text:
Toxic moderation harms the community
Building community and fixing toxic communities have been a theme this past year on the network.
I thought I would share my recent experience regarding this.  I've been around SO since the beta, so I think I've got (a) a bit of experience in the community aspect of SO and (b) a relatively thick skin.
I just had a rather unpleasant experience with a preemptively closed question and the subsequent moderator interaction.
I stopped engaging when this comment was made, not because I'm a snowflake who can't handle the language, but because it was obvious that I was not being taken seriously.

This is the first time in 11 years that I feel I've been treated unfairly or disrectfully (a key aspect of "toxic" communication as I understand it) by a moderator, so I would just like to bring this to everyone's attention.  It's possible of course that the moderator was just having communications difficulty, but tone as well as content and context does matter in terms of showing respect.
As a practical thing, It's better that arduino.se depend on member voting for closure than having moderators preemptively close (excepting of course spam, abuse, etc).  Perhaps the moderators can coordinate amongst themselves and reconsider their closing strategy.
FWIW!

Just for context this appears to be the question being discussed.

@NickGammon, I deleted that question and replaced it here, with (a) the answer and (b) mentioning that the executable was generated via Arduino.  I made it CW since the most important part of the answer is from Majenko.  I also corrected my mistake of assuming that anyone familiar enough with executable uploading would understand that it applied to Arduino and non-Arduino executables equally.

I still feel that heavy-handed preemptive moderation detracts from the community and the overall quality of the site, though.  Muh Feelz!!

@MarkHarrison by doing so you also removed the context which is inherently needed for the discussion here. The original one was absolutely off-topic in my opinion while the re-formulated new one might not be. After this manipulation one will likely second your accusation, which is now neither objective nor fair to the moderator you accuse. After all: is this really about your actual problem?!

@SimSon, Sorry... if your reputation is high enough you can see deleted posts, or you can request a moderator to undelete it. You can blame the original problem on me, for (incorrectly) assuming that everyone understood that once a hex file has been generated the answer is the same no matter what was used to generate the binaries.  So I generated another hex file with Arduino-specific gcc options, and re-asked the question referring to the second hex file rather than the first.  Speaking for myself, I'm satisfied that all moderators have presented their opions well here...

@SimSon ... and that they may take a "lighter" touch towards moderation, which I feel will decrease bad feelings.  I learned something interesting from Majenko (I had to tell him he didn't understand programming for him to say it, haha!), and the site has a potentially useful question for people that typically work with command line tools rather than IDEs.  If you can't get the page in any other way feel free to send a note to my email address on my profile page and I'll send it to you so you can let me know what you think.  I'm interested in your opinion, I could be very wrong after all!

Getting even the most basic of information out of you was like getting blood out of a stone. I guess from your point of view, since you already have all the information, that you can't understand our frustration.
When we had finally got some basic information out of you to make any kind of sense of your question it turned out that it had nothing at all to do with Arduino anyway.
If you had:

Had a problem with creating the software for your board using the Arduino API or the Arduino IDE, or
Were asking how to manually upload a hex file to an Arduino board

then it would have been on topic and we would have been able to help you.
As it is, you refused to tell us what the board is that you are using (eventually we got the manufacturer of the chip out of you, but still no clue what the board is) despite being repeatedly asked.
If we ask you for information it's not just to annoy you. It's because we need it to be able to answer your question!

"Getting even the most basic of information out of you was like getting blood out of a stone."  -- Thanks, I feel respected now!

"When we" -- I seem to be having problems with an individual moderator, so the Royal We form of pronoun shouldn't be used.  This is all about you. ;)

"If we ask you for information it's not just to annoy you. It's because we need it to be able to answer your question!"  -- I'm doubting that a little bit because for most of the discussion my answer was included in the question (since I couldn't answer a deleted question).

Finally, the tone of your answer seems to indicate that you don't "get it."  My suggestion remains that, if you're concerned about community, the moderators should meet and try to iron out an approach that focuses on the community taking action and doesn't focus on an individual moderator closing question and engaging in toxic dialog.

Regarding the on-topic nature... it is exactly the tool to use for uploading an Arduino binary to an STM32.  I don't know how much you know about software, but once you have a standalone binary the subsequent portions of the toolchain are independent of that.

I have spent my entire working career in software. I am the author of an IDE that is far superior to the Arduino IDE. But that's beside the point. The tool for uploading code from the Arduino IDE to a board using the Arduino API is the Arduino IDE. There may be a stand-alone command line tool in the background doing the work, but if you're not using it from within the Arduino IDE or a similarly Arduino-centric IDE that is configured to run the binary for you, then that is nothing to do with Arduino.

And it is you who does not get it. There are (at the last count) four different tools for communicating with the same chips. Which tool you use depends to a large extent on the board (NOT the chip) and which tool the board designer chose to aim the board at. Be that dfu-util through an FT232 adapter, stm32flash through serial, micronucleus through the Micronucleus bootloader or stlink through an STLink programmer. Which tool is the right tool to use for your board is not dependent on just the chip.

I think you're incorrect regarding there being a single tool for uploading binaries, as exemplified by https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/20978/is-there-a-way-to-upload-precompiled-code-to-an-arduino .  But keep in mind that this post is about the toxicity of arduino.se.  I think the tone of your comments is enough to demonstrate the point.  Note that you have provided an excellent answer in your comment of three minutes ago.  If my question ever undeletes, you should post it as an answer... I would definitely upvote it!

@MarkHarrison, Majenko was elected as moderator despite saying in the questionnaire "Would I make a good moderator? No, probably not. Should you vote for me? Heck no! I wouldn't vote for me.". He was elected because of his broad knowledge in Arduino and surrounding topics

@Majenko what's that IDE name which you are working on? sorry ik it's unrelated to Q/A of this topic.

@newbie UECIDE - uecide.org

You raise some interesting points. There are two main issues here:

Is there "toxic" moderation on this site or not?
Did your question deserve to be closed?

Stack Exchange has been wrestling for a while with their "be nice" policy, and if you go onto meta.stackexchange.com you will find all sorts of posts about this, for example here and here. There are lots of posts. :)

As for your question, well it was pretty brief, see below. There was no mention of Arduino, or any particular Arduino board. It could conceivably have gone to electronics.stackexchange.com where they are used to dealing with microprocessors in general.
Your original question:

I've compiled a program (betaflight flight controller) via a Makefile and have the resulting hex file.
From the Mac command line, how do I upload this hex file to my Cortex M3 board?

So, I think some votes to close were not totally unwarranted.

Having said that, I agree with the theory of moderation.
We moderators should be able to sit back and let the community handle problem questions and answers, thus keeping our workload light. :)
As Jeff Atwood said in the above post:

Even with active community self-regulation, moderators occasionally need to intervene. Moderators are human exception handlers, there to deal with those (hopefully rare) exceptional conditions that should not normally happen, but when they do, they can bring your entire community to a screaming halt — if you don’t have human exception handling in place.

Note the use of the word "occasionally". If something is egregiously bad, then a moderator steps in and deletes the spam/insults/harassment. Otherwise, the community (non-moderators with reasonable amounts of reputation) deal with it as a group. That way you know that five people agree that your post is bad, not just one or two.

I know from personal experience how frustrating it is to have a question you have asked, on other parts of Stack Exchange, to be closed within 30 minutes by a couple of people, one of them being a moderator. It has happened to me more than once.

I wholeheartedly agree the Arduino:SE should be more welcoming.  However, it is also true that it can be difficult to get people to update their questions with information and/or improvements that have been requested in comments.

In this case, as far as the question itself goes, I've read through your question, and the comments and I still can't see how it is on-topic for this site.  If it hadn't been closed by a moderator, I would probably have voted to close the question when I saw it in a review queue.
As regards your interactions with others in the comments, I'll just note that you are fairly experienced in using SE sites, so I assume you are aware that if you think that something has been said that violates the Code of Conduct you can always flag it, and/or report it to SE Community Managers.

As to your last point, I'm a moderator on another site, and I'm a great believer in the idea incorporated in the Theory of Moderation that moderators should do "... as little as possible".
I try not to use my super-vote to close questions if possible.  That is what community moderation is meant to be for.
That's not to say that I don't participate in the review queues.  I'm happy to be the 5th-vote to close a question, but (apart from spam, and other posts that violate the SE Code of Conduct), the community decided what is on- and off-topic for that site, and so it should generally be the community that votes to close posts.
On that site, the community has agreed that they prefer a lighter touch from moderators.  It works there, and I suspect that it would probably also work here.
In my experience Arduino:SE has enough members who actively moderate via the review queues that moderators really shouldn't need to preemptively close posts quite as often as they currently appear to.
But, at the end of the day, the fact is that it should be for the members of this site who need to decide what it is they want from the moderator team.
If the consensus is that we want moderators to decide what is on- and off-topic, and preemptively close posts that are off-topic using their 'super-vote', then that's fine.  It wouldn't be my choice, but I'm happy to go with the consensus view.

"moderators really shouldn't need to preemptively close posts quite as often as they currently appear to." - I quite agree... of late, questions get closed with just one or two votes...

