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Would a tips and tricks section be welcome on the site?
Sorry that this is not a question, and perhaps being posted in the wrong area.
I was thinking that it would be great if instead of a questions column we could have a tips n tricks column where we could post things we find on ways to do things on the Android.
This could alleviate some of the questions asked if someone else has already posted a better or different method of doing the thing they are having an issue with.
Then as we discover great features we can hop on and post about them so everyone can benefit. Would also change the feel of the site as only having problems posted makes it look like Androids are nothing but trouble!

This web site is specifically a questions and answers site. Please see this question for some places that do carry Android related tips and tricks http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/4060/blogs-for-android-apps-and-tips

You can make a question out of the tips and tricks you want to talk about, and answer it yourself (Jeopardy-style question is specifically allowed in StackExchange). I've done several such questions in the past.

As others have noted, there are other forums out there that would probably be more appropriate.
That said, if you had a problem that you fixed yourself, there's no reason you couldn't post the problem as a question and then answer it with your solution. Other people might find it useful and you may find that there was alternative (and perhaps better) solution.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Inconsistent CAPTCHA Behaviour Between Mobile/Desktop
I most often browse the site from my phone. If I answer a question on the mobile site using my phone I never get a CAPTCHA. However if I do so on my desktop (Chrome) than I always get one.
What triggers this?

Note: I didn't get one when I posted this.

Always?  Hmm, strange.

@MatthewRead Actually, I tried using the site my PC the whole day and only got one on the first post. Yesterday 2 out of 3 times but 2 were in the 5 minute period. Is it somehow linked to activity on a given machine? I can't think of anything else as I logged in on machine several months ago.

FYI: I got them using my Nexus S with the full site view enabled. But not consistently, last occurrence is 2 weeks ago or so.

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


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Is there a place to upload files for other users to download?
I know the answer is probably no, but I want to share some versions of Clockwork Mod recovery that I had a lot of trouble finding. I am willing to host them myself but want to provide links to them on android.SE so other enthusiasts may find them.
I figure I might create a question: "Where can I fine different versions of CWM recovery?" then answer it myself with the links.
A different idea would be to do it somewhere on meta with a different framing.
What do you guys think?
If you don't like those ideas what if I posted the files on xda or somewhere then linked to that?

No, SE doesn't have file hosting.  Closest thing is a special imgur subdomain (but only for images uploaded through the editor).
Linking to something external is fine — and even better if you are the uploader or have used it yourself and can vouch for its integrity.


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What happens to guest accounts?
I posted as a guest, and I was wondering, do these guest accounts get deleted after a day? Or does it just stay there until you delete it yourself?

Guest accounts are just like any other account, they stay until you delete it yourself, or merge it into another account. The main disadvantage of a guest account is that it is only associated to you by a temporary cookie. As you don't have an actual login and password, there's no way to log into it from another PC or device, and if the cookie expires then there's no way to access that account again.
If you have an existing guest account that you've used to post a question or answer and you'd like it merged into your new registered account, see this help page: I accidentally created two accounts; how do I merge them?

Thanks for the information, but how do I delete my guest account? I went to edit my information, but I can't find the way to delete it. Edit: Do you have to change your display name to 'please delete me' or something like that?

Which account is your guest account?

This one actually.

I can delete the account for you. Please confirm that you want the account deleted.

And how do I do that? o.o

Just acknowledge in a comment here that you want it deleted :)

Umm.. I'd like for this account to be deleted haha

Is it deleted now? Or do I have to clear cookies as well?

It is scheduled to be deleted. It will be deleted in 24 hours.


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What's with reputation? Why do I need some to comment?
I created an account to contribute an to an issue.  Now I see that I can't.
I have no idea what hoops I should be jumping through to contribute, but I don't think there should be any.
I need 50 reputation, whatever that means.  I'm sure that kills a lot of posts.  There are thousands of sites like this one that require you to join to comment.  They all want you to hang out, have coffee, make them your home.  Not.
My brand new Nexus 7 is having random wifi connect issues.  But I can't comment on the thread about it.

