question until you can
  read it and think, "If I only knew the answer to the question, it
  would be a pleasure to provide that answer." At that point, post and
  wait for the answers to come rolling in.

Nothing specifies being an expert, while there are professionals on the site, how can you tell them apart from say someone who started using Blender a few days ago? It's all in how you phrase your question and deliver it. Research your question before asking it and make sure you understand what you are asking so you can better explain it.

I'm pretty familiar with what works and doesn't on SE, so I'm more specifically looking for what will work on Blender SE (especially now as we define the site). Professional is a subjective word, as I could be a professional UV mapper and never once touch modelling, for example.

@RolandiXor does it really matter? As I said, it's all in how you deliver the question. No offense, but a few of your earlier ones were a bit sloppy and showed no research effort.

Also, I'd like to point out, as happens on Ask Ubuntu where I moderate, users don't always come to ask questions that Google can't answer. Sometimes they simply don't know how something works, and it is honestly easier to get real people to help directly than to go to Google and dig around for something. We should not shut such people out.

@RolandiXor I know what you mean but how would the site turn out if users were asking extremely simple questions that could be found via a quick google search or a peek at the wiki.

I disagree on not showing research effort. They show a lack of knowledge, which is exactly why the questions were asked. Just because something is documented on the Blender Wiki for example, doesn't mean we should respond "Do your research" and close it. Remember, even "professionals" will have grey areas on certain subjects that some other people (even the majority) will be totally clear on. We should not treat such cases as though they are simply "Sloppy".

@RolandiXor it's a broad topic, once we get some firm mods in place some of these downvoting and closing issues will hopefully desist.

There are some things that are obviously too simple, like "How do I grab/move an object." But someone might ask "How do I scale an object along two axes and not the third?", for example, and that would be a fair question because even though it is basic to us, it's not something obvious and clear cut.

'Expert' questions usually come in the form of a very exact and narrow problem definition, they might also take the time to present alternatives and reasons for not using them. These kinds of questions rarely invite answers that are obvious, but can (in the case of blender) lead to developers modifying blender, or provoke others to script a solution.
'An expert' is someone who masters one or more fields. In blender.stackexchange this will probably start to bubble up as a person who gives valuable answers to difficult questions (that aren't immediately apparent from the documentation).


text:
Python tags and versions
It would seem a python is in order, should it be a separate tag or alias for scripting?
Also, should python or python-api have different versions, or that would be irrelevant?

With regards to versioning, the important differences between Python 2 and 3 would be rare enough that we shouldn't need distinct tags. Just specify which one in the question if necessary.

You can also script in C and C++

Python is the only scripting language used in Blender, any questions related to it can stay under python as they might extend past the api and into the language a bit, say something like 'stringifying' an object str(obj) for use in the gui, no need to start derivations. Let's try and keep everything as clean as possible.
As mentioned below scripting already exists, but keep in mind that Python based questions could be allowed to a degree as it relates to general Blender excluding scripting.
Examples..

Do I need to download and install Python before using Blender?
What version of Python does Blender use and how can I tell?

At the moment, [tag:scripting] exists and [tag:python] doesn't... Besides, the version question still holds

@JNF python usage questions can be asked that don't directly relate to scripting but do relate to Blender.

So you're saying two separate tags are in order?

@JNF quite possibly, I have edited it into the answer.

Thank you. That wasn't clear from the previous version of your answer.

I think it would make sense to have separate tags at least for python-2.x and python-3.x to keep compatibility straight. These two versions of Python are not perfectly compatible, and if either the OP or the answerer ever wants to include a code snippet, it could be useful to have these tags.


text:
Beginner's Reference
Update:
Since this post is less likely to be seen by visitors to the site and is technically not what meta is for (we were working on the kinks at the time), there is now a community maintained wiki post on the main site listing many resources for blender. If you want to contribute to this, add your content there.

After going through faq and seeing questions What would be wrong with tutorials as long as they describe a reusable workflow? and What questions should be definitely off-topic?
Two points are fairly clear:

The site isn't a ground for tutorials
People are going to come by asking for them

To help out on that, and to help more experienced users who still have what to learn, I propose building a page where links to documentation, references and tutorial are available. This would also make the site more welcoming, instead of just closing the question.
Another option, just linking to blender.org/support/tutorials.

Documentation

Manual 2.6

Blender Wiki

Python API 2.6

General Tutorials

Tutorials on official site

Noob to Pro

Blender Cookie (Jonathan Williamson)

Blender Guru (Andrew Price)

Blender Nerd (Greg Zaal)

Blender Diplom

KatsBits Blender tutorials & Blender training

Blender Modifier Series

Spastic Kangaroo (CharlesL)

Blender Hints and Advice: A General Guide

Game Engine

Nilunder's BGE Request Branch

Detailed Reference of Logic Bricks

Wiki (python)

Python

Python basic

Scripting

Wiki

Blender Scripting blogspot

Blender Sushi

Addon tutorial

Resources

Blend Swap - free blender meshes, materials, and whatnot

CG Textures - free textures

List of resources on the main site

GLSL

GLSL 1.2 Tutorial

Misc

Blender Artist - Blender forum to showcase and get feedback on Blender art.

Blender Nation - Hub for Blender news, resources and art showcases.

code.blender.org - Blender development blog.

How should I get started if I want to work as a 3D designer for games? - A question on the Graphic Design Stack exchange about how to get started making 3D for games.

I've created a 21 part text based tutorial series for getting a completely new user up to speed to create 2D or 3D game assets in Blender that might be a good fit on your list. Complete Blender Game Art tutorial for Beginners

@stacker This was mainly a list of tutorial/training type resources (as opposed to asset resources), unless I'm missing something..

@gandalf3 agreed I rolled back, I going to start my own collection at zeef.com it would have been more useful if we had one collaborativly list.

It is also common to put resources and tutorials relating to a specific topic in the tag wikis. Most of the popular tags on stackoverflow have quite comprehensive wikis (e.g. PHP or Java).
I'd love to see some useful links and information added to the tag wikis here, especially for common tags like modeling or rendering.

Nice suggestion, but half of the tags we currently have can barely fill the excerpt box. ;)

The site only launched yesterday :P


text:
Tag synonym request: [.blend-files]->[blend-files]
.blend-files should be synonymized into blend-files as they are fundamentally the same and non-aplhanumerics-or-hyphens should be avoided  in tag names whenever possible.

[feature-request] tags are for adding new functionality to the site.

@iKlsR It depends on the site; on AU tag synonym requests were often tagged as feature requests and left as such.

@ObsessiveSSOℲ, lets not do that here.

Don't think it should be synonymized. The correct form should be agreed on and left to rule. Not any typing error/off standard is reason for a synonym. They are basically the same thing minus a period (.), we should focus on keeping tags clean and maintainable.

@iKIsR, Thank you, but perhaps a comment would be more appropriate than an edit in such a case

I had initially planned to answer, merely added my two cents.

I think they should be synonymized. Otherwise, you'd have two tags that mean the same thing instead of one tag that the other points at, which is messier. Personally, I'd prefer to see .blend-files synonymized into blend-files; it looks nicer.

I think the alternative to synonymizing them is to somehow delete or blacklist the one we want to discourage.

@Gwenn: The advantage to synonymizing is that if someone starts typing ".blend", then they will see the "blend-files" tag in the choices.


text:
What should be the standard format for file-extension tags?
We should definitely standardize how we want to handle file-extension tags, because there's already been some confusion.
Should we have:

.svg or svg?
.stl or stl?
.blend-files or blend-files?
etc...

This is closely related to the blend-files/.blend-files synonym request, but I think we should discuss this as a more general issue.

I'd opt for without the dot, but I'm interested to see what other people think

Tags generally avoid characters that are not either alphanumeric or a hyphen, from what I've seen on other sites.

@ObsessiveSSOℲ: So far as I know, hyphens are used to separate words when needed. So it's not so much avoiding their use as simply not overusing them.

We should avoid the dots, as those refer to file extensions, not formats. Formats should be specified in the form of "svg", "blend", "obj-format", etc.

+1. No dots please.

Agreed. Some formats have multiple extensions anyway.


text:
General 3D Graphics
After seeing How can we ensure Blender.SE doesn't share 3DGraphics.SE's fate?
Are questions regarding general, or theoretic, 3D concepts on-topic?
e.g.

Best lighting for a specific set
How to make sure the render keeps the depth perception
How does the computer handle models mathematically

Maybe not best examples, but it's what I came up with.

Try not to ask subjective questions or ones that are too open to interpretation or likely to start a discussion.