I am having trouble understanding your complaint. Your question title says "Upload a hex file to a Cortex M3 from the Mac command line? [on hold]" and the title of this meta post is "Toxic moderation harms the community". It’s sounds like you are the judge, jury and executioner. To be honest, the meta title you have so carefully "crafted" reads just like a Main Stream Media Fake News headline.
Regarding your comment:

"…It's better that arduino.se depend on member voting for closure than having moderators preemptively close…"

Your question was not closed, It was put "on hold" because it’s off-topic. Arduino.SE is a small community, and as such, we do not always have enough users with the required reputation level to "vote to close" questions.
A question "on hold" is waiting for the person to, for lack of a better term, "fix it’. It is not "closed", and won’t be until a period of time has elapsed. During the "on hold" phase, if the question is "fixed", any Arduino.SE moderator, or the required votes from the community can re-open it.
If the question is not re-opened, and a period of time has elapsed, the system will mark it as "closed". Does that mean your question is gone? Deleted? Never to be answered? Not necessarily. You can see "closed" questions by using the following text in the "Search on Arduino…" text box. Something like this: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/search?q=closed:1
Google also seems to be able to find the "closed" questions, because I have used Google to search for Arduino related "things", and Google has provided me with links to Arduino.SE Q + A’s with the following text in the question title: "[closed]". Don’t worry, the planet can still see your question, and will be able to answer it for a long, long time.
Regarding your comment:

"I seem to be having problems with an individual moderator, so the Royal We form of pronoun shouldn't be used."

I agree with Majenko that your question is off-topic, so "we" is the correct word to use. In other words, if I had seen your question before Majenko put it "on hold", I would have put it "on hold" for the same reason.
Regarding your comment:

"…But keep in mind that this post is about the toxicity of arduino.se.".

You are trying to "spin" your Cortex M3 "off-topic question" issue into an accusation that all of the Arduino.SE moderators are "toxic". The only thing making our community toxic right now is you.

I've long aspired to a lucrative career in fake mainstream news headline writing, so thanks for the vote of confidence!

"Does that mean your question is gone? Deleted? Never to be answered? Not necessarily." Sorry, I think you're not very familiar with how on-hold questions are dealt with.  Nobody can answer an on-hold question, so when a moderator preemptively puts a question on-hold it means the question will never receive an answer.  You can read about this over on the main meta: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10582/what-is-a-closed-on-hold-or-duplicate-question

Nobody can answer a question after 5 people vote to close it either. You are assuming a moderator puts the question on hold and never revisits it. I keep a browser tab open for every question I put on hold. Once it meets the Arduino SE guidelines, I reopen it. If the OP doesn't "fix" it, the system closes it. The fact that an on hold or closed question can't be answered until it's "fixed" is good thing. We don't want answers to questions that are un-clear, to broad, etc.

In your case, the question is off topic so it should be closed, regardless of how many people voted to close it. https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions. As far as having a bunch of closed questions "hanging around" forever, I don’t like it either. To combat this problem, I have been editing/improving a dozen or so every day. Once edited, the system moves them to the top of the Arduino home page for everyone to see. This usually results in an answer, comments to clarify the question, and sometimes, votes to close.

There are over 2100 closed questions, so it’s going to take some time to get through them all. The next step is to delete the "Closed questions that are of no lasting value whatsoever should be flagged and deleted." https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools

Notice that instead of responding to your incorrect understanding that an on-hold question can't be answered, you pivoted to a new claim regarding questions closed by five people. As a moderator, you should have the maturity to recognize when you've made a mistake or didn't understand the procedures. Nobody expects you to be perfect!  But you should really take some time and contemplate the fact that you pivoted (in a state of cognitive dissonance) to other issues which I never brought up, and totally refused to contemplate the issues that arise when moderators act disrespectfully. FWIW!

I was correct. They can be answered, but first they have to be "fixed" and re-opened by several votes or a moderator. Your question was off topic, so the chances of it getting the required votes or a mod to re-open are some where between slim and none. I see you have deleted the question and created a wiki instead. Good job :)

Over that past 11 years I've been a good sport on SO, and am happy to change my posts and thoughts to conform with the site.  Sorry, but you were wrong in what you stated, and your disrespect for the source of my original frustration (that I could not answer my own question when I found the information elsewhere) is not appreciated.

The remainder of my comments were just in no particular order, but were for your information so you could learn more about the meaning of on hold and closed question. Here's another page about what the Arduino community considers off-topic: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic. This page is excellent because of all the useful links in the right sidebar.

If the root cause of all of this chatter was "that I could not answer my own question when I found the information elsewhere", why didn't you title this meta question as such? Your title "Toxic moderation harms the community" accused me, the other moderator not involved, and Majenko as being "Toxic", which I find very rude and not true. Next time you have an issue, please use a flag to get a moderators attention instead of arguing publicly about it. Thank you.

I'm still curious as to why changing the wording from "uploading hex file" to "uploading Arduino binary" suddenly made the question on topic.  Maybe I had assumed a level of understanding regarding uploading code to microprocessors that people didn't have?  Although I don't think so, because Majenko provided a great answer, although he only did it when I implied he didn't understand computer programming very well! :)

You mention that my first step should have been to flag the question for moderator attention.  That's exactly the first thing I did, and that's what kicked off the comment thread that I perceive as being disrepectful.

Have you ever been a moderator on any of the Stack Exchange networks? If you have been one in the past, then you know I can see every flag you have ever raised here at Arduino SE. This comment can be seen by the public so I can’t go into details, however, no flag was raised regarding your "STM32 Cortex M3" question. There were several edits.

hmm, then that's my mistake.  I thought I raised a flag, perhaps I made a comment instead?  My apologies for the mistake!

No problemo : )

sweet, thanks for listening so patiently to so much rambling! :)


text:
Pah! Don't you just hate these fly-by-night mavericks?

INTEL DISCONTINUES JOULE, GALILEO, AND EDISON PRODUCT LINES
Reposted from Hackaday
Sometimes the end of a product’s production run is surrounded by publicity, a mix of a party atmosphere celebrating its impact either good or bad, and perhaps a tinge of regret at its passing. Think of the last rear-engined Volkswagens rolling off their South American production lines for an example.
Then again, there are the products that die with a whimper, their passing marked only by a barely visible press release in an obscure corner of the Internet. Such as this week’s discontinuances from Intel, in a series of PDFs lodged on a document management server announcing the end of their Galileo (PDF), Joule (PDF), and Edison (PDF) lines. The documents in turn set out a timetable for each of the boards, for now they are still available but the last will have shipped by the end of 2017.
It’s important to remember that this does not mark the end of the semiconductor giant’s forray into the world of IoT development boards, there is no announcement of the demise of their Curie chip, as found in the Arduino 101. But it does mark an ignominious end to their efforts over the past few years in bringing the full power of their x86 platforms to this particular market, the Curie is an extremely limited device in comparison to those being discontinued.
Will the departure of these products affect our community, other than those who have already invested in them? It’s true to say that they haven’t made the impression Intel might have hoped, over the years only a sprinkling of projects featuring them have come our way compared to the flood featuring an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi. They do seem to have found a niche though where there is a necessity for raw computing power rather than a simple microcontroller, so perhaps some of the legion of similarly powerful ARM boards will plug that gap.
So where did Intel get it wrong, how did what were on the face of it such promising products fizzle out in such a disappointing manner? Was the software support not up to scratch, were they too difficult to code for, or were they simply not competitively priced in a world of dirt-cheap boards from China?

So it's goodbye from Intel then. I just knew they didn't have any real staying power. Another "We'll have a slice of that cake, thank you very much. Oh, we don't have a clue what we're doing with it. What's cake?"
If you read the comments under the original posting you'll see the main consensus is that it's Intel's abysmal documentation (i.e., none unless you are buying $10bn worth of chips from them a year) that was the main cause of their failure.

Que lastima... lol.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
A little survey (for those that can be bothered to read Meta)
A simple one really:

What is the most important thing you look for when choosing an Arduino-compatible development board?

Do you even look for anything specific, or do you just automatically plump for the "default"? Is there any specific feature set you need? Is size important? Price? Processing power? Memory? IO pin count?

Your question is not quite clear to me Arduino-compatible development board means can be programmed via ArduinoIDE / is a clone of the official Arduino boards/designs or it can be used with the Arduino C++ flavour to be programmed with. So is an ESP32cam an Arduino compatible board

Yes, anything that can be programmed through the Arduino IDE and bought off the shelf. So sure ESP32 cam is included.

I guess I'd say "it depends on what's needed for the project", but that's not really an answer.

I look for documentation, such as on-line specifications, including a datasheet with detailed specifications, pinouts, and sample circuits/implementations.

If it is an Uno or Mega, then I try to ensure (by checking with the vendor first) that it doesn't use a CH340.
Many vendors show an image of a standard Uno/Mega with a 16U2 but when it arrives it's got a CH340(G)... which are a right pain when working from a Mac (even though I do have PCs as well).

I search for maximum features I need for the project and minimum features I don't need.

Great answer. +1. Personally, I only build things that are "smart enough" to do the job that they were designed to do. For example, why pay for WiFi if you don't need it. No one can "hack" the WiFi on a Pro Mini because it doesn't have it "built in".

I personally go for hassle free boards for the end user:

USB plug with a standard chip/driver for Win/MacOS/Linux
Silk screen with pin# and clear print for "dangerous" pins like VCC.
As minimum

WiFi support/
2MB Flash min or SD card slot to enable storing of html/data

Possibility for battery power (lion plug/loader included) with energy saving features supported by the design
A CPU strong enough for the usage scenario (trade off power vs energy consumption is hard to achieve)
AND a good end user documentation (pictures / easy to read text) at least in english :-)

Depending on the usage (ranked by experiance):

Max I/Os (multi purpose digital/analoge)
flexible pin assignment HW-Serial(s)/SPI/I2C
additional hardware plugs for e.g. camera, sensors, etc
BLE / NFC and other features onboard

and a feature which helps in dev

a system base for motors/servos with H-bridges and external power plug
at least a breakout base with enough pins/plugs to attach sensor modules to

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


text:
Changes to the Arduino moderation team
It is with great sadness that we have to say goodbye to VE7JRO in the moderator team. We thank him for the sterling work he has done during his tenure as moderator and wish him all the best.
As a result a moderator election will shortly be called. If you think you might be able to fill his shoes, watch this space.

