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Question still didn't receive a good answer after bounty?
This is pretty simple to understand: it is when someone would have a question, place a bounty, and not receive a working/good answer. This has happened to me a couple of times, and I want to get an answer. I can't create a duplicate, I can't place a second bounty, what would I do? Would I delete it and duplicate it? I am confused. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

that is a sure sign that your question is: 1 not clear, 2 a hard or unusual problem, or 3 very localized

You can't assume that just because you put a bounty on something, that you'll get a good answer. When I look through the bounty section, I never see something that I could answer. Like @David if your answer isn't easy to understand, or is something that not many users know about, putting a bounty on something won't help. Everyone here is happy to help, but we need something to work with.

A bounty isn't a good answer generator.
All a bounty does, is bring more attention to the question, and give a bit of incentive for it to be answered.
For a question to be answered, it needs to be easy to understand, and it needs to have enough people who understand that part of Blender.
A bounty will do absolutely nothing if the question it's self isn't good.

Well I got comments of people saying they see the issue but dont know how to solve it.

@blackhole That suggests that it's a part of Blender that people don't know very well.

Unfortunately merely placing a bounty on questions doesn't guarantee or entitle us to get an answer. It's there to entice people to spend a little time figuring out if they can solve it for you, or make it worth their time. You might imagine that some questions are not necessarily easy to answer, even if the question is clear.
Anyone who knows how to answer, and has read your questions, will have tried to answer, most of us probably read the question and know that we can not answer due to lack of expertise in the Game Engine.
Simply deleting your Question and adding the question back as a new question won't be any better. Sometimes very short questions require literally paragraphs of text to put across a meaningful solution. Conversely, very long questions are a pain to read and a sign the question hasn't gone through a lot of self-editing. If that's the case we've asked you to re-word your question or clarify things, or break the question into smaller separate issues because stack-exchange isn't about answering 5 questions at a time.
If the question is clear, remember that we all volunteer our time, someone might eventually stumble into the question and be able to give a satisfying answer. Or up your bounty, 50 is very little.

I was planning to use more bounty points, but I recently opened 3 bounties and only got 1 solved (no rep left).


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Questions closed as duplicates of a question with an unclear answer
Sometimes questions are closed as a duplicate of a question with an answer that isn't as clear as it could be.
If this is the case, should new answers be posted as another answer on the original question? Or should the closed question be reopened and answers posted there?
For example: Add a pause to an animated camera (following curve path)
If answers are added to the old question, all the answers stay in one place, however the answers will likely be conflicted in trying to address the nuances of the new question while acting as an answer to the original question.
If answers are added to the new question, answers are split into separate posts, but the answers stay where the action is and are free to address the OP's exact situation directly. Plus any comment discussions with the new question's OP will be in a more relevant location.
Which is preferred?

If the questions really are duplicities, and the first answer(s) are not sufficient, then yes by all means add another answer to the original question.
However, there should be no reason to reopen the dup.
This applies to more then just dup questions, any time you find a question with a less then satisfactory answer, either edit it (if the changes are not too large) or add another answer.

Not sure if I completely understood.. I'm wondering where the new answers should go. On the new (closed) question? Or on the old (original) question?

@gandalf3 edited for better clarity.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Should there be a modification to this off-topic criterion?
One of the reasons that can be given for flagging a question as off topic includes the following.

This question appears to be off-topic because it requires step-by-step instructions for a process that is specific to a particular project, and/or demonstrates too little effort on the part of the asker. ...

There are times when I have been preparing an answer that I've aborted the process of answering because I've come to perceive that the best answers to their question will fall afoul of the above criterion. Now, for most of the blenderheads participating in BlenderSE, this doesn't bother me, but there is a class of user who is obviously a novice (or less) at blender, for which I find the reputation of the users in that class on the site to be an effective, if slightly inaccurate indicator and I feel that not answering, is unfriendly, and perhaps reflects poorly on the Blender community. So I'd like to propose two actions. First, a grant of reputation (perhaps 250 points), or maybe a badge to a user who can demonstrate completion of either Chronister's or Hirsig's on-line courses in Blender, or a similar equivalent.
The second action would be to not declare a question from a user who has a reputation below a certain value (again, 250 points is a suggestion) off topic for this reason. Especially since, on the one hand, I don't see that many questions which would seem to be off topic on this criterion, and on the other hand, some questons which should be flagged as of topic on this basis are answered anyway.

First is is not possible to grant users rep (out side of bounties). Also it is not a good idea to grant new users rep based on blender experience, because the SE rep system is in part measuring how well a user knows the site.
If you want to answer a question that you think may be on the edge of being off topic for "too specific", I would suggest you go ahead and answer it.
However if it is clearly off topic please do not answer it (as it will encourage more of the same.)
I agree with you that this is not the best CV reason (and we are working to reword the CV reason) . It is quite subjective, some questions get answered (with lots of UV) and others are just closed and left to sit.

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


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Why can't you upvote a comment after you've undone your upvote?
I accidentally upvoted a comment, and I un-upvoted it (are there better words for vocabulary like this?). Blender StackExchange gave me an alert via my web browser that I wouldn't be able to re-upvote it after I un-upvoted it. I was wondering why this restriction exists.

This is explained in this answer:

We do not want flip flopping, nor do we want people to un-upvote stuff from the past. The only use case is undoing a mis-click.


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Are questions asking about problems encountered while following a tutorial off topic?
I've noticed that these sorts of questions are suddenly being closed:

"Minecraft Properties" tab is not showing up on rig where the tab is supposed to be there
https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/33147/599

However these weren't always closed, for instance Cause of black artifacts in render? (from one of the same tutorials even).
I feel like we should decide one way or another.

I don't really see any difference between these questions and the usual "Something X is weird, why?" questions.
Are there any reasons to exclude these kinds of questions from our scope?

This may be a little contentious, but in the case of "What face do I extrude in this tutorial?" it's a little bit like helping someone with a paint-by-numbers painting. It's not teaching them to paint, it's us showing them how to do the thing that should have been made clear in the tutorial.
They weren't having a problem with the concept of extrude, but the problem with the clarity of the tutorial, and that's why I think we should not encourage questions like that.
But there are questions about tutorials which I think are valid to answer once, for example scripting tutorials which reference deprecated API (for example the CGcookie AudioVisualizer tutorial. I think it generated about 5 questions here, and maybe 10 question on BA.org).
There's a nuance here which might not be easy to enforce or get agreement on.


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Is putting my experience level a necessity?
I recently asked a question which got some confusing answers.

I have absolutely zero idea what they are talking about. "Render engine"? "Texture panel"? It is all just nonsense to me - They might as well be talking french.
From this point of view, would it be practical to put my experience level in a question? My previous opinion of "Sorry for this question I'm a newbie" was that it's just non-constructive noise - But is it actually required for people to know my experience level and to gauge their answers based on it?

No, it's not necessary, as a matter of fact you are in agreement with what is generally (but not too strictly) considered extraneous noise on SE.
If you feel like too many unexplained terms are flying about and you want more explanations, it can't really hurt to mention that you are an aspiring new user. But you are always more than welcome to ask for clarification (as you have done).