- Best lighting for a specific set?
This is too broad and the title is extremely vague. There will be numerous ways of doing it if the answers are to relate to the question, and as the OP you might end up not approving any of them.
Instead you could ask Which lamps are better for lighting an indoor nighttime set?

- How to make sure the render keeps the depth perception?
This is ok, the scope is immediately set, you are asking a question on rendering settings. Fine.

- How does the computer handle models mathematically?
Off-topic, this is highly technical and does not directly ask how its done in Blender. Too general IMO.
You could instead ask How does the Blender parse and handle wavefront object files?

The key thing to keep in mind here is to always ask specifics and be as explicit or clear as possible. If someone has too think too much about what you are asking, you are less likely to get a good answer. CG questions that are too general would not be ideal. Try to have your question ask as to how something can be done using Blender, as that's what the site is about.

Regarding the last - it can help with scripting

@JNF how can knowing how the computer handle models mathematically help with scripting?. There are dozens of model formats, each with their own quirks and cons. It is not only off-topic but broad.

Computing volume, for instance. I mean math and algorithms for working with 3d data

I think, as this answer said, that if the question is sufficient specific it will be welcome. A question that is generic (meaning generic as doable in others CG programs) but that make users to answers specifics to Blender would be ok.

I don't think it is wise to begin accepting questions that aren't related to Blender - at least at this point.
Most general/theoretical/conceptual questions can probably be related to Blender in some way. If they can't, they should be closed as off topic. I'd imagine that many of these questions wouldn't be suitable for other reasons as well (e.g. not constructive or too broad).
It would be really sad to see this site go down the same path as 3D Graphics, which also started out at as a Blender proposal:

The proposal started
  out as a Blender site, and grew in scope over time until by launch
  its focus was unrecognizable - there's a very good chance it simply
  overshot its target audience. It's also quite possible that in the
  nearly year and a half incubation period, the folks who might
  have made up a core group of experts simply lost interest.

I think we have a fair shot, the community is more motivated. Lots of new features in Blender and plenty of other sites that stick to one topic have been successful, askubuntu for one.

Interesting. Thank you for pointing that out

I think, at least at the moment, there seems no other place to ask such questions. Even if it would be acceptable in another place, this is probably the best place to do it.
These questions are of interest for the community even if they don't necessarily involve Blender.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Do questions about materials count as tutorial questions?
We've already had a few questions come up where people have asked 'How do I make xyz material/texture?'
Do these questions count as tutorial-requests, and thus should be considered off-topic?
These questions, by their nature, seem to invite too much discussion (especially when either the word 'realistic' or 'best' is in the question). But I could reasonably see questions of this type being limited enough in scope that there is no concern.
I imagine that, if we allow this kind of question, it will be a very popular, especially among new users.

I would consider making material X to comprise of quite a number of steps, especially if there is to be explanation for options.

It all depends, if the user is asking how a specific setting works or how to get a better result from a node or feature then fine.
What could be considered lengthy is however, asking for details on how to construct complex shaders or materials from scratch. It is also a good idea to specify specifics about the material type you want. You should also not use words such as 'realistic' in your questions, this makes it subjective and too open to interpretation as everyone has their own opinion of what looks real or not.
In essence, all questions related to anything Blender are fine, just keep them concise, on-topic and explicit.

This seems suspicious: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/247/how-to-make-sharp-geometric-models-look-more-realistic

@JNF its ok imho, the answer above was geared towards materials mostly. Mats and models are two different things, hard surface models take less tweaking to get good results and he explicitly asks about sharp hard surface models, its fairly easy enough. There wasn't much left for the mind to decipher and he also asks how to get them to be more realistic, not fully realistic, so some mild differences there. Adding some realism to something is different from asking for it to be realistic. TL/DR: It was explicit enough.


text:
Regarding questions and answers as tutorials
Since I proposed the list of possible topics that should be off-topic, it seems it has been well received and people are working with it. However, there have been several discussions in chat, numerous comments and several other posts about #1.

1. Requests for tutorials

Can anyone show me how to model/rig/animate X?
Can anyone make a tutorial on doing X?

This post is to clarify what is meant by asking for a tutorial and answering a question in that manner.
First off.
Stack Exchange is a network of Q&A sites. From meta stackoverflow:

Tutorials are neither questions nor answers. If a question needs a
  full-blown tutorial to answer, it is likely too broad and therefore
  "not a real question" or "not constructive". Your proposal of creating
  a format that greatly detracts from Q&A doesn't sit too well with
  Stack Exchange, whose very building blocks are questions and answers.
If something needs a canonical answer in our site, it should be an
  answer to a question, not a tutorial.

A tutorial request can be said to be one that would take considerable text or visual aid to properly explain and or clarify (we want concise, clear and interesting questions). These are also quickly identified as they are usually started 'How to'.. and are usually very general, see #3 on the proposed off-topic list.
A tutorial in the form of an answer would also be one that would also take considerable text or visual aid to properly explain and are overly broad or have several different ways of starting and doing. Some generic examples are:

How can I model car X in Blender?
How should I start modeling object X in Blender?1
How can I rig this character?
Ways I make a walk animation?
How does the VSE work?

1Also questions that only ask for half of a solution to a problem should be out too, we want to have complete and concise answers where possible, not discussions, argumentative opinions and or suggestions and then leaving the rest to choice or interpretation.
Here is a question that has been asked as a tutorial or interpreted as such by the community.

How to do a cloth simulation in Blender?

If you look at it you can immediately see that to answer it, one would have to go into depth to explain various settings and options as we don't simply want to throw information out there without properly explaining it. This question is especially vague.
Here is a not so ideal question but valid example for an ideal example question that merits some explaining.
How do I take a flat model and wrap around an axis like a wheel?
At first the title is vague but the OP explicitly says in the question he is using modifiers, the scope was immediately set and this eliminated any other lengthy answers that could have been posted such as modeling the object manually, using splines or spinning/lathing etc.
Also see What would be wrong with tutorials as long as they describe a reusable workflow?

Proposal for questions that merit or require a detailed answer.

Try to be as explicit as possible or limit your question to specific areas you don't understand or have problems with. The closer your problem is to whatever you want, the easier it is for someone to give a nice indepth reply. Some examples.

Proposal for answers to questions that merit or require a detailed answer.

In answering a question that merits some explanation:
If it is on-topic and limited to set way(s) of doing so, I propose that we answer but only with a maximum of three (5) or thereabout steps, each of about 5 lines (inclusive of visual aids). See my answer as an example, I do not need to go much into detail as the controls for the modifiers are extremely clear and simple.

All this being said, there has been a post started that will be a reference for users, new or experienced looking for tutorials or introduction to topics in Blender.
NB. Again, this is all off the top of my head and as per suggestions and comments picked up around the site. I can be completely wrong or off in some cases, feel free to leave suggestions and I will improve upon this, but we need a post to draw the line between definitive answers and tutorials.

Wow, I was expecting to have to add something to this, but you nailed it.

very good write up, but I have one question. Are you discouraging long and or detailed answers? It seams to me, that there is still no clear different between, a good but long answer, and a full tutorial.

@David Definitely not, most of this post is now obsolete but having written a few of the long answers here. What I mean is to word the answer in a general way that anyone can interpret rather than step by step instructions (a tutorial essentially). A good long answer IMO would be one with credible links, some visuals (gif or several images), perhaps a demo .blend and links to other relevant questions. The line is thin yes but here is a perfect example.

@David Also worth noting that this was targeted at the "How do I model or animate X" questions that we had popping up when we were in closed beta.

Thanks, I did not think you were discouraging good answers (that would be crazy). Here is another example. A great answer, but both this and your example could be called a tutorial. I guess my question came from the last part of your "question" the NB. Definitely agreed that the "How do I model or animate X" questions are off topic for this site.

This is really counterproductive. You're actively preventing the community from helping itself. It depends on the abillity of the mod to be able to interpret a question correctly which I highly doubt since I've been browsing for 5 minutes and found 2 topics I could have answered already. Sometimes "how do I X" CAN be answered with a tutorial but sometimes it's also a lot easier, if the question is interpreted AS THEORETICAL. "How would I, in theory, do X" should be a fair question.

For example this For example this http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8810/bge-sway-effect-for-fps is a question that needs to be answered with the description of the concept of tweening. But you locked it because "hurr durr he's lazy". So stop locking topics and question you don't understand.