You might want to read this question: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7237/how-does-reputation-work

As you've noticed, you need more reputation points to comment on someone else's post than to ask or answer a question. Why's that? Because new users don't always understand how this site is different from a web forum or a mailing list. They don't always realise that Stack Exchange sites have questions and answers, rather than threads and replies. Sometimes, new users think it's appropriate to add a comment to a question to say, "I'm having the same problem too," or to "bump the thread". That's not how this site works. Comments like that don't add anything to the site, so we don't want them. If you're having the same problem as someone else, you can star the question to be notified of new answers.
I notice that you used the term "thread" in your question. Perhaps you've fallen into the same trap: it's an easy enough misunderstanding to make until you read the FAQ or use the site for a while. That misunderstanding is exactly what the privilege system is for. Once upon a time, it was customary to lurk on a mailing list or BBS (that is, to read the site without posting), so that you can learn the conventions and the culture of the site rather than posting in the wrong place. The privilege system exists, in part, to help keep that custom alive here.
It's up to you whether you participate or not. As you say, there are are plenty of web fora out there if that's all you want. But if you stick around, I think you'll find, as I have, that Stack Exchange's reputation and privileges help keep the quality of discourse more productive than you find on the average forum or mailing list.

I like especially the "lurker's guide". That's exactly how I started at SE and some other fora, even before "subscribing" at all. To be recommended, really.

If you don't take any time to learn anything about the site you're visiting, it's not going to work for you.  Start here.
We're not obligated to help you, and we are a community-led site.  Driveby comments that can be left by anyone are not in our best interest.  You will notice that you don't even need to sign up to post a question or answer, however.
Without knowing what question you're referring to or what your comment would be, it's hard to help you further.


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Redundancy in Motorola tag names
I've seen tags like motorola-moto-g. What's the point in redundantly prefixing motorola- there? Moto is just an abbreviation of Motorola.

"Moto" is part of the model name.  We tag devices using the manufacturer-model format and don't deviate in cases where it's easier to figure out the manufacturer.

Apparently even Motorola refers to the devices like "Motorola Moto X" in some cases. Never noticed that.


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Tag [micromax-unite] needs a wiki
I noticed a question which popped up in Active tab few minutes ago, and was tagged with micromax-unite
Looking at all the questions in that tag, I see that most of them are related to the device "Micromax Unite 2 A106" with one exception of "Micromax Unite 3 Q372".
I think a tag wiki is definitely needed now to signify the purpose this tag serves, preferably intended to serve a series of devices under a common brand.
I don't know anything about this device, or I could have tried suggesting the wiki.

GSMArena mentions multiple devices with that name, e.g. Micromax A106 Unite 2 (see these Google Search results).

@Izzy Thank you. I think I must work hard on my search queries for Google. And I now have made changes into the question.

I'd say the tag is fine, and for those few questions more diversification is not justified. A tag-wiki excerpt could mention the tag is for all devices of the "Micromax Unite" brand, while the wiki itself could go into more detail.


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Should development questions be put on hold or migrated to SO?
Despite being off-topic on AE, questions about app development are frequently asked here. I generally flag these as needing migration to SO as opposed to marking them as off-topic, because they should have been asked there in the first place, but I often see questions about app development that have been put on hold instead of migrated.
Should development questions be put on hold or migrated to SO? If they should always be migrated to SO, why is there a reason in the flagging menu to put them on hold?

As harsh as it is, SE network has this as a general rule: don't migrate crap.