I see Nick Gammon is active on Arduino SE again.

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to VE7JRO for all the time and effort you've spent on moderating Arduino:SE.  It really is appreciated.
Good luck with whatever you are going to be doing next.

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


text:
The rift is healed!
At last Arduino is back together again.

https://blog.arduino.cc/2016/10/01/two-arduinos-become-one-2/

The rift has been healed.  Massimo and Federico even hugged on stage (awww ;) )
We can now hope to get back to some form of normality - a single set of Arduino boards, just one Arduino IDE to wrestle with...

Good job! Great news!

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


text:
Can we modify the highlighted questions color?
I found pretty difficult to distinguish between an highlighted and a non-highlighted question on the Arduino site. Is it just me?

Unfortunately we can't change that. All Stack Exchange sites use the same design during their beta phase. If/when we graduate to a full site, we'll get a custom design.
With that said, the difference between highlighted and non-highlighted seems reasonably clear to me. Perhaps you need to adjust some display settings on your system?
Alternatively, you could use a browser add-on which lets you write a script to modify the design automatically on-the-fly (e.g. GreaseMonkey).

I don't know, maybe I'm too used to the Stack Overflow bright orange. Thank you for the info btw.


text:
How can we make it even more clear that this is a site for Arduino?
Today I first bumped into a question about the Intel Edison, and just now one about the Raspberry Pi. Apparently the word "Arduino" doesn't make it clear that this is about, erm, Arduino.
How can we make this more clear (if possible), and keep questions about other platforms out?
(I flagged both questions for migration to http://electronics.stackexchange.com)

All SE sites have blatantly off topic questions from users who think they're on topic... I think most new people perceive the scope a lot more loosely than it actually is--myself included. The hard questions to steer people away from are the questions that have an Arduino element but are off topic (like programming a display app on a computer that communicates with an Arduino).

By the way, isn't there a SE site for Pi question and shouldn't any such questions be migrated to that?

We've had similar issues with people asking Android questions in the past. I'm not sure there's much we can do to stop people from making that mistake. Part of the confusion might come from the fact that all Stack Exchange sites have exactly the same design during beta.
As a side note, the Intel Edison isn't necessarily off-topic here. It's officially certified as an Arduino-compatible product. Obviously it depends on the context of the individual question though, as it can certainly be used in non-Arduino ways too.

The "officially certified" is of course a bad joke. Their own Arduino is so poorly documented that it wouldn't pass any certification at all. And have you read the 4 requirements for certification? There's nothing about compatibility.

I just flagged http://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/15984/unable-to-set-up-intel-edison-on-windows as off-topic. As far as I can see the Intel Edison is just leveraging (pfft, is that a word?) off the Arduino name. It - at best - seems to be "compatible with the Arduino IDE".


text:
Should we have an IOT or internet-of-things tag?
That's pretty much the question. Would it be useful to have an internet-of-things tag?

I don't see a huge long term benefit for this tag.
I often think that tagging is overused and stuff is often not tagged correctly. In this case, an IoT tag doesn't really define the question (it'd be like a toaster tag). It defines the type of project, which isn't that helpful.
Tags like Ethernet, WiFi, Arduino Uno, programming, etc. are much more descriptive and they seem more useful and worthwhile to me. This tag would replace the more helpful tags on some questions.

Yes ! It's very used, and specific !
Because some softwares are dedicated to IoT and some protocols are mostly used only for that,
 so adding this tag can help people to find some new possibilitys that they didn't know like to (to be continued ... )

Can you please edit your post to indicate why this tag would be useful for our community? Thanks!

Then tag the specific protocols involved.


text:
Formatting and indenting (but not fixing) code in question
With respect to this question, Need help with wire connections and code, I feel sorry for the OP, as their code's indentation seems to get worse at each edit iteration.
There are obvious code errors in the sketch (one of which I pointed out in my answer). However, it's impossible to follow the code now as a lot of indentation has been removed, and I gave up trying.
I thought about fixing the indentation in the question, for the OP, but I stopped myself. However, I've seen that Majenko, on occasion, has submitted an answer (i.e. here), with the code correctly indented, rather than fixing indentation of the code in the question, and without actually correcting the code errors, but pointing them out instead, for the OP to fix.
Is that what I should do in this case (or rather, would that be an acceptable answer)? Or should I fix the indentation in the question itself?
I really only want to just fix the indentation and have it posted somewhere - hopefully after that the error will be a lot more obvious to point out.

In my opinion, it is acceptable to edit the question to adjust what amounts to the whitespace of poorly formatted code, so long as the actual function is not changed (so as not to corrupt the question as asked). This has the benefit of helping those who come along later and find the question -- so they may be able to understand whether or not it helps them.

I don't believe there is any problem at all in editing a question to improve it. If you weren't supposed to do that, there wouldn't be that privilege. See:
Help Center > Privileges > edit questions and answers

What is edit questions and answers?
We believe in the power of community editing. That means once you've generated enough reputation, we trust you to edit anything in the system without it going through peer review. Not just your posts— anyone's posts!
When should I edit posts?
Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so. Editing is encouraged!
Some common reasons to edit are:

to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes
to clarify the meaning of a post without changing it
to correct minor mistakes or add addendums / updates as the post ages
to add related resources or hyperlinks

So that is pretty clear that tidying up a question is not only OK, it is encouraged! New posters may not realize how to format code, for example. So rather than ticking them off, you can improve it for them, maybe posting a comment underneath explaining how you did that, to help them for next time.

As for the specific whitespace issue, sometimes I copy code, run it through the IDE auto-format, and paste it back. The more readable the code is, the easier to fix bugs! You could, again, explain how you did that, and why it helps.

Thanks Nick. I hope that it didn't come across as if I were ticking them off. I think that at the time, I had just got exasperated that their edits had regressed the formatting that I had already done. auto-format, well there's a menu item that I had never ever noticed before - excellent, that is much more efficient. As they say, you learn something new every day :-)

@Greenonline - I'm not suggesting that you were ticking anyone off. I think it is useful, as far as possible :) when replying to, or commenting on, posts to help the poster improve their posts. This answer was intended to be more general than just be addressed to you. These meta posts will persist into the future.

I believe the OP should be notified (eg through a comment) that the indenting has been fixed and how they can do that easily in the IDE.
As jose can u c said;

In my opinion, it is acceptable to edit the question to adjust what amounts to the whitespace of poorly formatted code, so long as the actual function is not changed (so as not to corrupt the question as asked). This has the benefit of helping those who come along later and find the question -- so they may be able to understand whether or not it helps them.

Clearly, fixing the brace problem would have corrupted the question asked, but fixing whitespace does not.
We are volunteers and anything that can save you and me time in answering is welcome - as long as it doesn't change/corrupt the problem.


text:
Is syntax highlighting broken?
I usually use fenced code blocks in order to get code
syntax-highlighted, as in
```c++
some C++ source
```

This used to work for quite some time. However, since a couple of days
or so, it looks like it doesn't work anymore.
Examples: here and here.
The weird thing is: while editing, the syntax highlighting does work in
the preview... sometimes!
Did I do something wrong? Is this feature deprecated? Is it just a
glitch in the Matrix?

2020-06-17: Arduino Stack Exchange was migrated to CommonMark. use ```cpp

I removed the c++ in the first question, and now the syntax highlighting is working.
If it worked before (with the c++), my best guess is Stack Exchange made some changes in the back end.
There is another way to force syntax highlighting for all code blocks in a particular Q or A.
<!-- language-all: lang-cpp -->

There is more information here: Markdown help, and according to this page, the c++ should work.
Clearly there is something wrong or something changed. I'll see what I can find out...

Thanks! I knew about this option, but I find it somewhat clumsy. I prefer fenced code blocks and have been using them since I noticed stackexchange started supporting them.

You might also need to add a space ``` cpp - it's another commonmark thing

As mentioned by VE7JRO, the language can be specified using a
specially-formatted HTML comment.
For those who prefer the more standard “fenced code blocks”, my tests
show they still work when the fence is labeled cpp or lang-cpp, but
not with the labels c++ or lang-c++:
```cpp
for (int i = 0; i < 42; i++)  // be insistent
    Serial.println("Hello!");
```

is rendered:
for (int i = 0; i < 42; i++)  // be insistent
    Serial.println("Hello!");

Edit: This may be the cause of the issue:
We're switching to CommonMark.


text:
Pin 13 - Frozen
Our beloved chatroom: "Pin 13" is frozen (due to inactivity).
Can we re-open the chatroom?
Theoretically, we could start a new chatroom, but that wouldn't be a very neat solution (it can be hard to find anything back, if we keep making new "Pin 13"'s.
Can we avoid getting it frozen?
How to avoid getting the same problem in the future? Can a room be pinned, or made as default general chat of a certain SE? Or do we have to program an Arduino to post random links to it every now and then? ;D
Should we even?
The room is frozen, since it was inactive. Theoretically, this means that the room seems to have little function.
Though I believe that it can be usefull to have a general chat.

How can it be beloved and inactive at the same time?

@Dat Ha, I believe it had sparked a lot of interesting discussions. But it may be inactive from time to time.

I've unfrozen it.

How can it be beloved and inactive at the same time?

Dat Ha has a good point. It has gone recently for 32 days without activity.
If it goes for 14 days without activity it is frozen automatically. I suggest you chat away in it from time to time to stop that happening.