@BNewmark I assume you are talking to me. Firstly, I had no action on that post. Secondly, if you actually read the close reason you will see why it's closed. Questions asked must demonstrate minimal understanding of the problem at least. This is practised across all SE sites, please take some time and browse the help pages and site rules.

@iKlsR "Questions asked must demonstrate minimal understanding of the problem at least." and you decide whether that understanding is there or not? All problems are trivial if you understand what's going on and have read the manual. I found answers to mathematical questions on other SEs all the time and they are limited by nature to "tutorial answers" as you put it. Also "because it requires step-by-step instructions for a process that is specific to a particular project" No it doesn't and no it isn't.

@BNewmark You are making me out to be a bad guy here. This site is community driven, no one person decides what is the norm around here. Regarding your statement, there are exceptions all the time, not everything can be caught. Kindly refer to this list put together by the community.

@BNewmark You have 3 accounts across SE and you've been around here for a few months at least with hardly any activity. As "harsh" as it may seem, these are the rules. SE is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum, homework site, or do this for me because I need it but have no idea how to do it. You should visit some more sites such as SO where on-topicness is enforced even more. And as I said, it is run by the community. I hardly think 5 people can be wrong about deciding to close something.

@iKlsR alright just be aware that this could be a major problem if questions are locked too easily. I totally understand why this policy is in place but the examples I've seen don't really fit the spirit. Also thanks for your quick replies.

@BNewmark Glad we reached a mutual understanding. Of course, if you see something that seems off, flag it! Nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes (even 5 people).

Heh . . . Gandalf3's black hole post . . .

@NoviceInDisguise We've let down our guard a bit over time.. ;), this was primarily to prevent people from turning the newly launched site into a tutorial ground. That being said, we are looking at a redefined scope soon.

@iKlsR OK, good idea


text:
How do we get syntax highlighted python in this stack exchange?
maybe im missing something.. but this should show some colours at the very least.
(insert some generic python here)
for i in range(40):
    print("something")

I understand that the syntax highlighting isn't a big deal for some people, but having to run a plugin in my browser to highlight code on sites doesn't sit well with me. If we can have these kbd tags, there is no acceptable reason to not have decent basic syntax highlighting. (unless that would require the parser to import bpy.. )

I got the email from iKlsR regarding this request.
I have now enabled highlighting of code section by default - using the default of python.
From the few posts I have looked at that do have python, it looks good. Let me know if there are any issues with this.

cool, thank you!

It should work, by adding <!-- language: lang-py --> at the top but oddly it doesn't seem to work here..
def __init__(self):
    pass

OK, if the beta grows this has a chance of happening? :)

@zeffii see my comment on the question, based upon what I have learnt, it is enabled upon request, so quite possibly yes.

then whose door do we knock on for this?

@zeffii I am thinking of emailing one of the SE mods or waiting till they see this.


text:
Migrating Blender related questions from other SE sites?
Will there be some time soon an effort to migrate blender related questions from other SE sites? I.e. Stackoverflow is full of 'em, and I'd imagine it'd be good to consolidate those into one place.

Most likely not (at least for the existing ones), but when we get into public beta, new questions probably will be.

While it's technically possible to migrate questions, the migration paths are not set up until a site becomes well-established.
But beyond that technical limitation, building this community from the old, pre-answered questions of another site would do this site a terrible disservice. That's not how you want to build this site.
Forget for a moment that other site may not want their content removed like that (along with the the knowledge and reputation earned). Consider that, from day one, your brand new site will be filled with old, pre-answered "anonymous" questions — remember, the  original authors are off on another site.
So, unless Blender questions have been deemed off topic on another site, we will not be migrating another site's content here.
Respect the community – your own, and others’
I wouldn't start out this site by glomming off the content built by others. It would be very difficult to build a comprehensive, functional community by migrating a bunch of questions en masse.
I would also be really careful about trawling other communities for their users/posts. Unless a particular question is being closed as off topic, please don't start soliciting users to bring their content elsewhere. That would not be appropriate.

I agree that we should definitely transfer all the Blender-related questions we can, in order to help direct users to our site. In particular, I've noticed a significant number of Blender questions on:

Stack Overflow
Game Development
Ask Ubuntu

Comment to this post if you know of another SE site with a lot of Blender content.

Posts on those sites' metas would be helpful in this aspect.

But on Gamedev, they have questions related to the Blender game engine. Would we still migrate those?

@DantheMan Blender is Blender, it would also depend. I don't think they handle technical issues.

Encouraged by this discussion I asked Setup of PyDev and Eclipse for Blender Add-Ons now this question is likely to get closed as off-topic.
After it has been closed I will simply post it on SO. Anyway it represents a type of question that seems suitable to define the limits of on-topic.
Update:
The post on SO was ignored (no upvotes, less views): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16821865/setup-of-pydev-and-eclipse-for-blender-add-ons
At here it has currently 5 upvotes which indicates that more users than me have an interest to get this solved. having that said we could rethink whether questions like that should be on-topic.

Although I am not opposed to the idea of concentrating questions like yours on this site, I am not sure it will attract the needed attention of programmers as it could on SO.

Re: update, keep in mind that this was in private beta where votes were flying around. Try bumping the post on SO to see if it gets any new hits. I am somewhat inclined to agree however since the last meta post related to [external-applications]. At the same time however, seeing that programming questions are already borderline and we are talking about an entire different package from CG here (an IDE), I still think that this might be out of the scope of this site.

@iKlsR It was a recent upvote of the closed question which awoke me. What a shame that there is no place to ask something like that.

According to this answer to Migration path to Blender.SE posted on GameDev.se meta, the migration paths are setup based on how common manual migrations are.
Therefore, if you are a member of another stack exchange site, and you see a new question that is suitable for Blender.SE you can flag it with other and ask that it is migrated.
As stated in previous answers, migrating old content is not to be encouraged.
But is a question is off topic for the other site, but about blender, you could consider migrating it.


text:
Tags in need of synonymization
There are some tags that are very much in need of synonymizing, but there isn't anybody on the site with enough rep to request tag synonyms yet. Until then, can we make an informal list of suggestions for tag synonyms here? That way, hopefully the mods will see and make the edits as necessary.
Comment or answer this post with potential synonyms.

Here are some suggestions. Feel free to edit this list.
.blend-files  →   blend-files (discussion)
.stl      →   stl
user-preferences  →   preferences
modelling     →   modeling
node-editor   →   nodes
keystroke     →   shortcut

Some of these spelling variations don't usually constitute adding a tag synonym. Text completion when entering tags are best for that. Synonyms are for different words that essentially refer to the same tag context.

*This is just a comment that got too long to fit neatly in the comments section but still applies to the scope of this question.
IMO we don't want to be using too many extensions as tags regardless of the fact that they will popup in a search ignoring the prefixed period. Also, some of these are conjugated and make no sense as extensions making it even worse, like .blend-files for example.
Regardless, as there are multiple terms or similar words for most of the topics that can be discussed here, it makes sense to set the appropriate ones from now. I agree with Robert Cartaino on his comment that some of these spelling variations don't usually constitute adding a tag synonym for several reasons, one being that sometimes a tag should correlate with the tense or manner the accompanying question is phrased.
For one light could refer to lamps and their settings, while lighting could refer to best lighting techniques for product renders etc.


text:
How do you delete a chat room?
I accidentally made a chat room. Is there anything I can do to delete it?
I created it by migrating a discussion I was having with another user in comments to chat, creating a chat room called "Discussion between Gwenn and Kyle Willey." I never really wanted to create a separate chat room, and since we've finished our conversation, it feels like a horribly irrelevant thing to have in chat.

Consider it axed.

It was created by the site to extend the discussion you were having. Average users cannot remove them, only moderators can. Just leave it be for now, it will be taken care of eventually or I think you can flag it for Moderator attention and post a message in it asking for it to be deleted.

As iKlsR said, only mods and SE employees can delete a room manually. Rooms can also be deleted automatically.
Per http://chat.stackexchange.com/faq#retention

Rooms will exist indefinitely, so long as there is at least one person actively talking in the room. A room is considered worth retaining if it has more than 15 messages by at least 2 users.
Rooms not worth retaining which are inactive for 7 days will be deleted. Rooms worth retaining which are inactive for 14 days will be frozen. Frozen rooms do not allow any new messages to be sent, and are not shown in the default room list to prevent cluttering the rooms interface.


text:
Does CAD.SE border with this one?
Speaking of other sites and other 3D designers,
How close to here is this proposal?

