Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
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Formatting Sandbox III: please test stuff here
Sandbox II has become as clogged as Sandbox I was (and is), especially for users with 10,000 reputation or above. So, here is a new new post...
Before you delete a post here, please reduce it to one ...
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A moderator has been harassing me. What should I do?
Recently, I have been receiving comments from a particular (unnamed for anonymity) moderator which fall under harassment and rude/condescending (use of vulgar/strong language) category of the Code of ...
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I am not able to post new questions even though I have asked good questions in the past
I have posted a total of 7 questions on CSE. Only one question received downvotes (due to a miscalculation, which I resolved), while I received 7 upvotes on the other 6 questions. Why am I not able to ...
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Lifting the question ban
I joined the site 8 months ago and had to face a question ban as I was not aware of the policies of site( At present only two of my 4 questions are having a negative downvote).
The site policy says ...
KarstenMod
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What is unclear about this question about when a reaction is non-redox?
Here is the question.
This is a very simple question. It is of this form; what must the value of x be for P to be true? Not only is such questions simple (in what they ask, not necessarily easy to ...
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How to encourage visitors to search the site?
Yes, this is a likely duplicate. I should have searched meta first. In that self-referential spirit....
There has been imo an uptick of late, possibly seasonal, in homeworkish posts, many likely ...
Buck ThornMod
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Can these tags (pKa, Salt-bridge) be created?
pKa, salt-bridge, coulombic interactions are important concepts for both chemistry, biochemistry, biology aspects. One would expect them to be quite hot topics. Strangely, however no such tags seem to ...
KarstenMod
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Is ChatGPT diverting "homework" questions from science Q & A sites in general, and Chemistry SE in particular?
We have had posts previously discussing how ChatGPT might affect answers on Chemistry SE. Here, I am opening a discussion about how it might affect traffic and types of questions posed on Q&A ...
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Reference-requests, books and closure. Where lies the fine or not-so-fine line?
The site aims to keep high standards and attract experienced and knowledgeable practitioners of chemistry. The point is to share knowledge, not "doing someone else's work", but that is just ...
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Approach to sensitive chemistry topics ( poisons, explosives, drugs etc. )
Is there a recommended, in place approach on CH SE site to potentially suspicious questions
about sensitive chemistry topics like poisons, explosives, drugs etc?
Many of such questions manifest common ...
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Please help me understand why asking about an acid-base reaction was down-voted and closed
I am new to Chemistry on SE and was DV'd several times and closed for this question:
What results from the neutralization copper citrate with Na2CO3
It seems on-topic, but I must be missing ...
Buck ThornMod
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Is ChemiDay a reliable enough source (for inorganic reactions) to be cited on our site?
We have quite a lot of upvoted posts — 77 to be exact — using a website called ChemiDay as their reference material. However, from the looks of it, the website doesn't appear to be a reliable ...
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2022: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
CommunityBot
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When should I vote to close?
Seeing this post closed it feels useful to review the motivation behind use of the close option. Yes, the OP considered a number of orthogonal options to rid said food of the offending substance, ...
Buck ThornMod
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Why was this question closed as a homework-style question?
I asked this question: Is there a general name for a group connected to a N-atom?
While it may not be the peak of my SE presence, I was surprised that it got closed as a homework. The question itself, ...
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To what extent does blender speed dissolve table salt + cold tap water?
I have a question about my Chemistry Stack Exchange post: To what extent does blender speed dissolve table salt + cold tap water?
Why does my question need "details or clarity"? Buck Thorn ...
Buck ThornMod
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There's a hole in the help center awaiting to be filled
I just noticed (for reasons you could guess, hint) that there is an edit link in the help center where I did not expect one to be.
There is no content to see, so let's create some.
Here's the page: ...
CommunityBot
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List of Loong's nomenclature answers
After the sad event of termination of Loong's account, his nomenclature questions cannot be searched easily anymore. Therefore, I've decided to section his 263 answers (as far as I've been able to ...
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Would it be a good idea to ask here why uric acid is not 1,3,7,9-tetrahydropurine-2,6,8-trione but rather is 7,9-dihydro-1H-purine-2,6,8(3H)-trione?
Would it be a good idea to ask here why uric acid is not what I would have guessed, i.e.
1,3,7,9-tetrahydropurine-2,6,8-trione
but rather is something that I find surprising, i.e.
7,9-dihydro-1H-...
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What is official policy toward AI generated content on Chemistry SE?
A few weeks ago OpenAI released chatGPT, a chat bot capable of generating detailed human readable answers such as encountered on this site.
For instance, when fed the question
What is the ...
Buck ThornMod
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What are common questions students have about physical chemistry?
If we look at the questions on the Chemistry site, what would a physical chemistry FAQ look like? Because the site tries to avoid duplicates, frequently asked does not mean frequently posted. Ideally, ...
Buck ThornMod
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Community Promotion Ads - 2018 [duplicate]
It's almost February in 2018, which isn't supposed to be the proper time to cycle these, but for this year it'll be once again, so we'll be refreshing the Community Promotion Ads for this year now!
...
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Community Promotion Ads - 2017 [duplicate]
It is a bit late into this new year, being that we're already in the second month, but we are now cycling the Community Promotion Ads for 2017!
What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion ...
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2016 Community Moderator Election Results
Chemistry's second moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the 2 new moderators are:
(source: stackexchange.com)
They'll be joining the existing crew shortly — ...
