text:
2023: a year in moderation

It’s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here might be 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 — folks like you. 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 in ensuring Stack Exchange sites remain a valuable source of high-quality content on the web.
So as we say goodbye to 2023 (and January 2024… ahem) and move into 2024, 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 Arduino over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community User¹
Community²

All comments on a post moved to chat
7
0
0

Answer flags handled
306
31
0

Answers flagged
12
158
164

Bounties canceled
0
0
0

Comment flags handled
65
7
2

Comments deleted⁸
536
1
572

Comments flagged
0
0
74

Comments undeleted
15
0
0

Escalations to the Community Manager team
2
0
0

Posts bumped
0
770
0

Posts deleted⁷
486
1,053
293

Posts locked
2
24
0

Posts undeleted
16
0
30

Posts unlocked
0
3
0

Question flags handled⁶
32
148
6

Questions closed
258
474
0

Questions flagged⁶
1
5
168

Questions merged
1
0
0

Questions migrated
11
0
0

Questions protected
3
13
0

Questions reopened
19
3
0

Questions unprotected
0
0
0

Revisions redacted
0
0
0

Tag highlight language set
0
0
0

Tag synonyms created
1
0
0

Tag synonyms proposed
1
0
0

Tags merged
1
0
0

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Close votes" queue
1
0
426

Tasks reviewed⁵: "First answers" queue
0
0
636

Tasks reviewed⁵: "First questions" queue
0
0
1,449

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Late answers" queue
0
0
286

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Low quality posts" queue
0
0
334

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Reopen votes" queue
2
0
94

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Suggested edits" queue
49
32
560

Tasks reviewed⁵: "Triage" queue
0
0
0

User banned from review
0
0
0

User review-bans lifted early
0
0
0

User suspensions lifted early
0
0
0

Users contacted
6
0
0

Users deleted
0
0
0

Users destroyed⁴
44
0
0

Users suspended³
1
38
0

Footnotes
¹ This refers to the automated systems otherwise known as user #-1.
² This refers to the membership of Arduino without diamonds next to their names.
³ 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.
⁴ 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.
⁵ 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.
⁶ Includes close flags (but not close or reopen votes). The community² can handle these flags by at least one person voting to close a question that has a close flag.
⁷ This ignores numerous deletions that happen automatically in response to some other action.
⁸ 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: 2022: 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

Wishing everyone a happy 2024! ^_^


text:
2021: 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 preceding calendar year.
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 say goodbye to 2021, 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 Arduino over the past 12 months:

Action
Moderators
Community¹

Users suspended²
2
13

Users destroyed³
24
0

Users deleted
1
0

Users contacted
6
0

User banned from review
1
0

Tasks reviewed⁴: Suggested Edit queue
65
621

Tasks reviewed⁴: Reopen Vote queue
28
223

Tasks reviewed⁴: Low Quality Posts queue
1
478

Tasks reviewed⁴: Late Answer queue
12
340

Tasks reviewed⁴: First questions queue
1
491

Tasks reviewed⁴: First Post queue
0
1,521

Tasks reviewed⁴: First answers queue
2
182

Tasks reviewed⁴: Close Votes queue
18
1,325

Revisions redacted
5
0

Questions reopened
35
9

Questions protected
22
19

Questions migrated
35
0

Questions merged
1
0

Questions flagged⁵
21
180

Questions closed
1,052
225

Question flags handled⁵
102
89

Posts unlocked
4
8

Posts undeleted
14
45

Posts locked
4
46

Posts deleted⁶
403
2,547

Posts bumped
0
2,023

Comments undeleted
43
0

Comments flagged
0
93

Comments deleted⁷
1,057
1,072

Comment flags handled
79
14

Answers flagged
6
486

Answer flags handled
424
68

All comments on a post moved to chat
26
0

Footnotes
¹ "Community" here refers both to the membership of Arduino 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: 2020: 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

Wishing everyone a happy 2022! ^_^

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Vale Robert Patterson (Crossroads)
It is with sadness that I inform everyone that Robert Patterson (known here, and on the Arduino Forum, as Crossroads) died on 17 November 2021 after a short illness. His obituary is here.
Bob was a very prolific contributor to the Arduino Forum, where he was a moderator, making 47,600+ posts.
Bob also joined Arduino Stack Exchange in February 2018, where he answered a few hundred questions.
Bob was keen on electronics, producing boards for the Arduino and other devices. His site was http://www.crossroadsfencing.com/.
In collaboration with his wife Kathy he wrote a book Arduino for teens.
He was also interested in fencing (with swords, not making fences) and aviation. He obtained his private pilot's licence and purchased his own aircraft, eventually getting an instrument rating.
His contributions to both Arduino Forum and Arduino Stack Exchange were invariably to help people with their electronics problems and suggest solutions. He will be sorely missed.

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


text:
I answer a question, and then the OP deletes the question. Grrr

I saw a question about an hour ago, it looked reasonable. It was about passing an array of values to a function. I answered it, it took 10 or 15 minutes, including making up some example code.
Half an hour later I go to check on whether I made any typos, but couldn't find any history of the question at all! Not even in the "moderator tools" list of deleted questions (ie. "recently deleted").

It wasn't listed in my "all actions":

I was starting to doubt my sanity at this point. I'm sure I answered it! I even have the code in my IDE:
class myClass {
  const int num_;
  const int * values_;

  public:

  // constructor
  myClass (const int num, const int * values) : num_ (num), values_ (values) { }

  // other stuff here

  // demo
  void printThem ();
};  // end of class myClass

void myClass::printThem ()
  {
  for (int i = 0; i < num_; i++)
    Serial.println (values_ [i]);
  } // end of myClass::printThem

const int NUMBER_OF_VALUES = 6;
const int myValues [NUMBER_OF_VALUES] = { 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77 };

// make an instance of the class with the wanted values
myClass foo (NUMBER_OF_VALUES, myValues);

void setup ()
  {
  Serial.begin (115200);
  Serial.println ();

  foo.printThem ();
  }  // end of setup

void loop ()
  {

  }  // end of loop

So, did I dream it? Did I answer a question that came to me in a vision?
I couldn't find any trace of it, until I remembered the browser history:

There it was! The question did exist. Clicking on that link in the browser history revealed the question:

And my answer:

Now I'm pretty pissed off. I've seen this sort of behaviour before on other sites, but I thought StackExchange was supposed to be a knowledge base of good questions and good answers. Not to get an answer and then delete the question and the answer.

So what's my question?

Is this acceptable behaviour?
How do you deal with people that ask a question, wait for you to answer it, and then delete the question?
Why is the answer not listed in "all actions"? I did an action. I answered a question. I expect that to be listed.
How can they even delete the answer as well? On the Arduino forum, if you delete your question the answer still stays there, and then a moderator tells the person not to do that again.

Moderators: Please undelete the question, undelete the answer, protect the question from further deletion, and have a word with the OP.

Another example of OPs vandalising their own questions, nRF24L01+ Arduino mpu6050 [closed]

I recently had this happen to me after I had spent a good bit of time trying to write a quality answer that should have been helpful to other users with the same question in the future: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/q/43345. After finding that my answer solved their problem, the author deleted the question. This is the sort of behavior I have come to expect from the average Arduino beginner but the sad thing is that the user who did this is rated in the "top 2%" of Arduino Stack Exchange users.

I have undeleted that question. I can't see a valid reason for deleting it.

Is this acceptable behaviour?

Yes and no. If there was a reason for deletion, it may be OK. However, there doesn't seem to be any reason the OP would delete. Otherwise, I'd say no. It's really dependent on the situation.

How do you deal with people that ask a question, wait for you to answer it, and then delete the question?

Flag it for moderator attention.

Why is the answer not listed in "all actions"? I did an action. I answered a question. I expect that to be listed.

Deleted posts aren't listed in that section.

How can they even delete the answer as well? On the Arduino forum, if you delete your question the answer still stays there, and then a moderator tells the person not to do that again.

We're not the Arduino forum, so there's that.
The OP can delete a question if it has only one answer with no upvotes (in this case they could delete)

For now, I've undeleted the question/answer and left a comment to ensure that there isn't some lingering reason the OP wants the question deleted.

Thanks for that, however the fact that I had to hunt down the link in my browser history shows it would be easy to "get away with" asking a question, getting a good answer, and then deleting both the question and the answer. The rule that he can delete a question if it has only one answer with no upvotes lets him get away with this concept of treating StackExchange as a method of getting free, private consulting. I suggest there should be a time interval before he can do this - so other people can at least view the question/answer and perhaps upvote the answer.

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


text:
How to avoid having my posts flagged as spam or self-promotion?
How do I make references to my own products (eg. circuit boards) or libraries, without having my post flagged as spam or self-promotion?

Disclose affiliation

The link or mention should be relevant to the question

You must disclose your affiliation. For example: "My web site xyz.com sells boards that do what you want".

Links to external sites are OK
See How do I write a good answer?:

Provide context for links

Links to external resources are encouraged, but please add context around the link so your fellow users will have some idea what it is and why it’s there. Always quote the most relevant part of an important link, in case the target site is unreachable or goes permanently offline.