Very far apart IMO. Keep in mind that the only reason this site is/was ideal is that Blender is a complete package! While other similar software can only model, render etc. We have a Game Engine, a Video Editor, Compositor, Text Editor, Tracker and the list goes on.
There was a previous proposal to this that was called 3D Graphics.SE which died after a month or so. While there might have been one or two Blender questions possibly, IMO modeling and mockup questions alone cannot constitute to keeping a site as dynamic as SE sites are populated and busy. Also people who use those commercial software are usually trained, working professionals who occasionally might have a few questions about this or that but not enough to need an entire site. We are open source and the majority of our user base are hobbyists and or amateurs, plenty of questions to be asked and answered and experience shared.
Here is also another overly broad one for CG Artists which appears to be going nowhere anytime soon.

I think the CAD proposal is targeting a different community. Yes, they'll get some artists who use those programs for modeling, but the main part of their target audience is probably engineers of various types and architects.


text:
Should the UV tag be blacklisted?
Should we get rid of the UV tag? There are already 3 UV tags UVmap, UVunwrap and UVimage. They're specific and too the point, while the UV tag doesn't really add anything.

Contrariwise, do we really need those other three tags, that are all referring to essentially the same part of the process?

Blacklisting a tag is a bit extreme at this point. If we remove it from all questions, it will automatically be deleted.

It might be useful for initial questions, if someone is really new to UV they might be looking for terminology rather than complete answers. Usually once someone learns terminology that opens up a new world of search terms. I say keep it as it can always be retagged to be more specific.


text:
Should the 'tool' tag be removed?
Should the 'tool' tag be removed? It's kind of broad and undefined. Besides, blender is a tool. I don't think using it to mark a question about the knife 'tool' makes sense either; that's too broad.

The tool tag has been removed from the questions they were assigned. Tags with no questions are soon removed completely. If you see them pop up again, flag one of the questions for moderator attention. This becomes less of a problem after the private beta, when the rep requirements to create new tags is increased: https://blender.stackexchange.com/faq#reputation.

I agree that the tool tag is far too vague, and generally does not add a lot to the question. It's better to be more specific, and use tags such as modifiers or knife-tool instead.

A question about the knife tool is fine, but tool needs to go. It's not useful because it could refer to anything or nothing at all.


text:
How do we promote our site?
We recently entered public beta and while it's still very early, our stats are a bit lacking compared to what they could be, they could at least correlate with the number of users. At the time of writing Area51 is reporting.
173 visits/day
This site has amazing potential for becoming The Blender Resource. It's fresh and is a refreshing take from IRC and confusing threads in forums. We need everyone to start help promoting the site. This site is geared towards anyone who uses Blender, be it a professional, enthusiast or complete beginner.
Taken from my answer on How can we ensure Blender.SE doesn't share 3DGraphics.SE's fate?

There are several variables involved but the major one is publicity.
  Even in our commitment phase which took nearly a year, I myself had no
  idea of it until I randomly stumbled across it. What we need is
  publicity. IIRC every Blender release totals around at least 200k
  downloads which means that there are lots of people out there, people
  who want to learn.

Some of us have the resources but lack the general know how to go about it.

Several users have already pledged to helping to promote this site to their fanbase or specific community. This is a good start, users like Jonathan Williamson from BlenderCooke and CharlesL from TheSpasticKangaroo on Youtube. You might not be as popular as them but every bit counts.
Let's make this a great community. We are already doing very well with over 100 questions and over 200 answers!
All that being said, What are some good ways that we can actively promote our community and spread the word about this site?

i'm a little confused as to why this hasn't appeared in Blender Nation or on Ton's twitter feed :)

@zeffii hence the post.. we need shares! :)

@Charles just posted it to Blender nation.

“Meet the pros” scheduled chat with Jonathan Williamson

One little thing we can all do is put a link to blender.SE in our signatures on other Blender sites, like BlenderArtists. It's not major publicity, but it'll draw people in over time.

Ton just tweeted it. Take shelter!

@zeffii Who's Ton?

@DantheMan He's probably referring to Ton Roosendaal, one of the core devs and project lead for Blender.

@greatwolf Haha. Yeah. I just found out the other day.

I created a video for TheSpasticKangaroo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWUSJUpGTv8 telling about the new Blender.SE site. I plan on mentioning it at the end of future videos for a while also.

@CharlesL excellent!

Actively tweeting interesting questions and answers, I also submitted a story to /r/blender over on Reddit's Blender subchannel. (wonder how many downvotes it will get ;)
Also from my answer on How can we ensure Blender.SE doesn't share 3DGraphics.SE's fate?

My main suggestion is to share the site wherever and whenever you can,
  tweet a well written question or answer you found useful and or share
  a new tip or trick you learnt via your social and personal pages.
  Invite or tell a friend.

Update:
Spoke to the guys over on reddit in /r/blender and we are now featured as the goto site for technical help etc.

we might also change all blender tags on different SE sites to inform users that there is a blenderSE site

@miceterminator its in planning, we should have a meta post fron GraphicDesign.SE soon for questions we can take, the rest will come in time.

It might help a little that it is now on blender's front page!
It is in the Official Updates from Blender Foundation, which means it will probably be there awhile.

Yep, for anyone curious. http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/a/138/12 and https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/343383578836615168

that is how I found this site, this post on BN

I have been trying my best to get the word out there.
Creating filters and sharing on social networks
http://stackexchange.com/filters/93031/blender-python
Posting rss feeds on Facebook pages, for example
https://www.facebook.com/LearningBlender2.5
Adding Flair badges on blogs
http://learningblender3dsoftware.blogspot.in/p/about.html
Note: The former is a page that I administer and the latter is my Blender blog. I hope in this context it is fine for me to post my own links..

nice! :) Our stats have significantly increased since then! See http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/40377/blender but every bit still is helping!

:) Interesting link. Nice overview of stats.


text:
"Meet the Pros" -- Scheduled chat #1 with Jonathan Williamson
Yesterday, I emailed Jonathan Williamson, one of the founders of Blender Cookie, and we're planning on hosting a scheduled chat right here on Blender.SE. The chat will be some sort of interview with professional Blender users/developers, where we can ask him questions about his history with Blender, other CG tools, personal life, etc.
We're thinking about doing it this next Thursday, June 6, 2013. I'm just not sure what time will work best for everyone, since we're in multiple time zones. Comment below stating which time you think would work best for the community (in CST, please).

Friday, June 7th at 2:00 UTC
(or Thursday, June 6th at 7:00pm PST)
It should last an hour or more.

Sign up here. The room is currently set to gallery, but will be open when the event starts.

This event has ended. You can find the transcript here.

Thanks for the invitation @Dan-the-man!
I'm on the West Coast but have a pretty flexible schedule. I can make most any time of day work.

I've noticed that the times people have been most active on the site (at least during the private beta) are about 8:00AM, 3:00PM, 8:00PM, and 1:00AM West Coast time. 8:00PM probably sees slightly more traffic than those other times, but it's variable.

@JonathanWilliamson No problem! I think this will be interesting.

Ping me once you have a time decided on - I'll add the event to the Community Bulletin sidebar.

@Shog9 Alright! Cool.

Times in UTC would even be more useful. I have no clue what CST means :O Well, now I do, but it is a timezone format I never ever use. UTC sounds more open towards the entire world :)

@Shog9 We have a little problem. Since we are doing this mainly to attract new users, and there is a 20 minimum rep required for chatting, new users won't be able to communicate. Is it possible to take off the minimum rep requirement for this room only?

Not exactly, but there is a work-around - you just need a moderator sitting in on your chat.

@Shog9 Ok. We have decided a time.

Big fan of Jonathan Williamson, have followed his tuts for years. Unfortunately time doesn't work out for me, is it possible to get chat transcript for the session?

@PlastyGrove Yes. Here you will find a bookmarked transcript once the chat is over.

This is confusing people on main, since they don't know that the event has already passed. I propose posting all nominations here etc and creating another one for links to the transcripts and dates of those that have passed. (renamed it)

Ok @iKlsR. Good idea.


text:
Logo of blender SE
I notice that every major SE site has its own logo. I don't know who has the power to set a logo, but I think it would also be a nice promotion to do a blender SE logo contest in the blender artist forum or something like that.

this is a bit early.. besides we don't get a logo and fancy visuals until we graduate, however this is still valid and will be addressed when the time is right.

When the site is about ready to graduate, the SE team will ask a question here on our meta looking for ideas about how the finished site will look. This will include the logo and graphic design. The team will design us a custom branding which will include the logo.
https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/q/400/24168 is one site's design suggestions and you can see how it turned out.
As I said, this will all be decided when we get closer to graduation, but it can't hurt to think about it now.