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Is there a bot for that?
I haven't yet run across a question or answer which includes a link to a now unavailable ~.blend file, but I assume that there are some questions or answers with just such a broken link. In some cases, the now missing ~.blend file is an essential part of the question or answer. Is there a bot that checks blend file links to make sure they are still valid, and flags them for attention if the linked file is missing? And whether there is such a bot or not, what is the best way to handle such a situation when one encounters it? I imagine that in some cases flagging the question (or answer) for deletion might be a desirable course of action; in other cases, I imagine it might be of benefit to the community to construct a replacement blend file.

Please leave a comment first, asking the author to re upload, or edit. Then I would encourage you to not flag for deletion, but flag with a custom message such as (what I use to use) "Link only answer." it will give us mods a bit more info as to what should happen.

There is not a bot, but there isn't a need for one.
David has kindly written a query which finds all posts of yours containing links to pasteall or blendexchange via the SE data explorer. Here's a fork which lists all .blend links to pasteall or blendexchange found in all the posts on the site.
When you find dead .blend links in other users' answers, leave a comment if you want the .blend (I personally am re-uploading files on a per-request basis for the time being, given the sheer number of now dead .blend links on my answers..).
If the answer relies heavily on the .blend and there doesn't seem to be much chance that the OP can/will re-upload it to a more permanent host, then flag it for deletion.
This goes for pretty much any dead link too, not just .blends.

None of the links in my own files are dead, because files I've linked to are in my personal dropbox account. When (If) an official hosting location for blend files is established, I'll be moving my own files to that site, and changing the links.


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Proposed Community WIKI suggestions
I was reviewing questions seeking help in resolving issues the various posters of the respective questions had with different aspects of Blender. Now, while the particular questions I was paying most attention to dealt with modeling issues, I noticed questions about other areas of Blender, too: animation, texturing, rendering, &c., and it occurred to me that what many of the questioners needed more than they needed an answer, was a guide to how to find the answers to their questions themselves. Of the books I have read, the tutorials I have reviewed, and discussions I have followed, not once have I found a resource which, given a particular type of problem, say some tool not working as expected, presents a list of suggested steps in how to help a user find the answer.
What do you think about the idea of a series of pages, titled, "When you have a problem with >    <, here are some things to look for to solve the problem."? As a concrete example, a recent question asked about an interrupted loop cut, but I suspect that the person who asked the question didn't think (or didn't know) to switch to vertex select mode, in which the problem would have been quickly identified. I remember another question about textures not appearing which the answer was simply that the one asking the question had the display mode set to solid. I expect that a current question about why a render is all gray will turn out to be similarly trivial to solve.
I think a good format is to write a "question" introducing the check lists, and have a series of answers, one for each area of blender, where things to look for are posted, somewhat on the format of the "Resources for Blender" question.

I think you're right. There are a lot of questions that get answers that are extremely quick, and I have to wonder if they're duplicates. I think we do need some sort of resource that we can at least point to for those types of cases, but I'm not sure if the format you're suggesting is the way to go. I feel like you're more just throwing ideas around that things that are written in stone anyway.

@TARDISMaker On occasion, I've done some keyword searches on some of these questions, and have found that some of them are duplicates. Of course, they're not seen as duplicates by those who are new to Blender and new to Blender SE, and are asking the questions.


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When comment is upvoted, can this be in notification?
When my comment has an upvote, can this be shown in my notification?

no. but you can every once and a while you can use the data explorer to see all your UVed comments. (note that there is a delay of about a week for the data there)


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Is it possible to show the number of views precisely?
Is it possible to show the number of views precisely? (the number of views from each question or answer added up individually)

Note that general stack exchange questions/feature requests will likely get more attention on the global meta.

Yes, if you wan't to include bots, and double views... otherwise no.


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Is there a way to tag an _answer_?
I've seen a number of answers which provide novel means of using Blender tools to achieve results I didn't think were possible. Sometimes I'm inclined to tag the answer with a tag like "tip", to make the answer more easily found. Is there a way to do that?

Nope, I don't believe this is possible atm.

Well how about implementing the idea by editing a "header line" into selected answers, something like " Tag: a helpful technique"? Then doing a search for "helpful technique" would bring up all these helpful techniques in a single page that people could browse, say while on an extended layover at their least favorite airport?

These sorts of SE feature requests will likely get more attention from people who can answer (SE devs etc.) on the network-wide meta.

OK.  But why do I care about all those other SE sites? </Tongue in cheek mode>. More seriously, this is partly a way to make sure that I don't make more of a fool of myself than I already seem by asking a question (or making a suggestion) whose answer starts out, "It's trivial to do that, just..."


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Blender site design ideas - input welcome!
First, congratulations on the upcoming graduation of your site!
My name is Kurtis, and I'm the Stack Exchange team member who will be working on the design for your graduated site.
I've read your suggestions regarding site design and logo ideas. Thank you for getting the ball rolling! These ideas will come in handy as we begin the design concepting phase. Feel free to add more logo and site design ideas to this post, and we'll keep them in mind as we move forward!

Of those proposed I like Gandalf3's design the best.  I really love the Suzanne badge idea that several people used.

Yeah, using the monkey-head badges is very relevant for Blender users

I can't believe it's finally happening! My design is a rough proof of concept based off the blender website, and changes to SE have roughed it up around the edges over time.. Honestly I don't feel this site needs to be a clone of blender.org (like my proof of concept), but the upvote buttons and badge icons are definitely things which I would love to see in the final design :)

I think looking like blender artists or blender.org would be best. I definitely think we should NOT look like the blender UI itself, since it is simply to dark for reading paragraphs of text.

@GiantCowFilms Not Blenderartists, but maybe blender.org. I agree about the interface though. Dark themes are much harder to pull off successfully for reading. Much better for interfaces. I think we should still go a bit more towards a bit of a greyish background just to make it a bit easier on the eyes, but not extremely dark.

@TARDISMaker Still, black text... Maybe #fff white is a bit harsh (If you find it seriously irritating you may need to dim your monitor) but something close.

@GiantCowFilms I'm thinking #BFBFBF at the most. I think that is probably a bit too much. So nothing really harsh, but just bringing the value down a bit. And yes, I'm not trying to argue black text. With text, I think the only modification that could be done, is taking out a bit of contrast (brining the value up a bit), but I don't think this is necessary.

One thing we cannot forget is to leave room for the new blend file upload feature, right...? :D

Oh, here is everything we need in a list, BTW: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/610/3127

@GiantCowFilms This is the design thread, non-design specific stuff likely wont be covered here. Also, it's probably better to post new design things on this post so the new and old ideas don't get all mixed up.