I think it has potential, and has proven to be usefull. Currently, it just doesn't really keep momentum. My question was also: 'should we even', if anyone has an interesting topic, he/she could create a room specific for that topic. But it feels a little odd to not have a general chat.

It seems the Arduino users aren't all that chatty. I think a lot of other parts of Stack Exchange have quite active chat.

There's a lot of foreigners and one-time visitors, very few seem to stay.

Ah well. It's a bit of a different environment to (say) cooking, where if you are interested in it you are likely to stay and discuss things. Being an environment for newbies, the Arduino SE tends to attract people who just want to get their homework done. Of course, this isn't everyone.

it happened again

75% of users on this site turn up, ask one question, get their answer, and are never seen again.
22% of users on this site turn up, ask one question, don't bother waiting around for an answer, and are never seen again.
2% of users on this site are those that show an interest and either want to help others or have an inquiring mind that wants to learn more.
The remaining 1% are us.

(Statistics source: the back of my sofa)
Of all the users on the site maybe 3% would find it useful. 1% of those would use it to whinge about the 97% that never come back, the others wouldn't even know it was there.
So what use is a general chat room? Most chat discussions are related to a specific question/answer and thus are between just a couple of people for a short time, and those chat rooms can be created at will as they are needed.

I agree, which is probably a problem in it's own. Pin 13 getting frozen is just one of the results. But it's not the only one, probably also why the beta takes so long or question quality is low on average (afaik)? I'm not sure if and how we can improve it, I think it's because Arduino is specifically aimed at hobbyists. Which also isn't something that could/would/should change?  The main point was that I thought it would be weird to just give up on a general chat because of it, but a general chat also needs a topic from time to time. (And in that case we could use a designated chatroom aswel)


text:
Is it allowed to ask a question if you've already have an solution/answer?
Is it allowed to ask a question if you've already have an solution/answer?
This could be done to get alternative options/solutions for algorithms. But on the other hand may distract from people who are actually struggling with a real problem.
Also, for algorithms/improvements, you have programming or programming puzzle stackexchange which may be better suited. And when talking about algorithms/programming it's not really specific to Arduino anymore, as at this point it's usually C/C++.

My example:
I have an LED matrix of 12x12, but they are connected in an "S" way.
Like for example:
 1  2  3  4
 8  7  6  5
 9 10 11 12
16 15 14 13

Now I would have to map these LED nr's to X-Y coordinates (which is not just x+y*width because it's in an S pattern).
I feel it's not really Arduino specific and I already have (2 actually) answers for it, but I'm really curious to see if there's another simpler solution to it (to the logic to my own solution).

Also, I'm curious if as in code-golf you're allowed to state that the answer with least bytes / fastest execution time (or something like that) will 'win'?

In general, yes, you're allowed. However, the question and the self-answer should be judged on its own just like normal Q&A, meaning they should be on-topic, standalone, self-contained, etc. For code-golf, there's already a site dedicated for it: [codegolf.se]

@AndrewT. thanks for the link to the article about answering your own question, I now see that can also be used to encourage others to come up with a 'better' or alternative solution.

You're kind of in a borderland area there :)
I would say:

If you are looking for other ways to implement something, or
Your code uses the Arduino API or Arduino libraries, or
You have something that "works" but you don't know if it's the "right" way of doing it

then sure, go for it. While it could apply to other environments, if you're doing on Adruino with Arduino libraries (like the FastLED library for example) then I for one have no problem with it.
I wouldn't go for the "code golf" thing though. What the "best" answer is would be very subjective. Readability could be more beneficial than shaving one clock cycle off the execution - especially when the Arduino API itself is not that efficient in the first place.
As far as your example goes, I would submit an answer. It would contain something like:
int ledNumber = (y * width) + ((y & 1) ? (width - x - 1) : x);

Good one. I could ask it on Arduino.SE to get a solution (and possible multiple), or potentially ask help to improve the execution speed if required. But if I would be interested in the more theoretical/mathematical solution, there is other SE's that are better fit. (In that case one could/would strip the "algorithm" from it's implementation, which also makes it not about Arduino)

Also I found a few other LED strip table projects which do have different solutions (such as putting the whole list in PROGMEM) and I myself had the same solution as you (except I used modulo to check for odd/even), but I figure your bitwise-& would be more efficient.


text:
Could some "Achievements" have negative impact?
I was looking at the achievements and I noticed that some might actually have a negative impact on the value of this SE website.

Vox Populi/Civic Duty (Use the maximum 40 votes in a day/ Vote 300 or more times)

May cause people to spam votes in order to get the achievement.

Cleanup (First rollback)

I'm not even sure on how to cause this, but I don't believe it's a good thing. Nor should we make people try to get a rollback (for the achievement) I believe.

Disciplined (Delete own post with score 3 or higher)

This is never a good thing?

Peer pressure (Delete own post with score -3 or lower)

This requires you to have a -3 post to begin with, so one could, purely for the achievement, attempt to get a -3 post?
It's all a bit theoretical but, the effect isn't easily spotted, so could be bigger than sensed.
(p.s. I found that all SE sites have these achievements, is this meta still the right spot to post this? Or should this be on general Stack Exchange meta?)

This is a good question, however, I think this would be better suited on the general SE meta, as it is a SE wide query. I have flagged it for migration.

See Which meta am I supposed to post on? - it is fine to post here, and the SE team do read these posts. However if you (Paul) want me to I can migrate it.

Peer pressure - I haven't felt motivated to try to earn that badge. ;)

I was going to make a comment as it was going to be a bit long.
This is more of a general SE meta topic seems all sites have these achievements available.
Also badges don't equate to privileges which are earned by making meaningful contribution to each SE site.
So if there are people who want to go around sites asking stupid questions or spamming unimportant questions or answers just to earn a badge they will probably be the ones who have a low rep keeping them away from established user privileges.
There is also a good side to the achievements as it gives the incentive to other users to participate in the site and feel like they have been commended for that involvement. For example

Vox Populi/Civic Duty (Use the maximum 40 votes in a day/ Vote 300 or more times)

This to me would make people want to show others that there are useful questions or answers on the site and cause that user to participate in site activities.
The one for giving someone a badge for a question with -3 votes I would think would be aimed at new users and others here and there so as to keep the site uncluttered from nonsense questions, thus another incentive to users or newbies to help keep the sites running smoothly.

I agree that it's good when there will be more votes cast (I kinda have the feeling Arduino.SE has way less voting as on other SE's) but it shouldn't be because of an achievement. Your point of them not getting extra's, is very good though! You don't gain a lot, nor does the site loose a lot of value.
Which isn't for the: "Delete a 3+ question", when I saw it, I thought: "Hey, I could just delete one of my old questions.", which would be against the principle of StackExchange.

My initial thought was, that more badges would equal "a better image" of my account. Though, having good questions in your "history" might be better than that extra badge ;)

@Paul the disciplined badge is quite odd, but only one person has it on Arduino.SE and 51 on EE.SE, and most are high rep users so they are not going to be spamming just to get badges. Stack exchange obviously saw the use of having such a badge, they have their view and many could have a different reason why that badge would be awarded.

Nice! Actual stats! I was scared that it might be an unnoticed issue. But 1 one whole Arduino.SE is not very worrying. The badge is odd indeed. But does not seem to lead to worrying behaviour :)


text:
Questions with no concrete answer?
Let's say I want to create a robot to follow a line, but make this as fast as possible.
Can I actually ask a question like: "How can I make a line following robot as fast as possible".
I would say that the question is way too broad, but what if I really were wondering this or wanted to discuss about it? And it's not really an answer which has a 'solution' but more a discussion/design question. Can this be asked on SE?
Should I:

Just ask the question, it's a good question?
Not bother SE people with design questions, just try it out yourself, if you get stuck, come back here.
Not bother SE people with design questions, just try it out yourself and ask a question if you have to further optimilize something like: "How to read sensors faster?"
Divide it in smaller/more basic (and probably design) questions: "Which motor is fastest (servo/DC)?", "How to make a fast (line-follow) robot chassis? (maybe not for arduino SE)" and "How to use 'PID' controlling in arduino"
Do more research before asking said question

An answer doesn't have to be concrete, but it should be at least a "lightly packed gravel" answer. As for your question, you're walking on the line. If you put a ton of research into your question, figure out most of the parts of the design, and ask a well-written question about the parts you cannot figure out, it's probably not going to be closed. However, if you just add two sentences to the body, it's a lot more likely to be closed. The point is, we cannot tell if your question is too broad without seeing it.
What do I do then? Let's break it down. First, figure out your design objectives. You're never going to achieve the fastest, so figure out how fast is good enough. How much can you spend? How big will this be? Will it have any cargo or other sensors?
Then, let's look at a bit more specific stuff:

Chassis: Steel? Plastic? Wood? Candy canes? Look at your tools and resources and pick that out. This is essential in how much this will weigh
Sensor System: Do you have the budget for an array of sensors so you can build better algorithms? How will you mount them? How fast can you sample them?
Motors: How will you drive them? How will you power them? Servo, stepper, or brushed? Closed or open loop feedback?
Board: How many things do you need to attach? Power usage constraints? How will you communicate with it? Do you need an ARM board?

You get the point. If you didn't specify enough information, I could tell you to try one of these if you don't specify, and I doubt that you want to attach something explosive to your Arduino! :)
The thing is, design questions are really hard to answer and they take a long time to get answered. If you put the time into your question, people will be a lot more willing to answer and you're a lot less likely to get your question closed. Furthermore, you get more specific answers that're more useful to you and you get a sense of pride when you realize that you designed most of this without any help. Just remember: we're here to help you along the way, not do everything for you.