And now it has been posted: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/782/blender-site-design-ideas-input-welcome?cb=1

I think we get a logo once Blender.SE is out of beta.


text:
Should we enable video embedding?
Blender is a visual tool and pure text answers can only go so far at times in explaining something. Alot of the answers so far have links to external video sites such as Vimeo or Youtube etc.
See.. Provide a way to embed videos in answers
Should we enable the embedding of videos here? It could be a bit messy but with proper use could be beneficial in the long run.
Some sites like Music, Arqade and Scifi already have this it seems.

I think we should. As long as we mention in the FAQ that videos should not make up the majority of the answer, we can simply downvote/flag/edit the posts if they get to spammy. I think the Pros outweigh the cons.

@zeffii too high? There's about 100+ people here everyday it seems, but not many come to meta.

if we only get 180 or so visitors per day, we should be worrying about that instead of worry can we embed a video, which for all practical purposes doesn't add much convenience over an inline link.

@zeffii you should go through meta and see what is being done.. we have to address stuff like this from early so we can see if can be beneficial or if people want it, thats one of the purposes of meta

iKlsR, For future reference. it's best to simply ask the question and let others be heard in a open forum where users can be heard with their own answers, rather than posting in this pseudo-polling format. I can appreciate what you are trying to accomplish, but pre-posting all sides of the conversation isn't necessarily the best way to get the clearly-vetted results you seek: Polling is not a substitute for discussion.

@RobertCartaino I approached it wrong from the start and wasted the initial views. thanks for the advice and insight.

I think it'd be nice stay audio free, text's much easier to translate too.
Sometimes step by step instructions are unreasonable/too-verbose. In such cases we can already use APNGs & GIFs, as shown in in this awnser.

mp4, has nice size compared to gifs sometimes. < below 2 mb should be sufficient

If playback (pause/play/rewind) functionalities are desirable for a GIF animation, save the GIF to your local hard drive and open it in GIMP. Then Filters -> Animation -> Playback...

This was bound to show sooner or later so here it is.
Cons

We run the risk of people just posting tutorial videos as answers
Answers with videos as a large portion of their body would be very delicate as if the video is pulled or deleted, so goes the answer
We run the risk of people making full videos of their problems and adding it as a question source
Sloppy answers that just introduce the video with no summary or accompanying instructions.

Pros

Blender is a very visual tool and some people learn best from audio visual content
It could help in explaining difficult or lengthy concepts

I would have expected two answers one for the pros and one for the cons. So that users could vote for a variant

Another point to add is that the content in videos cannot be searched. Good, searchable content is particularly important for a new site. Also, some people might not even be able to watch videos. I personally think that linking to videos is a good way to ensure that they only provide additional, nonessential information.

re: "a very visual tool" we do have the add image feature, which can often suffice.

Not only does video take more bandwith and time to upload/download, but presumes that all users have very fast internet access. I'd hate to wait for answers to load on my phone for instance. The main issue for me is that I'm not at all convinced that video will add to the clarity of questions and answers. Gifs let you replay short specific parts of the process and the written descriptions force people to be concise and to the point. Not many users write long and pointlessly. I just don't trust that most users have the will/technical skills/discipline to edit out the rambling and stream of consciousness.
I'd go nuts watching the eternal "So I'm a noob, so like I press here.. sorry here... no I meant this, you know... that...so... wait...let me start over."
I happen to believe that the 2mb limit for gifs is a great thing....

Another case to downvote a post

I want to add my vote to the overwhelming sentiment here that we should not have videos embedded here on BSE. I think that it will not add anything to the site, but may only facilitate the already poor "I'm stuck in this tutorial" type questions.
A video embed (in my opinion) does not fit in SE system, it is easily a link only post. A post could too easily be totally dependent on the video, then there is no content on BSE when the link goes dead.
We have thousands of very good answers, non of which have a video. Animated images are a popular and good way to post a quick explanation when it is difficult to explain something. The benefit of the gifs is that they are supplemental, the text is still there.
I feel a full youtube video embed would go too far, and very possibly degrade the quality of our posts.

Besides all the other reasons already stated as to why we should not allow embedding of videos, there's the issue of edit-ability. If the biggest part of the answer is a video, what happens when there's a little mistake you want to fix? It takes quite a little bit more effort to edit a video than text, IMO.
I think the best thing about SE is that you can edit all the things and having videos would not allow for this as easily.

I don't see why gifs are different, still a series of frames....

Well, gifs are shorter, have smaller file sizes and are intended to be optional; as they're just about only used in the best answers, they tend to be higher quality. I think the problem with video is that there would be video only questions (despite there being no gif only ones, AFAIK).

Yes! We should have video embeding
Cutting features because they may cause abuse isn't a very good idea... We have down votes to stop abuse. Down vote video only questions/answers. Down vote audio reliant posts. That is why that button is there*.  Stack exchange can handle abuse.
Lets look at an example of an abuse able feature that is a positive component.  Comments can be used to be rude and demanding, but overall they have caused a lot of improvement and have been of general assistance. People can politely correct posts or request necessary clarification.
Another one, downvotes! These can easily be abused and people sometimes take them personally. In general they cause quite a lot of upset, but then also keep the quality up and are useful for stopping feature abuse.
And here is an extreme example: one could argue that stack exchange is a bad idea since it begs to be (and is) abused.
Video can be beneficial, so why should we let people who don't know how to handle it from stopping us from reaping the benefits?  Lets have video, it is a beautiful medium to transfer information.
Note:
Gifs have been lauded as an existing and better alternative, and I will say now that they will still be the go to method. Video is harder and slower to produce and share, and will only be used in a few important cases. I doubt that this site will see an significant impact, but the few added videos will be very valuable.
*Internet-ragers may disagree......

As a Bronze 5 league player and average internet-rager I disagree.

@iKlsR A bunch of us internet-ragers are raging in the renderfarm now, if you would like to join in..


text:
Should 'scripting' and 'Python' be made tag synonyms?
I've noticed that nearly every question about scripting ends up getting tagged with both of these tags. Do we really need them both?
As I see it, scripting in Blender can only be done in Python, and the only time while using Blender you would encounter raw Python would be while scripting. Is there anything one adds that the other doesn't?

There's also a python-api tag.

No
There are currently questions here that use python but aren't directly related to scripting and there are sure to be more in the future.
Example: How to make Blender use Python2.x?
Also see my answer to a similar question

why not using a "python-scripting" tag instead of "scripting" to exclude C/C++ and easy tag choice (auto-complete)

We're looking to change this soon @Bithur. This is showing its age.

No.
As blender expands, they may also be referring to OSL. They also may be referring just to Python(as stated in iKlsR's answer).

OSL does not belong under either tag and should have one of it's own.

Agreed, but I'm saying that an OSL script may be tagged.

To share my 2 cents . . .
They might also be C/C++ scripting/plugin development.

Anything C/C++ is off-topic and "C/C++ scripting?" :)

@iKlsR off-topic? C/C++ scripting

From a developer or even average user viewpoint this is actually not directly related to Blender. See #5 here http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/1/what-questions-should-be-definitely-off-topic (I did not make this list by myself, it was from bits and pieces contributed here and there)


text:
Pro-Tempore Moderator Nominations
Well, we've made it out of the rough, (Private Beta) and are well on our way into the Public Beta gaining more and more users daily. According to the Moderator Pro Tempore, the SE Team will pick up (usually 3) users to become Moderators more or less a week into Public Beta, until we graduate, so I think we can start with nominations. After graduation there will be actual elections where users can nominate and vote.
Please read the following carefully..
As per the blog post, Moderators should:

Have a reasonably high reputation score to indicate active, consistent participation.
Show an interest in their meta’s community-building activities.
Lead by example, showing patience and respect for their fellow community members in everything they write.
Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.

Bonus points for:

Members with participation in both meta and the parent site (i.e. interest in both community building and expertise in the field).
Area 51 participation, social network referrals, or blogging about the site.
Members who have already shown an interest or ability to promote their community.

Additional Info

You can self-nominate or nominate others. Each nomination should be posted as a separate answer. Link the name to the user’s profile (parent and meta) so everyone can see their activity. Links to other activities may be helpful: Area 51 participation, participation in other sites, blog posts reviewing or announcing the site, etc.
If the nomination was posted by a 3rd-party, the nominee should indicate their acceptance by editing the answer, adding that they accept the nomination. Optionally they can write something about themselves.