@GiantCowFilms I see that. Thanks for the heads up!

make sure you make the logo pop

I have no idea how this design process thing works, so I'll just blurt out stuff until the ball gets rolling :)
This site is all about Blender, so it seems logical to me that the site would in some way be themed around that.
What reminds me of Blender?
Blender colors
The logo is of course made up of three colors:
http://dummyimage.com/660x75/f5792a/bf5009&text=f5792a
http://dummyimage.com/660x75/ffffff/bbbbbb&text=ffffff
http://dummyimage.com/660x75/0d528a/1279cb&text=0d528a
Incidentally, these are similar to the colors of a Dutch flag, which is where Blender started.
In addition to the logo colors I tend to associate a dark gray with blender as well. Not too sure why.
Am I the only one who sees "Blender" when orange and this kind of gray are together?
http://dummyimage.com/660x75/474747/777777&text=474747
Suzanne
As Blender's mascot since the beginning of (open source) time, Suzanne is a distinctly Blender icon. An easter egg that is recognized by blender users everywhere. For example, the Suzanne Awards is the one of the largest Blender competitions around. And perhaps that association with an award adds an extra reason to use Suzanne's image for something like a badge icon.
Meshes, geometry, "3D" things
Blender is a lot of things. Video editing, motion tracking, image manipulation, the list goes on. However it's most widely known for it's 3D modeling.
The basic building blocks of a 3D model are polygons made up of little vertices, edges, and faces. (triangles if you want the most basic of  them all).
So as GiantCowFilms suggested, perhaps it might be interesting if these fundamental pieces of 3D were somehow referenced or incorporated in the design.
CG/Digital art
This site (like all SE sites), is more than just a support site. It has a little community too, and most of the blender community is all about creating art. So I (and others) feel it would be natural to make artistic imagery a part of the site, perhaps with a contest to regularly create new header art.

Here's a short list of other large Blender related sites, perhaps looking at some of them can help inspire (or perhaps serve as lessons in what not to do):

Blender.org
Blender Nation
Blender Artists
Blender Network
Blender Cookie
Blender Guru
Blender Diplom

This list is not at all complete, there are many more blender sites out there.

Some doodles
After writing this, I couldn't help but try a few things.. Of course these are all just my random personal ideas and don't mean anything (I'm not the designer here ;).
Discussion and feedback is of course welcome!
Logo
Assuming SE doesn't want to use the blender logo (?), I attempted to come up with some kind Q&A + blender related logo/favicon thing. Though it pretty much just looks like the blender logo..

Small and in context:

Not enough "pop"? ;)
Badges
There are of course the Suzanne badges which I'll copy here just so everything is in one place:

Icons
And some flattened voting icons, since flat seems to be current "modern" (the ones in my original proposal were based off the old beta theme, with lots of shadows and gradients).

Make of this what you will, I look forward to seeing what the professionals do!

i'm liking this a lot, especially the single-tick blender logo. I imagine a minimal theme, not dissimilar to the current one, with high quality user picked header images, maybe once a week if the supply lasts?

I love it, the logo is awesome!  (And of course the Suzanne badges.)

I much prefer the older shadows and gradients, honestly.

This looks very good

If I don't try hard, I fail to recognize Suzanne in the Badges. Apart from that, I love it.

The logo is pretty sweet and minimalistic and is allowed as per https://www.blender.org/about/logo/

Blue Polygon Background [Copied From Here]
This is a specific idea for the background (I also changed the font to Open Sans) that helps start the look of the site. I used the http://chemistry.stackexchange.com theme (modified) for the proof of concept. Naturally it would need some tweaking, but I think it has potential.
Polygons make up all 3D art in blender (with a very very few exceptions) They are an intrinsic aspect of 3D, and are also a powerful design element.

Some have suggested limiting the background to the header:

Also, I used this answer on the site to create the background :D. That is the beauty of SE!

I think aesthetics and a good sense of design and composition should take priority over looking "themey". Sure, having the Blender colors in a couple of places - used tastefully - could be good. But if the icons are all literal elements taken from Blender's UI it could start to look gimmicky and cheap. And while we love Suzanne, she's one of the more overused and definitely less sexy symbols associated with Blender. Could we maybe think outside the box a little more?
It should be sexy. It should be chic. It should be smart. It should demonstrate that this is a place for artists who understand design, not just people with a purely technical understanding of Blender. This may be a place to find out "how" but let's not forget the "why", which is the creative element. Blender is a powerful pro graphics application being used by many brilliant artists around the world and we owe it to the community to deliver something that impresses and inspires.
What might such a design look like? Let's discuss.

What!? How dare you demean the high and exalted Suzanne! Sacrilege!
In all seriousness though, what would you suggest instead? It's all very well to suggest making the site beautiful, but that doesn't get us far in figuring out what "beautiful" is.

Sexy? Chic? Are we still talking about Blender? I might be more willing to consider "sexy" and "chic" if this were a site about some type of mass market appliance, but I suspect Blender SE is more used by people who aren't impressed by those things.

Why not make it beautiful and theme-y? That is what great design is, pleasing, functional and relevant. I do agree with you that the blender UI elements and colors won't work for the site, but themeing is important, like using Suzanne or common elements of 3D/blender. Suzanne is wonderful when used correctly (like for badges).

Suzanne is the most sexy 3D ape head I've seen! And you know what? every single one of those brilliant artists around the world swore allegiance to her on their first day on the job.


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Featured image contest revisited
We've discussed having a photo.se style continuous contest to provide a "featured render" for display on the main site before, but now that we are graduating it's time to see about making this happen.
Basically everyone who wants to enter would post their render on a massive meta thread, then every so often the highest voted entry would be displayed on the main site. Once it's had it's turn, the entry would go into a "hall of fame" meta post, making way for new renders to become the highest voted. The idea is to have a very relaxed "contest" that anyone can participate in without having to worry about a boatload of rules and restrictions. As a bonus, we get fresh pretty artwork on the front of the site on a regular basis :)
How can we work this idea into the design of the site? What kind of special considerations can we have implemented to streamline the operation of this contest? E.g. automated ways to feature and move posts to a hall of fame on a fixed interval (perhaps with a way to adjust the interval, so we can speed up the turnover a little once more people participate).

Should there be a minimum reputation, say 300, to encourage people to not just use BSE as a place to park their fantastic work for a week, and instead also contribute to the information we have on the site. 300 is an arbitrary value, but there should be some threshold..

@zeffii I would say no. I think most (if not all) blender users who find the contest will likely participate in the main site at least a little bit. However enforcing participation is not a good idea imo, if anything that will discourage potential new users from having anything to do with us. They'll perceive the site as an "exclusive club" where only the privileged high-rep users are allowed. We want to welcome all contributions, large and small.

300 points is not high rep, and I think it's reasonable to encourage people to participate at least a little bit to share their knowledge. If they're any good they'll easily gain rep. I don't want to see just any render in the header, it has to be quality, it is supposed to be promotional material after all. If we set the threshold at 7000k. yeah that would be "elitism ".

@zeffii Well, the entries that go into the header will be selected by voting. Presumably "bad" entries will not get many votes.

Seems a little inconsistent to not require reputation for the privilege of getting work up there. I have no doubt we'll vote for the good stuff. I just like the idea that those who do get their work up there have spent a little time sharing their knowledge on this site. As it stands there are already many ways to share epic work (BA, Blendernation...etc)  -- I won't harp on about this, if it's just me that feels this way..

@zeffii It's a good point, and one which should be decided by the community. You might consider writing an answer here so people can vote on the idea :)

Downvote if you don't agree, else upvote!

Assuming we get this feature, why not vote on 1 particular facet of the proposal.

namely: Besides votes for the Artwork, do we also demand a minimum reputation threshold?