"We're here to help you along the way, not do everything for you."
That's what I was looking for indeed. And it's true, it should be that way, asking "How to make such a system" is way to broad and people should indeed do some research themselves or atleast write down what they already know.
But Stack Exchange isn't really for "discussing"?
Or well the World Building SE has some very broad questions, of which no answer is correct, but sometimes one is the most 'probable/plausible'.
However you're right on that you would need more details if you're actually going to start the project.

@FuaZe the thing that separates us and Software Recs or us and WB is that, although their answers are nowhere near concrete, it's still possible to answer it in a few paragraphs. Your question would require a lot of research and a really long answer to answer the question fully. Tastefully subjective questions are actually encouraged because they make interesting questions. So: your question would be OK as long as you focused in on a single issue (or a few related issues) that could be easily answerable.


text:
Where to announce/discuss stuff?
I've just received an email from the microsoft insider program, where they spotlight windows 10 IoT support for Arduino

We’re also excited to announce our partnership with Arduino, making Windows 10 the world’s first Arduino-certified operating system. Learn more about Windows Remote Arduino and Windows Virtual Shields for Arduino and get started here.

^Sorry for not having the links in it.
Is there anywhere on Arduino Stack Exchange to announce this? I was tempted to create a question as announcement, as I think it's quite interesting for everyone who's busy with arduino. I'm not sure if announcing it in chat will do.
I found that there are little chat-rooms on the site. Is this a topic worth a chatroom? And will the chatroom stay even if everyone leaves it for a moment?

The blockquote you included in your question reads to me like part of an advertisement, so there's really not a good place for it on this site. If that's not the message you want to spread (i.e. if I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "announcement"), please let me know.
You are of course welcome to ask questions on the main site about Arduino/Windows 10 integration when the time comes.
To answer your procedural question, chat content never goes away, although it can get soft-deleted just like Q&A posts or remain visible in a read-only state. For more info, see the chat FAQ.


text:
Are we a little stingy about upvoting questions?
I felt like questions with accepted answers were upvoted less often here than on other SE sites, so I decided to have a look at the Data Explorer:
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where Score > 0 and CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --35
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --116

So, about 30% of questions with accepted answers were upvoted recently. I compared this with some of my other SE sites.
Here's Electrical Engineering SE:
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where Score > 0 and CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --359
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --748

which is about 48%.
Here's Science Fiction and Fantasy SE:
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where Score > 0 and CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --378
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --391

which is 97%.
Here's StackOverflow:
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where Score > 0 and CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --31594
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --85569

which is 37%.
Here's Data Science SE:
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where Score > 0 and CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --40
select count(distinct Id) from Posts where CreationDate > '2017-07-01' and AcceptedAnswerId is not null; --75

which is about 53%.
So, we're a little bit on the low side. I wonder why this is?
I'm a noob here myself, but I'd like to see more activity in the Arduino SE.  I just figure that if a question is good enough to be left open and receive an answer, with the OP active and polite enough to accept the answer, then in most cases giving the OP a little encouragement with an upvote on the question would help to encourage more participation.
Also, this was a good excuse to play with the Data Explorer :)

Do you have a link to the Data Explorer that you could share? Thanks in advance.

@sa_leinad Sure https://data.stackexchange.com/

This isn't necessarily a bad thing - consider for example IoT SE, where no matter how bad a question is or irrelevant to what was asked an "answer" is, it will get several upvotes.

@ChrisStratton I see your point

Great use of the Data Explorer!

I've noticed that, in general, reputation creeps up fairly slowly here, compared to some other sites. I've got a lot more reputation for a handful of answers elsewhere (eg. English Learners SE) than I do for the same number of answers here. Quite often an answer isn't upvoted at all.
I think this is partly because of a mentality of:

I have a problem in my code, I'll ask here on Arduino SE
I've got my answer, kthxbye!

A while ago I was posting comments under answers along the lines of:

If this helped you please up-vote it, and even accept the answer. This helps others know that the answer works.

You can help too by up-voting answers when you see them pop up (if you think they deserve it). I look for questions that Community (the system) has brought back to the first page, because no-one has accepted the answer, or voted for it. If the answer looks helpful, I vote it up. This helps stop old questions bobbing up all the time, and also helps other users know that someone thought the answer was OK.
It also helps give the person who answered some rep, which will help them get more privileges from Stack Exchange (like being able to delete answers, etc.)

I 100% agree with everything you said here but I would like to point out that the topic was about upvoting questions rather than answers.

Oops! slaps self

"I don't see how upvoting a question serve any purpose at all". @Look Alterno, reputation points bestow privileges that allow users to more effectively participate in improving content. If someone is consistently asking good questions then they would likely also do a good job of reviewing other user's questions. Getting that sort of user up to the reputation points required for these privileges certainly has the potential to benefit Arduino Stack Exchange.

how many up-votes a question got it's not a criteria for anything - it is, though. Say you do a search for "working" and sort by votes, then the most up-voted question appears at the top. So, out of a set of questions which might ask similar things, the most up-voted question can be selected as the best question "of this sort". This can help you select the "best" question which might ask something you want to know, which also hopefully will have good answers.

Regardless of your search habits, the up-votes have a meaning on the site. That was my point.

I think one factor is that we simply get a higher percentage of low quality questions here that are unclear, don't provide enough information, or are poorly formatted. We may eventually badger the author or edit enough to make the question upvote worthy in the end but by that point I don't feel the need to reward the author.
I suppose a better approach would be to simply evaluate the question as-is without regard for the history.
I do think this makes it even more important to upvote the high quality questions we do get.

Regarding that, some people on this site rarely ask questions, but usually answer them. For example, Majenko, who has the highest rep currently, has answered 1,795 questions! But he has asked no questions! You (per1234) have asked no questions. So voting your questions up isn't going to encourage you. :)

Low quality questions often don't get great answers, and even when they do, may not attract future visitors who benefit from and upvote those  answers.

I have to confess I often upvote the question I answered, even if I don't like it that much. Every upvote helps a question hit the HNQ list, which means every answer to it will earn much more reputation that it would otherwise. I know it's pretty much rep chasing (frankly, I don't like HNQ), but those are the rules which are set, and if someone doesn't use them for their advantage, it's their loss.

Every community creates its microculture influenced by a handful of alpha users who tend to develop a clique and impose a standard of behavior and quality evaluation.
Arduino community doesnt seem as humble and nurturing as most SE communities.  One user, for example, compares arduino users to stubborn, ignorant horses in his personal description.
IMO, every answer should AUTOMATICALLY award an irreversible upvote to the question it answers.

It bothers me too that there aren't enough upvotes on Arduino SE. I am yet to come up with a good solution. One thing that doesn't work in our favour is that we have so many new users every day who ask their question, get an answer and then never stick around to pay it forward. And because they are in and out they don't read/learn the guides that SE is founded on, resulting often in poor questions. The users who do stick around are great. But we all could put more effort into upvoting (me included). You are right in that we can change the culture by leading by example.


text:
Is an ESP8266 running Arduino code question allowed?
More and more questions seem to be asking about ESP8266 programed via the Arduino IDE and running "Arduino" code, and quite a few about ESP8266 and NodeMCU.
1. Is it OK to ask about ESP8266 programed as an Arduino?
2. Should questions asking about ESP8266 programmed using LUA, etc. be closed as off topic?
3. What about questions about ESP8266 hardware are they off topic too?

My initial reaction is "I'm not sure". We seem to be getting some questions that are only slightly related to Arduinos. I'm not sure what the boundary is for Arduino-related compared to general-electronics-related.

Essentially, you either have to allow questions about alternate hardware running Arduino-style software layers, or else ban everything that is not an ATmega-based solution.  Once things like the Due, and later Intel contraptions came on the scene the floodgates were opened, and at this point there is no entity who gets to say what is vs. isn't an Arduino in the worldwide context.  More generally, the question is evidence of why arbitrary subdivision of embedded topics into Arduino, pi, and everything else is demonstrably a fundamental mistake.

Ironically this question should be in meta - it is in meta.

at this point there is no entity who gets to say what is vs. isn't an Arduino in the worldwide context - I think that's the first time I've been called an entity. :P However I'm inclined to agree with @ChrisStratton that the distinction between Arduino and not-Arduino is becoming rather blurred.

For me, here are suitable cases:

Problem setting Arduino IDE to "talk to" ESP8266, possibly including wiring, as this is directly related to Arduino IDE
Problem connecting ESP8266 to an Arduino, be it a wiring or program issue, as long as the program in on Arduino side

However, the following cases are off-topic:

Issue with NodeMCU, lua language
Issue with ESP8266 API
Issue with connecting an ESP8266 to anything else than Arduino

I agree with all your points above but what about the case where someone has switched out an Arduino for an ESP8266, using the same (similar) code, IDE and peripherals?  If someone was trying to measure range with an UNO and ultrasonic sensor and then switched the UNO for an ESP?  I thinks its OK to answer questions where the ESP is being used as a stand in for an Arduino, but does anyone agree?

As a matter of fact, ESP8266 and Arduino are 2 VERY different beasts, and having a similar program will not show the same effects (and defects). The case you describe seems dedicated to ESP8266 experts, not Arduino experts. For me this should go to EE rather than here, until some more specific site is defined.