Candidates will be contacted and three of them will be selected to act as provisional Moderators until the community holds formal elections after the Beta period.

I would like to nominate myself..
Main

Meta

Some of the promotion I have done.

I am familiar with a very large portion of Blender, from its codebase and history to it's modeling and compositing tools etc.
I don't work at the moment (finishing up my CS degree) so I can easily dedicate several hours daily to the site.
My timezone allows me be around when the other mods more than likely won't be UTC 00:00 is 7pm here.

All that being said, I am very interested in the future of this site and wish to be a central part of it. Good luck to everyone else!

Main

Meta

Blender development log
I would like to nominate myself..

I'm a blender developer and have used blender professionally in previous jobs.
I've been involved with some of the open-movie projects, so have worked with small groups on projects and had experience helping artists.
I've been involved with GSOC and mentoring students since GSOC started.

I use stackoverflow for development questions and am happy this site is becoming available for blender users.

Main:

Meta

Area 51

Area 51 profile for CharlesL http://area51.stackexchange.com/users/flair/61430.png

I would like to nominate myself:

I have tons of experience with Blender and have been working with it since 2.49a

Even though I'm mainly a blender artist (portfolio), I have technical skills also (I know how to program in python)

I know how to answer questions clearly and concisely as I have a successful YouTube channel where I teach Blender tutorials(http://youtube.com/thespastickangaroo) (I also make sure to let my subscribers know about Blender Stack exchange on my channel).

I'm in high school, so I have free time to put into this site(I already put about 3 hours into the site every day and spend a lot of the day on chat).

Throughout the beta, I've been very active to answer questions/edit posts/vote.

Anyway, I hope this site is extremely successful as I believe it will be an awesome resource to Blender users.

Main

Meta

I would like to nominate myself.

I am very experienced with the technical side of Blender, having seven years of experience coding in Python
I am particularly experienced with all parts of the modeling process in Blender, having used these tools in an architectural context professionally for several years
I can, and do, dedicate a significant amount of my time to this site

I am very excited to see this site develop, and I want to do everything possible to help it become a successful part of the larger Blender community. Here's what I have done for the community so far:

I have read every single question posted on this site
I actively work to develop and promote good ideas, as evidenced by my voting, commenting, reviewing, and editing rates on the Blender beta. I am the top voter on the site
I am on the site for 13 hours every weekday (from 15:00 to 4:00 UTC), and am very often the first to comment on or answer new posts

Whether I am elected as a moderator or not, I will do everything I can to help this site grow and establish itself as a valuable resource for the entire Blender community.

Main

Meta

Area 51

Area 51 profile for Dan the Man http://area51.stackexchange.com/users/flair/42395.png

I would like to nominate myself:

Have experience with beta sites (History.SE).
I have been using Blender since version 2.47 in 2008.
I'm pretty familiar with every aspect of Blender, except video editing and I'm currently learning scripting.
I have spare time to invest into this site. I'm finishing up high school, and then probably going to study computer science.
I'm constantly editing questions and answers to make them more legible and to have appropriate tags.
Will try with enthusiasm (even if not a moderator) to get this site out of beta. I started the "Meet the Pros" chat events.

Main.sequence(star):

Meta:

Area51: (I wasn't the alien that crashed there, sorry).

Area 51 profile for RolandiXor http://area51.stackexchange.com/users/flair/29867.png

Global Stats:

profile for RolandiXor on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/243378.png

I would like to nominate myself for the role:

I have a relatively good grasp of Blender and have been using it since about 2.32 (possibly earlier) or so.
I am not a Blender "expert" by some standards, but I think this helps to have good understanding of the position of the average user as opposed to only seeing things from the "professional" perspective.
I have actively promoted the site since I knew about its proposal.
I'm a moderator on Askubuntu, so I'm familiar with the mod tools and the duties of a moderator.
I spend a lot of time on the chat during the week when I can, and pop on to the site often during the day (I don't time myself, sorry) to check for questions/answers, review tasks, and tags.
This is a kitten.

Therefore you should vote for me.


text:
What happens if we fail to get 1500 daily visitors?
Does all the content just evaporate or what?
How long does the public beta last? At present we are only at 180 daily visits, what happens if we don't have a nice 1500 visitors (as seems to be a required amount) after the public beta period ends?
from area51:

1,500 visits per day is good, 500 visits per day needs some work. A
  great site benefits people outside the community. Eventually, 90% of a
  site's traffic should come from search engines.

Would be a shame to see this just vanish.

it's currently over 300, so it looks like it's heading in the desired direction!

From When Will My Site Graduate?:

How long can a site stay in beta?
The simple answer is, it takes as long as it takes. We’ll wait. If a site needs more activity, go out and evangelize it. As long as your site shows steady progress and continues to make the Internet a better place to get expert answers to your questions, it will march on. We don’t want to kill a site because it hasn’t reached full status in 90 days. Nor do we want to set a hard 90-day limit and launch a site too soon.

We'll generally only close a site when it has become clear that it is dying - if you're growing, even slowly, you have little to worry about. (And even when we do close sites, the data is made public so that you can take your work with you)
So far, Blender.SE is doing very nicely.

thanks for the concise answer, i'd love to get hold of the current site stats as json is that possible?

Expanding on Yu Asakusa's answer..
This is something that happens over time, some sites have been in public beta for months and longer, we haven't been up for 2 weeks yet. We also already have alot of content and our userbase is expanding nicely, 300 users so far. I wouldn't worry about it too much as we have already been planning ways on promoting the site. See How do we promote our site? and Migrating Blender related questions from other SE sites?.
However, as an answer to your question, if we don't get enough content or our visits stay low and or users are inactive, there is a high possibility that the site will be closed, but as I said, so far its early and the site has alot of potential. Also, one factor isn't really enough to determine the fate of a site, it usually is based on several or more problems. We will graduate when the community moderators deem us ready.
See How can we ensure Blender.SE doesn't share 3DGraphics.SE's fate?
On a more positive note, we are well ahead of the other site that was closed. The stats look pretty good to me so far.
Here is where we would be in trouble.

We are already way past where they were closed so our stats are pretty ok at the moment.

29 visits per day. o.O

It's a shame 3D Graphics didn't survive that beta, the premise was (and still is) brilliant. With a potential to be the rosetta stone of 3d software.

@zeffii see http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/questions/77/does-cad-se-border-with-this-one/78#78

@Dan the Man: To be fair, according to the Area 51 page, 3D Graphics was in private beta for its whole life, so it is understandable that the average number of visits was low.  I do not know why it did not become public beta.  Anyway it is unfortunate it did not grow into a great Q&A website.

Months? Sometimes that can be years. It took about 21 months for Christianity.SE to graduate. So, don't despair if it seems like it'll take many months before graduation; that's actually kinda normal.

The site graduates the beta when it is ready.  Graduation from the beta is not judged by a single metric, and I do not know if 1500 visitors per day is a must.
But if the administrators at Stack Exchange Inc. decide the site is not likely to become ready to graduate in the foreseeable future, they will close the site.  In that case, the content of the site (data dump) will be available for download at the Area 51 page for possible reuse.  For example, see the page of 3D Graphics Stack Exchange.  Other than the data dump, the site will indeed vanish unless someone revives the content from the data dump.

thanks for your answer, if it results in a datadump at least I will have some interesting data to visualize with d3.js on a rainy day.


text:
Are 'text abbreviations' really necessary?
Although they may be useful on mobile phones, to avoid the cost of speaking, and to save time due to the totally inadequate keyboards, - oh, and of course to save time while typing in chat rooms and on forums, - they erode, and cause deterioration of the language.
On a site like this, the asking of questions, and answering them, depends on understanding and being understood. There are a vast number of Blender users to whom English is their second language, and it can be quite a difficult language to learn! Why throw in 'curve balls' which, even to English speaking people, can be hard to understand?
There are times when I'm not sure whether I'm reading a typing error or a 'text'! We should try to keep it clean and precise (or we'll end up with no language at all!).
I post this at the risk of upsetting a few 'lazy' people. :)

Yeah.. this is a bad habit.. blame it on english itself! This is not something that can be easily 'fixed' however and it is prevalent everywhere, not just here. While abbreviations are suitable and intended for chats etc., they tend to creep in our everyday writings and even speech. We can discourage it.. but to what extent, it's not a rule is it?
They say if you can't beat something, go along with it.. and teaching english is not the point of this site either.