I propose 300 points. Why? Because it encourages people to participate in the main site, and it's not that high that it could be mistaken for elitism.
Our collective votes will probably already filter the good stuff anyway. no matter if you have 6000 points, if your art isn't display quality (why?) would we want it up there?
But if someone just joins to show their Blender work, and doesn't participate "on the front lines" like every one us, then I see that as a disconnect and even inconsistency with the reputation system, where privilege is earned. If they're good it will shine through how they answer questions way before submitting artwork. If they really want to get their work up there 300 points shouldn't take too long.
The vote will be for a threshold of some kind, if you think 300 is too high, add a comment with how much. ( 50, 100, 150... etc).

300 is wayyyy too high. 125 rep, at least twenty-five days on the site, and ten days where a user has asked a question. I know that sounds a wee bit over-complicated, but it'll help weed out the people that are truly new and/or are only good at troubleshooting.

yeah, maybe 125 is enough, but how fast they reach that is less relevant to me. At any rate all I would like to persuade is the idea that we attach some importance to site-participation, there are after-all already many ways for people to share their work and promote Blender outside of BSE.

The rep threshold will most definitely need to be tweaked. Other than that, I really like this idea :)

I voted down, but if there is a threshold - remember that users coming from other SE sites automatically start with 101 rep


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Is there an issue posting your own for-sale add-on as an answer?
I have recently created an add-on, which is for sale on the Blender Market, that I think answers a question by a user on the main part of site. (A question that doesn't yet have an accepted answer).
Are there any guidelines as to whether I should or how I should proceed with an answer that features an add-on that is for sale without it seeming like an advert for my own product?
I don't want to come across as self-promoting, but the answer would inevitably drive traffic to a product and potentially drive up sales.
I will of course provide a link to the product and the question I think it answers if required, but I thought that even mentioning the add-on here on the meta might come across as promotion.
How should I proceed?

It is ok to post an answer that uses a product you made or are affiliated with, when it does answer the question, and only if you disclose your affiliation.
I would caution you that it will not get UVed as much (because it is a paid addon), and possibility DVed. However there is nothing wrong (when following the guidelines) with you linking to your addon.
Think of it this way, I right an answer that uses your addon, or any other program or service; and there is nothing wrong with me linking to the tool(s) I use. In the same way, the creator of the tool is not outright banned from mentioning it.
The SE help pages have this to say.

Avoid overt self-promotion.
The community tends to vote down overt self-promotion and flag it as spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers.
If a large percentage of your posts include a mention of your product or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for details. We also offer free community promotion ads for open source projects and non-profit organizations.

taken from https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/behavior
Limits for self-promotion in answers and this answer are good overviews of SE's position.


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Where does one draw the line?
When a user posts a question about performing some certain tasks, one of the reasons that the question can be closed states, in part:

This question appears to be off-topic because it requires step-by-step instructions for a process that is specific to a particular project,...

But how does one determine where the line is between giving enough information to answer the question, on the one hand, and giving "step-by-step instructions" on the other? Should the reputation of the questioner be a factor, that is to say that a question where the answer needs to be more detailed might be more acceptable from a user with low reputation, than from a user with a higher reputation? I recognize that the magnitude of the reputation a user has on the Blender SE site is not always a reliable indicator of the experience of the user,  but I find that this is often a useful indicator.

Note that this close reason will likely be removed in favor  the the built in "too broad" close reason. See http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/584/599

Related: http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/62/599


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What special features do we *really want* for this site?
So now that we are getting ready to graduate to a full site, it's finally time to ask SE if we can have any special site-specific considerations to make the site better. What special feature(s), if any, would be most important to the success and usability of this site?
We've already compiled a kind of wish list of features we'd like to see made a part of this site. However we likely won't be able to have everything, so what features do we want most? (and why?)

Number one most important.
Permanent blend file hosting, integrated like the imgur picture hosting.

While some users have taken at upon themselves to make a permanent blend hosting solution, a SE integrated system would be more convenient. Imagine simply pressing CtrlF (or some other key), and a upload box, like the imgur box, would let you insert a blend right on that page.
A SE integrated system would be more stable, with a much greater chance of staying online (no offense to GCF).
A SE integrated system would have a much greater chance of unifying all blends on one central, permanent location. Instead of the blends we have being scattered across so many different sites with varying levels of security: pasteall, blend-exchange, dropbox, google drive, one drive, filedropper, megashare, github, and many others...

Might be nice to list some reasons why we'd want this integrated, when we have blend-exchange

@gandalf3 read edited post.

@David Offense taken! Because BE has never ever.... crashed..... um.... well... uh

Automated Header Image Contest
What could be a cooler way to show off what we're all about, then to show off some of our best work at the top of the home page?
This would be run using an automated competition on meta, the highest voted image gets the feature, and then when it's time for the next image, the last one gets retired to a hall of fame.
The time slots would be dependent on the number of entries. It would probably start as a 1 month slot, but come down to something as fast as a week, depending on the amount of participation.
Note, imo Permanent .blender file hosting is more important.

I've put a feature request for this here

searches
The search seems like it could be fuzzier, and a bit more relaxed about spelling. At the moment it has zero contextual awareness, and fails to find questions that are really about the same thing just asked differently.
code
i'd like a better way to share code for answers. Github is fine, but it relies on github being available, and assumes the gists / repo isn't deleted. A blender stackexchange cookbook would get my vote, how much cool code have we shared already?!

There is syntax highlighting

@zeffii I was not the one who DVed, but do not take it personal. A DV on the meta is different then on the main site, here a DV shows agreement, or disagreement, so all that means is somebody does not think better code and search is the most important thing.

These would be nice features indeed, but I imagine they would be implemented already if there was much chance of them being added (if they would be useful here, imagine them on SO!).. As you may expect, these have been requested many times on the main meta.

Community file sharing + contribution functionality. The idea of a community project has been bouncing around for a while now. It'd likely be linked to reputation, like +10 for contributing a prop or model (reward given only once per user, to be fair,) +25 for item being accepted (which can be given out multiple times per user.)
Permanent file hosting (Dropbox, Google Drive, Github... heck, I'll even take a site that a community member makes from scratch for that purpose!)
An actual banner that we can link to from other sites
A small update to the submission form for questions and such, where they show the order of things like bold and italic tags.
Not being ostracized for simply asking for community input on a question/topic.


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Are sarcastically funny comments allowed?
Sometimes, when a particularly ridiculous question appears, a sarcastic joke can actually shed light on to the issue (by making the OP see how ridiculous the premise for the question is). They also can give some folks a good healthy laugh. However, these aren't the niceset way to communicate, and may potential offend the OP (In the case of some OPs, there is even a real risk they may take sarcasm for fact).
Case Example:
I wanted to post this:

No it won't work, Microsoft completely re-worked its entire API, just to show software companies who is boss. However they didn't realize that everyone would just switch to their main competitor OS, windows 7.

as a comment to:
Is Blender compatible with Windows 10?
However I was afraid it may be deleted, or just isn't a good thing to say... Do we condone such comments?
Bonus Question Anyone think of a nicer way to make the joke?

I think we should, as this could be perceived as offensive. However, if written in a way that is obviously a joke, it should be fine.

I know! We can have SE build us a system where advanced users can write two messages, one for the author, and one for people above a certain amount of rep!