As Arduino-branded boards now include Intel- and ARM family-based boards, the lines can get kind of blurred. If an Arduino-branded, ESP8266-powered MCU board were to appear, should we include it as on-topic but exclude AI-Thinker ESP-01 or other ESP-xx boards?
An alternative to including ESP questions is to Beta an ESP site. But that path leads to fragmenting the {electronics, programming, applications, etc.} questions into too many sites. EE/SE's often unwelcoming stance on Arduino questions began the process. (Or was it already prevalent w/in SE? My experience here doesn't go back that far).
I'd propose we don't feed the process, but adjust Arduino SE's boundaries, and even its name if necessary, to fit the community, not the other way around. Embedded Systems Engineering - what we really do here, despite that most of us are hobbyists - is multi-disciplinary activity that 1) includes electronics, programming, board layout and building, and software tools (IDEs, libraries); and 2) touches hydraulics, robotics, optics, sonar, data communication, networks, chemistry & biology (brewing, f/ex). I've seen us field questions in all of these topics in my time here.
This cross-disciplinary hobby (or career! ) makes a hugely rich learning environment for all of us and we'd give up a lot of that by splitting off some processor or another discipline. Our contributors collectively know a heck of a lot about a lot of things and share it generously. We should encourage that.
We've mostly managed to avoid having hard boundaries and getting unpleasant with new folks that wander close to one, as a few SE sites do. I'd like to encourage that and keep us more inclusive.

I think it depends on how you see "Arduino". Arduino started as Arduino.cc: a (open hardware) board and (open source) software provider.
However Arduino has moved on, and now the community "Arduino" is far more important then the companies (arduino.cc and arduino.org).
The "core" of this community is the API the company Arduino designed. The community added lots of libraries on top of and extending this API. The community ported the API to other processors. Anyone porting this API/libraries to a other board adds the boards to the community.
As the Arduino API and many of its libraries are ported to ESP8266 based boards; implementations on these boards using the Arduino API and libraries belong to the Arduino community (but are not strictly speaking Arduino).
As stackexchange is a community driven site I think it would be weird to pick the company card and not the community card. Therefore IMHO these boards should be supported here.
Another way to look at it: if you ask this question for ESP8266 based boards; why don't you ask this question for Teensy boards or adafruit boards and other vendors? What sets ESP8266 apart that you ask it for ESP8266 and not for others? Do you realize that Paul Stoffregen (maker of Teensy) did lots (if not most) of the multi platform implementations in Arduino?
Suppose we leave out all non real Arduino boards, ..... what with arduino.org versus arduino.cc .... Will we only support Arduino.org boards? Or Arduino.cc?
Do you really want to go into this discussion? I don't.
For me Arduino is the Arduino community. I embraced ESP8266 just like I embraced Teensy and Adafruit. They are part of the community. Without them the company Arduino is nothing.

Yes, but you could argue that if this site caters for anything relevant to the "Arduino Community" where does Electronics Stack Exchange fit in? Or Stack Overflow?

A very valid question.


text:
As we get more advanced in our use of Arduinos in ever more complex ways, it would be good if the Arduino SE supported Tex
One user was kind enough to send me the list of SE sites that support MathJax (LaTex), and I see Arduino is not among them.
This means that when I learn something relevant on EE SE and want to use it on Arduino SE I have to reformat all the equations back to the basics.
I would like to request that Arduino SE add this capability.
Here is the list.  It sticks out like a sore thumb that Arduino is not among the dozens that can do it:
Which Stack Exchange sites use MathJax?

I agree with you.

https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/13/is-there-an-easy-way-to-enter-formulas-in-questions/2446#2446

https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1231/we-need-a-way-to-create-symbols-in-the-arduino-meta?rq=1

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/307586/need-help-calibrating-adc-input-using-a-voltage-divider - compare the same answer in https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/38845/how-can-i-seriously-calibrate-adc-voltage-readings-with-arduino-nano/38854#38854

I know that Tex itself is open source, but the packages they use may not be free, like LaTex and MathJax.  I just hope somebody gets off the dime and makes it so we are compatible with the EE SE.  They have a lot to offer us.  Sure, they argue more than we do, but that's because they had to endure 5 years of college to earn the title of Electrical Engineer.  And afterwards a lot of them have had decades of work experience.  It is a great SE.  And all I want is to be able to copy (with attribution, of course), some of their solutions over here without having to convert it to FORTRAN.  ;-)

I just successfully got LaTex to work on a WordPress site, and it was free.  I used a plug-in called LATEX2HTML - same syntax as on the EE SE.  You can see it in action at http://www.sdsolarblog.com


text:
Some tags that need fixing

ethernet-sheild: Misspelled. It should be renamed to ethernet-shield since there is no existing tag of that name.
intterupt: Misspelled. Should be deleted because there is already an interrupt tag and there are no questions using the intterupt tag.
edison: It was decided that all board names should be prepended by arduino-. There is no arduino-edison tag, so this should be renamed arduino-edison, similar to arduino-galileo.

You are drastically misrepresenting the linked question about board naming - in addition to the fact that nothing was "decided" the arguments there apply only to some of the boards which officially have Arduino as the leading part of their name.  But there is no such thing as an Arduino-Edison (or an arduino-esp8266 or an arduino-teensy-3.2, etc).  Since questions that aren't about Arduino are off-topic, there's no need to invent fake names to emphasize in the tag that an arduino approach is being used - if it isn't, the question gets closed as off topic

Chris, it's listed on the Arduino products page so in a sense it is associated with Arduino. However it is "certified" rather than being an Arduino product. The arguments listed in the link in the question about not prepending Arduino (eg. arduino-robot) would seem to apply here as well. Edison on its own has other meanings.

In case it's not obvious, I'm hoping to get other opinions. So far we have one for and one against. :)

Related: https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2370/is-an-esp8266-running-arduino-code-question-allowed

I only would suggest that the edison tag be consistent with galileo, however that is to be done. intel-edison would be another option. I really don't have a strong opinion on the topic. I actually didn't realize that, unlike the 101, those boards weren't really branded as Arduino even though they are Arduino certified. My original motivation for this post was to get the ethernet-sheild spelling fixed but I thought I might as well review all the tags while I was at it.

Personally I don't care either way what is done with the edison tag. It can be deleted for all I care, since the edison itself has been discontinued and only three people ever bought them anyway.

intel-edison is something that used to exist.  arduino-edison is not - the product was the Intel Edison for Arduino.

I'm happy with changing [tag:edison] to intel-edison and changing [tag:arduino-galileo] to intel-galileo.

I like the intel-edison and intel-galileo suggestion above.

I fixed the ethernet-sheild tag.
The intterupt tag will apparently be deleted at midnight as part of an automatic cleanup of tags which don't have any questions associated with them.

Can you please review the tag synonyms while you are adjusting the tags.
https://arduino.stackexchange.com/tags/synonyms?filter=suggested&tab=newest
It's not easy to find the suggested tag synonyms - there is no review queue for it (that I know of). To get to it you have to go Tags > scroll to the bottom of the page > tag synonyms > suggested. Its not too obvious.


text:
Should Arduino SE get a documentation section?
Arduino, along with a couple of other subjects, are quite precise. I mean, all programming questions mostly consern the Arduino IDE and I find that the Arduino.cc's tutorial section rubish.
After looking at what Stack Overflow has in there documentation section, I would find it very convinient and great if we can import that into this site. It has many GREAT tutorials that could solve around 5% of the questions on this site (just a guess, no actual numbers).
And if we, as the Arduino comunity put a little more effort into it, we can turn it into the (maybe) greatest Arduino tutorial book / site out there. I see a lot of benefits for it. Mostly that We can share a lot of knowlage without having to ask a precise question.
So who's with me?

Beginners tend to not read documentation, but certainly I agree in principle that good documentation is very important. I'm not sure if the SO documentation project can be used here, but if it can it sounds like a good idea.

I would suggest that it could be a prominent part of the tour so people would know about it.  Like the programming tag and Prettify and the Markdown Editor Help section.  (And we should have a LaTex tag if that's what it takes to be able to copy answers from EE SE to here without the need to reformat our math into FORTRAN 77

I'm not sure documentation per se is going to be useful. As Nick has noted reading documentation is something that many of our incoming users ("Ardueenies") are averse to doing.
Another thing they seem averse to doing is searching. The number of duplicate questions we get seems to be rather high. So instead of spending our time on documentation, it may be better to put our efforts into crafting "FAQ" questions where we cover, in detail, a specific topic. Then when we get a question that asks what that FAQ question covers we just close it as a duplicate pointing to the FAQ question.
This has proved successful on EE, especially for the question "What power supply do I want" or "Will my power supply blow up my project because of too many amps" and similar that seem to get asked about every 15 minutes. They all get almost immediately closed as a duplicate of "Choosing power supply, how to get the voltage and current ratings?"
Questions that people ask all the time that could be covered by this kind of thing (please suggest more):

I have added a shield that has pins in all the Arduino's holes. Can I still use some of them?
Can I run my Arduino of XXX power supply?
Can I use an external power supply for my Arduino and still plug it into the USB? Will it blow up?
How do you merge two k0d3z together? Will do you it for me? plz?
How do I communicate between my Arduino and my PC / a Website / Neptune?
What is the extra 6 pin header for on the Uno R3?

The list could go on for miles I am sure. Building up a store of these good quality in-depth answers would not only make life easier on us, since we would have to write less answers in the long run, but also would help the people asking the questions as they then get handed a well crafted, well thought out, detailed answer to their question instead of a half-arsed answer that we can't be bothered to flesh out because the same question has been asked time and time again and if only they'd spend the time doing a little searching, reading, and thinking about what they have found they would come up with the answer themselves.

How to communicate with GPS and GSM at the same time: is a popular one too.

