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2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network are moderated somewhat differently to other sites on the web:

We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in that we amortize the overall moderation cost of the system across thousands of teeny-tiny slices of effort contributed by regular, everyday users.
-- A Theory of Moderation

That doesn't eliminate the need for having moderators altogether, but it does mean that the bulk of moderation work is carried out by regular folks. Every bit of time and effort y'all contribute to the site gives you access to more privileges you can use to help in this effort, all of which produce a cumulative effect that makes a big difference.
So as we welcome 2021, and in keeping with tradition, let us look back at what we accomplished as a community... by looking at some exciting stats. Below is a breakdown of moderation actions performed on Blender over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
2
6

Users destroyed³
2
0

Users deleted
4
0

Users contacted
2
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
490
1,837

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
354
503

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
544
2,937

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
241
1,654

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
4,956
8,270

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
2,058
1,242

Tags merged
21
0

Tag synonyms proposed
23
4

Tag synonyms created
19
0

Tag highlight language set
1
0

Questions reopened
211
11

Questions protected
1
58

Questions migrated
12
0

Questions flagged⁵
4
679

Questions closed
3,644
442

Question flags handled⁵
446
237

Posts undeleted
24
268

Posts locked
0
49

Posts deleted⁶
1,989
8,121

Posts bumped
0
8,576

Comments undeleted
4
0

Comments flagged
19
230

Comments deleted⁷
988
6,101

Comment flags handled
198
51

Answers flagged
538
3,323

Answer flags handled
3,369
491

All comments on a post moved to chat
31
0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Blender without diamonds next to their names, and to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² The system will suspend users under three circumstances: when a user is recreated after being previously suspended, when a user is recreated after being destroyed for spam or abuse, and when a network-wide suspension is in effect on an account.
³ A "destroyed" user is deleted along with all that they had posted: questions, answers, comments. Generally used as an expedient way of getting rid of spam.
⁴ This counts every review that was submitted (not skipped) - so the 2 suggested edits reviews needed to approve an edit would count as 2, the goal being to indicate the frequency of moderation actions. This also applies to flags, etc.
⁵ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes).
⁶ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁷ This includes comments deleted by their own authors (which also account for some number of handled comment flags).
Further reading:

Wanna see how these numbers have changed over time? We posted a similar report here last year: 2019: a year in moderation

You can also check out this report on other sites

Or peruse detailed information on the number of questions closed and reopened across all sites

A big thank you to Shog9 for writing the queries and script to facilitate fetching and posting this data to all the sites in the network, and to Brian for the subsequent work making the whole thing more user friendly.
Wishing everyone a happy 2021!


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Policy on posting code / error message etc as images
For many of the reasons well outlined here
https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/285551/why-not-upload-images-of-code-errors-when-asking-a-question/285557#285557
https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/303812/5317130
it is stackoverflow policy to post code and error messages as text.
StackOverflow Help Center: How to Ask a Good Question

DO NOT post images of code, data, error messages, etc. - copy or type the text into the question. Please reserve the use of images for
diagrams or demonstrating rendering bugs, things that are impossible
to describe accurately via text. For more information please see the
Meta FAQ entry Why not upload images of code/errors when asking a
question?

Is the same policy relevant here?
http://idownvotedbecau.se/imageofcode

Yes, I believe this is very much relevant. People with visual impairments will have a hard time when encountering such posts and even those of us that are able to view the images fine it would require a much greater effort. For instance questions about Python scripts would require to recreate the code. I've also seen screenshots of error messages where relevant parts are cut-off because the terminal doesn't show everything at once etc.

@batFINGER maybe it would help if you write something on this topic on the canned comments

Totally agree, worth a canned response too.

I think the correct thing to do is to let the user know what the problem is.
A down-vote with a comment explaining what is wrong might get the attention of the user. But the comment should also explain how to fix it.

.... wouldn't bother downvoting, the dv link in q came up in a search thought I'd post it.  When I've requested a user to "please post code as text" some responses sure get the mouse hovering over the DV button tho...  Re canned comment will look to how  SO  has phrased it in how to ask question page. Link escapes me atm.

I agree with this.* However* error messages in blender often are popup boxes under the mouse that disappear. I expect a lot of users do not know how to get the text of such an error message. Now about images of text, you could broaden this to say something along the lines of "no text in images." Sure a screen shot of blender will have text (and thats fine) but when someone opens up paint and adds what should be the answer to the image, now thats a problem. Same as screenshot of code it is near useless.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Proposing the numpy tag
Have proposed the numpy tag.
Currently searching on numpy yields 423 results and numpy [python] 322 so there is some interest.  Not that all of these would be tagged, some IMO would benefit
Replace matrix @ vector list comprehensions with something more efficient
Has been my experience asking Blender related numpy  questions on  SO SO often generate little or no interest.
Asked this one
Indexing back to the one from the many
in relation to selecting verts using UVs selected
I knew what I wanted to achieve Blender wise,  coming up with the numpy jargon to ask a good question on SO not so much.  IMO Blender related numpy questions will help bridge that divide for all, and in the end help us produce faster code when dealing with large arrays (like a mesh)
To reiterate: Tagged questions would be about solving a blender specific question using numpy. The python bundled with Blender includes numpy. (It hasn't always)  On the con side I understand there are many other python modules shipped with Blender & why add just one as a tag.
Anyway will leave it at this. Interested to hear your thoughts.

Well I'm not a coder, I can't judge how useful it would be by myself, but I trust your judgement. There does seem to be a demand, and if it helps find those questions more easily, then I'm up for it.

I'm for it just because seeing the word numpy makes me laugh.

Does the [tag:mathematics] tag not already serve this purpose?  It seems to me the SE philosophy is that if the question is about numpy then it should belong on SO, if it is simply about something that may use numpy in Blender, the existing [tag:mathematics] tag should cover it, right?

Does   python + mathematics imply numpy ?   ( leaving out the  moot point re what maths questions -->  Maths SE :-/)   TBH I'm not 100% sold on the idea of the tag, was talking myself out of it while writing the question.   Arrived  here after writing a question pertaining to blender,  requiring  a numpy  solution.  Followed SE philosophy and asked on SO. My conclusion from that adventure:  it is better asked & more helpful here.ie , when I find myself, or see others  asking "How to do Bar in Blender using  Foo" often enough, perhaps a Foo tag is worth considering .

@batFINGER to your first question: no, not necessarily.  But I guess I am struggling to see a scenario where numpy specifically is necessary to be tagged and not mathematics in general.

I don't think, for the tag, the distinction would lie so much in the maths that numpy does, as in the idiom it uses to do it. Is it tricky to find the line between BSE 'Blender Numpy', and SO 'Numpy Numpy?'  BTW, my introduction for beginners has been through Rich Colburn's generous Numpy for Blender series of videos.. covers some of that idiom, but doesn't dig into the kind of optimisation question that you've been posing recently.

Thankyou & agree it's tricky (and sticky) attempting  to find the demarcation.  Will check them out.   Recall the name from my BA days.

@batFINGER I think you're probably ahead of them.. but a really nice intro for folks like me.

FWIW I'm in favor. Dealing with Python (notably slow but accessible language) and a software with many lists that can contain many vectorized elements, having easier access to questions / answers about a well maintained and optimized library will definitely help aspiring coders in the long run.

I'm not a coder, and can't too well judge the usefulness but I don't really see a reason not to have it. The SE description of a tag is... A tag is a keyword or label that categorizes your question with other, similar questions. Using the right tags makes it easier for others to find and answer your question. anyway.. So it would make sense to have the tag if it is going to help other users find the right questions and answers.

I think this is a great idea, and don't see any downsides.
To I could really use MathJax for a series of qestions - how to build support for it? the only down side was load time for posts, but this is just a tag.
Numpy is incredibly powerful and can solve a lot of calculation conundrums and provide capabilities that may be useful in surprising ways, but it takes getting used to. Having a numpy tag allows readers to quickly find many examples of numpy-based solutions and read through them, and this makes it a lot easer to modify them and explore new uses.
Yes please!

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


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Question Closed in Favor of an Answer that was Stated as Unsatisfactory
I'm not sure just what the process was behind this question being closed. Honestly, it feels as if someone was either in a hurry to just close it or wasn't looking over everything, including the comments. Also, One important comment has been deleted.
I posted the question before going to sleep. I'm looking for a way to do a popup in Blender, with Python, that is modal (in other words - stops a script until I respond to it) and a popup. Note that's 2 main points: 1) Modal, 2) Popup. I woke up and there were two comments, one by @Alexbries, with 2 links that I looked over and another by @p2or, with another link. I looked over that, as well.
I responded to the first comment about those links not providing what I had hoped they would and what I thought was a problem with what I was trying to do. Then I looked at the link @p2or provided and found it wouldn't work. I explained why: The answer in that link did not provide a true popup, but a panel in the 3D VIEW space that (at least when I ran the code in the answer) would not show up unless you had the tabs pulled out and were looking at the right tab. No popup - which is an important part of the question.
Later I come back and find the question is closed because there is an answer already provided on another question. I go there, hoping for a good answer and it's the same answer that had been given in @p2or's comment, the one I said was not a full answer. So I was thinking, "Maybe the person who closed it didn't pay attention to everything here," and looked and that comment, with the link to that answer, was gone.
I feel a bit like I'm in a whack-a-mole game. I get a comment suggesting an answer and I check on it and leave a comment why it's not a suitable answer. Then I come back, find that comment (with the link) deleted. My reasoning why that answer wouldn't work is still there, in a comment, but someone has now closed the question - for the same reason given in that now deleted comment. BUT - my explanation would still apply, which means if the person closing the question had inspected the code in that answer AND my comment, they'd have seen the reason that answer doesn't work.
I'm trying to get an answer to this, even if it is, "You can't do this with a popup." I've gone through man SE:Blender questions and answers, through Blender forums, and still can't get a clear answer on this - and the answer some people think is an answer is not.
If someone knows of an answer that works and can point it out, I'm fine with the question being marked as a duplicate, but that's not happened and I don't want to have to keep repeating that this one answer does not answer the question.