Well not a nice way to say it, but "It will never be compatible. In late 2014, Microsoft decided that they like to keep software companies in the dark, so they completely redid their software api so that no software company could ever write code for their Windows 10. This is why, I have switched to their main competitor, Windows 7."

What would a giant cow be doing asking about such an advanced subject as humor? All joking aside, there is nothing wrong with humor in the comments. (even if one of those nasty mods come along and deletes your comment as "too chatty" or "not funny" you really haven't lost anything.) However questions, answers are held to a different, and much higher standard. (I really tried to think of something funny to put in this)

Quite honestly, this may not be the right thing to do in light of @David's comment, but if I thought something was funny I would put it in an answer as well as a comment, I think the line isn't really a line, more like a gradient. as long as it's not a joke about someone, toward someone who has a history of being easily offended, or could be conceivably imagined to hurt someone, in my mind, it could belong either place. (I have no idea if that made sense or not)

Well, we can't be serious all the time ;)
There is quite a lot of discussion about this on the global meta.
In general, humorous remarks are fine as long as they are relevant, not offensive, in good taste, and actually funny ;)
Of course, all these are highly subjective attributes. Such is humor.
Bonus points if your light-hearted comments also contribute useful and relevant information to the current discussion.

I don't think sarcastic comments have a place on any SE site. For most people who ask questions here it's a one-off QA experience. We shouldn't be in the mind frame of thinking "they should know better than to ask a stupid question like that".
In the past it has happened that software written for a previous version of windows / OSX didn't work on the next version. Granted the way to solve it was often installing a system library or update the software to a compatible version. So that question isn't actually a demonstration of someone's ignorance. It's simply a question which deserves a respectful answer.
How difficult is it to answer (specifically to that question)

" While currently windows 10 is a Beta edition, people have reported some issues to the bug tracker. As soon as Windows 10 reaches maturity (released to the public) we'll be able answer the question more authoritatively. It's in Microsoft's best interest to not break programs between upgrades, i'd be very surprised if Blender doesn't work on win 10 or can't be fixed specific to win 10 if it doesn't work immediately "

My biggest problem with sarcasm on a site like BSE is that the reader doesn't have the benefit of the cheeky glint in your eye as you give a nonsense answer. All they see is text, and are free to interpret your message in a way you didn't intend, not just because of language barriers, but someone can see it as a personal slight, especially if you haven't first built up rapport with them.

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


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Community Projects?
I know this seems a little absurd, but I've been thinking:
A while ago, I solved the final puzzle in a new form of puzzle: the semi-interactive puzzle on puzziling.stackexchange.com.
Have we on blender done something similar, like as a community project (game, animation) or is that even possible on this site?

Blender itself is a collaborative community project, and for the open movie Sintel there was a call to sprint model assets. In the end I think a bunch of planks or crates did get used as filler objects in the market place scenes.
BSE at its heart is a QA site, and the focus of this community is to provide people with working answers. I think something like the Blender Cloud is more attractive as a potential platform to explore Massively Multiperson Online Artistic Productions. (Like MMORPG, MOOC).
It isn't clear to me that discussions about these kinds of things and how they might manifest has a home on BSE-Meta either. You could test the waters in the Renderfarm chatroom, and if that gets serious a dedicated chat could be made.
My closing remark is that I too have thought on occasion that if every strong contributor to BSE had sufficient free time, and interest, and could agree on a collective goal/project we could do some wild stuff -- but that's a lot of ifs.


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Invite new users into chat
Sometimes in questions by new users (this for example) the comments go on too long and they should really be moved to chat. But new users don't have the 20 rep needed to write in chat. How can they be invited then?

Also if you flag a post (a custom message would be helpful, we really do read them), us mods can move the comments in to a chat room.

Moderators can explicitly allow any user access to a certain room, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way for non-mods to do this.
Try pinging one of the moderators in chat, and if any of us are around we can create a special chat room and a chat profile for the user in question.
If no mods are readily available, then it's trickier. I guess the next best thing you can do is flag the question as "Other" with a message to let us know there is a lengthy comment discussion which can't be continued in chat without a mod.

I wasn't aware that I could flag to do that..  Users with given amount of Rep should be allowed to invite new users to chat, seems like an arbitrary or not-considered facet of rules.

@zeffii Flagging as "other" just creates a notification for moderators using whatever message you write and a link to the given post. If you see any situation where a moderator could be helpful, don't be shy about flagging it. Regarding allowing an easier way for <20 rep users to chat, that's one of those often requested features..

yeah, cool. Those kinds of non-blender but "I don't want to be a big meany about it" threads are very uncommon, and sadly help no-one..  well, maybe the kid.. and maybe that's the help he needs to catapult him to be the next disney . who knows.


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Is there some way to force the user to indicate render engine in use?
Just wondering out loud if there is some method or process when a user submits a question to make an indication of render engine (BI, Cycles, Game Engine, or external) a mandatory data point?
It seems a lot time is wasted when users don't indicate what engine they're working with.
In a broader sense, what if there was a pre-question checklist of common questions that Answerers ask in comments when trying to understand the question?

Don't waste time trying to answer something without first asking in the comments what Render Engine the OP expects to use.  If it's not clear, don't jump in.

That's what I mean, we waste time having to ask what render engine every time.

I think the site does not yet acknowledge the massive differences in Blender awareness between new users and people with 100+ reputation (to pick a reasonable value is hard). I also think you have a point if you're saying there should some kind of in-text-box message for the first few questions of an account, a checklist as you say.

Weclome! We notice you haven't posted any questions on Blender.Stackexchange before. Help us help you by including the following information in your question, often we need to know a few simple facts before we give useful answers.

What rendering engine are you using? (show image of the dropdown)
What operating system? (show how to find)
What version of Blender (show how to find)
Add screenshots (show how to make, and crop)

wording can be debated, but the overall content covers it right?

Weclome! We notice you haven't posted any questions on Blender.Stackexchange before. Increase your chances of getting a useful answer by including the following information in your question, often we need to know a few simple facts before answering.

SE could do blind-tests and roll out different messages, to see which messages work best, -- things like this can be measured objectively.

And I don't think it would hurt to emphasize in an automated way for new posters the following (shorter wording would be nicer).

If someone adds a comment below your Question feel free to edit your original question to include additional information. Avoid going into discussion in the comments, you can delete your own comments to keep that area less noisy for any additional questions.

While a message like that would help in a lot of cases, adding the OS blender version, and render engine would not make a big difference for questions like this.

Blender bug reports also don't often really need half of the required fields to be solved, but they are asked anyway so in the event that it is important it doesn't need to be asked. Picking out that example where it is irrelevant misses the point. My utopian brain thinks about a self diagnostic test which guides a new user towards a nice question..

On the other hand I also don't want a new user to see that as too much effort, so it would have to be really short and incredibly well conceived, and offer a pathway like " It's OK, I know exactly what i'm asking " to let them jump straight in.

While it is a good idea that could work rather well for our site, no it is currently not possible.
This was suggested on the meta a year ago: Can meta-style 'required tags' be implemented on non-meta sites?
Beyond required tags, there is definitely no way to force a user to add their render engine (or anything else) to the body or title of their question.