Yes, I saw that one arrive just now ;)

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/216606/which-stack-exchange-sites-use-mathjax/216607#216607

https://arduino.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45/how-do-we-get-syntax-highlighting/2441?noredirect=1#comment858_2441

I agree, @Majenko.  FAQ comes to mind.  I am amazed how many times I post a question on Google only to be directed to a 3-year-old answer posted in EE SE or here.  Maybe in the tour it could be made clear that we are not a free software-production service.  Even better, perhaps automate the "Welcome ... take the tour" thing also.  That way it doesn't look like any particular one of us is trying to act like a gatekeeper.  (Mea culpa)


text:
Are online Arduino simulators on topic?
For example, could I ask a question here about how to use Arduino features in http://circuits.io?

I don't see why not. As long as the question isn't about how to use the simulator itself (they should support their own product in that respect). Bear in mind that simulators don't always mimic real life hardware. Exact timing constraints, and marginal voltage levels might not be reproduced in the same way that real electronics would.


text:
Any answer to a question automatically upvotes said question - FEATURE-REQUEST
I find it contradictory to the concept of upvoting that someone finds a question worthy of an answer, yet unworthy of an upvote.
I get the impression that it is a bit egotistical to not even care to upvote.  I also get the impression that these are point seekers, who care little about evaluating and awarding credit where credit is due.
As a longtime SO user, I believe that it would be only fair to award 1 upvote per answer (and deter the answerer from downvoting the question, naturally).

That sounds like a fundamental change to the underlying code. Nothing that we can do about that.

In what way is that a fundamental change? Not to the code, surely? if (question_is_answered) UpVoteQuestion(); However it might cause unexpected consequences.

This feature is not specific to this particular branch of Stackexchange but to the whole network. A change to that mechanism is very unlikely to be implemented on this stack only. The question therefore needs to be taken to Meta.Stackexchange, like Nick's answer suggests.

The upvote button tooltip has "The question shows research effort; it is useful and clear". Usually it is easy to answer a question without research effort. It only takes the research effort.

that is for OTHERS.  anyone who answers a question automatically deems it answer-worthy, therfore upvatable.  Otherwise one might argue that the answerer is only after points...

You raise an interesting point, although the concept would probably belong to every part of the Stack Exchange network, and thus might be better put at https://meta.stackexchange.com/.
You might argue that someone might answer a bad question, so upvoting a question just because it gets an answer might skew the results a bit. In fact, if every question is automatically upvoted by an answer it might conceivably push people to not answer, or answer in a comment, which could change existing behaviour.

one might argue so.  but a bad question does not deserve answering if it cannot be fixed.  if it CAN be fixed, then it becomes a good question and deserving of answer(s).

@tonygil Hmm... I have seen bad questions that have shown little work on the askers part, which I have then answered (perhaps wrongly), maybe because I felt sorry for them or to get them on their way or it was a commonly asked question (but couldn't find the duplicate), but didn't feel that the question was worth upvoting (for a range of reasons: obvious answer, little forethought on their part, poorly worded/presented etc.)

but, in general, that is not the case

It bothers me too that there aren't enough upvotes on Arduino SE. I am yet to come up with a good solution.
As well as upvotes, bronze badges (eg. Student) are used to encourage good questions.
One thing that doesn't work in our favour is that we have so many new users every day who ask their question, get an answer and then never stick around to pay it forward. And because they are in and out they don't read/learn the guides that SE is founded on, resulting often in poor questions. The users who do stick around are great.
To answer your question, I'm not sure if your proposal is the silver bullet to get more upvotes happening. Perhaps it is something Stack overflow could test and evaluate. Like others I suggest you post the idea on Meta.Stackexchange.
However, we all could put more effort into upvoting (me included). It was other people upvoting my first answer that inspired me to come back to the community and contribute more.


text:
Borderline off topic questions / alternative forum recommendation
Often we see a question which is not really handled on Arduino Stack Exchange because, for example, a solution may involve some electronics in addition to Arduino know how or, in some other way, is not regarded as a pure Arduino matter. Usually, such questions would be a good candidate for forum.arduino.cc . The question is, is it good form to say so so explicitly to the OP ?

Personally I have no problem with people being politely referred to a place which may be able to help them better, such as Electronics Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow or the Arduino Forum.
Bear in mind that beginners may not know what it is that they don't know (for example, it is fairly common for them not to know the Arduino is programmed using C++).
Plus, the idea of things being "pure" Arduino are a little hard to quantify. After all, most problems have some elements of programming in them, some elements of electronics, and some elements of simple debugging and problem solving.
My personal approach is to help people as much as I can, even if a question is largely about C++ or electronics, unless the question doesn't seem to have any relationship at all to the Arduino. And I don't try quite so hard for questions that seem to be "here is my homework assignment, please do it for me ... and I'm in a hurry, it is due tonight".

Step-by-step debugging where the OP gets asked dozens of questions, given things to try, and report the results are better suited to a forum than Stack Exchange. If a question is heading down that path it could be a good time to suggest that the forum format is better suited to solving their problem.

Very few questions will not be "borderline off-topic". I have to agree with @NickGammon that whether we're hobbyists, experimenters, engineers acquiring a new skill-set, etc., very few problems fit compactly into "Arduino" or "not-Arduino". Can't we just try to be helpful before - or instead of - looking down our noses at the newcomer? Are we here to help our them? Or to posture before each other? Are we a community, or a collection of egos showing off what we know? Should ASE to be a welcoming place for people to learn or a group of elitists who might tolerate a newcomer if they figure out The Right Way to ask a question? I see a lot of responses to newcomers, even to knowledgeable ones that didn't write a question in the One True Way. that could send anybody walking, muttering to themselves about how unfriendly ASE is.
It doesn't have to be this way. But it will need the mods setting a friendly example and taking a firm stance on unfriendly & unhelpful replies toward newcomers by ASE members. Sure, if a question is a better fit for another SE (or non-SE) group, by all means, suggest it and in a helpful way. But why not welcome newcomers with a more friendly stance (yes, some do, but not all) and a more liberal interpretation of what fits here?

My belief is that the problem here is that the primary goal of ASE is to build a searchable question and answer database. If users are helped here, then that is only a side effect of this primary goal. This concept works very well for a well structured domain like say the C++ language but does not work so well IMHO for Arduino which can be a very broad area and often cannot yield a good clean question and answer pair. . . .

. . . Having said that, I agree, however, that more effort could be made to help users who are, after all, creating content on this site even if their issue is of no general interest and therefore does not contribute much to the primary goal of the site. This could be achieved, while still maintaining the site quality, by simply marking the question down and giving the user sufficient information to send them on their way.


text:
3 Total posts awaiting review
In my status bar on Arduino stackexchange (not meta) I see in the top bar a square, brown with 3 in it and hovering shows: 3 total posts awaiting review.
However, if I look in the review list, all reviews show 0 items (including from meta data).
Where can I find these 3 posts?
I see this since I just got over 2,000 reputation.

That used to happen to me too. There is some explanation along the lines that you recently reviewed something so it is dropped from the list, but the count on the top bar is a cached one.
See:

Queue counts inconsistent?
Review counts in top-bar and /review don't match
Answer for Notify users of possible reviews on toolbar


text:
Programming questions moving to StackOverflow
There are many programming questions in Arduino (there is even a tag for it).
However, some are not related to Arduino, like
What happens if I pass a temporary reference and store it as a class member?
There is a flag/close/offtopic because/This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network option, but StackOverflow is not mentioned as possible candidate.
So far I flag the question and ask a moderator to move, but what is the preferred solution?
Just closing down the question, seems also not useful, especially if it can be answered while it is in Arduino StackExchange (even though it will be moved preferably).

There is a flag/close/offtopic because/This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network option, but StackOverflow is not mentioned as possible candidate.

If you are referring to the "Flagging > Closing > Off-Topic > Migration" window, I believe users with the required reputation can "see" this option but can't select a site to "migrate to". If the user can't select an option, then this option should not be displayed. Let's give the other moderators some time to see this question and hear what they know/have to say about this issue.

So far I flag the question and ask a moderator to move, but what is the preferred solution?

Flagging the question and asking a moderator to move it is the preferred solution. Arduino SE moderators may discuss questions with the other SE network moderators before we migrate a question to them.

Thanks, that's exactly what I did (and it already has been done by the moderators).

I'm inclined to agree with VE7JRO here. I'm a little opposed to questions being migrated on technicalities, however if it has to be done, then flagging for a moderator to do it is the way. If the question had contained an Arduino function call, then it might have been more ambiguous as to whether it belonged here or not.

Shouldn't the "flag/close/offtopic because/This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network option" include the ability to choose another SE site? I seem to have the rep to point questions to the meta site, but not to an actual destination site. Given that close requests take several consensus votes before they actually take effect, this seems like it should let the voter pick a suggested destination SE site.

@DuncanC - One possible solution would be to Vote to Close with the Off-Topic reason, then flag the question with "in need of moderator intervention". Please let us know which site you would like it migrated to. I'm "pretty sure" that close votes are removed during the migration process, but you still should retain your "close vote count".


text:
11 downvotes in a few weeks - what am I doing wrong?
My question is very related to:
6 downvotes in 6 days - what am I doing wrong?
However, I have 11 downvotes in about two weeks.
The answer given (I upvoted them), but seem not to be related to my questions because:

I'm not a newcomer at StackExchange
Most questions have (multiple) upvotes
For none, there is a reason added
Some of the questions are very old
I never had so many downvotes in such a short time (unless for a single question just asked, which I either removed or improved).