We must not become part in bringing down the quality of the flagship product of SE.
A lot of development/programming questions we receive here  tends either to debug the app without explaining how to recreate the scenario, or simply throws up logcat's output without even preformatting it, or other things that are at odds with SO guidelines. There are very few questions  we receive here that are clearly written and well-formatted.
Migrating those bad/poor questions to SO (a site which already receives a  lot of poorly written development/programming questions) would only burden the site. What's more? If I would happen to be regular at SO and start seeing such  questions being migrated to SO, then I might end up questioning the judgement of whole community for such act.
I believe we should migrate only  well-written and well-formatted questions. Putting the rest on hold would not only teach those newbies how to ask but would also tell them where not to ask.
This isn't only about development questions. I keep this opinion to app suggestions or recommendations as well. I rarely flag for migration to Software Recommendations. Usually, I vote to close them since the guidelines for Softwarerecs.se is very clear and detailed, and most of the questions we receive here don't meet those guidelines. Migrating them to a beta site is definitely a strict no.
That's just my opinion!

It is another matter that our efforts in bringing down the amount of development/programming questions are not up to the mark.

Related Why was this question closed as off-topic without being migrated?

This is completely correct.  Most questions we get are either unformatted code dumps, or absurdly broad/give-me-teh-codez questions.  It's quite rare when something deserves migration.


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No matching tag
I found this post which has a wrong tag. It's basically because the author didn't know what the fastboot tag stands for and have chosen it. However I didn't find any tags which are good for this question. As far as I know the author can't choose no tag, it's forbidden. So what should be done if you don't find any tag where your question fit into. I mean, you can't just choose a wrong tag with the thought "there is no better tag, but I can't change that".
I don't know if I'm at the right place here, probably some would say, I should post this in meta android but I think it's a general SE question what to do if no tag is good for your question.
Thank you in advance, moderators!
P.S.: Same thing here, I can't post a question with just the tag tag. I have to choose under these "bug feature-request discussion support". It's not bad that you don't want to have every content in the Meta SE, but I think you didn't do it right. currently this would make many content get labeled as discussion just to get it posted.

I've re-tagged it boot and performance, that should match the issue. Thanks for bringing it up!

For a quick reading why some tags are required in Meta, please read What's Meta?

When,

you don't understand which tag is best for the question and all the current tags on the question are not suitable,
when some current tags on the question are not suitable and you can't find a better one

but you still think a better tag is needed, then,

with careful consideration (analyze the question thoughtfully) create a new tag or more -- requires minimum of 300 reputation points
the better choice: ask the veterans. Veterans may not necessarily be those only who've been with the site for a long time but can also be those who are  one or more year old here but are very good and active in editing questions.

I myself tend to be in situations when I do not understand what tag is best and I do not find it good to create  new tag(s) unless I'm sure there exists no other suitable tag. So I simply post the question on the site's chatroom with a brief note of the requirement and let the others take care of it.
If the user activity is low on chatroom then you can consider posting a comment on the question like:

For users: The current tags on the question doesn't properly give the hint about the question, neither the question is actually about them. But I can't think of any better tag as of now, so may be one of you can consider an edit with a better tag. Thanks!

That has been my strategy. You can find your own or may be somebody else would propose a better one.

As for the meta tags, I'm not placed at best position to comment, but I respectfully disagree with your view about them. Meta isn't a place to  post anything, but it's all about the working of the main site, be it technical or user-centric issue.
If you look at your question again, you're are asking for best practices on what to be done when tags are not suitable and more....
discussion tag exactly fits the question. See its excerpt. It's meant to seek community consensus on an issue.
If you're not seeking consensus then either you've a problem in using the site which goes into support, or there is an erroneous behavior you noticed which obviously fits bug, or you want a new feature, so feature-request goes here.
Also, if you think that the current mandatory tags doesn't cover everything or most of the issues, then it's better to propose a proper and detailed use-case and then argue with why the current mandatory meta tags doesn't fit the use-case yet the use-case as a question is useful. This would give us a better picture of what's going on in your mind since I (as a normal user), as noted, doesn't find an issue with the mandatory tags. So, how would you convince the users like me?
But reserve the use-case for another question.