Note that answers should be, as far as practical, self-contained. An answer that just has a link in it will be useless if the target site goes down, possibly permanently.
Stack Exchange is supposed to be a site with answers to questions. Not links to answers to questions.
In some cases (eg. libraries) this may be impractical. In that case hosting your library on a site that is likely to be around indefinitely (like GitHub) is preferable.

Avoid overt self-promotion
See How to not be a spammer

Don't talk about your product / website / book / job too much. Folks will read your answers for their ability to solve a specific problem; if you're good at doing that, then they'll find themselves more interested in who you are and what you're working on. If you respond only to questions where the answer can be something you're selling, they'll assume you're just here to sell.

Don't include links except to support what you've written. Links are not a substitute for including information in your answer itself, and links should always be directly relevant to a part of your answer.

In other words, if every post you make references your web site, and your web site is selling something, or is full of ads, people will think you are only here to drive traffic to your site. Avoid that by making most of your answers stand alone, and only refer to your own site where this is directly relevant.

Avoid appearing to force people to pay for your answer
If you answer a question, and the answer includes a library, and you link to that library (and it is required to implement the answer) then the library must be freely available, and not hidden behind a paywall or requirement to divulge personal information like an email address.
If you solicit a donation for downloading the library, then it must be made clear that the donation is not required. For example: "Enter a donation amount of $0 if you do not wish to donate".

How to solicit donations
On your own website, preferably separate attempts to make money from the information on your personal site. For example, have a separate "Donate" button (eg. using PayPal) which is not required to be used before downloading your library. Or suggest people support you on Patreon or other similar sites.
Of course, you can run your own web site as you see fit. But links from Stack Exchange to a site that does not follow these guidelines may be flagged as self-promotion or spam.


text:
Are we in our own special time zone?
I thought SE measured time in UTC, but I just got notified that I had earned the "A New Hope" hat whose criteria are described as "ask, answer, or vote on December 18th" – as I write this UTC is 15:48 on Thursday, December 17, 2015.

In case you haven't seen it yet, balpha addressed this on the network meta. From there:

Leeway on date-based hats
Unless the requirement mentions a specific timezone, hats that are date-based are often awarded for 14 hours before and 12 hours after the specified date in UTC, to accomodate people everywhere in the world. This means you can earn such a hat even though for you it's not even that day yet.

Example: The hat Living in a Box is awarded for voting to close a question on December 26th. To earn this hat, you have to cast a close vote between 12/25 at 10:00 UTC and 12/27 at 12:00 UTC.

In other words, you got the hat because you voted or posted when it was December 18th somewhere in the world.

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


text:
Is "Have you Googled it?" an appropriate response?
I have seen many comments and answers by members here to the effect of "have you tried Googling it". Sometimes it is meant genuinely, but sometimes I get a condescending or snarky vibe from it. Is this really appropriate for this community?

I am going to post my own thoughts here but I am interested to hear what others have to say as well.
Per Betteridge, my answer is no.
Up until very recently my feelings toward this issue were somewhat ambivalent. I don't think telling someone to google something is particularly productive, but at the same time I think people really should be using Google as a first step. However, I recently gained a different perspective on this after reading a comment from Joel Spolsky (Stack Overflow co-founder and CEO) about how one key contributors to successfully building a community was "using Google as the front page".
So looking at this from a community building perspective, the goal is not whether or not the question has been answered on the internet in general, but whether or not Arduino.SE has provided an answer. If you can google for an issue and Arduino.SE isn't one of the top results for that issue, it means you have identified a gap in the knowledge base here. Try to answer the question as best you can (and perhaps even canonically if the circumstance allows) and suggest improvements to the question as needed so that the question and answer together becomes something that is googleable.
For example, the most recent example of this is this answer here. (Please note this is not meant to be an attack on the person who provided it, in fact I think this person is a great contributor to this community, I just need a reference to illustrate a point.) In this answer, the asker is being directed to another site, a site that (in my opinion) has a terrible user experience (poor layout, content spread across several pages, etc.) that has very little chance of being a good resource for future visitors. We need to be building meaningful content on this site, not sending people to other sites.

The reply by Jake C is very interesting. Perhaps the user came here because of Google. I think a milder response is usually in order. Something along the lines of:

So you want to make your ATtiny85 have a USB interface? I found quite a few pages about this when doing a search, such as this one.

That is hinting that using Google may help (if the user hadn't already) but is not particularly condescending.

I like that example in general, however, it does seem to drift toward a link only answer...

You might want to add a note to your answer that this should be a comment, not an answer (cc @JakeC).

I think in all cases where Google helps provide an answer, the at least the gist of that answer should be rewritten in the post so that it actually brings something. Also links may come and go and in one year, a link-only answer may just become irrelevant!


text:
Lots of views in one day
I noticed that this question (Burning Arduinos one after another) got almost 4K views in one day. That seems odd since the average on arduino.se seems to be about 25 (guestimate). Is this view count correct?

It was probably a HNQ (Hot Network Question) - see the side bar that appears on everyone's page. If the question looks interesting it will draw in a lot of views. I can even imagine that the title "Burning Arduinos one after another" might have got people interested.

I didn't think of that. That makes sense.


text:
Comments deleted on a closed question
I noticed that some of my comments on a question of mine were deleted.
These comments were answering (now also deleted) comments by someone who asked me about why I thought that the question is on-topic.
Is there a good reason why my comments were deleted?

I am sorry. I deleted the comments before the question was closed. I thought you convinced jsotola that the question is on topic and I didn't expect other members would think the question is off topic.
It is normal to delete obsolete comments, because purpose of comments on SE posts is to clarify things and then the comments should be removed.
The question is on topic of course. Fritzing is a tool used in Arduino world.
To answer the question, I asked one more clarification in a comment 2 days ago, but you were distracted by the off topic discussion.

Hm, after my question was re-opened ~ 2 weeks ago, it was closed again today (with reason: 'off-topic'). I remember that you left a comment there some time ago telling close-voters to consider the question as on-topic. But this comment was removed, in the meantime. Perhaps you are somebody else considered that comment as obsolete. But given the fact that the question was closed again, perhaps it wasn't obsolete after all.

@maxschlepzig, I can't write an answer on Arduino SE about bug in a Fritzing component. We found the problem and it is not an Arduino based problem.

Well, usually the question itself determines whether it's on-topic or not. Not its possible answer. Answering it with: no, it's not a feature/misuse of fritzing but a bug in the component would be a valid answer btw. Funny how my question was first closed than re-opened and now closed again while it didn't change. Perhaps  the Feel free to ask about anything related to Arduino. sentence doesn't really reflect reality.

@maxschlepzig, Using Fritzing is on topic. Fixing Fritzing is not. Even fixing some Arduino IDE bug is not on topic.

Couldn't disagree more. Imagine a stackoverflow question inquiring about some GCC behavior. Someone knows that the behavior is due to a GCC bug - and instead of just answering along the lines of 'the behavior you observe is caused by this bug, cf. link/bug number/etc.' that someone votes to close that question. Because it's a bug, you see. Since stackoverflow isn't about fixing bugs etc. This would be quite out of space.


text:
Community Promotion ad on Raspberry Pi SE
Greetings which I hope make it past the remove greetings bot ;)   Yes, this is much the same post as the one I just put up at IoT.SE Meta, almost.
I added the Arduino.SE community promotion ad used in years past at https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/ to the new (2019) selection page there; they must be renewed annually.
That one is totally fine, but if anyone thinks they have a better one, post it here and I will replace it (rather than having competing ads for the same site).  Be sure you understand the requirements for the image first, they are in the question on the RPi Meta page linked above.
Also, if you are a voting member at RPi.SE, please upvote the ad, since they must reach a threshold in order to appear. The specific "answer" is here.

The Arduino promotion ad should be posted on the Arduino Meta page - not the Raspberry Pi page. https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2561/19409

No.  What's the point of promoting a site on its own page?  There's already a banner at the top.  Anyway, it is totally normative practice to do both (promote the local exchange as well as related ones).  In fact, it's totally normal to promote non-SE sites if enough people vote the ad as appropriate.  E.g., Rpi has usually had a link to the foundation's github page, on U&L you'll find community ads for various linux distros, etc.  The SO version is even explicitly about ads for open source software: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/379273/open-source-advertising-1h-2019

Thanks for the clarification.


text:
Can I ask about "Blynk" in Arduino?
Can I ask questions related to Blynk in Arduino?
Blynk is an App that allows comunication between A Phone,Tablet and etc. with Arduinos and etc. Using USB or Internet (Ethernet Shield, Wifi Module and so on).

It might be easier just to ask the question :)

@Visual Micro I wanted to ask, So my Question didn't get flagged as Off-Topic by someone

The Arduino libraries and using them for sure can be asked about since they're part of the extended Arduino ecosystem.
However, I do not find these things on topic:

Using the online parts of Blynk (how to get authentication codes, password reset, dashboard-ish stuff, etc.).
The app builder (that's really not Arduino).
General history/information about the Blynk project (Kickstarter/funding info, generic support, etc.).