Hello and welcome. If you feel a question was incorrectly marked as duplicate, or the linked posts don't adequately address the issue, please don't post the same question more than once, instead edit the question including information of what you have tried, why it failed and how the duplicates don't address your issue. Once edited the question is automatically queued up for review so it can be reopened. You can also manually flag it for reopening

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos: Done, but I'm also trying to understand why I had to deal with the same point twice - and why, with my comment on why that answer on the other question was not acceptable didn't seem to matter when it was closed. I'm trying to understand what was going on as much as anything. Even if it's someone saying, "Oops - okay, I missed that detail," that's fine. (And it's reopened - so that's good!)

As you have already seen comments on this site are more of a temporary discussion that may be deleted at any time even by the system itself. That is why you are encouraged to add additional information by editing your question rather than post comments below that may be easily missed, as was the case here.

Also flags for duplicates raised by other users remain active even after you comment or edit in your question, unless they manually retract them after the fact. Since they were not removed, as I glossed over review queues I assumed those duplicates did answer your question so I erroneously confirmed the duplicate and closed it. Other than that we are all humans and make mistakes from time to time don't make a big thing of it. If you question gets closed don't take it personally, use the site tools to get your question reopened and keep an open attitude about it, it happens all the time.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos: Thanks for clarifying!

Fwiw you went about this in a kind and understanding way, welcome to the site

@AllenSimpson: Thank you. I still had to close it. Someone who suggested the links I had said (in the edit) didn't work were good. I said, "Tried, it won't work," and he insisted it would. I feel the OP has a responsibility to specify if suggestions work or don't (for future readers). It was an endless loop! I wish he had been right, but he was using links I already said didn't work. I finally told him if it worked, write a clear answer - he didn't. It was wasting so much time, I finally had to close it. I was less than kind with him because he wasn't listening and it was quite aggravating.


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When should we be asking question askers for blend files?
Something I've seen a lot of in response to questions (mostly low-quality posts from new users) which significantly lack enough detail to understand the issue, is some users here immediately jumping in to ask the OP for their blend file so we can take a look.
While sometimes this may be a quick-ish way to sove OP's particular problem, if someone here wants to take the time to open the file and play around, I would argue this method should be avoided where possible as it seems to me as if it doesn't fit the SE philosophy for a couple reasons.

It's cumbersome for future reference.  One of the primary purposes of SE (one may even argue the primary purpose) is not just to answer your particular question, but do it in such a way as to provide a helpful reference for future people with the same issue, to create an encyclopedia of sorts.  An encyclopedia which requires downloading files to even understand what a post is about is not a convenient encyclopedia to use.
It might encourage lazy asking practices.  As Ray Mairlot alluded to here, being told right off the bat that they can just upload their blend file, users may get the idea that "here's my .blend, plz fix" is an acceptable way of asking questions here.  This doesn't seem to fit the SE requirements of minimum acceptable effort and desire for high-quality content.
It puts extra burden on us, the community.  Blend files may be great for troubleshooting an issue, but something they can't do at all is explain what the issue is to us.  This overlaps a bit with the previous point, but we really don't want people getting the idea that they can get out of explaining their problem by posting a blend file.
It makes questions inaccessible for some people to help.  This point may be too specific to me personally, but I suspect I am not the only one in similar circumstances.  Most of my time spent on Blender.SE these days is while I'm at work, either over lunch or just taking a peek now and then to relax my brain while something I'm waiting on runs.  As a consequence, if a question consists of only a blend file with a few sketchy comments about an issue I am unlikely to be able to do anything.  If a post contains enough information to understand the question in text and images however, I may be able to at least offer some helpful comments and at bare minimum be able to handle the post correctly if it shows up in a review queue.

I absolutely don't want to give the impression that I am against posting blend files in questions at all, but I do think we should discuss how quickly we jump to the "can you please upload your blend file?" comments on low-quality posts.
Can we maybe attempt to craft some metric or litmus test by which we determine a post contains enough self-contained information that providing a blend file will only improve its quality?  (Similar to how we judge link-only answers vs. answers which contain helpful links.)

Fully agree. sharing a file should be a last resort, and even then most of the time it is a strong sign that the question is too localized and not a good fit for this site. Similarly, I feel posting files in answers is detrimental to the learning process. By providing a ready made solution one doesn't encourage recreating steps nor learning by taking the time to understand the process.

Another  side effect is the rubbish tip buildup https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2767/15543

Often just describing the problem in detail will help someone to find the problem themselves anyway, as well as allowing someone else to replicate the same situation to be able to offer a solution or even just to learn about that perticular area, even without an answer. To me BSE is a place for learning so just posting a file and expecting someone to fix it is not appropriate. I kind of agree with @Duarte about files in answers, but solutions can sometimes be extremely complicated and a working solution can be useful to allow someone to unpick exactly how it's put together.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I definitely think there are situations where including a file is only beneficial. There are scenarios where OP describes the problem well but the included blend file allows answerers to show the solution directly on OP's file (this not only is nice for OP but also adds clarity for all readers by having direct continuity between question and answer). I've also had some answers where I give a node setup and explanation but include the file so they don't have to copy a 20+ node network from a screenshot. Do you have a suggestion of how we should judge when it is acceptable?

@PGmath Those seem like a fair use cases, there are obviously exceptions where a file is indeed useful. I just think mostly new users in the "novelty phase" trying to help every low quality post jump in too soon asking for a file before even trying to understand the issue. For everything else I suppose using your common sense suffices. Question/answer continuity, and situations where recreating the exact OP setup would just be too time consuming to properly answer, are good candidates for asking for a file.

For answers I have a stricter view, if it does require such a hard to recreate setup then the question was probably too broad to begin with, but it is certainly not something I'd care to start enforcing. If you feel like providing a file for sake of simplicity, then by all means do, I'm sure future users will appreciate the convenience too.

Certainly for answers the answer should be stand-alone without the file - so it’s only an inconvenience if the file wasn’t there. Same goes for questions - the question should stand as it is without needing the file to understand the issue. I agree with @PGmath that it’s definitely helpful to be able to use the OP’s file for continuity with the answer in some cases.

I feel like the most generally applicable answers are composed of primitives, and as such should be easily illustrated with screenshots.  Same could go for questions but the onus is on the asker

In general, I think that while having a file is nice, it's not always necessary. I think it tends be more useful to have images and gifs than files unless the Q happens to be really interesting and just needs a file to completely understand.. But if the question is some variant of "my object doesn't look right" and the answer is "recalculate normals"  then it's a waste of everyone's time, OP included. Regarding answers, there are some around that would benefit greatly from having a file, to make learning simpler to some who would benefit years after, but these are mainly shader related.

@PGmath I understand what you mean, especially points 1., 2. and 4.... there are also sometimes questions where the problem is described well, but (a few) users immediately comment "Please provide your blend file." But in most cases it's not necessary. When suggesting to the commenter no file is needed to find an answer, I'm told that the problem might be identified easy for experienced users like me, but he is still learning and could need a file to understand. That's the moment where I keep calm but think, "well, then let the experienced users find the solution and learn from the answer."

When should we be asking question askers for blend files?
Sparingly, only when necessary.
I very much agree with the question, and have had and stated this position for years.
To quote from this answer:

There should not be such an emphasize on "the blend." Granted, blends are immensely useful, and help get questions answered quickly. Yet there is a balance, not everything needs a blend. Questions should use text as the number one tool through which information is conveyed.

The "fix if for me" type questions have gotten much more numerous in the six years since I wrote that. If we had treated the blend as a "last resort" instead of the first tool we reach for when solving questions I expect the quality of questions would of turned out differently.
I can think of situations where blends really can solve the issue. Cases such as rigging, material settings, or drivers. Its so easy to mess something up, and have no clue where something went wrong. Or even something simple like modeling (I know the bisect setting in the mirror modifier will get many), the OP could make a simple test case, do what they think is the same thing and have it work yet in the original file it does not.
There always will be cases where blends are immensely useful, and so far I have just been talking about the question.
I think answers should always be free to add a blend if the person answering feels it would help.
For example in this answer I laid everything out in text and the pictures, but still felt it would be a benefit to have a premade example to compare the 4 different methods (and apparently it has been a help currently there are 321 downloads on that file).
The trouble comes in defining what is "necessary" to have a blend. I agree we should come up with a standard for measuring and distinguishing LQQWB (low quality questions with blends) vs SQTNB (short questions that need blends).
As an overly broad baseline I'd start by testing to see if the question is still discernible without the blend. (I happen to have an example here) If it is, then it might be a good question simply helped by a blend. On the other hand, if the question loses all meaning without the blend then I'd say that is a low quality question and deal with it accordingly. Likely Closed as "Needs details or clarity" or "Too localized" (doe not really matter which) with a comment somehow or another explaining how blends can not be the biases of a question and questions need details in text.
Here is an exercise for the reader, taken straight out of the current HNQ list: Eevee render output is black
What would you do with that question? Apparently that type of question is well received now (its on the HNQ!?!)
Is the blend supplemental, or would you call that a CDLOQotHNQL (cleverly disguised link only question on the hot network question list)? What action should be taken on it and questions like it?
OK so I have a thing for (dumb) acronyms.