I'm not totaly convinced that requiring all questions to fit in to four categories is a good idea. What happens when a user asks about, modeling (second biggest tag), or python (biggest tag). Both of those tags can stand alone without any of your suggested four required tags.
While I sure agree that there is a lot of time wasted simply asking what render engine the OP is using, I think with a system like this there would be just as many cases where a question does not really fit one of the tags.
We would run the risk of:

Having too many required tags to make it worth it.
The tags become too general to be meaningful.
Miscatgorized questions, because a tag is required.

Take this question as an example, you had to pick at least one of these: discussion support bug feature-request
It is not a bug report, this is not really asking for support either. So you are left with feature request, and discussion. Now depending on whether or not you are asking the devs to implement this, would rule out feature request. Thus you are left with discussion, and cant we discuss anything.
That is my point, for the required tag system to work you have to have overly general tags.
It works on meta because only questions about the site come here, but in blender anything is possible and questions can be about anything.

Yes, I wasn't really thinking about enforced tags, which would have the issue you're describing. I was imagining something more along the lines of a pre-flight checklist to be shown to the user before submission of the question.


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Is there a way for the community (or moderators acting on behalf of the community) to accept answers?
Zeffii's question comes close to, but is a little different from, something I've been thinking of for a while. The scenario is that a user, who may have only come to the community to ask one particular question, asks that question—a really really good question—and gets a really good answer. And having gotten the answer, leaves the community before accepting the answer. The reasons for non-acceptance are not as important in this discussion as the fact that it did not get accepted. And because it never got accepted, it has remained marooned on the unanswered questions list.
A similar situation would be where after a question was asked, and an answer was accepted, a much better answer was offered--more thoroughly complete, better resourced, &c.
Should there be some mechanism by which the community, or the moderators operating on the community's behalf, could accept answers, or mark a different answer accepted than the answer originally accepted by the original query poster? A parallel to the "close" vote comes to mind as a reasonable parallel.
Or is this question worth moving up to the "Big Meta" discussion list?

this question is a natural evolution after assessing the various reasons for unaccepted answers.. Obviously a percentage of them does have an objectively correct answer.

What about questions which already have answers in a different question, and get an accepted answer before it can be marked as a duplicate?

The accepted answer is the indicator that the answer solved the problem for the original poster (OP), it doesn't mean that is necessarily the "best" answer or even at times the "correct" answer. The checkmark shows that the OP selected the answer that worked for them.
Adding a community accept feature was on Meta Stack Exchange and it was declined.

hey @blue, good to see you around.

At the current time, no. There is no other mechanism to accept answers, other then the OP pressing the check mark button.
Force Accepted Answers on Questions by Inactive Users
However just because a answer is not accepted does not put it on the unanswered list. The answer has to have 0 up votes to be on the unanswered list.


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Is there a way to encourage voting?
I find that there seems to be a misunderstanding among many users of this site  about how voting posts up/down should work.  In my mind a question should be upvoted if it is clear and fits within our scope.  An answer should be upvoted if it is clear and makes an honest attempt at answering the question based on the information given.  Though this is my opinion I have based it on this post on global meta.  Please correct me if I have misinterpreted anything.
However I seem to get the feeling that many users, I think especially those coming from other forums, seem to think you upvote a post if you personally like the content or were helped by it.  I believe this is what favoriting a question is for, upvoting is more broad.
What gives me this feeling is that when I periodically go through the unanswered questions list I often find a few of them have (often multiple) perfectly good answers with no upvotes, even though the question has had fair number of views.  I have taken many questions off the unanswered list by just upvoting a good answer.  Don't get me wrong, I don't upvote answers just to get questions off the list, I am talking about perfectly good answers which have little to no upvotes.
I also occasionally get slightly frustrated when one of my own answers goes without any votes even though it answers the question.  I have noticed this happening more frequently in the past few months too.
Am I just imagining this or has anyone else noticed this?  Is there anything we can do to educate users more about voting and encourage people to vote more frequently?

This seems to be becoming a bigger problem as our site grows. I seem to have been seeing a lot of good posts lately without any votes (until I add mine). I think with the the uptick in overall activity, posts are getting pushed quickly down the homepage with little to no views, let alone votes. (I also can't help but notice this on my own posts as well.)

Similar question, solid answer in my opinion: http://meta.video.stackexchange.com/questions/1446/how-we-can-motivate-our-users-to-vote

I also note that many visitors to this site probably don't have the reputation to vote. I don't think the vote count will ever match the view count.

We could use some API queries to get real numbers on those questions, rather than judging the state-of-affairs by how things appear to us. (prone to confirmation bias)
I can only speak for my own reasons to vote:

The topic interest me, and the post was informative
I know enough about a topic to feel my vote is a good indicator for other users.

Reasons not to vote:

I don't know enough about the specific area mentioned in the title, so I won't even read the Question / Answers.
"Wall of Text" answers, bug me :)

You can look at the top voters for week / month / quarter, to get a sense of who's doing what.

Possibly we could send reminders to people who log in, but don't show much voting activity

"Hey, our visitors rely on people like you to vote on good answers, please vote or leave a comment to help strengthen weak content" .

Who votes?
Some people it seems have time to answers questions, but don't care to vote much at all. So without doing a witchhunt here's the list of 15 top rep contributors and their total vote count. This is just a snapshot
User             |  Rep  |  Votes
-----------------+-------+-------
gandalf3         | 63.1k |  7155
iKlsR            | 20.2k |  3706
ideasman42       | 19.7k |  1300
stacker          | 18.5k |  5699
sambler          | 16.1k |  1092
David            | 15.1k |  1802
cegaton          | 14.7k |  1385
zeffii           | 14.5k |  1922
CoDEmanX         | 13.4k |  442
Leon Cheung      | 12.4k |  1175
Jerryno          | 12.2k |  78
Chebhou          | 11.4k |  893
Ray Mairlot      | 10.6k |  344
NoviceInDisguise |  8.5k |  2352
CharlesL         |  8.4k |  538

I think this shows that most of us who see a lot of posts also tend to vote on them, those who don't vote a lot are definitely in the minority -- I wouldn't worry about it.

I like the reminder idea; but I think we should include a simple guideline on why one would vote up.  I haven't voted much, though I read a lot of things; and I usually only vote up on questions that I thought were a question that would be something another or myself might want to know, and is clear what is being asked.  Same for the answer, if I understand it and it appears to be the answer, or an answer.  I think wall of texts occur because some are attempts at a tutorial to a complex question specific to the questioner's problem in design only.

@Cyberchipz yep, I think we can forgive new users from not being very good at abstracting out the problem from their current scenario/blend.. But a short tutorial on the elements that help us answer questions better, and help people make better, more generalized, questions is not a bad idea at all.  Learning how to learn or how to ask question is arguably the most important skill...

You can use some of my answers for good 'bad' examples.  I'll take this advice personally. :-)  But, in poor defence I'll say that we noobs gotta get points where we can find them. XD

I wonder if adding something more opinion based could help, some sort of level of quality enabled only when you vote.
Level 1 : this answers the question
Level 2 : Good answer
Level 3 : Good, intersting, informative, sexy : I like it!
Level 4 : AWESOME!!!
The ability to easily give a bit of personal opinion could encourage voting.
It could also be some stars (or mini-blender logos) to click for visual quality, understandability (this word exists?),...