Using Blynk doesn't make it off topic, but we have to stay on the topic of Arduino here. Python scripts that connect to Arduino are not on topic (except in very few cases where it's messing with low level USB functions or drivers). As usual, exceptions should and will be handled on a case-by-case basis by the people voting to close/reopen.


text:
How to earn the Vox Populi badge,
The Vox Populi badge is described as :"Use the maximum 40 votes in a day".
However I tried to get this one a couple of times now and I never got to more than 31 votes. Then I get the message "You have used all your votes for today".
It looks like a bug to me or there should be a requirement to have "XX question votes up/down votes" or a rep of ZZ to get to 40 votes?
As to the "usefulness of the badge"
Well ... how useful are the badges anyway :-s.
I see a benefit in "appreciating other peoples effort" by upvoting answers and questions (and somehow in downvoting as well). After all this is a questions and answers site and not a discussion forum.
For those willing to give it a try. It is quite some work to find 40 questions/answers worthy to upvote in a day.

You need to only vote 40 questions (not answers) within one UTC day.

Och ok. Thanks for the clarification. With the current quality of questions this badge is not an option for me.

Downvotes count as part of the 40.

40 Downvotes is not an option for me.

You have 30 votes per day. This is the limit.
And in addition to that, you get an extra 10 votes on questions. Read this blog post to find out why.

You can vote 30 times per UTC day. You get an additional 10 votes on questions only.

I stumbled accross this little detail at the down votes privilege help page. So if you can only vote 31 times, try if you still can vote on questions.

Thanks for the answer.
I won't go through the trouble of testing and then see it is undone again :-(

Just don't vote on a single user more than 2-3 times. You can go through the hottest questions for instance and vote on posts you like with at least 25% votes on questions.

I should warn you that if you up-vote too many answers in a day (particularly made by the one person) the system thinks you are vote-rigging and reverses the votes. I don't know the limit, but I suggest that you don't just find a single user you like and up-vote 40 of their answers. Or even two users.

how useful are the badges anyway ...

I think they are just to encourage you to do things you might not otherwise bother with, like editing questions or answers to make them better.

Also see What are the limits on how I can cast, change, and retract votes?

Just out of interest, I got -170 rep yesterday for the reason "Serial voting was reversed". :)

That was probably a result of my actions :-(
I thin I'll just forget about stack exchange. We are not compatible.

No real harm done. I'm just back to where I started two days ago. As for the Vox Populi badge, it sounds like one of the harder ones to get because of all the voting rules. They are designed to stop voting abuse, but can be frustrating for genuine users.

I spend a couple of days reading questions and answers to vote for good ones (not only your answers but based on author because it is easy and because some authors just give better answers).
It seems that stackexchange does not appreciated my effort and reversed my work. So I'm not happy.


text:
What is the process for deleting/merging duplicate tags?
What is the general procedure for deleting or merging tags that are duplicates/synonyms of other tags?
As I understand, unused tags will get deleted automatically after a period of time.
Where tags should be merged, is there a process where the less established tags get migrated over to the more established tag?

See What are tag synonyms and merged tags? How do they work?
Users with more than 1250 reputation and a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms. Users with a total answer score (total upvotes minus total downvotes) of 5 or more on the tag, can vote for tag synonyms. Suggestions will be automatically approved when they reach a score of 4, and automatically deleted when they reach a score of -2.
Moderators can merge synonyms into the parent tag.

Although this question is answered I found this post on meta.stackoverflow that is also useful. (Credit to Kedarnath)

One way to remove tag is just remove the duplicate tag from all the tagged question (and even replace it with the appropriate tag). After 24 hours all non-used zombie tags get deleted by system.
How can we get rid of misspelled and unused (or “zombie”) tags?
Another way is to post the question on meta and request for the particular tag to be merged or deleted. Moderator/developer will merge/remove it.


text:
Voting to close a question, within a question, does not count towards your review total
Today I realized that if I am in a question and I vote to close it, for whatever reason (and I am not the first person to vote to close the question), it doesn't count towards my review count. That means that those close votes don't go towards your Custodian/Reviewer/Steward badge count.
In order for it to count towards your tally, the vote to close has to be from within the Close Votes within the review dashboard.
Is this correct or should it be changed?
It seems to me that peoples effort, to close bad posts as they see them, goes unrewarded. These peoples effort should not be disregarded.
Note: I am sure this is not isolated to Arduino and happens on all SE sites. I have searched SE meta but to no avail.

I'm still a little confused by "if I am in a question and I vote to close it" but I take it you mean arriving at the question from outside of a review queue.
If so, then yes, this is correct, and you're right, this is network-wide behavior. The intent of the Custodian, Reviewer and Steward badges is first to increase awareness that the review queues exist, and then encourage people to spend time there/reward those who choose to give back to the community in that particular way. They're not so much about the specific actions one can take from the queues, although there are other badges that cover some of those, like Vox Populi and Copy Editor.
The absence of a badge for closing questions is by design; it would result in many spurious close votes from people just trying to get shiny pieces of virtual metal. Closing questions isn't a primary feature here anyways; it's just something that was invented to assist in keeping things tidy while we work on the real goal: making the Internet a better place through Q&A.

wrote "I take it you mean arriving at the question from outside of a review queue." - Correct.


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Extra tag that would be great if were included
I have recently posted about using a 2-Wire speaker with Arduino Esplora, however I couldn't tag it correctly because there was no arduino-esplora tag. The Esplora tag would be very useful in case anyone posts about an Arduino Esplora, and anyone looking to answer questions about the Arduino Esplora. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

It seems that an "Arduino-esplora" and "Esplora" tag have been made today. I believe that completes your question. You should accept @NickGammon's answer since it's also right (and the question is resolved).

A tag should be created (from scratch) if you use it. It doesn't have to exist in advance.

It doesn't have to exist in advance. You need 150 rep for that, though. The OP only has 28.


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What should the chat room be called?
To make the chat room interesting both for visitors of Arduino.SE as well as other users within the Stack Exchange network, I think the chat room should be renamed.
The (new) name should be something related to Arduino which any enthusiast would understand. It could be something esoteric or something based on popular culture.
This would help in attracting users from the Network to the room, as every time a new post is made, the room goes on the active tab of Chat.SE, where it may  get a fair bit of attention, if it looks interesting.
So, what should be the new name of the chat room?
Also, what should be the room description that goes with it?
Copied from my post on PP.SE

A couple I thought of off the top of my head:

Pin 13

Pin 13 is a symbolic pin, mostly because it is the first pin ever used. You did want to be friendly to new users and attract them.

#define HIGH LOW

Good luck debugging!!!

digitalWrite(13, MEDIUM);

Who said that we had to have rules in the chat? :)

Some bad ideas:
What we shouldn't do.

Hacker's __

Arduino users are more than hackers only. We are artists, designers, hackers, hobbyists (like me!), and more.

If this post didn't help, at least we established that I should not be put in charge of naming anything. However, the point about "hacker" in the name (or any other name that suggests geekyness) should be avoided at all costs is pretty important. Sure we are geeks, but the whole Arduino community is a lot more.

I kinda like pin 13

I think 'Blink!' sounds nice as well.

You should make these separate posts so we can vote on them!

@AsheeshR If we call it Blink, people might think we're a Doctor Who fan group. :) (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)

I have chat admin for that room so I renamed it Pin 13 and made the description a little better.

How about something named after the Serial library? E.g.:
Serial.begin

Putting it without the parameter list seems a little nicer.
Or something a little more on-the-nose:
Serial.print("chat");

It's the kind of thing that any Arduino user is likely to recognise, but it's also not totally alien to anybody else who's done any programming. Admittedly, it's maybe less likely to hook EE folks though.

How about Serial.begin(chat)?


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Tracking Area 51 site stats. How are we doing?
Area 51 provides a snapshot of site stats averaged over a two week period. How are our stats changing and progressing over time?

Moderators have aggregated analytics available to them via the mod tools. Such data is not available to users. The Area 51 page provides the data at the current time instant but does not show the trend over time. Are the numbers going up or down? By how much?
This post attempts to keep track of the data at different times, thereby providing a general idea of the site's growth. See similar efforts going on at other sites:

https://productivity.meta.stackexchange.com/q/210/4252
https://sustainability.meta.stackexchange.com/q/56
https://martialarts.meta.stackexchange.com/q/316

The point of this post is not to compare us to any other site, and nor to provide an analysis of the numbers (for now). It is too early to start analysing numbers.

A better question would be: how could we improve the current situation which is not very good regarding the number of questions daily (which seems even lower currently, I would say 3 questions/day the past few days)?

Feel free to update this post every 2-3 weeks. Do not remove any of the earlier images.
22 Days

(Full Sized Photo Here)
48 Days

(Full Sized Photo Here)
102 Days

Why did you make two different answers?

Merging both posts may not ease time comparison (that would be mixing graphs)

@Ricardo Thanks for this. I have been told that a few times over the past 3-4 years, but I find it somewhat hard to internalize.

No problem! But it's really up to you. The alternative (that you seem to prefer) is to just get the job done and let your reputation speak for itself :) That's even better. So relax and be yourself.

Feel free to update this post every 2-3 weeks.
CSV Table

Day  Questions/Day  AnswerPercentage  TotalUsers  UsersWith200Rep  AnswerRatio  Visits/Day
 22            5.1                95         504               33          2.3         240
 48            5.2                94         878               67          2.2         403
102            5.9                89        1565               55          1.9         577
144            4.9                87        2025               60          1.9         981

Note: UsersWith200Rep is the estimated value, on days 30-90.