What (pleasant) a surprise to hear from you!  Your 4th/3rd to last paragraphs are pretty much spot on as far as what I was thinking: blends are fine in some (maybe even many) cases but the question (or answer) must be able to be understood without the file.  It seems to me as if that's a good starting point, I think it fits with an intersection of the commenters' opinions and we can of course in the future refine the criterion or tighten it as necessary.


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A moderator is vandalizing questions and removing parts of questions he doesn't want answered. How do I report this moderator abuse?
As the question says, an abusive mod is vandalizing my questions because he is "offended" by them, removing important parts of the question to ensure they can't be answered. How can I report this mod for his behavior?
When I try to revert the question so I can get them answered, this abusive mod then locks the question so his abusive edits are preserved.

Firstly, please consider taking a look at the [tour] and learn how the site works. We edit posts here to improve them. however, the community does have some standards, and things should should be on-topic. The initial revision to your question is not one that would be well accepted without some refinement anyhow. There is nothing being done as an attack against you.

I removed parts from your question because they violated the code of conduct of this website. That is part of my duty as a moderator. The intention was that the edited version of the question could remain on the website and receive answers. The question was temporarily locked after you reverted it to its original state. This was done to give the moderation team time to look into this case.

I'm sure he was being neither abusive or vandalizing. Looking at the original post it would appear to me that he was simply trying to make it more friendly and less inflamatory - and so more likely to get attention and a meaningful and helpful answer. This site is generally a friendly, helpful, welcoming environment and the tone of your original post didn't fit well with that.

The edits were to remove negativity, not alter or vandalize the content of the question.  Although the question was written with a bit of a negative vibe, I just figured it was the result of hitting a point of frustration (We've all been there) so I attempted to "skip over" the rudeness and simply answer the question, hoping that having an answer would relieve the frustration. I also noticed Robert's edit to make the question more site-friendly, which made it A-OK in my book. There was no need to come back and re-edit the question to be insulting. This is a professional Q&A site - not a forum.

If you have issues with moderation or questions about the site working, those should be posted here on Meta https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com , not on the main site.
Moderator Robert removed all inflammatory parts from your post which were extraneous and not strictly essential to answer your question. Edits happen all the time to make questions clearer or conform to site rules. Don't make them personal, it is not about the user, it is always about the post.
Insults, personal attacks and aggressive language besides being considered rude go against the site rules and will not be tolerated here.
Likewise rants about features or showing distaste about the software is considered off topic. This is neither the place nor the tone.
This is Q&A site run by volunteers for answering questions about Blender. We are not programmers nor in any way associated with the Blender Foundation, decision making or roadmaps for development of the software. If you really dislike Blender that much you are free to use any other software that better matches your needs.
Otherwise, for constructive suggestions and feature requests use https://blender.community/c/rightclickselect/ or Blender Artists Forum.
Before doing so consider that ideas are a dime-a-dozen. Every single one of the millions of Blender users have their own personal requests, wishes and desires, while comparatively very few people have the skills and knowledge to actually implement them.
I have restored the missing part of your question, that I'm sure Robert inadvertently removed during the cleanup process; all of which could all have been avoided in the first place if you refrained from infringing the rules.


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Unable to locate specific question posted by another user
In the last few days, I came across, in my RSS feed for Blender a question that I want to revisit. I did not follow it nor post a comment, but I'd like to return to the post.
The terminology in the question is not what I expected for the objective, and I've forgotten the terms used, which resulted in my scan through the last week of posts returning null.
The images provided by the OP resembled the letter P with fat strokes (1st image) with a second image presenting the letter P with single line strokes. In the vector editing world, it's often called centerline trace, but those terms were not in the original post and may not be applicable.
Scanning the questions posted does not present thumbnails and my RSS feed, which does, will not retrieve older posts without throwing the entire feed off-kilter.
How does one find such a previous post? Do any viewers of this post recall the one in question?

What was the question about? How old is it? Last few days, weeks, a year old, or more?

The question was within the last week, more likely the last three days. The OP started with the "fat P" and ended with the skinny one, but wanted a different result.

Try a google image search?


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BSE has a external image problem
We all will agree that there should not be images hosted externally.
However in the past it has been accepted to host gifs larger than the 2mb size limit of i.stack.imgur on external sites, I even said to do so in my gif post.
This needs to end.
Well a few years have gone by and technologies have changed, those gif hosting sites we used have stopped serving the gifs as gifs.
I came across yet another post today with a dead gif and was greeted with this at the top of the answer:

Under no circumstance should we have "no image available" animated images on BSE.
I made a quick data explorer query, and it appears there are 167 externally hosted gifs on the main and two more on meta. Thankfully not all of them are dead - yet.
A preliminarily investigation reveals that at least some of the gifs on these main hosts are gone:

gfycat.com
giphy.com
i.imgur.com

Mind you that these were hosts that were never going to remove the images...
This is a big problem. Gandalf's legendary quest in Stackexchangia is just not right without the gifs.
Cleanup
What to do about all the now dead links? I would use the methods in the last part of this answer. Try leaving a comment for OP below the post with the dead link, maybe the OP can reupload the gif, to i.stack.imgur this time.
At least for images on gfycat a smaller version (tiny in some cases) of the gif is still available. To find the new url for the gif you will have to follow the link (https://gfycat.com/loathsomecostlybufflehead) click on the paper airplane to "Share." Next on the bottom click "GIFS" then copy the url of the larger one.
Hopefully there will be no cases where the post was so dependent on the gif that outright deletion is the only option, but don't count that out.
The cleanup so far is relatively minor (painful, and with lost data no doubt) but the bigger issue is stopping the usage of externally hosted images altogether now.
Next steps
I propose BSE creates a unilateral ban on external images. I do not remember which pages in the help docs are editable (mod only feature). If a suitable page is found, then add something about external images. Edit, or add a post notice to historical posts (like this one). After there is no conflicting information lurking in the depth of the meta, then ruthlessly edit any new images that are not hosted on i.stack.imgur.
Unrelated, but in investigating this I was reminded of Glorfindel's bot. A huge shout out and thank you to user Glorfindel who has had a bot running for years fixing dead images.
I'll spare you of my rant about images hosted externally.

Made a few adjustments to https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/404/how-to-post-gifs-on-this-site/405#405 and https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/963/what-is-the-process-for-creating-gifs-for-questions-and-answers/964#964

I agree. If the gif or image isn't available anymore and the user doesn't reply, it might also be worth checking the internet archive / wayback machine

In the end, the entropy always wins.


text:
Custom Off Topic Close messages 2021 Edition
David recently brought up again on chat the matter of our site's custom off topic messages.
This has been discussed a number of times before here on meta, but got lost to time, and nothing fruitful ever came of it.

New off topic close reason
What should our custom off-topic close reasons be?
Custom off-topic close reasons: 2014 in review

The gist of it being that we only get three custom close images per site, we are currently only making use of two of them and should benefit from third one.

This time I plan to see it through and add myself the new message we agree on, with the approval of all mods.
Since the number of messages is limited we should use them wisely, and choose a well though out option. It is also a process that requires approval from several moderators.
According to statistics "blatantly off topic" seems to be the most commonly used custom message,  something along the lines of.

I’m voting to close this question because it is not about using Blender.

For questions that are completely off topic and not at all about Blender itself. Like say about game engines, about other FOSS like Inkscape, or about kitchen appliances.
With this in mind what would be your suggestions for our third custom close message?
Should it be something more broad and encompassing that can be used for a broader range of closed questions, making the life of reviewers easier at the expense of a less clear message for the OP?
Or should it be something shorter and concise, for more specific cases. Should it include useful links directing the OP to where he these can be asked for most common off topic cases?
Feel free to use the answers below to suggest your preferred custom close messages.
These are the fields we have available when creating a new message:

For current site moderators you can edit site custom close messages from https://blender.stackexchange.com/admin/flags/site-specific-close-reasons
accessible through the "mod diamond" menu at the top > Dashboard > Links tab at the top > Data Alteration Pages > Manage community-specific close reasons. Other users will probably see an error page.

looks good so far.

I'd suggest something more encompassing and informative including links that can be used as close message for more cases.
A more generic close text that covers more situations can make the life of reviewers easier, at the potential expense of sounding more like a generic canned response for the OP.
Including useful links to help the user make his question more on topic would be encouraged.
Close dialog option
Brief description
Briefly describe why the question is being closed

This question is not about Blender or asking for hardware recommendations.