@iKlsR Like this:
OK, TIL, IIUC (FTR), WRT acronyms, they are not necessarily OT. OTOH, IMHO, PEBKAC - SCNR. ;)
Wow, that IS easier!! I'm learning. :)
or: OK, today I've learned, if I understand correctly (for the record), with regards to acronyms, they are not necessarily off topic. On the other hand, in my humble opinion, problem exists between the keyboard and the chair - Sorry, could not resist. ;)

I don't think we need a stiff and straight rule against this, but if you see it, I doubt anyone would object a kindly edit converting the abbreviations to standard English.

A few well-known abbreviations such as LOL, OTOH might not bother anyone, but stuff like "r u using cycles" puts pot holes in the road of reading for most of us.
Let's not have a harsh rule banning it, since we want this site to grow and newcomers need time to become familiar with what's preferred. Be nice; not everyone is coming from the same place.  Do make it known, on the FAQ and in comments, that we frown upon textspeak.
Do allow users to edit slipshod English to be more readable.

+1 Not to mention FAQ is an abbreviation, also.

I agree. The last thing I want is harsh rules. In fact, I find this site more than a bit overrun with rules and regulations for me! Really, all I am suggesting is that people should be discouraged from too much abbreviation.

Yes some abbreviations are OK especially when they are not replacing parts of 'speech', like NURBS, BSDF. etc.. Convenience to the writer of things like 'OTOH' ,however, is not as important as the negative effect of lost legibility.
Maybe this is related:
I'm surely not the only person to frown on capitalizing words mid sentence to place emphasis on something, The trick to making points is to avoid writing walls of text around them in the first place.

I think you hit the nail on the head with: 'Convenience to the writer of things like 'OTOH' ,however, is not as important as the negative effect of lost legibility.'Nice one! :)


text:
"Meet the Pros" -- Scheduled chat #2 with Campbell Barton
In the same style as the previous interview with Jonathan Williamson, Campbell Barton (ideasman_42) has agreed to take some time out of his schedule for a similar session with us.
For those who don't know… Campbell is one of the lead developers of Blender and we're planning on hosting a scheduled chat right here on Blender.SE. The chat will be a sort of realtime interview where we can ask him questions about his history with Blender, other CG tools, current projects etc. Be creative and come with your questions. :).
We're thinking about doing it this next week Saturday July 27th. We're not sure what time will work best for everyone since we're in different time zones and are still trying to get these events into a schedule. This can be adjusted slightly so comment below stating which time you think would work best for you (in UTC, preferably).

Saturday, July 27th at 15:00 UTC
It should last an hour or thereabout.

You can register for the event here (optional but nice to let us know how many people plan to attend). The room is currently set to Gallery (closed), but will be open for everyone when the event starts.

This event has ended. You can find the conversation here

Awesome. This is going to be great.

Unfortunately, I'm going to be out of town on the 27th.


text:
How do you determine when 'comments' have gone on too long?
How do you (the powers that be) determine when 'comments' have gone on too long, and add the message stating such, and to move the discussion to a chat room? This happened to me after seven 'comments' were posted:

Whereas in this case:

there are ten! - I was a little annoyed. :(

Often short incomplete questions lead to lengthy commenting sessions where the community attempts to elicit more information necessary to provide decent answers. I think we should avoid entering chat, and instead delete our comments that have been dealt with (and update the question with added information). Chats get deleted automatically after a set amount of time if there is no continued use.

@zeffii those chats are not deleted; they are made invisible and locked after they haven't been used for some time.

@RolandiXor, pretty much the same thing on a user-level then?

@zeffii I'm not sure I understand that question.

it wasn't really a question. It appears that discussions that moved over to chat may or may not be viewable after a certain period. To a user who stumbles into such dead ends it will appear that the chat no longer exists, in effect it will appear deleted.

The message that too many comments have been posted is actually partly automated. It comes up as a message to moderators (and IIRC, some users with certain privileges) suggesting to them to move the discussion to chat. Sometimes the message is ignored, hence why comments may go on longer than they should.
It is not so much of a bad message/move, just something that is done to keep the site clean as comments are second class citizens on Stack Exchange :)

thanks for that, it makes me feel a lot better :) I must apologise for being so 'touchy', I am relatively new to all this 'communicating by keyboard', and I am learning!

@SteveW that's good to hear (read) :). If this answered your question, you can mark it as answered by clicking the tick next to my answer.

I was waiting to see if there would be any more answers, but... oh, alright, he he he.

This becomes really easy if you look at the comments as if they were going to start fading away automatically by default (let's say after a week or so). Would that be disruptive to the content of the original post, or the users who search out that information later?
Comments are supposed to be there to request clarification or suggest improvements to that post. Period. If the comments are not actively working towards integrating those improvements directly into the post, it's time for it to go.
Comments are not supposed to be used like a miniature discussion system or a personal chat room. When they start being used that way, we simply say "sorry, that is outside the purpose of this site."


text:
Are questions about modifying the source code allowed here?
I downloaded and built the source code to add a few tweaks that I couldn't add with scripting.
Are questions about the source code allowed here?

Update
Now 3 years later, see Source code questions in 2016

Unfortunately no..
It was decided by the community (see #4) to make these off-topic for several reasons.

C/C++ related questions are way out of the scope of what this site is and should be about.
Most if not all questions that could possibly fall under this would be extremely localized…
The site is intended more for artists than developers as it says in the description.

... Q&A site for people who use Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games.

So keep it to scripting only — Python, GLSL and OSL only related questions are allowed to an extent if kept minimal and in relation to Blender but for anything else programming related, you are better off asking on StackOverflow, the bf-committers mailing list or visiting the IRC channel #blendercoders on the freenode network.


text:
Questions overlapping the Blender manual
Since this is a Q&A site on Blender, we should accept questions regarding the functions of Blender (other than too broad/tutorial requests).
However, does the community here accept questions which ask about things that are already covered in the Blender manual?
For example:

What does the "Mix" node in compositing do?

This example question seems totally on-topic here, but the answer to this example can totally be found on Blender Manual > Composite Nodes > Types > Color. In this case shall we accept the question?
There may also be some cases where the question may be answerable by the manual, but the documentation is shown to be incomplete, misleading, unclear or outdated. In this case shall we accept the question, or simply edit the manual (since it's a wiki) and then direct the question poster to the manual?
How about questions regarding things which should be in the manual but missing? (Now this part may become a little bit too broad since almost everything can be in the manual...)
For accepting a question I mean the question will be answered and not be downvoted, closed or even deleted.

I'll have to give this some thought.

…does the community here accept questions which ask about things that are already covered in the Blender manual?

Yes, we accept everything
This is a bit tricky as it also depends based on the simplicity of the question.. so instead of making exceptions, we just accept everything. The reasoning behind this is that:

Often times people ask these questions, they have an idea of what it does and are not entirely sure or they have read the manual but don't quite understand it (which is one of the reasons why simply linking to something is frowned upon.) Link to the manual where you can in these cases but add any explanations or any experiences you have had etc.
We have to cater to beginners who for all we know aren't aware of the manual. Simply pointing people to the manual detracts from what this site should be about as we are trying to make a useful compilation of self-contained answers, not pointers to other sources.
The manual tends to be short of usage examples and also often has vague descriptions of the tools and what they should be used for, (some entries are just plain useless in my experience).

There may also be some cases where the question may be answerable by the manual, but the documentation is shown to be incomplete, misleading, unclear or outdated. In this case shall we accept the question, or simply edit the manual (since it's a wiki) and then direct the question poster to the manual?

If it was not in the manual when OP searched, updating it and pointing back to it might be a bit confusing even if you explained that it was updated etc. Also, how would you know your edit is accurate, useful and or the correct way to do it etc. It's best to answer on this site, have your answer reviewed by the community and possibly accepted and then edit the manual later.

How about questions regarding things which should be in the manual but missing?