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No 100 rep received at 200 rep
Listen guys, you know that 100 points you receive when you reach 200 reputation, I am now on 300 and I still didn't get, it's quite weird.I am not sure why, help is appreciated

You only get the 100 rep association bonus when you join a stackexchange site while having another SE site that has 200+ rep. How does "Reputation" work?. You only have (one) account.

So for instance if I go to stackoverflow will I get 100 rep on stackexchange?

@IgorTatarnikov Yep, on that site.


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How to record steps in Blender
Sometimes here people post amazing gifs that show their workflow.
These are really compact sequences, often with keyboard shortcuts displayed.
How does one do that? And what additional software is needed?

This should have been posted on Meta.

Related: placing .gifs in text, How can I insert videos into my Q&A?, and How to post gifs on this site?

Regarding to capturing keys pressed - what program was used e.g. in this answer. I have found related page, but it seems there isn't that program included. Others still work but are a little bit less intuitive (and some of them less new)

@MrZak it looks to me like that was made with licecap (I use that too)

@David, that's strange. I use it too and the only options I've found are those appearing once Record button is pressed. I didn't see anything related in that window

@David, found. Those are captured by Screencast Key Status Tool as in the answer mentioned. It's maybe deprecated but imo the best I've seen.

You can only post animated gifs, smaller than 2MB.
Read: How to post gifs on this site?
To create those you need some kind of screen capture software like LiceCap or GifCam (those work for windows, or linux using wine).
To make the keystrokes visible you can use the now deprecated Screencast Key Status Tool or other external software.

But how come that these videos are so compact? I don't see any mouse movements and no gaps.

It all depends on the app used to capture, some have the option to show the cursor, others don't.  Size depends on the length, size, number of colors and optimization. To deal with gifs hat are larger than 2MB (or other kinds of video) you need to post them on an external site and add the link to the question.

Technically both gifcam and licecap support capturing the cursor, however neither do this very well when used through wine on linux. So my gifs don't have cursors :/


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Are templates within the scope of this site?
Are templates within the scope of this site? How I see it, they shouldn't be. It's basically someone else's scene, and they should be responsible for making sure that it works properly.
If someone is having issues with that template, wouldn't that be the creators responsibility to fix it? While it's not a separate piece of software, or an unofficial addon, it's similar to one because someone unofficially created it. Unless they released it with their own license, there is no guarantee that it works, and it could have lots of issues.
Now, if it's something regarding extending a template, or the author can prove that it's not an issue with the template, then I think it should be within the scope. But I think that questions like this, should be out of the scope, because it could easily be an issue with the template, and nothing that the user needs or wants to learn about.

Why should we particularly care if the OP is using a template or not?
If the question "didn't open with blender, also the audio doesn't work" had been asked without mentioning "template", would it be considered off topic? Perhaps the way it was written it might be considered "unclear", but I don't think it would be considered off-topic.
The afformentioned question appears to be about issues encountered while using blender with external assets (video, audio). IMO this fits under our scope:

The Blender Stack Exchange site is for people who use Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games.

Now if the question was "what's the best way to use this template", then yes, that has more to do with the intent of the template author than with blender (and I would consider that off-topic).


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Will I loose my privileges when the site graduates?
I have noticed that graduated sites have much higher reputation thresholds  for privileges, for instance the "trusted user" privilege goes from 4k on a beta site to 20k rep on a full site.  I currently have 4k rep, am I correct in presuming that I will no longer have this privilege (along with quite a few others) when the site graduates?

Short answer: yes. Unless you get 20k before the site graduates ;)


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Do questions about Python belong here if the issue isn't strictly with Blender?
The Big Picture

While I've seen many questions about Python and Blender together posted here, most of them have strictly to do with the Blender Python Library. My question is, do question that discuss programs that use the Blender Python Library but aren't specifically about the Blender Python Library belong here?
Similarly, are "help me with my code" questions, such as many of those on StackOverflow too specific for this Exchange?

Me, myself, and I

Since the above is a little vague, I'd like to provide an example using a question I have:
I'm working with a script for Blender. There is a portion of my code where I scan through a list searching for a certain matching set of data. However, it returns an error that I want it to simply ignore and continue on doing; however, because of the structure I have set up, I can't seem to use the standard try/except, as that stop executing the command I want it to execute. My question would revolve around trying to solve this: should I use loops, reformat my try/excepts, what should I do?
As you can see, this question could be about something not involving Blender equally easily and still be a valid question. However, simultaneously, there could be a solution specific to Blender much cleaner then a general purpose solution. It also focuses on an area that makes it difficult to be directly applicable to another topic–it could, however, depending on the solution. So, does it belong or not?

TL;DR:

In essence, there are two questions that need to be answered here:

Is the nature of such discussions on topic and in agreement with the direction of this StackExchange?
Are questions that center more around "help me with my code" too specific for this StackExchange?

Your example question would probably get closed. We have had other questions in the past get closed or moved to SO because it was a general python question.

@David Hmm... where should I post it? I'm afraid StackOverflow would send me back here... bit of a sticky situation.

I would ask it on SO, you dont even need to mention blender. You just have a question about looping through a list in python, but can not use a try except.

@David Interesting. Posted it on blender.se and actually got an answer that would not have been possible to find on SO due to the nature of the answer; instead of changing the loop type, the syntax got changed to prevent errors. You can read about it here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/35759/help-with-setting-up-nodes-for-specific-materials-in-a-list

I think we're quite lenient regarding the scope of Python questions. The main criterion is 'is the code an integral part of a script for Blender'. To most people who answer python questions here it's quite obvious when a question stems from a weak understanding of python, vs one that arose due to misconceptions about bpy, or misunderstanding of the control flow generated by certain constructs (like simple Operator vs Modal Operator..).
In the end BSE benefits from having several levels of user skills catered for, from:

proficient Python coders with weak understanding of Blender
proficient Blender users experimenting with Python
proficient Blender users with strong Python but confused by the API.
users not proficient in either

You can always just straight up ask, and provide a working/broken snippet as a link, and say: this doesn't work, I know / don't know why / have suspicions ; are there better mechanisms available? If you do share code, it's conventional to first do your own reduction on the code to take out all the bits that are not important to demonstrating the problem. The process of reducing the problem code to as few lines as possible often results in valuable insight to you as a coder -- sometimes even negating the need to place the post in the first place.
Generally you should preface the code with an explanation of what you had hoped it would do, and the general idea of the larger scope of which the code is only one element -- because you might be coding something one way that has a more elegant solution ( for example: bpy.ops.* vs lower level bpy calls)
Even if we can't help, or the problem has nothing to do with bpy / blender we tend to close the question after suggesting links for further reading. It isn't intended as an insult.

Okay. It's just so sad when a question gets closed or deleted with no answer simply because it's too specific, and I wanted to make sure that I stayed within the bounds so this doesn't happen.


text:
Off topic "other stack exchange network "-- limited options why?
is there any merrit to having a new more options in that list, like :

SuperUser.stackexchange
Graphicdesign.stackexchange
Photography.stackexchange
stackoverflow

this is extra step seems so useless if there is only one option to pick.

This yet another thing which is addressed when we graduate.

cool. could I have read that anywhere?