Usage guidance
Give the user guidance as to when they should select this option

When the question doesn't seem to be strictly about using Blender or in any way related to the software, like game development, hardware recommendations or other third party software.

Post notices
Close description
When a post is closed with a single community-specific close reason, this message will be displayed publicly above any private guidance.

This question doesn't seem to be about using Blender or in any way related to the software as defined in the help center

Post owner guidance
Provide meaningful actions a user can take to either get their question reopened or have a more favorable outcome in the future.

This question was put on hold since it doesn't seem to be about using Blender as defined in the help center.

For general questions about Python https://stackoverflow.com
For questions about game development you can use https://gamedev.stackexchange.com
For hardware recommendations https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com

If you can, rephrase the question to make it on topic by focusing on the Blender specific part of the problem.

Privileged user guidance
Provide guidance for users with the reopen privilege so they can constructively engage the post owner and reopen the question if appropriate.

If you can rephrase the question to make it on topic by focusing on the Blender specific part of the problem [edit] it so it can be reopened.

I very much like where this is headed. To support this idea I counted up the custom close reasons (all that I have access to) That includes the last 90 days, and all from 2014. In 2014 we had 126 custom reasons, 68 of them were used on questions not about blender. In the last 90 days there has been 65 custom close messages written and 33 were not about blender. The second most commonly written message is about hardware recommendations, but with 8 in the last 90 days you can see it is far behind "not about Blender."

Well that settles it for me, I was worried it was not the most common reason, but I guess this clears any doubts. Good point about hardware, I included that in the OP messages as well, and make this more versatile

looks good to me, no objections here :)

Looks good to me as well.

Proposal has been submitted with a few minor adjustments to fit within character count constraints. It now awaits review by other fellow moderators. Thanks for the feedback


text:
I asked a question as an unregistered user earlier, but I can't reply to the answers now
This is the question I asked:
How to generate Perlin Noise for materials
Now I can't reply because my PC doesn't know that it was really me who asked that question. What can I do?

I sent some points your way. That should let you reply. Try to delete this question once you have things working though, as it's more of a "how to use this site" question instead of a "how to use blender" question, so it'll probably get deleted anyway.

It says that I need 50 points to reply. :/ Thank you so much though! I can send you the points back if you want!

Don't worry. The points come from upvotes - they're yours to keep. I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but just replied to me, did you not? You can "reply" to the others (answers) in the same manner (in the comment section)- just let everyone know you're the OP of the question.

I think I can reply here because I'm now using an account, and this is my question. But still thanks! I will make sure to get rid of this thread soon.

Yes, you can comment on your own questions anytime but you need 50 reputations to comment on other questions.

Oh, I remember that question, I answered it.

You can request your account be merged by visiting https://blender.stackexchange.com/contact, while logged into your current account and selecting the "I want to merge user profile" option and then selecting "continue" on the pop up.
For the "other profile link" field, copy and paste in the URL to your other profile (the one that asked the question you linked).
This will open a support ticket, and if you can prove ownership of the account that asked the question via the ticket, your current account and that account will be merged, tying that account's content to your current account.
This will give you access to reply to content as the question's OP


text:
Mark comment as answer
I'm new to this style of forum software. How do I mark a question thread in this forum as answered (presumably beneficial for potential future viewers of the question) when the answer was given in a comment? Also, what tag should this post have used, since I can't post without one?

Hello and welcome. Take the Tour to understand how this works

Questions about the site should always go to meta (which is where the question is now). Please read through the [tour] and also read the What is "meta" FAQ page for some more information.

You can upvote the answer that helped you. If you feel it completely solved your issue consider marking it as accepted.

If an answer has been posted in the comment sections but the person didn't post it as an answer, you can go ahead and post it as an answer and mark it as answered afterwards.
Common "courtesy" is to wait a little bit (I'd say at least one day, but that is subjective)  before doing so because some people prefer taking their time before posting a fully-fledged answer. You can ping an user by using @ then their username to directly ask them what they think about it.
Notes :
Comments are often not posted as answers even if they solve your problem because they would objectively make bad answers : Answers should be fully fledged, include details, diagrams, documentation, references, which are impossible to put in a comment. If you're going to post a comment as an answer, try to include as much detail as possible.
If your problem has been answered by a simple comment, there is a chance that either :

It is a very simple problem that has already been asked and answered many times, and the person couldn't be bothered to or couldn't find a duplicate of your problem
It is very specific, and couldn't possibly help another user
It may thread on the site guidelines for questions and could be closed because of it

Leftside Under the up and down arrows for the score is a checkmark ✔ click it. It turns green.

You don't.
If you'd like to, you can repeat the answer given in comments in an answer you make yourself, and then mark that as the answer.  Anybody that helps in comments and not answers probably doesn't care about SE points (which are worthless anyways) so you should feel absolutely no shame in collecting the points they would otherwise accrue.
If your goal with marking an answer as correct is to say "Thanks," actually saying that is worth more than any points, but speaking for myself, it's hardly necessary, and some other people on SE might frown upon that.
If your goal with marking an answer as correct is to improve Blender SE, there are usually more important things to do than marking the correct answer.  Things get answered in comments for reasons.  If that reason is that the question is well dealt with elsewhere, it's better to get the question closed (with a redirect) than to get an answer marked.  If that reason is that the comments were part of an exchange seeking more information, it's more important that that information get added to the question than that the answer gets marked, although once that information is added, an actual answer becomes more appropriate.
If either of those things is more work than you'd like, believe me, I understand!  You can improve things just to the level of work that you're willing to do; SE is not paying you (in fact, they're getting paid because of you.)  If an answer doesn't get marked for a question, nothing terrible is going to happen.


text:
Why are seemingly on-topic question marked off-topic?
I am wondering why one of my question Bevel operation results in different result in similar mesh was marked off-topic.
As I understand it falls under the topics listed here: What topics can I ask about here?

Modeling workflows and their related challenges in Blender.

I have not been able to recover the exact blender file that caused the bug, but that would make it an incomplete question - not off-topic.

Hello and welcome. Off topic message often is shown when different or conflicting reasons for closure are chosen by different users. I chose to close as "needs details or clarity" since you mentioned you'd provide a file but haven't done so yet. In this case this doesn't seem to be answerable without one, so if you can provide a working example feel free to edit, so we can reopen

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos appears to take the option of first vote to close.  Noticed this on a dupe, with  4 or 5 votes for dupe, closed for different reason.

I think I have an answer to the question if we want to reopen


text:
Community Ads for 2021
September update: Community Ads are now live network-wide. Since there were no ad proposal submissions on this site, none will be displayed — go to the main post on MSE for a list of the ads that are being displayed. And stay tuned for 2022's edition for the next opportunity to submit more ad proposals!

JUNE NOTE: This post has now been locked and new submissions are not being accepted. Ad submissions are now undergoing review by the Community Team, and this question will be updated once the ads are live.

We're almost halfway through 2021, and in case you missed it, Community Promotion Ads are gonna be a bit different this time! TL;DR: submit and vote for ad proposals before August 2nd!
What are Community Ads?
Community Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, or on other sites in the network. They can show up in the right sidebar, or in banners in question pages. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be considered by the Community Management Team to be displayed.
Why do we have Community Ads?
This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. The goal of this initiative is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join. You may want to promote external resources, or Meta guidance for newcomers, for instance.
This initiative has an added goal of providing your community with an opportunity to showcase exemplary questions from your main site, as well as frequently-linked-to guides from your Meta site. While the latter makes sense to be shown solely on this site, the former can be shown all across the network. These should avoid hot button topics, and instead focus more on evergreen questions that show what your community’s all about.
Why do we reset the ads?
Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. Historically, we've reset the ads every year — since this is the first run of a new format, we'll run the ads collected in this post through the end of 2021 and reassess the rotation cycle then.
The community ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a previous exposure.
Are there restrictions to the ads I can post?
All proposed ads need to abide by our Code of Conduct. Our ad creative guidelines also generally apply (note that the first 2 bullet points on the “Tracking” section do not apply, and a lot of the guidelines surrounding claims, comparisons, proof, etc., while still applicable, may not be particularly relevant). Finally, ads can not be promoting products nor soliciting programmer time or resources for: knowledge sharing or collaboration tools for technologists, or for sites where ad buyers are primarily targeting technologists.
How does it work?
The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored:

Each answer must relate to a single ad submission. Please do not post multiple ad submissions in the same answer.

All answers must be in one of the below formats:

If you have an image for the ad you want to display on this site (must be the case for ads to external sources):

[![Image name. Example: "community_ad_name_300x250"][1]][2]

  [1]: https://image-url
  [2]: https://clickthrough-url

If you want to create an ad for a question from your main or meta site, to be advertised on this or other sites in the network (staff will generate a frame for the ad with this site's theme, for brand consistency):

Question title
Question URL
Ad size (right sidebar or banner ads)
Site(s) to be displayed in. Can be:
  - "self" for ads to be displayed on this site
  - "all" for ads to be displayed all over the network
  - a specific subset of sites

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.