Huh, interesting idea... I may log this data (scrap it from the A51 page) so it's easier to keep track of.

@hichris123 How about maintaining it on Github with code (and here)? That way it can be available to everybody. Once we have enough data points, we can add plots to the repo (and here) as well.

Good idea; I can post the code... how do we add plots to the repo?

@hichris I will handle that part. We will need a few data points before we can do that.


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What are some interesting feeds for the chat room?
Chat rooms allow setting up RSS feeds which show up in the room as chat messages or in a ticker (overlay). I think setting up feeds from interesting sources would help towards generating interest in the room and create topics to discuss.
As far how many feeds to set up is concerned, I think there should be atmost 2-3 offsite blogs or sources added.
So, what are some interesting feeds that we could set up in the chat room?

Active Feeds

Main site new questions (ticker)
Meta site active questions (chat)

The Arduino Twitter feed.
They have a lot of interesting blog posts (from many sites including their own). They seem to only post a few times a day, so we wouldn't be overwhelmed with posts. However, I would still recommend using a ticker, especially for Arduino Day 2014, where there will probably be a lot more tweets during that event.
How do we get a feed into our site?
First of all, any moderator from any site can edit the feeds as a ticker or a chat message. (Ticker: dismissible banner at the top of the screen, chat message isn't deletable and is in the main section of the chat window.)
The harder part is getting a Twitter RSS feed. Don't worry, I've got ideas. RSS 4 Twitter is ran on open source software and donations, and is free. So far, it only works for users, not hashtags. Still, we can get the Arduino RSS feed (link to RSS data, not to Twitter). There's no account involved, so it's no big deal to add it into the chat room. The owners claim it is updated every 90 minutes, which may be a lot if you are subscribed to Arduino already, but it's better than nothing, and is the only way to get a RSS feed for the Arduino blog.


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Vote Early, Vote Often!
This is an observation based on mine and others' experiences across Stack Exchange.
We should vote positively as often as possible! Also, we should encourage others to do the same!
Every Stack Exchange site will eventually end up with a different "base level" of voting --- that is, the expected number of upvotes for a question of a given level of excellence. (This effect occurs because people see a good question, but already with a certain number of votes, and think "oh, I would have upvoted this, but it already has enough".)
It's easy for us to affect this "base level" by encouraging high levels of upvoting now. We're setting the standards, and this really will have an effect.
The rationale for wanting the base level to be high is:

It provides better positive feedback to good contributors.
This generates more reputation in the system, allowing more users to contribute in more ways as they gain privileges across the site.
More reputation also means there is more rep to go around i.e. bounties. These are very good for the site in general, as bounties lead to the generation of even better content.

However, this does not mean that you simply upvote everything you see.

And an important 4th point is that it would help raise the chances of the beta to succeed, as the current number of site users with high reputation is still very low.

I was just wondering about the same topic yesterday. Although generally (on other SE sites), I only vote for questions and answers that I find relevant and useful to ME, I decided to broaden my view and upvote what I judge relevant or useful to someone else.

@jfpoilpret - I went through the same thought process and ended up at the same conclusion. So, I think the broader interpretation is the correct one - upvote the questions and answers that are good quality and belong in your site. Then you are encouraging people to keep up the good work.


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What should we do for Arduino Day 2014?
From the official Arduino site:

Arduino Day is a worldwide celebration of Arduino’s first 10 years. It's 24 hours full of events – both official and independent, anywhere around the world – where people interested in Arduino can meet, share their experiences, and learn more.
Who can participate?
Arduino invites all Arduino user groups, makerspaces, hackerspaces, fablabs, associations, teachers, pros, and newbies to participate. Let’s make this the biggest birthday party yet!

Arduino Day is on the 29th of March. What can we do to join in on the worldwide event?

possible duplicate of Project Showcase '14 is coming to Arduino Stack Exchange! (Updated 3/19/14)

Project Showoff Day/Week!

Arduino hackers are almost always working on creating something interesting. Lets have an event inviting users to post pictures and descriptions of their coolest  projects, and we could drool over discuss them.
To participate, the user must post:

Atleast one picture (necessary)
Video link on Youtube (optional)
Aim of the project
Basic breakdown of components
Short description or video^ of working

The projects can be anything but must utilise an Arduino board.

This could be done on either main, meta or chat. After a discussion with Peter, we are leaning towards holding this on a single question on main.
The timeline could also be longer, encompassing a week starting from 23th and culminating on 29th.

Having discussed this on chat, I think it sounds like a good idea. It would hopefully be a good way to encourage new folks to sign up and post their projects.

I don't really know about the must utilise an Arduino board. It might be better to say it must use any microcontroller that an official board contains. Size may be an issue with an official board.

ok say I participate and created something original, how would I know that  someone here won't steal my idea? can we have some copyright?

@Fischer http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/225488/200868

Kickoff of the Blog / Project of the month?
This is similar to AsheeshR's answer. With this we might be able to:

Generate new visitors
Gain network-wide attention (possibly)
Generate much quality content (in one post, I know)
Rally excitement for our site from the current users.

It seems like a great way to celebrate Arduino's 10th anniversary.

Partner with Instructibles.com. The people there are CRAZY for the Arduino!


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Could we get a more interesting favicon?
Some SE sites in beta have slightly customized favicons. They are motifs instead of letters, like for example Poker and Chess. I think 'AR' doesn't really relate to the site. Could it be changed to something like this?
Generic Infinity Symbol

or the Official Arduino Community Logo

or the official logo itself (This is trademarked by Arduino)

The minus is on the left

@TheDoctor Thats in the official logo which is trademarked and, as best I understand trademark law, SE cant use it.

I frequently confuse this proposal with the Arkansas.SE proposal. +∞

We might want to add the outline of a board for our logo, but that may be too small. A LED?

You sure can! A new "infinity logo" should be showing up on computers near you soon.

When i first saw the new icon, i thought, Infinity SE??!!?

Why is it black?  Isn't everything Arduino blue?

@AwesomeUser This is the meta site, where pretty much everything is grayscale. It's standard for favicons to be black here. On the main site, the logo is in fact blue (although that's actually because blue is the default color for Stack Exchange beta site logos).

Why didn't I realize that.  I feel stupid now! :p

@AwesomeUser Don't feel stupid! It's a perfectly reasonable thing to think if you're coming in with an Arduino mindset.

I'm a little late to the party here. Perhaps I should have created a new meta discussion.
I was part of the first(?) Arduino.SE closed beta which was eventually merged into EE and SO. This was the favicon I created for that purpose. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If that license is incompatible with what we do here at Arduino.SE, I'll gladly make an exception. For the record, I haven't determined if the 16x16 likeness of the Arduino Uno is actually something I can license.
Three different versions each having consecutively fewer components:

A preview of the first:

Hopefully someone will find these useful.


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Why is Arduino.SE different? [EE.SE redux]
I realize this has been discussed in the Area 51 proposal and in the old site before it died, but I think that it would be a good idea to set this straight on Meta for the future's sake, so we have a strong
What separates Arduino.SE from Electronics.SE?
Some topics I believe might make a difference, and I'd like to hear the community's input specifically regarding these (but about Arduino & EE in general):

Arduino has a more varied audience than EE in general.  As should be well known, Arduino is used by people ranging in career from artist to engineer.  Thus, the answers on this site will be written in a different way than on EE, where more inherent knowledge of EE is expected.
The Arduino platform is a product-line (along with some similar, yet not official, products) and not subject of study.  This is a key difference--some questions that would be categorized as "off topic" as a "shopping question" on EE may be perfectly on-topic here.  (Yet, this is just a guess--I want community input)
Arduino users may have programming issues that are very closely tied to hardware issues.  This fills a void left by EE and SO, as EE doesn't like anything too software related, yet SO doesn't want anything too hardware related.

The varied audience argument is valid (in the context if this site) only when we actually have that audience on the site. At present, the questions don't seem to show that we have artists or designers in the community. Too early to tell, so I may turn out to be wrong.

So, what about compatibles? Are only those which go through the IDE going to be of interest? Of course, that doesn't rule out those that aren't pin-compatible. I couldn't seem to wrap my head around that reading the proposal etc.

Also with various shields, arduPi etc. it's not only about arduino anymore. And to be honest I'm sick of this what is the difference bla bla. If you say no difference they close all questions as off-topic, if you say there is a diffrence then they say no we have already XXXX.SE maybe they should once make up their minds.

Is Intel Galileo on topic?

As our site thrives, there will be a lot of Arduino questions that are now barely accepted on EE.SE that will be migrated here. All of them will, I'm sure. A few stray Arduino programming questions from SO should be migrated as well. That will be great because that's where their home is.
To prepare for that, we need to make sure that our scope is not as strict as of those other sites. In particular, I think we should make our scope as broad as possible: everything related to Arduinos should be allowed in here. That includes:

Boards: official, compatible, almost compatible, attempted to be compatible, one-off boards that I designed and etched at home, incomplete or failed attempts of boards, whatever Arduino-like boards.
IDE: official, semi-official, underground, whatever.
Shopping recommendations: as the OP said well, Arduino is a line of products. Some open-source hardware, some not so much. All these should be welcome here.
What else?