Thank you! I also thought about creating a new tag (or in my case, ask for the creation), but I think it's not necessary to create a tag for one specific question. and yes, I am asking for best practices, so I don't understand why mods did move that.

If the condition demands then you've to create a tag at some point, though this point shouldn't be the priority. As for why this question was migrated back,  I can't tell for sure, neither would I attempt to. :) Perhaps Mods here or other users can guess.


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When you get an answer and you found out that your problem was different but the given answer would fix the stated problem
So I asked a question on fixing a boot loop on my nexus 7. I was given an answer that would fix my problem, but I found out that my problem was different then I stated in my question.  However the answer did give a correct answer for my question. So what do I do? Remove the question or hit correct answer on the person who answered?

First thing to ensure is that you don't edit the question to alter its meaning.  Invalidating answers like that is discouraged.  (If you hadn't had any answers, it would be fine.)
It's up to you whether to accept the answer, but generally you should only do so if you're in a position to verify that it works.  If your problem is different, that might not be possible.
If you think the "real" problem and solution would be useful to others, then consider posting them as a separate Q&A (answering your own questions is encouraged).  You might want to do a brief search first to see if there is an existing question that matches which you could answer instead.

Additionally to posting a new question, I'd suggest to link from there to the original question (and optionally back) for context provided that makes sense – which it usually will, as others might tap into the same trap confusing one issue with the other.


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Closure: 'How can I download directions for public transport (bus, subway) offline?'
Why was my question (whose title I rewrote 2 minutes ago) closed as 'off-topic', when it resembles these others that were resolved by users' suggestions of apps?

This question and answer may be helpful: How do I ask a question that may require recommending a product?

I was one of the close voters.

You were specifically seeking for an app, which is discouraged for reasons mentioned and reproduced

Questions asking us to find or recommend an app, device, ROM, accessory or off-site resource are off-topic for Android Enthusiasts as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam and become obsolete quickly

Asking for a way or means to achieve your aim, is broader and covers  all approaches  to solve ( apps inclusive but  barring programming / ROM modding, etc) .
If the intent of OP is to specifically seek an app based solution, then SE Softwarerecs is the right place. Here it is about posing a problem and asking for solutions, and those who respond may well offer app based solution or something in addition to app . See this question for example. It was also voted for closure but edited by me to make it a non app seeking question and answered  . OP now has a method to help him  involving a hybrid approach of using an app and other means resulting in a win - win outcome for the OP and the site
There are older questions on the site, which seek apps specifically and have not been closed. My guess is that these pre-date the current policy

Related Are questions looking for apps on topic? As in: "I need an app that does XYZ?" or "I want a widget that does ABC"
Edit: To sum up , questions on this site are liable to be closed if they specifically seek app based solutions, whereas solutions can include app based approach

Yes, we definitely got a lot of "offline maps" questions early on in the site.  If any that are still around are off-topic, please flag them and we can close or lock them.


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Should we make a `gboard` tag alias to `google-keyboard` or vice versa?
Recently, I believe Google renamed their keyboard to Gboard.
Should we make a gboard tag and alias it to google-keyboard? Or should we do the opposite?

Would help with confusion. I don't see why not.

I have added the synonym gboard to google-keyboard.  We can reverse the direction later if we find there is confusion.


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Question page has an extra yellow stripe for anonymous visitors
Visiting a question page (any question) without logging in, I see a strange yellow stripe. It does not look like an intended design element.

Seen in Chrome 49 on Windows 7.
If the tour invitation is collapsed, it becomes a message on that yellow background, which makes sense.   It appears that the background is placed prematurely.