Image requirements

The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels for right sidebar ads or 728 x 90 pixels for banner ads. Images can be double that if high DPI.
Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
Must be GIF, PNG, or JPG
No animated GIFs
Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Selection process
This post will remain open for ad submissions and voting until August 2nd. At that point, the question will be closed/locked, and no more ad submissions will be accepted. For ad submissions to be considered for selection by the Community Management Team, they must have a minimum score of 6 at the time the post was closed/locked for submissions. Given this is the first run with this new format, we may adjust the score threshold to be a bit lower if we see ads struggling to get to it (especially if the ads are not getting downvotes) by the time submissions and voting are closed.
Reporting statistics
Once this cycle is over, at the end of 2021, the Community Management Team will provide you with reporting statistics, as described in the "reporting" section of this post.

Feel free to use the question's comment section to ask for any clarifications.


text:
How to thank somebody for editing his answer or comment and adding value to it?
This is not really about Blender, but this site (sorry that I couldn't find a tag for it, and because it is required, and I cant add a tag yet, had to use the nearest possible). The site asks to avoid comments like "thanks" and rightfully, to avoid cluttering text with extras that are not useful to the others. But my friend @Georgious included a file I requested by editing his old answer to my question. I am asked to avoid "thanks", but I don't feel good just leaving it like this! So there must be a way to say our thanks without cluttiring the text with too much comments uninteresting for other readers. How :) ?

I feel like I'm entitled to answer this question since it looks like I'm the person you're looking to thank :).
You don't need to explicitely thank back people that helped you. The only gratification system on this site is the upvote (or downvote) system. Additionally if you asked the question and the answer correctly solved it, you can mark it as answered.
Of course it's always nice to try and add some cordiality in places where it makes sense, I think we can all benefit from it in this day and age.
I can talk only for myself, of course, but I assume most people are like me and they participate on this site for a number of reasons :

To improve their blender skills
To improve their explanation and teaching skills
To get a dopamine rush when they get internet points for participating
To engage in a stoical yet really respectful and open-minded community
To give back what they learnt along the way

A thank you in the comments, while frowned upon since it's against the guidelines, won't get you insta-banned for life.
Personally, the simple knowledge that I helped at least one person along the wonderful journey that I am also a part of is well enough. But oh man do I crave the green popup dopamine rush..!

"To get a dopamine rush when they get internet points for participating" I loved that :D. Thanking in the comments is fine as far as I'm concerned, the rules advise against it, but but it can be removed in the long term and I supposed it is a harmless way to add a little social warmth to a site that is often accused of being cold and hostile.

You can tap on

under your question. After a while (i think 2 days or so) you can then give the bounty to his answer.

I suggest putting an icon next to answers and comments to enable "thanks" without cluttering useful text. next to the icon a number representing the number this icon was clicked.
I would like to didicate this suggestion to @Georgious & @moonboots :)

You can already do that using the up and down arrows beside the answer and the person asking the question can also accept the answer which puts a green tick icon beside the answer. Both of these also add reputation 'points' to the person answering the question.

Yes. We don't want to clutter up the site with things such as thanks, etc.. But I am Latin American, and it really, really burns me. I find myself to be unable to behave with such efficiency. It is just rude, in my view, to be so cold and insulting. Cheers.

By the way, I posted the above as a question or answer because I was not allowed to post a comment. Tks


text:
What is BSE's attitude to 'Promotional' Q&A's?
A few times, I've seen questions posted, and self-answered immediately. The answers are often good, and link out to a tutorial on the subject. An example might be:
How to create a perfect circular or elliptical motion without curves or addons?
While the posts can contain useful information, they are tantamount to an advertisement for the tutorial. How should we treat these posts? Is this OK?

An answer should always stand on its own without replying on external data to fully reproduce the presented solution. If the solution cannot be fully reproduced without visiting the link,or the answers seems to exists solely for promoting a link , then it may be considered unwanted and flagged as spam.

As for addons and external downloads is a bit of a gray area. A valid answer that requires an addon or downloading some external file is possible, but ideally it should be self contained. If it is a commercial or payed product then I'd say it is a no go. For non commercial products I'd say the answer should still be substantial and present a descriptive solution. If possible transcribe the required script using code tags

@Duarte, that's kind of the way I was thinking. It's not as if BSE is becoming an Exchange and Mart for monetized videos. If the answers stand on their own, they are useful.


text:
Life On The Surface
TV show
If I ask myself the question, If BSE was a mini series what would it look like?  SE sites are somewhat a pyramid scheme, would we set it ancient Egypt, who would play Duarte?
IMHO one of the best tv series is HBO's Deadwood, initially written to be in ancient Rome, it found its way to the "Wild West" since HBO had recently screened "Rome".  It has marshals and sheriffs, deputies, gunslingers, whores, .. I'm leaning towards some steampunkish western setting.

The Creators
The Gods of our show, who without there would be no BSE.
In no particular order, a little chicken and egg

SE  The site is part of the Stack Exchange Universe, participants often share their time in Stackoverflow,  Seasoned Advice, Are there really Aliens?

The devs Those gods who work tirelessly to create Blender. Like all gods their choices are questioned, why Z up, why isn't cube 1 x 1 x 1, why not use degrees for angle

Gods from both often "walk among us". Keep in mind for any church or religious characters in the show.
Territories
The site is split into a number of territories.  As a noob to our first SE Universe we are given one sheckle and the opportunity to stake our claim with a new question in up to 5 territories or answer any unprotected question.
Sheckles
The monetary system here is very simple. As soon as you have 15 sheckles you can hand out sheckles (upvote) without limit. If a claim (question) is a mine, think of a sheckle like any of the dirt you dig out. The "better" the mine, the more gets thrown in. Even so, high sheckle mines are soon deep below the surface. Many believe the  SE gods have made perhaps one of the worst search engines ever to keep us on the surface.  The HNQ Circus tours the surface, for claims to
rain down sheckles upon.
Pioneers
The first Noobs to set foot on BSE and stake their claims. Like all pioneers most are now long gone.
The Noob Hordes
As the site "matures" the Noob Hordes become larger and larger. This is where a lot of the show plays out.  Due to a number of Noob rights violations the SE Gods drew up some protections [CoC]
Marshals
Voted in, for life, to control in particular the Noob Horde.
Sheriffs and their Deputies
If you have a gold badge in a  territory you can DupeHammer or by other means necessary try and keep the Noobs to the "rules".  For those that don't know me, I have a gold badge in the dual territory of Python-Scripting. Our rules are a bit different from those in Maudlin (aka Modelling) Territory.
Deputies help the Marshals and Sheriffs keep to the SE rules. Deputies often become Sheriffs.
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Like the Chinese in ancient times, or more recently the US, do we  build a wall at the border of our territory. Can it resist the horde? Remember the Alamo?
Things you see and hear at the border.

Bleary eyed sleep deprived gunslingers
Addicts
Calls of "So, I wanna", "Show us your blend!" echoing
The same Shot down low quality Noob claim reincarnate
Sheckles flying every where when the HNQ Circus is in town.
An unwanted intruder, selling spam, de-sheckled faster than a rocket full of monkeys

The question.
Your take on what role you would play, the other  characters (by type please not by name) , possible scenarios... or maybe you would set the show completely differently.

This is possibly one of the most fun uses of our meta I have ever seen. Not really within the rules but I suppose there's no real harm. This actually made me laugh, this community can surprise me some times. I'll answer it later :D

Hopefully it is taken in the spirit intended. My dry/dark SOH was looking for a "fun" way to cool down some of the friction on the surface. Funny how all communities mimic RL to some extent. My speyes tell me @voter fraud has reared its ugly head again.

Not long ago the Monica wars took a heavy toll across all Stack Exchangia, affecting most areas of the universe. Many marshals died, some resigned due to post traumatic stress, others went into hyper-sleep for prolonged periods, awakening occasionally when the need is most dire.
This left us with the current generation of marshals, rookies in the eyes of the old veterans, inexperienced in many ways. They weren't here in the old days when the land of Blender Stack Exchange was created, they didn't help create the world or shape it into what it is today.
They try their best to keep the planet running and the rules respected non the less, with what little knowledge was passed down from the old ones, to shape the future into something better.
Many impending dangers loom in the distance threatening the land.
The threat of the donut wielders
Donut wielders pop up everywhere these days, threatening local wild life and way of life with their intrusive high calorie, high sugar, low value, diabetes inducing samey junk food.
Their numbers increase daily making them a foe to be reckoned with.
Help Vampires
They come at night and strike silently in the dark, stealing precious energy from our users with incessant questioning at the minor of inconveniences. They don't care for the common well being, and bring no value to the game, relying on others for answers giving little sheckles back. They get most of their nourishment from stray whores and sheckle-farmers trying to make a living from whatever they can scrap.
Allies
We do have some strong allies that defend the land at all costs.
BatFinger is the master of the old order of mages wielding the ancient power of coding. They are skilled in the art of scripting with the old language of the Serpent.
This not only grants them the prime access to contact the dev Gods by speaking the language of the divinity, it allows them to make quick work of hordes of noobs and even uber-noobs with bare coding skills.
With two fortresses in the lands of both Python and Scripting they control the borders and tirelessly defend the land using the power of Python scripting.
There are many other allies and vigilantes who on a daily basis tirelessly help manage the growing backlog of flag reports that reach the marshal stations.
We have gained and lost many other friends along the way, like Ray Mairlot the Gate Keeper. He was adamant in keeping the territory borders clear and well defined, tirelessly tagging questions, and keeping tabs on a highly organized and coherent system of tags for keeping noob trespassers in check.
Some marshals and users like to cross universes from time to time to Seasoned Advice realm, a land of vices, gluttony, excess, for an occasional respite from the demanding work of keeping the land of Susane the monkey safe.