Answer here. Edit the manual later. — That is the purpose of this site. The manual and Blender itself are constantly changing, wiki pages and the information there gets updated, removed, revised, moved etc.


text:
Why exactly was my question closed? Question ID - 2078
Before I get to the matter at hand, please bear with me on this:
When I was 13, I had to go to a boys-only boarding school, in Kenya, and for that first year some 18 - 20 year old prefects were in charge of us new boys (they called us the rabble). They were allowed to punish us in what ever way they wanted, some of them bullied and beat us with canes, and generally made life not worth living! - many homesick tears at night!
A few years on I ended up working as a photo-lithographer, in New Zealand, and that trade was eventually taken over by Macs. I worked for many years on Mac Pros using $80,000 specialist proprietary software, assembling and separating up to 8 colors for the highest level in packaging, and because it was specialized work, I didn't get much opportunity to deal with the technical side of Macs (this was discouraged). Most of the time I only used the mouse and hot keys.
About 4 years ago I discovered Blender, and was delighted! I felt the program was made for me. I have had great fun learning and discovering new things about it. The free software is much more user friendly, and easier to use than that $80,000 program that I used to work with! (By the way, I've never had any problem installing Blender)
A couple of months ago I found a reference to Blender.se on the Blender website and decided to check it out. My first impression was that this site is not very friendly. Since then I've made a little progress, but I'm constantly worried about saying the wrong thing, or making a fool of myself.
The actual problem:
I'm concerned about the structure of Blender.se, - the somewhat silly, childish, game-like business of having 'points' and 'badges' — and making other people feel superior because they have more 'points' than you. I would have thought that Blender is interesting enough to encourage people to participate without these 'props'. I find that the Blender.se structure is drowning this brilliant program called Blender, — it should be working for, not against, Blender.
How many budding Blender users have been scared off the site, I wonder? Have you noticed how it is dominated by the more technical users' questions, and the newer users don't seem to stay very long? We are all only human, I think, and everyone should be encouraged - not discouraged. It shouldn't be just for the more intelligent or 'clued-up' people, and 'to hell' with everyone else.
I made the reference to school at the beginning because this site reminds me of it. The reference to my work, on Macs, is to point out the fact that you can work well with software without necessarily knowing much about what goes on 'under the hood'.
Now I find myself arguing with others (people with 'bells' and 'whistles', and 'points' and 'badges') about whether or not my question, "How to use blender command lines in OSX?" is off-topic or not. They, (who must be obeyed), have come to the conclusion that the fact that I can't get the Render/ Command Lines (in the Blender Manual) to work, is my problem, and should have nothing to do with Blender or Blender.se. It has everything to do with Blender, - what is Blender without a computer? What is Blender.se without questions about Blender (which runs on computers, including Macs)? If anything, those people are 'off-topic' for excluding this question, which just happens to be, about Blender. I wanted to delete the question when it was rejected, but that was 'not permitted', - another 'Gestapo'-like rule!
On the 'Command Line' Manual page there should be some reference to the fact that you might have to do certain other things to make these command lines work, depending on your operating system - and that just typing them in may not be enough.
Some of this is probably not relevant to meta, but I needed to get it off my chest. It was a question of either this, or — "I've had enough, I quit, goodbye!" back there on the question page. (Thank you to stacker, ideasman42 and iKlsR for your encouragement.)   :)

If your looking for friendly discussion and help, see http://blenderartists.org The inter stack exchange network is designed around efficiency, not having a party. I've been stung on other network sites before, but I understand that it is the price to be payed for this incredibly efficient way to collect knowledge. To see this in action, look at stack overflow. I use it more than most official programming language documentations in my work. If you really wan't to be social, come visit chat. We won't judge you by your rep there.

The rant
Unlike the bullies at your boarding college, blender.SE mods and users are transparently accountable for what they do and those points, bells and whistles vanish if the site gets discontinued. It's in no-one's interest to behave like a bully or make people feel dumb. At the same time also your contribution is there for everyone to see and judge.
Blender.SE lives side by side with many other great Blender centric sites (both free and subscription based), and we get users from all skill levels. We even have lead developers chime in regularly to either answer or edit answers to ensure accuracy. Sometimes it happens that a question lives in this grey area with regard to how it should be answered, or asked. And I agree it may take a while for new users (at least users who are not acquainted with the  StackOverflow way of doing things) to appreciate why a question is off-topic / beyond the scope / put on hold.
The question you mention is a good example of a problem that you perceive to be blender related, but that is in-fact nothing to do with blender. I will justify this statement. As soon as you start to need command-line access to a program, there are several Operating System level concepts that deserve study -- this is so for everyone who ventures down into the depths of command-line interfacing. You will be no exception, you will need to read ..and the stuff you will be reading will be specific to your operating system. -- it would apply to any command-line program interaction.
The question
Questions get put on hold only with consensus. If your error message is still 'command not found', this is an Operating System response, the command you are trying to feed blender hasn't even reached blender. Blender itself is more verbose when the passed command flags/switches aren't recognized.

bad cop: gee, how can this be blender related if the command doesn't even reach blender? Get out of here!
good cop: well, let's see if we can offer a few keywords to help you find answers elsewhere, it might help future discussions and prevent this kind of interrogation from happening again.

I'm positive the question deserves to live (with modifications), the long comment section suggests that the question needs to be updated with  clarifications based on the interactions you've had. I'm not on a mac or I would be all over that question like a bad rash, in a good way.
It isn't clear to me what commands you are feeding Blender or what the problem/error message is at the moment. Screenshots of the terminal window input and output would be great (maybe essential even), add more information to the original question stating what you have tried (be exhaustive too, what works.. what doesn't), and remove the parts that have been cleared up by gained knowledge.
In it's current form the question doesn't reflect all that you've tried.

I've had no experience with any other 'Blender centric sites', apart from viewing the odd tutorial.
You mention the 'StackOverflow way of doing things'. The name 'StackOverflow' and its 'way of doing things' mean nothing to me, and I thought the Blender.SE site (although being part of the Stack Exchange group) was set up and organised, including rules, by people like iKlsR, etc.

Your third paragraph is partially correct, and it brings to light the main problem, which is that Command Line page in the Manual - if it included what you say in that paragraph then it would be totally acceptable, but it doesn't! Then you get 'morons' like myself who decide to use those commands, and low and behold, they don't work.
I do plan to modify my question, but it takes me a long time to type (with one finger), and to decide what to say (I'm fed up with the negative comments).

@SteveW Not really, myself and the other mods you might see around are merely volunteers from the normal users who keep an eye on things. We do not represent StackExchange.

This seems to be focused towards myself (since everyone else involved was thanked). I fully expected the links included in my comment to be sufficient for you to understand and fix the issue. Bullying was certainly not the intention — I visit this site only to help create a knowledge base for the community. Please don't ask question you don't care about, only to later request them and the attempts at help be deleted. That's just a waste of everyone's time.

Can someone show me the rule in the help center that my question doesn't fit?

This one from the scripting tag was what came to mind when flagging your question (just replace script with environment):

Off topic:
"Why is my Blender cmd rendering script not working?" - in which the shell is sh and the problem is with the script (not Blender).

If not for that, it would have likely been flagged for not providing enough information. It's currently unclear if you are even running the commands in a shell or a application launcher of some kind.

Since the error message your getting if from your environment not Blender. The superuser stack exchange site would have been a better place to ask, e.g. Bash in Mac OSX terminal: “command not found”. Why?

Blender.SE is not the place to complain about wiki.

It has it's own discussion feature.
It's also user editable, so you can add any missing information yourself.

I think you should take note that not 'everyone else involved' was thanked. The three people I thanked approached this issue in a friendly, helpful and encouraging way - that's why I thanked them. Although, you are right, I think your attitude is the main reason for my 'rebellion'.
As for your comment, it started with the negative 'off-topic' statement - that turned me off, and angered me, so I ignored the rest of it! I have since checked out the links you included, I set up the $PATH but it still doesn't work.

I wanted to delete the question because many people had decided it was irrelevant, and shouldn't be there! I thought we would be better off without it (I wish I hadn't asked it). Now look what's happened.
The last place I expected to find information about 'off-topic' was the scripting tag!
As for 'not enough information', I will deal with that elsewhere.

I thought it would have been obvious that I'm running the commands in Terminal, which is the application to do this on a Mac (don't people use Macs anymore??).
I had no idea that Manual issues were not part of Blender.SE! I have applied to be able to edit the Manual but I've had no response yet (it's been over 2 weeks now).

@SteveW Generally speaking, the manual and here are two different places maintained by different people. Questions regarding issues with the manual shouldn't really be asked here since it can be edited by pretty much anyone with access to it. The question has also been reopened so bring up any further issues there. If you still think you aren't getting anywhere, I am in the chatroom (The Renderfarm) so you can drop by. I will also contact an admin for the wiki about your request.

@SteveW You can flag your question in the future for deletion and a mod will review it. It is too late for that now since it has useful information and someone has already taken their time to answer it and earned some rep for it so it would be wrong to deny them that.

@SteveW And also, I don't think Aldrik intended to offend you or seem negative. See http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/187796/i-think-i-have-offended-a-user-how-did-this-happen-and-what-do-i-do-now - The off-topic comments we usually post are usually very direct and generic. He is one of our avid users and has made several valuable contributions and continues to do so.