Someone coming from EE.SE may think this is too radical. But we can make this site the way we want.
I don't see why we shouldn't allow questions about some obscure board or IDE in here, or shopping questions. That's what Arduinos are all about: diversity, trial and error.
I usually see arbitrary restrictions in scope as reasons for closing questions that some users don't know or don't like to answer. That goes against the freedom I think we should have here.
That doesn't mean we won't worry about the quality of questions and answers. We should be strict without being mean. We should educate, but not be harsh. But that's topic for another question.
In any case, we should also try and educate instead of censoring. If someone asks a poor quality question, editors should educate these users on how to ask better questions. The editors should try and improve the questions instead of quickly closing them. So, we should avoid closing questions as much as possible. We should try and improve the questions. And having the broadest possible scope will be really important to achieve those goals.

Please do be careful about migrating questions from the other sites - the threshold should really be not that a question can fit here, but rather that it does not fit there.

This is now becoming a very serious problem.  The incumbant curmudgeons of EESE use the existence of this site as a handy excuse to dump any question which even tangentially mentions "Arduino" - not because it is a better fit here, but simply because they inherently hate questions from beginners.  The result is that questions which belong there end up here, and as a result end up with weak, ill-informed answers with factual errors which often go unchallenged.

I do realize this is an old question, but I finally have a solid answer to this question!
Lately, I've been studying the scope of Arduino SE very closely. The difference between Arduino SE and EE was bothering me. I managed to sum it up in one sentence:

EE is for making electronics, where Arduino is for using electronics (more specifically, Arduino).

EE has closed many questions with the reason that "it's for building electronics, not using them." For example, I've seen a question about using battery packs to power Arduino that was closed. They're trying to build a more professional user base, where here at Arduino we get diverse backgrounds.
There are exceptions both ways for this rule, but it's a general rule. Scope is a really hard thing to master, and IMHO this covers a large part of our scope in one sentence.

This comment from one of the best contributors to EE.SE sums up the attitude of some:

When are the ardweenies finally going to learn they don't belong here until they are ready to learn about the underlying electronics!?

Fair enough. It is often frustrating to answer questions from absolute beginners. I think most beginners now start with Arduino, and actually half of Arduino.SE questions could be accurately characterised as beginner EE.SE questions. So that is where Arduino.SE is different: it is forgiving of beginner questions.
Which brings me to another point of difference. If Arduino.SE is a starting point of many beginners then I don't think we should be too strict with what is and isn't on topic. For example, questions about programming a computer to interface with an Arduino over serial should be welcome.

The problem is that the EESE folks now use the existence of this site as an excuse to dump beginner questions which even tangentially mention Arudino - regardless of the fact that the questions are entirely about "understanding electronics" and not at all about Arduino.

@ChrisStratton yea I've seen that a bit there. I would love to see Arduino.SE expanded to include all kinds of systems like Launchpad, beagle bone, etc. I don't know what it would be called.. "Hobby electronics" isn't right because so many engineers now use these. For example, the undergrad students in my lab and IEEE student branch use Arduinos and other similar devices to make some pretty complicated stuff. Perhaps "macro-electronics'? What do you reckon?

We already have a site which covers all of these topics in a sound technical manner - it is called EESE.  It's merely desperately in need of a change in local management to bring it back inline with the stack exchange mission.  The system isn't designed to support duplication, so the problem isn't the lack of duplication but that one site has been allowed to veer so far off-mission.

EE.SE has a few (and I emphasize 'few') vocal curmudgeons who, while being competent to extremely competent in their specialties, can be intolerant to outright rude if someone rubs them the wrong way. I even had a moderator get his fur up when I pointed that out that there was a (small but noticeable) degree of contentiousness in the group. I'd like to see A.SE not mirror that aspect and kick questions that were kicked to us, back to them. There's no point in starting or aiding a p**sing contest and if - as I'm reading here - [continued...]

... A.SE is trying to attract members, we'll need to keep our boundaries just a little softer and welcome folks who may well become solid contributors if they can just find a home.

The problem with soft boundaries is that the mission then becomes inherently at odds with the structure of the SE system.  It's not designed to support distinct "serious" and "beginner" sites for the same topics.


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When to close a question or to give it a chance?
I was reading this question (Arduino as USB HID) and was surprised that it already had two votes to close as being off-topic only after a few minutes of being asked.
I started discussing with @AsheeshR that although I would agreed that the question is in the frontier of being on/off topic, we should give it a chance as it someone knowledgeable could add facts that could reveal that the question is on-topic.
I just thoght that we are repeating the same mistakes as SE.EE (see my related question there), which sometimes compulsively try to quickly close on-topic questions.
Although putting a question on-hold is a useful quality assurance tool, I think it was misused in this particular example, as putting a question on hold also discourages knowledgeable people from answering it, and I would like very much to know the answer to it even if the answer is just what you are saying (on the windows side).
Instead of voting for closing, the reviewers could have edited or answered the question so that us readers would understand better why the question isn't related to Arduinos and why it's being closed. That would have been much more constructive than voting for closing it.
So, my general question is: Where should we draw the line for closing votes in this particular case?

I won't come as a newbie on a forum and give lessons to the people who built it, but that question, should not be closed because of what it is asking, because what it asks is definitely possible using AVR only code, cf my comment.
I guess I'd need to do a little bit of research on how to guide the OP on actually implementing that, because I guess most of the people doing USB HID devices use the leonardo, not the uno.
The only thing that would be wrong about the question, is how it looks like, and maybe encourage the OP to edit and improve it by giving him time and advices.

In this specific example, I really can't see how this is "on the line". The question is specifically asking how to develop a software layer on Windows to utilize input being sent using the serial connection.

it's actually not, only part 1 of the question is, but part 2 of the question is open to suggestions.

we should give it a chance as it someone knowledgeable could add facts that could reveal that the question is on-topic.
    Yes, there is. But the OP is not interested in trying that out, as is clearly mentioned in the comments.

the OP only said in the comments that he is afraid of flashing using DFU because he may brick his stuff. That's because he does not know he can actually build a cheap ISP board using another arduino to reflash it in case everything gets wrong!

[...]
    A question about Windows APIs would best be answered on Windows development forums. That is not a question for Arduino.SE

though the OP asks whether it's possible to do it using Windows stuff, wouldn't it be the role of an Arduino community to tell him that he actually can do using the Arduino hardware and no windows code? Which would make that an even better solution, as it would be portable!

I explained albeit in few words, as to why the question was off-topic. I do not think this was at all a problem in this case.

I do not agree a question that definitely has an answer should be put on hold for one week in a few minutes after posting. If I could, I'd definitely vote for reopen, and guide the OP to understand what's wrong in his question.
Question closing/holding/rerouting is for keeping the knowledge base sane by keeping track of dupes, moving questions where people might get an answer or delete questions that are offending or just totally un-answerable.
That question applies to non of those cases, it can be answered and is definitely interesting for future readers of the forum.
HTH

All of us here are newbies as far as [Arduino.se] is concerned, and everyone's opinion is welcome. However, I disagree with your answer for reasons mentioned in my post.

I strongly disagree with your post, because you assume that the OP wants to do windows stuff, whereas he only says he prefers to use windows stuff and he's afraid of bricking the arduino doing DFU updates. As a community we shall guide the OP through that to show him that he's wrong and should'nt be afraid! Au contraire, putting his question on hold only shows him that he shall get on the wrong direction and will try to implement some terrible windows hack that is very likely to never work.

Just a note: The bricking concern is very real. It is pretty hard to get hold of Atmega chips and other components depending on where you live. For example, in my city, there is just one shop which keeps Atmegas in stock. Online purchases can take a week or more, as well as, can turn out to be expensive.

the bricking concern is not real. The only way you can brick an AVR is by fooling around the fuses, and reset all the programming fuses, and even that can be solved by using HVSP. Otherwise, you can always reflash a firmware using the ICSP headers and an AVR flasher, whether it is an arduino or an atmel one.

@AsheeshR and zmo - While I agree with zmo, let's cal it quits and agree to disagree? What I think we should learn from this case is that, if there's controversy like in this case, let's give the question and the OP the benefit of the doubt and leave the question open, shall we?

Here's a question I posted on EE.SE 2 days ago  that's a good example of what I'm talking about. Right after I posted it, it quickly got a few votes to close as off-topic. Then a fierce discussion ensued (see comments). In the end, the question was not closed (but still has 3 votes to close), it's got 15 upvotes, and got 1k views in 2 days. It even figured as a hot question of all stacks (continues below...)

So, the question was now considered on-topic, but it ran the risk of being closed by some that quickly vote to close them. I'm not arguing against closing obviously off-topic, shopping recommendations, opinion based questions. Those should be quickly closed. But if there's any doubt as to whether the question is on-topic, specially if it is because the question concerns only programming (or not), let's give the question a chance.

Since we now found somebody more knowledgeable (than me) to argue in favor of that question being on-topic, I'll accept this answer as it agrees more with my beliefs.