Fortunately none of those dang varmint donutters come into python-scripting territory.  Have  been mostly safe from the anvil plague too.

I even forgot about the anvil haha, good one

I'm going to ask how to script a donut + icing using python just for @batFINGER

Clint Eastwood playing ‘Blondie’ in‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’
ot exactly radiating with warmth, sometimes rough to interact with, this epic character has a heart of gold, helping those in need even at the worst odds and the highest of stakes. Twelve shooters and a sniper on the roof? You say ‘impossible’, yet he single–handedly disposes of all of them, and when you think it couldn’t get any better, turns out he managed with just two six–shooters without the need to reload even once! Considering usually few (alive) men witness those great deeds and the hero gets rewarded with merely a sheckle or two, it makes his accumulated wealth even more impressive…

Sharon Stone playing ‘Ellen’ in‘The Quick and the Dead’
on’t make the mistake of underestimating her. Just because she has no reputation, doesn’t mean she has no experience. You might be surprised if you investigate the archives for her accounts outside ʙꜱᴇ; even if you find nothing there, she still might have extraordinary deeds outside of Stack Exchangia…

Sean Connery playing ‘Allan Quatermain’ in ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’
e achieved everything he could in the land of ʙꜱᴇ. Perhaps one day he will return, when the Exchangians need him the most. For now, we can enjoy his legacy, both what we see: great answers, policies and inspired community, as well as what cannot be seen: conflicts averted, villains banished, damage avoided…

Charlie Cox playing ‘Tristan Thorn’ in ‘Stardust’ (2007)
nlike the outsider, he indeed is a noob. But this one learns really fast. He came to ʙꜱᴇ to get help, but stayed to help others. It seems like yesterday, that he didn’t know a thing, and now he’s finding himself correcting the veterans. If his luck won’t fail him, he may age to become one of the above archetypes…

 …

Jamie Foxx playing the title character in ‘Django Unchained’
ot much can be said in general about such people. Everyone is different, and so that's what they share — they are different than everyone else. And yes, every human being is different, but not all so flamboyantly! People say there are no wrong questions, but if there is one, someone extravagant is asking it; you may discover that “there’s a method to his madness”, and if not, maybe at least get provoked to think outside the box…

‘Droid IG-11’ dubbed by Taika Waititi in ‘Mandalorian’
ireless, but not mindless; turns out with enough gears the mechanism becomes complex enough to develop consciousness. Unlike what you expect from a robot, it doesn’t blindly follow the rules: be it off–topic, two questions in one, a duplicate or poor research, it responds to the call for rescue. It doesn’t know arrogance and will not look down on simple problems as unworthy of its time. Its systematicity is a crucial foundation of the ʙꜱᴇ society…

Mel Brooks playing ‘Governor Le Petomane’ in ‘Blazing Saddles’
ow is it possible this incompetent idiot amassed so much wealth‽ Looking into the archives, you can count on fingers of one hand when he tried to help someone, always with embarrassing results. It looks like the secret of his success is he was never afraid to ask for help and was helped over and over again. Perhaps by asking his stupid questions he provoked so many great answers, that some credit was due…

John Wayne playing ‘Sheriff John T. Chance’ in ‘Rio Bravo’ (1959)
heriff’s badge is not just an insignia of power. It’s a symbol of respect of ʙꜱᴇ citizens. Despite what media might make you believe, sheriffs spend little time fighting villains, and a lot on rigorous task of keeping the society functional. Someone new in the community might even think his sheriff is able to do only that, but every now and then the guardian of law steps in to answer a distress and shows his true power…

Kenneth Branagh playing ‘Dr. Arliss Loveless’ in ‘The Wild Wild West’
ortunately, there aren’t really any villains in the ʙꜱᴇ. Yes, sometimes someone will have a bad day and act in a bad faith, however, people in conflict eventually cool down. Still, we all meet this character in our worst nightmares, the embodiment of human viciousness, Frankenstein’s monster of all possible malice: he downvotes good work because he hates the person behind it; tries to insult others, driven by arrogance; breaks the rules and peskilly keeps reverting the fix by a sheriff; blows off steam on poor newcomers, who come in his way. Who knows, maybe such people would be swarming the ʙꜱᴇ land if not for the hard work of sheriffs who usually nip the fire in the bud…

This has to be the most beautifully composed post of the whole Stack Exchangia, complete with drop caps and gothic fonts. Kudos for that! We could make an RPG out of this, I can almost pinpoint specific users behind every archetype.

Bravo. You truly have a way with words, sir, just as with noodles :))

Thanks for this. Totally OTT, love it. Apologies for not commenting earlier. IMO would have made the gunslinger droid a permanent fixture (side-kick) best actor in it.. except for maybe Olyphant. @DuarteFarrajotaRamos funny you mention that, it was a toss up between TV show and MMORPG  in some ways the latter fits better, same end game. .. ie keep going or quit.  That post I flagged as VLQ -> Marshal badge. Was surprised to see I'm only number 8.  Think the other 499 were not an answer.


text:
How do I thank the moderators for being so responsive to raised flags?
The title says it all.  I've raised several flags over time that required moderator intervention and the moderators have been very responsive.  Is there a preferred way to say Thank You?

I don't think there is any way, since it is expected of them as part of moderation duty. We appreciate the gesture non the less, from my part at least thank you. A good way to show gratitude could be help with site maintenance. Dealing with Review Queues is one of the sites most demanding aspects, helping keep them in check would be very appreciated

I was raised to believe, and 60ish years later still believe, that thanking people for doing their job well, even if that's expected, is a good thing.  So thank you, for doing well that which is expected of you.  (I do indeed work on the review queues every day.  I also believe that pitching in improves everyone's experience.)

Thanks for the kind words, keep up the great attitude

Here for example: Thank you all for your commitment and effort!

From the comments by Duarte Farrajota Ramos:

paraphrased: StackExchange appears to provide no formal mechanism because it is expected as part of moderation duty.
A good way to show gratitude could be help with site maintenance. Dealing with Review Queues is one of the sites most demanding aspects; helping keep them in check would be very appreciated.

Complete noob. Please find a way so that we (from foreign cultures at least) can express emotion. Cheers

Here is what I do on answers to my questions: 1) I leave a comment thanking the individual in the comment section of the answer.  2) If it is a good answer but doesn't fully solve my problem, I upvote the answer, as a way of showing gratitude.  3) If it is the best answer to the question, I accept the answer. That also shows gratitude.   you might want to read What should I do when someone answers my question? .  Saying thank you is kind, and that's how this StackExchange culture seems to do it.


text:
How do I hilight words in grey such as Blender hot keys?
I've searched right through the markup help and can't find any mention anywhere of what hotkey or incantation to use to create the grey hilighting (with or without the surrounding box outline) when writing an answer to a question, e.g: CTRL + X with the 'CTRL and 'X' hilighted. Any clues please? - Just found mention of the 'kbd' tag, but how do you use it? Surely you don't have to type in the full HTML formatting every time you want to hilight a letter?

https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/524/what-case-should-letters-inside-kbd-tags-be

Thanks. Couldn't find that by searching.

@JohnEason there are also some userscripts around SE, such as here and here for example that add kbd tags for you.

@Timaroberts Thanks. I'll have a look!


text:
I appear to have 'serial voted'. Would a moderator please explain the specifics so I can avoid doing it in the future?
When I logged on this AM, I found that I had been deduced 12 reputation points because "Serial Voting was Reversed". Would someone please explain what I did that triggered the deduction, so that I can avoid making the same mistake again?

You most likely didn't do anything to trigger it directly, though you have led to it indirectly.
By raising a flag earlier to notify moderators about a case of serial downvoting, I ended up escalating the issue to try and have reputations restored to normality, which itself led to a chain of events that eventually culminated in a point recount made by the system.
From then on what the system does is really a black box to us, it may lead to favorable or unfavorable results to an undetermined number of users.
If you report a rep loss, then I presume among other things the system considered you were perhaps being favored by some other user, which may intentionally or unintentionally have upvoted an abnormal amount of your posts.

I see. It's weird that I lost 12 reputation and that I never did get any reputation back from the case where I was the victim of extensive revenge voting, but such are the vagaries of complex systems.  Thanks for the explanation.


text:
blender.stackexchange.com is the only site that does not reflect user profile changes
The following is a minor issue.
When I open my user profile page on blender.stackexchange.com, I fond my old contents. The other sites have reflected the latest changes of my user profile.

However, when I press the edit button, this site loads the latest version as follows.

I don't think it is due to propagation delay between sites. Is it  a bug?

I see your old content as well. Only a CM or Admin would be able to tell, I have no clue

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos: OK. Thank you very much.

Did you have a history of account merging? Your account is also not shown on the network profile.

@AndrewT.: I think I have no such a history of account merging.


text:
Why was my Question About Dithering Closed?
I asked a question called How do you Render With Foyd-Steinberg Dithering in Blender?, and the question was closed.
Why was the question closed?
How can I fix the question?