Meaning, it's not 'bad luck'. I just think it's somebody picking on me. Now I don't care if it cost me 20 or 100 points, but if he also downvotes other people who are new, they might cause people to stop using StackOverflow sites, and for me it was and still is an invaluable source of information.

the downvote on answer to syntax error question is my. it is only to zero the votes count so the question is deleted later by the system. the downvotes on your questions are not OK

@Juraj I don't mind to have a downvote for a bad answer (actually it's good, keeping the quality high).

@Juraj do you mean the answer for https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/78013/the-error-shows-ir-sensor541-error-expected-unqualified-id-before-token/78014#78014 ? I think the answer is correct, but would fit better at StackOverflow. But in that case a change of the question and answer to that forum would be better, and not a downvote.

it would be off-topic on SO because it is a syntax error. so it is off-topic here too in my opinion

@Juraj Yes I agree, but then I rather would have it moved without downvoting as the answer is correct/helpful. I will flag the question.

again. it is off-topic on SO. they will not accept the move. trivial questions must be off-topic on Q&A site. for example movie identification questions are off topic on Movies Stack Exchange

@Juraj sorry know I know the issue, you mean questions about a syntax error should not be added at all... I will remove my answer and the question can be removed. Now I understand the downvoting. Thanks for the clarification.

Looking at your reputation changes over time it certainly does look like someone is out to get you. From the 21st of August there is just a constant stream of down votes and not much else.
Unfortunately we cannot see who is voting, but there are systems in place to identify serial voting by one person and reverse them. But that hasn't been triggered, so I guess it's not just one person picking on you - either that or it's one person who knows how to game the system.
There are people around who think that programming questions are off-topic here, even if that programming is for an Arduino, and a number of your down votes could be put in that category, but not all of them.
Is it just "bad luck"? That's not really possible to tell. The questions in question (questionception?) are mostly quite old, though, so they've either been stumbled across in a general search (but why would there be so many together then?) or someone has actively gone through your list of questions.
Certainly it does seem on balance that it's someone malicious.
Unfortunately there's nothing we as moderators can actively do about it, other than passing it up the chain to the system admins to investigate.


text:
Am I allowed to ask a question about explaining what some lines of a code does?
so I have recently started working with Arduino boards and C++, I was doing this project and with luck (meaning I tried random lines of code) I got what I wanted.
However, I don't want to learn this way so I want to ask the members in this site to explain how each line of code works (not the really basic ones). I don't know if I am allowed to do that or not? so please tell me.
Thanks.

Sure you can. What we don't like are questions like:

I got this code. Explain it to me.

In your case it's only parts of the code you need more understanding of. As long as you make it clear which blocks of code are confusing you and maybe how you think they may be working, we'd be more than happy to help.

As long as you are asking about a couple of lines of code. Don't post an entire sketch of hundreds of lines and expect a line-by-line explanation.


text:
63k rep user answered, then downvoted, then closed question
I don't post much here because I stopped fooling around with Arduino about the time this SE was getting off the ground, so I posted my first question today.  And a user with lots of rep answered it, then an hour later made a snarky comment (but obviously obvious), and at some point unilaterally closed the question (aka "put on hold"), presumably because he received a downvote from someone, possibly thinking it was from me (making this retaliation).
Not sure how things work here on this SE, but that sounds like shenanigans in general, as well as on other SEs.
Interestingly (randomly?), the 4th suggested question was a congratulations to the user to reach a milestone reputation.
It's obvious from his terse messages/comments/replies that he doesn't like to explain himself, making a point to be as succinct as possible, even to the detriment of communication.
Is there something actually wrong with this question, are shenanigans afoot, or is something else going on here?  There were several other similar types questions offered in the suggested questions dialog as I wrote the question, and it should be relatively easy for proponents of this new feature to enumerate some of the benefits of it.

There is something actually wrong with the question. It's garnering opinions, asking, effectively, "what is your opinion on this thing? What's the point of it?". If you can't see the point if it, then the point is not relevant to you - so why do you care?

Questions that ask for opinions are not welcome on the site - hence the closure.  I often answer a question and then close it, because even questions that don't belong on the site deserve an answer sometimes.

the suggested questions are generated on base of your question. and you mentioned reputation

The top 3 results for a search of "benefit" are the same kind of question that I asked.  FYI, if y'all are gonna be like Stack Overflow, I'm not going to hang around.  I don't hang out over there because it's obvious they hate questions.  This is approaching the SO gordian knot of "Look at our top voted questions to understand what kinds of questions are appropriate here" && "Highly voted questions are not an indicator of valid questions [because we've changed what questions are valid over time]".

Back to the topic of this question: your brevity and circular logic aren't explaining what you're trying to say.  Obviously, if I don't immediately appreciate the apparent value of something, I probably don't understand it's utility.  That's why I'm asking people who do know why this thing is useful.  Otherwise, if it was so trivially easy to appreciate the utikity of something, I could ask Siri/Cortana/Alexa/Jeeves.

Yes, we hate questions. We don't hate problems though. Bring us your problems and we will try to solve them - that is what we are here for. What the SO sites are not are general discussion forums.

If you had a need for the CLI you would immediately know the benefits of the CLI. Since you don't immediately know the benefits of the CLI you obviously have no need for the CLI, and knowing the benefits would be of no interest to you since you have no need for those benefits.

The CLI is a niche facility. It is only of interest to the people who populate that niche, and those people, by virtue of being in that niche, already know the benefits.

The problem with your overgeneralization is that it applies to all features and all questions, thereby cascading the entire reason for a Q&A site out of existence, preempting not only Q&A sites or forums, but communication as a whole.

Majenko is elected moderator. I repeat - elected. Users of Arduino SE trust him. The reputation points are well-earned with his extensive knowledge of Arduino, microcontrollers and electronics. So your accusations are wrong. Perhaps he should not put your question on hold, but it is not shenanigans.

So, what you're saying is that someone(s) elected him king and now he can do no wrong?  Must have been a tough election with a thorough background check.  Sounds more like you're describing a saint than a moderator.  Or did a watery tart give him a sword?

there were pro-term moderators until the Arduino SE was Beta 4 years or so. then the first community moderators were elected. Nick Gammon and Majenko. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/135360/theres-an-election-going-on-whats-happening-and-how-does-it-work

https://arduino.stackexchange.com/election

I did say right from the start not to elect me and that I would be a terrible moderator. I'd be like Cartman with a badge...

@YetAnotherRandomUser Can I suggest that you stop arguing discussing that the question shouldn't be put on hold and instead spend that energy in improving the question so that it can be reopened.
As the question currently stands, I stand behind Majenko's decision to put it on hold. Having said that I think it is close to being acceptable and just needs a bit of editing to get it there.
I personally found Majenko's answer very helpful, particularly the first example, as I have a project coming up involving an Arduino and Raspberry Pi. By extension, I find the question helpful - so there is potential.
Here are some guides:

Help Center > Asking
What types of questions should I avoid asking?
Good Subjective, Bad Subjective
How to ask a good question for Arduino Stack Exchange

Interestingly (randomly?), the 4th suggested question was a congratulations to the user to reach a milestone reputation.

That post is over two years old. I was congratulating Majenko for reaching a high-reputation milestone.
I can't explain how that particular question got related to yours, there doesn't seem to be any connection.

So, what you're saying is that someone(s) elected him king and now he can do no wrong?

There are processes in place for dealing with rogue moderators, however I think that in this particular case there is nothing particularly insulting or unfriendly in Majenko's response.
All users, particularly moderators, are expected to abide by the Stack Exchange Code of Conduct.
Moderators must abide by additional restrictions to their behaviour.

To be honest, I've had questions in other parts of Stack Exchange closed by moderators, to my annoyance. :) So, it can happen to anyone (I'm a moderator here).
The more vague the question is, the more likely it is to be closed, as a general rule.

"I can't explain how that particular question got related to yours, there doesn't seem to be any connection." This title has "64k rep" and the other has "20k+ rep"

Is the suggested question here on Meta, or on the original post? Wherever it is, I can't see it now.

is here at top-right now as Linked, because it is linked in Question

It's here now because the OP posted a link to it. That doesn't answer or explain why the question about the 20k rep was the "4th suggested question".

yes, now it is linked, as I write in the comment. I created an answer with a picture

to solve the mystery about suggested questions.
if you type in the title of the question and start to write the body, SE evaluates the title to find similar questions. in 190 questions on Meta, "63k rep" is very similar to "20k+ rep"

I'm sorry, but I just can't help myself...

... so sue me...

Hahahaha that's awesome


text:
Can I post this question in the main site?
We are a small team working on a free open source Arduino playground. We would like to collect feedback from Arduino enthusiasts as well as beginners to make our project more useful. hence, we are very much interested to listen to the use cases, user wishes or needs, feedback on the simulator, and feature feedback.
is it possible to ask the question on the main site so that we can reach more Arduino users?
Here is the links of the project:
https://wokwi.com/arduino/libraries
https://github.com/wokwi/arduino-libraries

No. The main site is not a place for soliciting feedback for projects - it is a place for obtaining help with specific problems you may be having.
There's nothing stopping you asking on Meta - though the audience is considerably smaller, so the results may be pretty meaningless.

is here a possibility for moderator to add [featured] tag to show the meta question on the right yellow bar on main?

Meta is really for "questions about the site" - I don't see how this is really a question about the site.

@Juraj Nah, I don't think so. That would be no different to posting on the main site really. And yeah, Nick, I do agree with that - but moderation is much looser here as there are only about 4 people who ever read meta...

You, me, Juraj, and who is the 4th? :)

I suggest you post on the Arduino Forum, possibly in Gigs and Collaborations, Products and Services or Exhibition / Gallery (but only one of those).