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Is habitual down voting considered okay?
Today, I noticed two okay questions, which are quite reasonable student-level questions, and they are downvoted. I understand that there is at least one habitual downvoter who consistently downvotes ...
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Community Promotion Ads - 2016 [duplicate]
It's 2016 now, and we've made some changes to the sidebar size. As such, we can now restart the Community Promotion Ads for 2016!
Keep in mind, we have updated some of the guidelines compared to ...
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Community Promotion Ads - 2015 [duplicate]
Congratulations on receiving a new design! Included with your new design is the Community Promotion Ads system. For those who are unfamiliar with how this works, please read onwards!
What are ...
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Who should our beta moderators be? [closed]
Chemistry StackExchange has been in public beta for a week now, and soon it will be time for us to get our first crop of moderators, as explained in the “Moderator Pro Tempore” blog post:
About a ...
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Holiday Bounty Suggestions?
In the past, we've had some "bounty dances."
In the spirit of end-of-semester end-of-Gregorian-year Winter/Summer Bash spirit, I'd like to borrowing / shamelessly steal the previous idea, ...
KarstenMod
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Would it be on-topic to ask why guanine is sometimes referred to as "Acyclovir Impurity B"?
"Acyclovir Impurity B" is the name for guanine used by a handful of websites. Googling the term shows this.
https://www.trc-canada.com/product-detail/?G836000 which seems to confirm that ...
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Would this improve my Chemistry question re deducing the IUPAC name of LSD, or, if that is no longer an option, be a good question in its own right?
People have said in the comments of my question IUPAC naming of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) heterocyclic core and its locants that the question would take many pages to answer, and/or that I ...
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How to search for images of compounds?
I am not sure on what SE I should ask this question, so the safest bet I can make is this one. The problem I am facing is that I am not able to find the actual picture of compounds when I search for ...
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How to actually ask question
I don't know but, it is my observation but this site is very unfriendly to novice people like me. Note that I am a high school student Asking simple questions like this, or this, only results in being ...
KarstenMod
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How do we help new users that have a novice chemistry background write questions that don't get closed?
I was wondering how can we help our newer users write better questions and refine them to meet our standards?
I am also new to this site, so please feel free to educate me, point me in the right ...
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Wrong answers from this site showing up on the Google front page
I was looking up some information about N2O5 and came across this question.
The worrying thing is that Google automatically displayed the answer with the lowest points (-13 because it was completely ...
Buck ThornMod
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First time askers modal
Stipulations
The first time askers modal has two required parts: A sentence about searching for existing answers on the site, and a list of specific actions. These have to stay in place. However, we ...
CommunityBot
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Reading the tea leaves: continuing to monitor closing and deletion trends on the site
I ran a database query again to see where we are a few months after the recent election. As I inspected the result I wondered if the number of posts deleted as a fraction of those closed was ...
Buck ThornMod
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20 unanswered questions with many upvotes but no answers (Updated 18 Oct 2022)
You may be familiar with the project for questions with tons of views, but no answers. This is a bit different. Here, we are celebrating the unsung heroes: questions that have garnered some love on-...
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Proposals for guidance presented to first-time askers
Update: The customized site-specific guidance is live now. To see it, go to https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/ask after logging out (or use a incognito/private window).
There seems to be ...
KarstenMod
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How to append supplementary information as hidden multi-line comment?
What would be an appropriate way to attach non-essential information to the post that is only visible when needed/requested and doesn't get in way or distract the reader?
My use-case is an urge to ...
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Why is a well researched chemistry question discredited as homework and closed?
Is no one here allowed to ask a question in an area in which they are not a professional?
I have asked this question to 3 chemists and 2 physicists, no one was able to answer it even after more than ...
KarstenMod
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How can I find out if my question is already answered on Stack Exchange Chemistry?
On the "How to ask good questions" help page, it says to search on the Stack Exchange Chemistry site to see if someone already has asked my question. It also says to mention related ...
KarstenMod
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I am stepping down as a moderator
I will be stepping down as a mod from Chem.SE at the end of the month.
I greatly enjoyed cleaning up old questions, getting popular questions answered, and bringing more traffic to Chem.SE which were ...
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What is the recommended style of citing on chemistry.se?
In principle citing is fine in any way that attributes the original author(s) unambiguously. The highest principle should always be: Give credit.
However, recently we decided to have a community ...
KarstenMod
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FAQ: How can I format math/chemistry expressions on Chemistry Stack Exchange?
This FAQ explains and gives examples how to typeset chemical equations, quantities and units, and mathematical expressions on Chemistry Stack Exchange (rather than posting pictures, which you can't ...
KarstenMod
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2022 Community Moderator Election Results
Moderator election #5 on Chemistry has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the new moderators are:
They will be joining the existing crew shortly — please thank them for volunteering ...
KarstenMod
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What are your views on how Matter Modeling and Chemistry sites should interact?
This is a question posted by Geoff Hutchison as part of the recent election. Martin suggested we discuss on Meta after the election is done. I reposted with slight edits; I will refrain from cross-...
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How can we guide new users before they ask their first question?
Update: Based on the lively discussion here, there is now a featured meta post where you can propose specific changes.
When users ask their first question, they now are shown the following information ...
KarstenMod
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2022 Community Moderator Election
The 2022 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:
Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase
Most elections take between two and three weeks, ...
KarstenMod
- 36.4k