The question doesn't seem to be very clear. People asked for clarification in the comments but never got any response, nor was there any additional information edited into your original question.

As it stands this question seems unanswerable and was put on hold for lack of essential details to understand the issue. Obviously only you know your exact issue, so unless you describe it thoroughly you alone know your exact setup, settings and what steps you took to arrive where your are now. Describe in detail what the issue is, supported by accompanying screenshots with the [edit] button above. Don't post comments or ask a new question, editing will automatically queue it for review so it can be reopened.

I find the question understandable, and I've edited it to help others; but the topic is a little obscure and I can see why most people wouldn't understand it.  I've also added a comment with an article that might help the OP.  I'd like the question reopened so I can turn that pointer into an answer with details.

@MartyFouts reopened, answer away


text:
Do I need to create a new account for all stackexchange sites?
I want to post some questions to stackexchange/webapps. I was requested to create a new account, which I did with the same email address I use for blender stack exchange. Do I need to create a new account for each StackExchange site? Seems a little bit cumbersome to me.

No need to create a new account. While logged in, go to the site you want to join, and click Join This Community . You will also receive an association bonus of 101 reputation points.

Ok but i was requested to set a new password and i could choose a different user name. But it’s definitely the same email address. I dont get it…


text:
Selecting NurbsPath as hair particle render object is not showing on the plane in viewport
I have already asked this question in Blender Stack and got solution of converting geometry to mesh but i don't want it to convert into mesh but as a path only and got suggestion to ask here in Blender Meta
I selected a plane, added a particle system, and selected Hair. Under Render I changed Path to Object and under Object I selected NurbsPath in the Instance option as shown in a YouTube video.
In the video, it appeared instantly on the plane but to me, it was not appearing.
So here is what happened to me in this query:
First I take a Nurbspath from Shift+A → Curve → Path
Then taken a BezierCircle, same as above.
Then changed the geometry of the NurbsPath in Object Data Properties to BezierCurve and modified the path as grass in Edit Mode.
Then added the plane to use as a ground for grass.
By selecting the plane added hair particles in Particle System.
Then in the Hair tab options went to the Render option and changed the instance as Object and in the newly appeared Object option below the render option I selected the NurbsPath (as shown in the image below).
Then instead of the plane having the NurbsPath in place of the hair, the plane appeared empty as appeared in the below image.
And I did this all by following a YouTube video in step by step process as shown in it. In that video, it appeared but for me, it didn't.
So, what was the mistake I have done here, and how to rectify it?

You can edit your original post by clicking on Edit below the post to add additional information.
It seems that there may be a misunderstanding how Stack Exchange works, any member of the community can post answers. Your question is still open and can receive answers by other users. Once you're happy with a particular answer you can accept it by clicking on the checkmark next to it.

But they said like there will be no solution as it was Bug so ask in Meta

@Ramos The comment by Emir did not state that it was a bug. They were just referring you to Meta, because your question was about how Stack Exchange works.

@Ramos Meta is for question about this site, moderation and how things work. If you believe you found a bug see Where to Report a Bug


text:
Why does reopening (and closing) questions not work?
Reopening
I recently received the gold badge for geometry-nodes, and the tag description says:

These users can single-handedly mark geometry-nodes questions as duplicates and reopen them as needed.

So I tried that with this post here:
I can't randomly distribute the contents of a collection in Blender 3.0 geometry nodes
Actually, I wanted to reopen the question first so that I could mark it as a duplicate, because technically it is identical to a previously answered question:
How to distribute pebbles on the surface?
But that didn't work the way it was described. The action was counted as a vote to reopen the question, and did not directly change the question.
What have I done wrong here?
Or does this not work as described?
Can I now reopen questions just like that, or not?
Closing/Mark as Duplicate
I have just encountered another problem:
I was just able to reopen a question that I closed once before (along with others), but I can't close it again or mark it as a "duplicate".
The message I receive reads: "You cannot vote to close again after retracting your vote".
Specifically, the issue is that I wanted to mark this question as a duplicate to this post.
I was able to open the question as I said, but now I can't close it.
Why?

...somehow this all doesn't seem to work so well here, without moderator rights. Maybe someone should take a closer look at these additional permissions, which are related to the gold badge. ;-)

If I'm not mistaken the privilege doesn't seem to work if the question was closed by a moderator. It is now reopened, you may close again as duplicate

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos Ah, OK, that could be, of course. Would be good to mention that in the description too, because it's a bit confusing that way. Thanks for reopening, the question has now been marked as duplicate.

But that didn't work the way it was described. The action was counted as a vote to reopen the question, and did not directly change the question.

That's because it was originally closed as 'not suitable for this site', and your gold tag badge (congratulations!) only works for the 'duplicate' close reason.

I was able to open the question as I said, but now I can't close it.

You already voted to close this question before, and regular users can't vote to close a question more than once.

Thanks for the explanation! As already mentioned in the comments, it might be good if this information somehow finds its way into the description of the additional privileges. For me it was a bit confusing. Anyway: problem solved!

@quellenform Just to add that most of the pages from the help center are not editable and the text is the same for all sites. We can't personalize it for our community nor add to it, as far as I know.


text:
How to post code snippets
How do I paste properly formatted code in Stack Exchange?
Whenever I try and post code snippets it gets posted as regular text

I prefer to use triple backticks ``` as they clearly define borders of code, as opposed to the default way of indentation (what if you have empty lines in your code? You can't see if it's supposed to be two separate codes or not). Put both opening triple backticks and closing triple on separate lines, additionally make sure there's an empty line after the closing backticks, as I noticed otherwise formatting can get broken... Finally, you may make it clear which triple is the start of the code, by putting "py" afterwards. In some places it tells the syntax highlighter that it's supposed to use Python rules, but here on BSE it changes nothing. Edit this message to see how I use this below:
print("Hello BSE!")

If you want to put some code inline, just wrap it inside single backticks - it also works in comments.

just select your code, then click on the brackets here

Thanks.
How do I paste code snippets in a comment?

You can, but they would never be formatted

If my answer helped you, please click on the checkmark left of my answer. Thanks


text:
What should the "MathJax help" link (on the Editing Help page) point to?
MathJax is a JavaScript library that displays mathematical notation in web browsers, using MathML, LaTeX, to display "pretty" math notation, useful when describing complex constraints, drivers, shaders, among others, like the example below.
Typing $$\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}$$ produces
$$\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}$$
It was recently pointed out by a community manager over chat that on sites where MathJax is enabled, the Markdown editing help page includes a link to a MathJax formatting help guide.
By default, this link points to the URL https://legacy-www.math.harvard.edu/texman/, which is an external site.
This link can apparently be customized, and on a few sites it points to a dedicated meta post about it; on others, to the Mathematics Meta post "MathJax basic tutorial and quick reference".
Since our site has MathJax enabled, where should our help page link point to?
Ideally this would point to our own meta post about it, but other suggestions are welcome.
Anyone is free to post their own suggestions, one per answer. Please vote on the answers below that you think serve our community best, downvote the ones that do a disservice. The answer with most votes will be implemented.

It should point to the existing Mathematics Meta quick reference which is comprehensive and well written.
https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5020/mathjax-basic-tutorial-and-quick-reference

I'd vote for this one, since typing a new guide is a lot of work, and blatantly copy pasting that one here and maintaining it seems unnecessary plagiarism.

I agree, this post already covers everything that you would need to know. There is nothing special about MathJax's usage on Blender's Stack Exchange, so I do not see any benefit for a custom reference/guideline post on our Meta.

@RobertGützkow Thansk for the feedback. If we go with this, maybe we then also link to it from our meta markup guidelines: Guidelines on the usage of StackExchange Markup and style

In addition to our own MathJax webpage, as suggested by Duarte, you are welcome to link at the end of the new guide to the two MathJax webpages that I am the author of:
https://or.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5/51 and https://quantumcomputing.meta.stackexchange.com/a/76/278
Using those links gives me credit for referring people, but you are welcome to vote and edit too. Those sites contain additions specific to the respective site, and unique compared to what is offered at the Mathematics MathJax FAQ.

Are there some cool perks for referring people? I always treated it just as convenient link shorteners :D.

@MarkusvonBroady, Yes: https://meta.stackexchange.com/tags/publicity-badges/info, for example:  https://blender.stackexchange.com/help/badges/61/publicist

It should point to our existing Markup Guideline meta post, where a new answer specific to Mathjax would be posted.
This would require typing a dedicated guide as a new answer.

A new post on our meta should be written specifically dedicated to Mathjax markup alone.

Mathematics Meta Guide is absolutely amazing, however I only now learned about the Harvard alternative, and I think its academic approach of explaining how it works is important as well. This answer allows to create a list of resources, rather than choosing one. It also allows to pick BSE specific snippets as examples of the usage. Rather than further extending already bloated Markup Guideline, it could link to it and be linked from it.

That is a fair point. Would you be willing to provide or help write such a post as an answer?