I see it too -- Chrome 48.0.2564.116 m, IE 11, Edge 20.10240.16384.0, and Firefox 45.0 on Windows 10.  Safe to say it's not a browser issue :P

I see it here in my Firefox 45.0 on Slackware 14.1 as well. Screenshot: http://i.stack.imgur.com/zHs6J.png

It seems it's the default layout/design. Opening 404's page (e.g. this) also shows the yellow stripe. Whether it's intentional or not, not sure (but agree that looks weird)

Good catch. Not sure where that come from, but I'm pushing a fix now. It should be resolved in our next production build.

Hi Kurtis, is it possible to consider Android.SE chat room to use Material design? The meta post was probably not the best, but the core issue is to update using Material design. The additional feature requests can be considered, but very optional. Thanks!


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No one answered my question for 20 days

I have a question about my Android Enthusiasts Stack Exchange post: My ZTE Z812 is not rebooting when when I press and hold the power button
I have waited 20 days for an answer and I got nothing. No upvotes, no downvotes, only one comment, and 15 views, and need my question answered as soon as possible. why is no one answering my question?

In many cases, not getting an answer is a sign that your question is unclear or missing some crucial information, but I read your question and I don't see anything wrong with it.
In your case it could just be a sign that your problem is not a common one and your phone is not very popular - I don't think any of our regular chat visitors have a ZTE phone. In that case it might be a while before your question is seen by someone with enough experience of this phone to have seen a similar problem.
I've added a relevant tag to help your question be found in search, but you can also help by sharing your question on any ZTE owners' forums you know of.

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


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Which site is suitable for asking questions regarding the Kindle platform?
Is there any suitable place where I can ask question like why my Kindle is not charging, etc? I have a question regarding the Kindle, but can't guess the right place to ask.

We have a site in the network dedicated to ebooks, Ebooks Stack Exchange. Kindle even is their most popular tag. Their Help Center says you can ask questions like

My [ereader or electronic device] isn't working because [specific problem]; how can I fix it?

which seems to fit your problem.

So question like Why my kindle is not charging are accepted in Ebooks Stack Exchange? Plus shouldn't it be a website like where one can ask question about e books of kindle and not about working of kindle?

@JitendraSingh It's still your best shot; their Help Center seems to indicate such a question can be asked there (with more details, of course).

In addition to Glorfindel's answer, Android-based Kindle devices are also on-topic on Android.SE.
We have some tags related to Kindle devices:

amazon-kindle
amazon-kindle-fire
amazon-kindle-fire-hd

My personal observation regarding Ebooks Stack Exchange, while there was a discussion about Should Kindle Fire questions not about reading ebooks be off-topic? with the answer, "yes, they are off-topic", recent questions unrelated to e-books per-se seem to be left opened and answered.

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


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Which site is suitable for asking questions regarding Lenovo tablets
We do have a tag on Android.SE for tablet.
Are questions regarding Lenovo tablets suitable on Android.SE, or on any other Stack Exchange Network site?
I want to ask something regarding my tab getting hold frequently.

So long as you don't ask us how to repair the hardware or how to load a non-Android OS on it, we would take questions for tablets (irrespective of the vendor) on which Android runs. It is better if you edit and add your actual question so that we can advise suitably.

@Firelord edited

It depends on the OS and the nature of the question.
As far as I know, Lenovo tablets are packaged with either Android, Windows, or Chrome OS.
To put it simply:

If it's about doing something about the Android OS, then it's mostly on-topic here.
Else, if it's about operating Windows, installing *nix-based OS, etc., then it's highly possibly off-topic (try other sister sites like Super User, Unix & Linux, Ask Ubuntu, etc.)

If it is about like my tab gets hold frequently and I want to ask about it then on which platform it would suit?

@JitendraSingh Sorry, I'm not familiar with the term "gets hold frequently", could you edit and provide an example of the complete question on this meta's question?

whenever i switch on the wifi in my tab and open apps the apps get stuck and do not respond. Even I am not able to go to home screen forcefully I have to switch off the wifi and then the tablet gets okay. How to make it such that my tablet doesn't gets stuck when wifi is turned on is my question