Questions that appear to be borderline off-topic should either:

Be edited and improved to be made on-topic (by the OP or any user that understands the problem well)
Be voted to close (put "On Hold")

The first action is preferable of course, but when not possible, we should not  hesitate from voting to close. The entire closing interface was recently redesigned to be far more simpler and easier to understand with greater emphasis on editing and reopening. The current behavior is that the question stays "On Hold" for an initial period of 7 days, during which it can be made clearer, edited and improved; and automatically get pushed into the reopen queue. The "On Hold" status clearly signals that it is a temporary state and can be lifted after improvements
In this specific example, I really can't see how this is "on the line". The question is specifically asking how to develop a software layer on Windows to utilize input being sent using the serial connection.
Lastly, to answer point by point.

we should give it a chance as it someone knowledgeable could add facts that could reveal that the question is on-topic.

Yes, there is. But the OP is not interested in trying that out, as is clearly mentioned in the comments.

Although putting a question on-hold is a useful quality assurance tool, I think it was misused in this particular example, as putting a question on hold also discourages knowledgeable people from answering it, and I would like very much to know the answer to it even if the answer is just what you are saying (on the windows side).

A question about Windows APIs would best be answered on Windows development forums. That is not a question for Arduino.SE

Instead of voting for closing, the reviewers could have edited or answered the question so that us readers would understand better why the question isn't related to Arduinos and why it's being closed. That would have been much more constructive than voting for closing it.

I explained albeit in few words, as to why the question was off-topic. I do not think this was at all a problem in this case.
Moreover, in general, the new help center consists of extremely well-written content accumulated from community-generated posts, which does not necessitate the need for comments explaining whats wrong with a question, every time a question is closed.

You're really good at picking up technicalities, aren't you? Are you a lawyer, too? But really, I wans't specific in my question about who nominated you, so I think I still included why you didn't nominated yourself. XD

By the way, I mean no offense to you or the lawyers. All of you are great people :D

To answer my own question, I think we shouldn't vote to close a question unless it's glaring obvious that the question must be closed (as off-topic for example).
If it's not obvious, then the reviewer MUST explain why the question must be closed in a comment. Link answers don't count here. There must be an explanation. If you want to close the question, you must show effort, too!
If the post is too large to fit in a comment, just give up, answer the question and leave it open. If it takes that much effort to explain why the question must be closed, there's got to be something about it that involves Arduinos that is of interest of this community.

I think I did explain why I voted to put on hold (if that was directed at me).

@AsheeshR - don't get me wrong, I'm not directing this at you. My complaint is more general. I wanted people to think twice before quickly voting to close a question and reflect if they could instead make a better contribution by either editing the question to make it on-topic or to just answering the question.

Generally the first action would be to comment the question, mentioning the fact it look off-topic and challenging the OP to edit it to make it clearer that is can be considered on-topic.

@Ricardo For most cases it's fine to close it if it's too vague. If edited within a few days, it's automatically reviewed. There's no reason to leave a vague question open just because it could be edited. Questions that aren't fixed should be closed and reopened if needed so we don't get many open ended answers or answers that are opinionated. Plus, links are fine if they sum it up in a few sentences.


text:
Tag by board or by chip?
The issue of using board names as tags has already come up in meta, but I was wondering about chip numbers? E.g. the ATmega328 at the heart of the Uno.
There is technically a definite distinction between questions about the chip itself, and questions about the board it's mounted on. This is particularly significant when dealing with clones/compatibles, or homemade boards, where the wiring and other factors can vary substantially. There is therefore potentially an argument for tagging by chip number where possible, so that relevant questions can be found more easily.
However, it seems unrealistic to expect inexperienced users to know the chip numbers. Most people are only likely to recognise terms like "Uno" and "Leonardo" etc., so it seems inevitable that we'll end up mostly going by board names.
Is there a happy medium here? Would tag synonyms be appropriate (e.g. making "Uno" a synonym for "ATmega328"), or would that just make it more confusing?

Microprocessor tags are a bad idea. Arduino boards are known by their series names and not chip numbers, and we should follow the same naming convention.
The microprocessor can be identified accurately for the official boards by knowing the board name and their revision number. For custom boards or clones, it is the onus of the OP to mention the relevant details in the question itself. If such detail is missing, it can be clarified via comments.

I agree with AsheeshR... microprocessor tags should not be the "default" here.  Microprocessor tags fit in better with a community like EE.SE, where a more detailed knowledge of electronics is expected.
Arduino users will be more apt to type in arduino-uno (or similar) instead of tagging with atmega328. Synonym-izing the tags isn't good, either, as it is possible for a non-arduino-uno board to use an atmega328.  This would lead to substantially awkward tagging.

Not to mention that newer users don't memorise their chip number!


text:
When should we use the C++ tag?
I've noticed that a new user (who admittedly has lot of rep on other SE sites) has been re-tagging some programming questions to include the c++ tag.
These are the questions so far:

Last element of a struct disappearing on write/read
sprintf() to assemble String and float pieces locks up
Is it better to use c_str or toCharArray?
Is it better to use #define or const int for constants?

Given that the vast majority of programming on Arduino is in C++, it seems like a somewhat redundant tag in many cases. With that said, I am sure there are cases where it actually is relevant though.
When should we tag with c++, and when is the programming tag sufficient on its own?

I approved an edit to my question as it was very specifically about a difference between C and C++.

@Cybergibbons Likewise, I approved it on my question about c_str and toCharArray, because it relates back to the standard C++ language. I'm not sure about more general cases though.

I think most questions will be fine with just programming. However, there are some cases where giving it a C++ tag would be appropriate:

When its a question on the C/C++ language. The answer will be in the details on cplusplus.com or AVR Libc something.
When it's something that the Arduino language differs from standard C++ since you can't do everything.

If it's a question about code not working due to logic errors or not knowing how to write something, that's a programming question.
Only a handful of questions should be tagged C or C++.

I usually add the C++ tag when I get the chance for one simple reason:
It activates syntax-colouring for the code.
(assuming there is code posted)
It also activates syntax-colouring for any code in replies.
There is a way of doing that without the C++ tag, which is to paste this in your question or reply:
<!-- language-all: lang-C++ -->

Syntax colouring makes the code much more readable, and is useful to have when browsing someone's code in the question, and someone's code in the answer.
By the way, if you have done this and want to post something which is not code (like serial monitor output) you can also disable the colouring like this:
<!-- language-all: lang-none -->

Using a language tag merely for highlighting is a violation of basic SE guidelines - tags should reflect what is a question is about rather than what it contains.  If people did not abuse the C++ tag for every question that merely happens to contain some C++ code, the issue of this page would not exist, and the tag could properly be used for language questions.  As you point out, there is a correct way to do syntax highlighting - additionally syntax highlighting is hardly essential.  Last I checked the arduino IDE did not even support it :-;

That was a while ago, right? It would make more sense if SE automatically switched on C++ syntax colouring in code in the Arduino section. Newbies won't know about the tag to turn on colouring (nor care, probably). And what other language would code be in?


text:
When should questions be considered shopping recommendations?
I just found this question: Is there a color LCD display for an arduino? Should it be considered a shopping recommendation?

No, this isn't really what was meant by a shopping question. The author of this question is wondering if there is a way to do {x}, where {x} just happens to be something they will likely have to go out and purchase. That is very different than asking a photographer (for example) which camera they should buy.
Sometimes when we offer this type of general guidance, it is in response to a specific behavior we are trying to avoid. But oftentimes when these lessons get passed on, the underlying application gets lost and all we remember is the trigger word which says (in this case) "shopping = bad".
In the context of this community, a shopping question might be something like "What is the best sound add-on pack?" There are a lot of them out there, so unless the author has narrowed down their problem statement so there is only one (or very few) possible answers, the community is only guessing what will help that user specifically. That's what we're trying to avoid here.
It's a tough balancing act; trying to decide if a question is good for the site, versus learning from the past about what doesn't work for a community. Sometimes you simply have to see if this becomes a problem in actual practice, rather than anticipating problems that may never materialize. All I can suggest is, for now, to judge the individual question on its merits. Is it a useful questions for your community? And then circle around down the road if it turns out that this type of content does not work for your site.
Good question.

Okay, thanks. I can remember a lot on controversy about a similar question on another site.

I totally agree with Robert, but I wanted to add something:
It is important to note that Arduino.SE is nearly unique among the entire StackExchange network, as it revolves around a fairly extensive product line rather than an area of study/work.  (We share this "unique" spot with LEGO.SE and RaspberryPi.SE.)
Since we are focusing on a concrete product, some questions that would be considered "shopping" on other SE sites should not considered as such on this site.
(My two cents...)


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Are questions asking for libraries on-topic?
We have questions such as this one on the site right now. My gut feeling (coming from Stack Overflow) is that such questions are off-topic. However, I feel as if these questions aren't really broad (not as many libraries exist for Arduino as say Javascript). I feel that if these questions are specifically scoped, they are okay to ask on here. However, since we are still in private beta, is this a question we really want modeled for public beta? Are these questions on-topic here?