Sure, though I'm not an expert on Mathjax. :)

Keep the current link to https://legacy-www.math.harvard.edu/texman/


text:
What's the tag [project] for?
I was reading a question and noticed it was tagged with project. Looking further I see 65 questions tagged with it, 28 unanswered. There's no description for this tag, but it seems to be used mainly for asking about blender Projects and projecting stuff onto models (texture, geometry, etc).
Shall we split this tag into 2, perhaps blender-project and projection or projecting to avoid confusion? (or retag it to other existing, more popular tags I might not be aware of)

I'd encourage you to post your proposed solution for the tags as an answer so other people can vote what to do with them.

there seem to be some developements in the area of ]project management](https://developer.blender.org/D16288) underway, answer updated.

It seems like one of those tags that "crept in" and discretely stayed around despite being unwanted.
As it stands I agree with your assessment, its meaning is unclear as you stated.
Both of your proposed uses seem unwanted to me as well, those sound like "meta-tags" they don't really tell you anything about the question and aren't very useful for categorization either.
Technically speaking, virtually all questions here are in some form about "Blender-Projects", and the tag isn't really elucidative about the question content.
I'd reserve this tag for some later time when Blender actually has some form of "Project Management" and a concrete concept of what an actual "Project" really is. In the stricter sense of a collection of related files, folders or content all pertaining to some common final finished product.
The use of "Project" as verb "to project" something over a surface seems too specific and abstract to warrant a dedicated tag. It really doesn't help categorize a question in any meaningful way and should not exist. Mentioning the word in the body of the question should suffice for searching purposes.
I'd vote for removing the tag entirely, it doesn't seem helpful in any way.
Once again this seems like a community decision, so I'd encourage anyone else to post their suggestions as questions and let the voting decide the outcome.
As of 10 October 2022 there seems to be the first steps towards project management in Blender with the introduction of the concept of a "Blender Project" in the task Basic Blender Project Support (experimental feature), for which this tag would seem most adequate, maybe in the form of project-management or project-manager depending on how the feature ends up implemented.

I agree with your answer, so I won't post mine with tag suggestions as you asked - perhaps someone more knowledgeable can come up with more relevant tags if they think there would be any.

@Luciano If you still want to be involved later on, and we do decide eliminating the tag is the way to go, then you can help remove the tag entirely by retagging existing questions with something else more fitting, or just deleting the tag all together.

sure, let me know whenever that happens


text:
Moderator election 2022 interest check
UPDATE: After discussion with the moderation team, the Community Management Team has went ahead and scheduled an election to start question collection on October 31, and nominations on November 7.

There seems to be a trend recently that whenever someone is elected moderator at Blender Stack exchange personal life takes its turns and takes away your planned availability for moderation.
No one is stepping down at the moment, but some of the current moderators plan to be less active for the foreseeable future, and as such we think additional help would be welcome.
After discussing with the current moderators and the community management team, we're looking at scheduling a moderator election to start some time during October of 2022. To avoid finding ourselves in a situation where an election would fail due to an insufficient number of candidates though, we’re posting this to try to assess the community members' willingness to step up and nominate themselves, when the actual election's nomination period starts.
We would be looking to open up two, maybe three additional moderator slots, but elections need to be competitive, to run a three slot election, we would need at least four candidates. This interest check will help us determine how many slots we should make available.
Being short staffed diminishes moderation quality and frequency. It also leaves little time to do other "site maintenance" tasks and fun activities to stimulate our community and increase engagement.
This may be an opportunity for "new blood" to join the ranks, bringing more action, fresh ideas, and generally avoiding "stagnation".
The winners of the election will join the current moderation team and help make our site grow bigger and better. Moderation is not "a chore:" you get to do what you already do as a regular user, plus you gain access some additional tools and perks to help you with the task.
Please leave an answer if you'd be willing to run for a moderator position.
Note that this is not an official election nomination thread yet, just a "pulse check" to get a notion of how many people here would be willing to step up, so you don't have to put up your whole election nomination.

What exactly are other "site maintenance" tasks and fun activities that stimulate community and increase engagement? What actually means more action and fresh ideas and general avoidance of "stagnation"? How exactly can you help make the site bigger and better? I would be interested to know if these goals, rules and tasks are clearly defined somewhere or if there is a set of rules for this.

These tasks are not formally defined anywhere, just some general direction of what type of fresh ideas and input we'd welcome from new moderators, to promote growth and "shake things up". Some examples of site maintenance you already know are closing old or unanswered questions that need more details, others may be managing tags (write wikis, remove unwanted ones, set up synonyms etc).

Fun activities may be try to resuscitate our dying chat rooms maybe by posting cool projects you are doing, challenges or interesting questions, engage with new and old users to make them feel more at home, encourage them to stay around and answer, rather than ask one off questions and leave. Just some vague ideas I had in mind, we welcome some input on this from our candidates

@DuarteFarrajotaRamos I can see why the chat is not very active, there is no link inside the users profile, just at the bottom of the page, new users don't even take the tour. web managers should consider a "CHAT ROOM" button visible in the users profile.

@Emir Also the fact that the chat interface looks quite dated and primitive. Notifications work pretty poorly at the moment, a lot of times you miss most replies. Unless you specifically mention someone by name they are not guaranteed to receive notifications.

Yeah, that too. The chat needs a complete revamp

If you guys want it too, I'm interested.
I would be only partially available and quite limited on geometry-nodes, but maybe I can help to enrich this wonderful platform a little bit.
Is there a questionnaire to fill out somewhere or do I have to take a test of courage?

Thanks for volunteering. "Is there a questionnaire to fill out somewhere or do I have to take a test of courage?" There will be when/if the elections actually star. For now this is just an informal post to see if we have enough candidates to even move forward with an official election.

See https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/search?q=election for an idea of how the process goes, and look at the posts with "Questionnaire" in the title for the community questions we generally post.

"do I have to take a test of courage?" Oh, of course. Along with fighting a dragon.

I think the community functions do a pretty good job of keeping everything tidy, but I am often lurking on the active questions queue and have seen a few things go by that should have been nuked from orbit.

Welcome aboard, that is the spirit we are looking for, thanks for volunteering. "Community functions do a pretty good job" they do to an extent but they hide some of the cruft from users, behind the scenes some unseen work accumulates in review queues

Despite my pathetic reputation here, I'm willing to nominate myself if it can help the elections be (more) successful.
Currently I'm a moderator at the very small Arts & Crafts.
I've been using Blender over the span of at least 9 years now, mostly focusing on materials.

Yes! ...that sounds good! Please sign up here: https://blender.stackexchange.com/election

Thanks for nominating, shows understanding of how our elections work.


text:
What happened to the bookmarks?
Yesterday, strangely enough, all my bookmarks were gone.
Instead, a new system was apparently active, where questions and answers could be saved and nested in categories.
This was a great idea, but suddenly all my previously saved bookmarks were lost.
Today apparently the old system was activated again (Why?).
The problem:
Now both the old Boomarks and the new bookmarks are gone.
What happened here?

Strange I had not noticed this, I confess I don't use bookmarks much. If the change was recent maybe they are in the process of migrating things. Give it some time to sort things out

Mines are also gone

According to this post on the main meta bookmarks are now called "saves", and have been temporarily disabled.

Saves is now officially live on Stack Overflow and across Stack
Exchange sites! The migration process will take some time to process
as there are millions of bookmarked questions to migrate over. If
you’re not seeing any questions you previously bookmarked, that means
they haven’t been processed yet.

Do not know how long temporary is, but you will see them again.

OK, wonderful, has apparently been resolved. Now the new system is active and the bookmarks (now "Saves") seem to have been migrated indeed. I was just badly irritated for a moment because at first I thought it was a mistake.


text:
Custom Filter with Tags and Operators?
Is it somehow possible to create a custom filter that only shows certain tags, but at the same time only shows unclosed questions?
I would like to save a filter that contains the following search query:
[geometry-nodes] or [geometry-nodes-fields] answers:0 closed:no is:question

I don't use filters much myself, so I may be wrong, but I don't think you can save filters that complex.
One alternative is to bookmark a custom search in your browser, which through URL allows more complex search patterns.
One example would be questions tagged geometry-nodes or geometry-nodes-fields answers:0 closed:no
https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=[geometry-nodes]+or+[geometry-nodes-fields]+closed%3Ano+answers:0
You can add this to your browser bookmarks or setup an alias for it
https://blender.stackexchange.com/search?q=[geometry-nodes]+or+[geometry-nodes-fields]+closed:no+answers:0
On a side note I think geometry-nodes-fields tag should be removed and made a synonym of geometry-nodes. I don't think there's any point in keeping a dedicated tag just for that, since the use of fields basically implies geometry nodes.

Haha, so simple, and I of all people do not come up with this idea! :D Thanks, problem solved (with workaround)!

Side note: Well, this may sound reasonable from the point of view of an inexperienced user, but from a technical point of view these are already two different topics. This is similar to curves and bezier-curves or model and modeling ( and modelling), or nodes and node-editor. I think the tag should remain.

Maybe we can make a new meta post with a community poll and see what outcome we get. I'm not very knowledgeable in that area. Can one use Fields outside geometry nodes as standalone? It is my understanding they only work when geometry nodes are involved, so having a separate tag for that seems redundant to me.

Yes, let's discuss that. Are you creating a meta post?

I have a faint idea of having discussed those already. See if this addresses your concerns https://blender.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2840/proposal-to-finish-cleaning-up-the-modes-tags-completed