How soon can we have the option to suggest that a question should be moved to a different stack exchange site than Blender meta? It seems to me that question 46813 belongs on Hardware Stack Exchange.

I have talked to two stack exchange employees and the short of it is we don't have enough questions needing to be migrated to warrant a custom list.
I know this comes as a bit of a disappointment, but I will share their reasoning for us not getting it.
First and foremost we have only migrated 33 ever, in the whole history of our site. That means we migrate about 1% of our questions away. The stats for this year are January: 3, February: 2, March: 0, Apil: 0 (so far). We just dont need to migrate questions that often.
Sometimes questions migrated to other sites can cause problems and tension.
With that few question needing to be migrated, and the problems it can cause they feel that BSE does not need the migration targets list.

So what are we supposed to do now?
Just flag any post you think should be on a different site. Use the "in need of moderator intervention" flag type, and use a message such as:

This question belongs on < site name >

(Your flagging screen may look a little different, but the custom flag reason will always be at the bottom.)

It would seem reasonable and proper to have at least one option besides the meta BSE option, namely a blank field in which we could nominate the SE to which we think the question would fit better.

@brasshat not really. First a "custom migration site" would not get the question moved there particularity fast. (that has to do with how the CV system works). Second simply flagging it with a custom message (the same amount of work) will guarantee a mod sees it and can move it. So I would ask why you want a field to nominate the the site, when you already have a field where you can nominate what site it should go to.

Quoted from
What is migration and how does it work?

If you don't have 3,000 reputation, the site isn't in the list of available migration targets, or the question got closed without being migrated, do not fret.

When we graduate we will get 5 sites to have on that list to migrate to (the devs set that up and it is all data driven). So in the not to distant future we will have other options (probably the sites you listed.)
For now just flag it with a custom message saying what site it should go to, and one of us mods will migrate it.

Well, we graduated a while ago, and as of the date of this comment, I still only see one site to nominate as a migration target: this one.

@brasshat after a (too long) delay I have the answer for you. Sorry for the delay.


text:
How should we handle old questions and answers needing some remediation?
One comment response to a recent question (cf. Texture shows in render but not in 3d view) was to refer back to an earlier, similar question (cf. Can't get my model out of wireframe mode), and when I went to review the earlier question, I found the ~.blend uploaded in response to a request, was uploaded to Pasteall, and is no longer available to download. The poster of the original question has not been active in about a year.
How should this be handled?

I'm not sure I see what's to be handled. The lack of .blend in the question doesn't affect the answer, and the OP of the new question can most likely tell if the old answer applies to their situation or not.


text:
Can we re-upload .blends to more permanent hosts?
So, if I find a link in a question or answer to a blend file that is on an ephemeral site like Pasteall, would it be considered a violation of BSE etiquette to move the blend file to a more persistent site, like Blend-exchange?
Just before posting this question here, I did a search on the BSE site, and found that there are 382 hits for files on Pasteall.org.

I think this is more of a legal issue than one of etiquette. AFAIK, by uploading a .blend to blend-exchange you grant blend-exchange rights to distribute the .blend. If you do not own the rights to do this, then this may be a violation of the rights of the copyright holder. That said, I think it could be that the uploader may have already waived such rights when uploading it to xyz hosting service. Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this should not be taken as legal advice. Perhaps ask on law.SE?

I am not a lawyer, either. But I think that case law covers what I am talking about here (see Copyright circular 21, page 4, column 2, first paragraph, "...reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace
part of a damaged copy;...". While Blend-exchange is not officially a library, it is a de facto archive, and in some percentage of cases, a missing ~.blend file "damages" the question and answer.

For starters, only the owner of the .blend can relinquish the rights to BE and you must have full rights inorder to upload it to BE

Pasteall doesn't have TOS or licensing afaik.... Which makes this a nearly intractable problem D:

I would expect that Pasteall does have a TOS, but that it applies to the one uploading.

@GiantCowFilms This is the closest I could find to a TOS on pasteall. It appears to imply that uploaded content is considered public domain.

It can be argued that since the original user has been advised that the file (or files) uploaded to PasteALL has been warned that the files should be considered in the Public domain, and uploads anyway has given implied consent to have the files moved. Further complicating matters is the fact that I have been unable to find anyplace on Stack Exchange generally, and BSE in particular, where one can determine the identity of a member of the community beyond an chosen user name. One of the members who posted a question on BSE is identified only as "User48719".

Be very very careful. By uploading a file to BE you must have the right to do so, as per the TOS.

Your user content must not be illegal or unlawful, must not infringe any third party's legal rights, and must not be capable of giving rise to legal action whether against you or blend-exchange.giantcowfilms.com or a third party (in each case under any applicable law).

By breaking this you are essentially stealing the copyright to the file, which is an issue. What I would do is download all the files to your hard disk, so they aren't permanently lost, and then contact the owner.

I have already gone back about 8 pages into the list of results from the Google search I did of the BSE site and copied all of the files that were still available, and as GCF suggested, I downloaded all of the content that is on PasteAll. From now on, when I see that one who proposed a question, or provided an answer has used PasteAll as a file host, unless someone else has beaten me to it, I intend to politely ask the person who provided the upload to move it to Blend exchange, or some site where the one who makes the upload controls the persistence.

@brasshat I'm doing the same. I think we should all watch out for these "stray" .blends and try to get them moved (legally) to Blend Exchange or a similar service.

@TARDIS Maker, I've come to a different conclusion. I think the ideal solution is for PasteAll change the policy, so that blends linked to from BSE are not deleted, as long as the question is active on BSE. I've contacted one of the Prinicpals to make the request, but have not yet received a response.

@brasshat That would be great. I'm hoping that we can get something setup for our graduation.

As long as the blend is uploaded by its author and only contains content created by the author, including images, reference drawings, etc... I think it would be important to have such a permanent location for files.  Mainly for the purpose of preventing dead links to what would otherwise be helpful content.
In my opinion, if a blend or graphic is created, and intended, for the sole purpose of assisting others, it should be copyright to the author and placed in the public domain by the author in order to reach the most users, not only on stack exchange, but throughout the entire WWW.  This would still require the person using the content to acknowledge the copyright, but also allow the person using the content to not be required to display a credit of some sort, like a majority of open source licensing options require.
If I offer help to someone and it is useful to them, and they think they can make money from that help I offered, more power to them.  I wouldn't require them to credit me with anything.  Just them using the help is credit enough for me.  I know many people don't share this same opinion but to me it just makes the most sense.
I cant imagine anyone having to keep track of everyone that offered assistance with some issue or educational material.  You would have to credit all your school teachers, the authors and publishers of school books, pen and pencil manufacturers, paper manufactures, PC manufacturers, etc... etc... etc... that all assisted in giving us the skills required to do what we do.
So if it was posted to help others, the author most likely would appreciate the fact that others are still using and sharing it.  If the author included an email or postal address in the content, send a mail to it explaining where and why you are keeping it available.  Even if they don't respond they will at least know who to contact if an issue arises or if they want you to take it down or update it at a later date.

This isn't really an answer to the question

However, we ourselves cannot act this out. I can see the value in making public domain contributions, however, only the author can do that. In the case of files on pasteall and such, the author has not done that so we cannot re-share the files. As far as contributions in the posts on this site they are free with credit, which I think is fine.