As a platform, Arduino is still somewhat in its infancy (compared to more mainstream areas of programming). As you've indicated, that means there aren't all that many libraries for it yet, and indeed many of them are now shipped with the official IDE as standard. Additionally, it can be very hard for a new Arduino user to know where to look, where to ask, or what to use to solve any given problem.
However, there are already new libraries popping up on places such as GitHub. I would expect more and more to appear as time goes on and the Arduino user-base expands and matures. That means any answers recommending a library will probably go out of date before very long, especially as more boards/revisions/variants are released.
What we want to build up here is a long-term Q&A resource, so I think we have to treat broad questions about library recommendations as generally off-topic. As with everything else here though, it needs to be done carefully, with a kind nudge towards a more suitable venue (such as the Arduino discussion boards).
That's not to say we should never suggest libraries in answers though. I think it's still OK to suggest a library if it's an appropriate answer to a specific problem, especially if it relates to a core library which is likely to be maintained long-term. We just need to discourage people from asking for recommendations.

I think it should be on-topic.
A questions asking for a library to do X, is just a rephrasing of "Is it possible to do X? How?". If the second is on-topic, then the former should be as well, considering exactly the point that you mention. There are not as many libraries out there for Arduino. Of course, the usual question quality rules apply, such as that the scope of the question should be reasonable.

I do believe that they should be allowed.
Arduino is a line of products and their accessories. (Also with their code.) SO is different here. Some users are even pushing allowing shopping questions. This is very similar to a shopping recommendation.
I say that we leave it for now. If it becomes a problem that it becomes only finding libraries, then the moderators implemented by then will have to clean up the problem before it grows. It may seem like a nuisance, but I do believe that if we can attract another user this way, it can only help us. Plus, there are only a limited number of libraries available out their. I've noticed a pattern with Arduino that people tend to create similar projects.

My gut feeling (coming from Stack Overflow) is that such questions are off-topic.

Remember, this isn't SO. We were given a canvas by Stack Exchange to build our site the way we want it. The sites tend to follow a pattern, but if all of the sites were practically the same, there would be no need to open up another site. From some work on different sites, each community is different. If it will serve us good, why should we not do it just because Stack Overflow doesn't?

There is little more infuriating than posting a question to a SE site, have it closed, try another, have it closed etc. until you have been sent round in a big loop.


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Questionable question: book recommendation
I just came across this question:

Can anyone tell me the best books for studying UAV?
It's kind of hard to get full guide from the internet. I just wanna buy a book for UAV guide. I gotta make DIY drones. I'd appreciat it if you recommend good books.

and I honestly don't know what to do with it. Is it a good question, deserving of upvotes? Should I Downvote it? Delete it? Close it? What should It be closed with?

I closed that question. Why? A few things:

The title is asking for the best book, which is very much based on opinion
Even if we did allow book recommendations, they should be more specific. This question, as it is, is quite subjective.

I do agree that we need to better define what recommendations we allow. However, this question could, and should be closed as either primarily opinion based or too broad. Both would fit.
As far as a recommendation that's clear and specific, I'd say it should be allowed. A lot of questions currently are "recommendations" because they ask for libraries/parts/software. This is a list here (adding to another post for CW).
I don't think it should be upvoted, deletion isn't used in this case (and is automatically done by the Community ♦ user after a while), but you can downvote if you want to. I'm not going to advise you on how to vote. :)

The most obvious point I see is that it's not about Arduino. A UAV could certainly involve one or more Arduinos, but it sounds like most of the relevant subject matter is more general than that. The best course of action seems like closing it, with the potential to re-open if it's made more Arduino-specific.
That issue notwithstanding, I'd say it's also too broad at the moment, and possibly too opinion-based. It seems a shame to close questions like that, because it could genuinely be interesting and helpful to many people. However, it's not what Stack Exchange is designed for. We want questions and answers which address specific, tangible issues.

This post is a community wiki dedicated to posting questions that are recommendations. Feel free to edit: just don't vandalize or change content to reflect personal views.

Serial data plotting programs


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New favicon doesn't show up in many places
We got a new favicon almost two days ago that looks like an infinity symbol. Unfortunately, this isn't showing up in a lot of places, including the dropdown:

chat (including the icon on the tab):

and pretty much everywhere on http://stackexchange.com, e.g. here.
This is 100% reproducible on Chrome, Firefox, and IE on two different computers, one of which hasn't even been to Arduino.SE before. I very highly doubt this is a caching problem.

It's probably just a caching issue. Try using a different browser and see if it's any different.

@PeterR.Bloomfield That's what I thought at first, but no. Reproduced on Firefox, Chrome, and IE.

I would wait a bit longer if its a server caching issue. If it isn't fixed by then, I'll try to fix it.

@AnnonomusPerson It's not caching; see my edit.

Yeah, not caching.

@TheGuy I said server side. IIRC there's a lot of caching on the server side.

@Annon I didn't think server-side caching was possible...

@TheGuy I meant like that it needs to be updated on multiple servers and they haven't all been updated yet.

@AnnonomusPerson Nope, that wouldn't be the cause of this. Servers serving up different content would be fixed in ~15 minutes (can't find the source for this). It's not part of the sprites file so that's probably the reason... there may be other places it isn't used, too.

Most of this is just caching. Try doing a hard refresh on http://cdn.sstatic.net/arduino/img/icon-48.png and you'll see the new icon.
The sprite image does appear to be missing the new icon though: http://cdn.sstatic.net/img/favicons-sprite16.png?v=ca9619587f38f6088409bc18c44b605b

Our sprite maps and favicons were out of date. Fixed in build rev 2014.3.17.1464.


text:
Please welcome your new pro tem mods!
As I mentioned in the Jan 2016 beta progress report, one of your moderators asked me about stepping down a little while ago because things were getting busier in his life outside of Arduino SE. Actually, I oversimplified a bit there; two mods are leaving the team this week. I'm happy to announce that two other users have stepped up to replace them as new pro tem mods, though:

Please join me in thanking Peter and sachleen for their service and welcoming Nick and Avamander!

Greeting everyone. Thanks for the honour of assisting with moderation of this site. And thanks to Peter Bloomfield and Sachleen for their work in moderating up till now. Moderators hopefully don't have to do that much, but when they do (eg. spam) it is important.

Congratulations to both of you! We really appreciate that you are stepping up to help the site grow and thrive! We will be backing you up as we go along. Cheers!

By the way, nice going, Pops! It looks like you found some Arduino heavy-weights to lead us. Well done!

I've always wondered how @NickGammon wasn't a moderator already. Moderators hopefully don't have to do that much sounds funny :) but I indeed hope you still have time to write answers and articles, as I find them very in-depth and informative.

It's good to see we are poaching the quality members for rival forums ;)


text:
Beta progress update (August 2015)
I'm Pops, one of the Community Managers at Stack Exchange. We on the SE team announced some changes to graduation a few months ago that applied across the network. Those of you who follow such things may be wondering how Arduino SE is doing in the "new system," so I'm here to give you an update based on a recent CM evaluation.
tl;dr: Arduino has been doing pretty well! There's a lot of good information in the Meta SE post I linked above, but the most important point with respect to graduation is this: our primary criterion for evaluating sites is now the number of new questions received per day. You're bouncing around ten questions a day (sometimes less, but sometimes more), which we consider pretty strong.
With that said, we're still not quite ready to consider you graduated. The primary reason is the lack of high-reputation users on the site. Although we're currently making some changes to the processes of graduation, all fully graduated sites will ultimately still have their reputation requirements for various privileges (e.g. editing, voting to close, voting to delete) increased from public beta levels, as described here.
As I write this, Arduino SE isn't home to a single user with 10k or more reputation points, which means that nobody would be able to vote to delete or undelete posts after the change in privilege levels; your total number of users with at least 3000 rep is barely enough to agree to close any question; and there aren't that many more at 2000 rep, who would be able to edit. Community moderation is an integral part of the design of Stack Exchange sites, so we really need to see more users who would be able to take those actions to consider the site for graduation.
Aside from reputation, there are a couple more minor concerns. For one, your "percent answered" rate is among the lowest in the network, which has been addressed here on meta before. However, all of the "worse" sites are either already graduated or special cases, and the community discussion about the problem — though sparse — has led to at least one good potential solution.
The other issue is that the scope of this site doesn't seem to be 100% set yet. Just a couple weeks ago, there was a moderately popular proposal to merge this site with a few others, and the friction with EE about where to ask hasn't completely dissipated. We're not too concerned about this, since Arduino is a fairly well-defined topic, but you as a community do need to decide soon whether you want to make any major changes, because after graduation is too late.
I hope this rundown has been useful for you. If you have any ideas or comments, leave 'em below!

For one, your "percent answered" rate is among the lowest in the network ...

Would you be able to clarify how to fix this? I went through some old questions (as you noted) and found:

Some of them are "impossible" to answer. For example, we ask "which Arduino?" and get no response.
Others were answered, but in comments.
Others were properly answered, but the OP did not accept the answer.

Can you explain what we can do to reduce the percentage unanswered, to get a fairer score?

For ones with outstanding queries, does "vote to close" or "flag for moderator attention" help? In other words, do closed questions count as unanswered ones?
I can of course copy and paste a "comment which answered the question" into an answer, at risk, of being accused of taking someone else's credit.
What do you do with questions which have a perfectly valid answer, which the OP doesn't bother to accept?

I have a feeling that if I sit here and "vote to close" 300 questions I'm going to be told to "stop doing that, it's annoying". Maybe not.
The thing is with these sort of questions (and I see this on the Arduino Forum as well) that people want their questions answered today - and they even spray the same question onto:

Arduino Forum
Adafruit Forum
EE StackExchange
StackOverflow
Arduino StackExchange
Personal messages to anyone who has a lot of posts

Then when they get an answer somewhere they lose interest in all the other places they asked. Their job is done, they move on. Meanwhile we have an unanswered question because they didn't provide basic information.

Can you clarify exactly what makes a question show up in the "unanswered" list?
Obviously:

No answer (but not closed?)

However what about:

Answered but answer not accepted
Answered with upvotes but not accepted

Suppose I go and answer 50 questions with no current answer. Does that reduce the list by 50? Or do I have to hope the OP accepts the answer, and/or that two (or more?) other users vote up my answer?

(Added)

I chatted with your mods for a bit, because I did suspect that your topic might naturally lean towards a lower answered percentage.

Yes, quite. Some of the questions are about some of the newer Arduinos, connected to some interfacing chip we may not have heard of, and from that to some new-fangled GPS gadget just released last week.
So the chances that some, at least, of the questions are hard to answer is high.
It's a bit different to (say) Cooking SE, where people are unlikely to say: "roast pork? - never heard of it!".

... advocated gaining reputation by improving on others' incomplete contributions ...

I've been going through some of the old questions, and as far as possible (which isn't all that far) converting what appear to be "accepted" answers (in the comments) into real answers. I've naturally given credit along the lines of "As so-and-so posted ...".

Answering your last question first, because it affects the others: the SE software considers a question "unanswered" if it has neither an accepted answer nor any upvoted answers. (There's actually a reminder of this definition in tiny print in the sidebar of the main Unanswered page if you ever need to look it up again.) So, as long as a question has a decent answer posted, the community can get it out of "unanswered" status with a single vote, whether the original asker is super active or abandoned the site right after posting.

Before I posted this progress report, I chatted with your mods for a bit, because I did suspect that your topic might naturally lean towards a lower answered percentage. They didn't disagree, and that's fine; as I mentioned, most of the other sites near the bottom of the pack are also graduates. (They're no secret; you can check them out at the all sites list.) So, no need to go on a closing spree (which would indeed be annoying). Voting more may do the trick, and is good practice anyways! And now for the other solution I alluded to...

Long ago, when Stack Overflow was just opening its doors, Joel Spolsky (one of the co-founders, and current head of the company) actually advocated gaining reputation by improving on others' incomplete contributions. Of course the community quickly decided that was rude when done to "steal rep," but I don't see anything wrong with improving the unanswered percentage by reposting some comments as answers, if they are suitable standalone answers. Might help to give the commenters a chance to do it themselves first and/or use CW.

I've responded to your comments in the main reply. Thanks for clarifying.

the SE software considers a question "unanswered" if it has neither an accepted answer nor any upvoted answers - what if I upvote my own answer? Is it answered then? I found an unanswered question pop up a moment ago. I thought my answer was reasonable, but it sits there with no upvotes, no acceptance, no comment even. Should I upvote it to put it out of its misery?

The system doesn't let users upvote their own answers. If it did, everyone would, both because it'd mean rep for free and because why would you post an answer if you didn't believe it was good? If there's a consistent pattern of good answers not getting upvoted, then that is a serious problem with site culture that needs to be addressed.

After reading Design-Independent Graduation is on for early September! I have another response. :)
I see from Area 51 that we are now getting 10 questions a day.
Thus the main issue for not graduating is:

The primary reason is the lack of high-reputation users on the site.

I gather from the link above that there is some talk about gradually raising privilege levels (or maybe just deferring the time it is done). Isn't this viable? I gather that, right now, the privilege levels are 20% of that of a full site.
And, of course, not many people have 20 k privilege (like, zero). However as time goes by, people who consistently ask or answer good questions will get increased privilege. It would seem reasonable to let us graduate, then bump up the privilege levels at (say) every 4 to 6 months, until they reach the levels of the fully graduated sites.
eg. 20% / 40 % / 60 % / 80% / 100% of normal.

Now you're getting into better-as-a-separate-meta-post territory, but this has been discussed before. (Don't have a link handy at the moment but if you're really interested I can dig for one later.) My first reaction to a "sliding scale" for privileges is that it would be horribly confusing to users, both in the sense that there would be poor consistency across sites, and that people would show up to a given site and have a privilege one day but not the next, and have it again the following day, then lose it again later on...


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Beta progress update (January 2016)
It's been a few months since your previous beta progress update, so I want to check in again.
I'll start with the good news: you're continuing to do well on the primary metric for graduation, new questions per day. And you're making progress on the main issue I was concerned about in the previous update, building a corps of higher-rep users; you've gone from no 10k+ users to two, and you're right on the edge of having ten 3k+ users, too. Well done!
Unfortunately, as you might have expected from my wording, there is still bad news. A while ago, one of your mods asked me about stepping down for personal reasons. There hasn't been any visible change because I haven't been able to find a replacement for him yet. Those of you who have read about the changes to the graduation process posted last year on the network meta (maybe after reading the first beta progress update?) may remember that the second half of the post dealt with making the site closure process more systematic. From that post:

If there's enough moderation for a public beta site to consistently remain free of spam, for flags to be cleared, and for our Be Nice policy to be upheld, your site will remain open. However, if community leaders drop off, flags sit without being addressed, and we can’t find any suitable volunteers to step forward, the site gets closed.

Please do not be alarmed. This is not a "we are closing Arduino SE" announcement. We aren't at that point yet. Your mod team hasn't abandoned you, and the proverbial lawn is still getting proverbially mowed here. If anything, this site feels a bit like it's on autopilot. I don't get a sense of the community taking ownership here. Aside from the lack of people willing to be pro tems, there's little activity on meta—especially for a site this size— and still a somewhat low answer rate. This may be due to as simple a reason as diffusion of responsibility, or it could be somehow related to the topic of Arduino itself, or something else entirely; discussion is welcome.
This is an admittedly unusual situation. No community has ever simultaneously set off the questions-per-day graduation trigger and the "lack of moderation" red flag. To be honest, I never seriously considered that it might happen. I don't see any reason to deviate from the procedure in place for handling the moderation situation, though, so I am announcing an open call for new pro tem moderators. You can find out more about the job at the company blog post A Theory of Moderation and the now-somewhat-old meta post Who will be the Moderator? What attributes should they have?. If you have questions or want to volunteer, please e-mail me at pops@(stackoverflow or stackexchange, either one works).com.
Quick recap: there's (still) a lot of good here, but there are a few serious problems, too. Keep up the good work on question volume and building up the ranks of medium- and high-rep users. My immediate priority is finding new pro tem moderators. Once that situation is stable, we'll try to tackle some of the less serious issues, and re-evaluate for graduation.

I'm really new to Arduino, though not to SE. What I've found so far in my perambulations on the web is that there's still not a lot of expertise out there, or that this expertise is not being shared in the same way that, say, Bicycle knowledge or Mathematical knowledge is being shared.
This reflects in part what you are describing: lots of new questions, not a ton of answers, no one stepping up to moderate or lead the community. Could it be the relative newness of IoT in general? Or is there a component of intellectual property protection that goes hand-in-hand with the hardware/product development aspect of Arduino that is a cultural shift away from the Open Source philosophy that was so seminal to the success of the original SO?
I do hope this takes off. It's such a shame when good beta SEs close down - I've seen a fair share.

Where do you see IP protection in the Arduino community? My understanding is that the whole Arduino ecosystem is based on open source.

Or is there a component of intellectual property protection that goes hand-in-hand with the hardware/product development aspect of Arduino that is a cultural shift away from the Open Source philosophy that was so seminal to the success of the original SO? - are you referring to the internal Arduino problems? Even if so, this hardly impacts on this site. Most people in the Arduino community are happy to share their knowledge.

No, not at all. I'm referring to the fact that many IoT projects have aspirations to go on and get productized. While the code side of things might be very open, I was wondering aloud if the productization side of things might account for a certain reluctance to help others get ahead. It was just a theory and certainly doesn't reflect my own attitude.

I am presuming IoT is Internet of Things. I think it is in the nature of Arduino and microprocessors in general that people have such a wide range of ideas (many very interesting) that there is not necessarily a direction they can be "led" in. As for moderation (I am a moderator on the Arduino Forum) we try to keep discussions polite, and posts on-topic. After that is done, quite a few points of views are aired, and we all learn something. I certainly have.

I think you also have to consider that Arduino itself is an amalgamation of two different communities, software developers and hardware developers; and unless you were around in the 70's early 80's there hasn't been much crossover in the last 20 years.  Many of the questions that I see are, "I want to do XYZ with hardware 123", and most of the time there's not a good answer because no one has written a decent hardware library for 123, or if they have it includes only the most rudimentary functionality, that is difficult to expand upon without more driver development knowledge.

Without having certain hardware or using it, it's quite hard to answer many questions. For example I have encountered so many weird things with the NRF24L01+ modules, I can help with it (I also somewhat help to maintain the related libraries), but with GSM and other less common things it gets harder. Certain hardware would possibly need better tag info so that people could read more about the hardware.

Those are some awesome perspectives - if I could downvote my own post I would, based on these insights. I definitely agree that it probably is more closely linked to the huge diversity - both in terms of skillsets and platforms, than any selfish desire to keep information close to the chest. Thanks for commenting!