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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How do I ask homework questions on Chemistry Stack Exchange?
Mainly copied from https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/q/714/7433
What is the policy on asking homework questions on Chemistry Stack Exchange?
What kinds of questions are considered homework ...
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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 ...
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Which symbols are written in roman (upright) font and which are italicized?
This post tries to be a guide to new members of the (chemical) scientific community for instructions on how to apply the right formatting when writing chemical and mathematical equations.
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Hidden points of editing you probably didn't know
Making a good edit is hard. On Chem.SE, we (would/should/could) care about the finest points of formatting. There are basic points of editing many editors know about: Put some fancy MathJax/ $\mathrm\...
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Buzzwords in question titles - season 4 & 5 - experiments and exercises
I was looking for a pun in the question title, but was unable to find one. So instead let us remember the previous seasons:
I question the use of "question" in question titles (search here)
...
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Formatting Sandbox II: please *don't* test stuff here [duplicate]
This thread has been retired due to the large number of posts. The newest sandbox can be found here:
Formatting Sandbox III: please test stuff here
Spoiler warning: Be aware that this page ...
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Formatting Sandbox I: please *don't* test stuff here [duplicate]
This thread has been retired due to the large number of posts. The newest sandbox can be found here:
Formatting Sandbox III: please test stuff here
Before that, there was also this Sandbox:
...
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What do I need to know about tagging?
From the tour of Chemistry.se:
All questions are tagged with their subject areas. Each can have up to 5 tags, since a question might be related to several subjects.
This post is a guide on ...
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I question the use of "question" in question titles
The search:
https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/search?q=title%3Aquestion
brings up some 63 odd questions. Some of them are closed, some are actually pertaining to specific questions on particular ...
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Do we really need [homework]? [Part 3]
While we're on the topic of getting rid of tags, I would like to bring this up as a first step towards making a new closure policy.
This has actually been discussed before. See: (1) Should we have a ...
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Can we edit out unnecessary "statements of weakness" or buzzwords inside the questions' bodies?
I was ,partially, surprised that there isn't usually a talk about this in SE communities. Nevertheless, science-based sites and learner-and-teacher forums (sorry for the lack of a better term) like ...
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Help make help questions have more helpful titles
In the vein of this meta post, here are some 21 questions with the word "help" in the title.
https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/search?q=title%3Ahelp
Some of these asking for help with specific ...
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Let's do the bounty dance!
I have had this on my mind for quite some time already and I thought that the time before the year passes might be good to introduce this idea.
Let's get some Bounties rolling...
Bounties are a good ...
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Houston, we have a "Problem" in question titles
So we are all familiar with the drill, given through the following:
I question the use of "question" in question titles
Help make help questions have more helpful titles
There are ...
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A new policy of closure: November 2016
What's the current homework policy?
The current HW policy is laid out in this post. In essence, only blatant homework copy-pastes should be closed. These often get closed unilaterally by moderators.
...
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Let's not close questions as homework except for blatantly obvious cases (at least for a while)
Overview
There has been some concerns lately about whether we close too much. So we start giving leniency a chance. Scroll down to What we do to get to the fun part. Read the rest if you're interested....
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Shouldn't we be a bit more welcoming to new askers/ posters?
I always thought we are a welcoming gang of people here, but recently I am a little bit disappointed. I came across some posts from first timers(, which were not too good to begin with, but they could ...
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Should we create tags for common functional groups?
Often when I am tagging organic-chemistry there seems to be a lack of tags beyond this very broad one. reaction-mechanism seems to be very popular at the moment and generates quite a lot of good ...
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Comment Templates
Guidance is pretty important, and I'm going to write a meta post in some other meta about it soon. Long story short, if it weren't about guiding users, I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be ...
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Policy on AMIRITE questions
Intro
Consider two likely scenarios:
Q: How many grams of $\ce{O2}$ are there in one mole of oxygen gas?
I know that O is 16, so it should be 16 grams, AMIRITE? Please halp ugrant kthxbye
...
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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 ...
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Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote
I don't have to link to any particular posting. Just check the main page. Posts are not receiving enough votes. Responses are not receiving enough votes. We need to vote.
Even if you aren't ...
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Let's decide on what we should close as homework
The homework close reason is a thing I click on often these days.
Recently, we're close-voting questions as homework that are from a broad range of scope. Unlike what's being seen in that screenshot, ...
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How much effort is "enough" with homework problems? We would like to hear all ideas! (please)
We have a very good homework policy outlined for the site with some good and bad examples of homework problems.
Over the last few weeks, there have been several cases when users have added a line or ...
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Should we stop using the homework tag? [duplicate]
Related: Should we have a homework tag?
Currently, our homework policy mentions:
4. Use the homework tag
Use the homework tag on your question, in addition to any other tags that identify the ...
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How to ask and answer nomenclature questions?
A small but significant fraction of the questions consists of nomenclature questions.
In principle, virtually all nomenclature questions resemble one another, but they are quite different from other ...
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The Great Retagging Event - Episode 1: The one-taggers
TRE will be held at $\ldots$? Famous final words
The Retagging Event (TRE)
What good is in working so ...
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Temporary Suspension of the Homework Close Reason (concluded)
Statistics and conclusion below.
We have been struggling for a long time with the homework close reason. There are shortcomings to all approaches we have tried so far to change it. I believe one of ...
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What *is* a 'homework question'?
This is going to be a bit of a long post, please bear with me. (And no TL;DR's ಠ_ಠ)
A decaffeinating story
Once upon a meta post, a legend from the realm of Manly soil rose and said: Let's ...
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Introducing: Spring Cleaning [duplicate]
Note: While a lot of the information contained here is still somewhat relevant, it can be overwhelming at first. It also hasn't been updated for quite some time. For a more up-to-date version with ...
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Can site users suggest some design specifications regarding graduated site development
So here comes a good news that Chemistry SE is graduating soon. (Update: we have graduated now! Yay!)
Chemistry Stack Exchange has a steady flow of high quality questions and answers, and a growing ...
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Is MathJax in titles a problem? And why?
I think the title is self explanatory. I certainly think it looks nicer. I thought it still worked for searches too, as long as it's something $\ce{H2SO4}$ or $\ce{K}_i$ - certainly does on my browser....
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I am asking about chemistry, you know, that's why I put it in the title
Previously on 'Never mind the Buzzwords':
I question the use of "question" in question titles (search here)
Help make help questions have more helpful titles (search here)
Houston, we have ...
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Please don't call questions a dump, even if they might be one
I have tried it once and I will try it again: Shouldn't we be a bit more welcoming to new askers/ posters?
Now what brings me back to this topic? Today I came back to the network and was greeted ...
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Congrats, Chemistry SE is graduating!
Chemistry Stack Exchange has a steady flow of high quality questions and answers, and a growing number of users contributing to site health and maintenance. You're on a consistent upward trend, and ...
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How many shots will it take me to kill you with a neutron gun?
Recently, I've seen a trend of $\mathcal{\color{red}{SCARY}}$ questions back on chem. They're mainly about this:
Get the picture? No? OK, I'll be more straight-forward 1:
How to dissolve fifteen ...
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Which plugins for chemical formulas do we need?
Some Stack Exchange sites have site-specific extensions that allow them e.g. to typeset mathematical equations, create UI mockups or display Go board positions. Some support for creating and ...
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Editing gone wild
It seems that editing posts has recently gone out of control. There is certainly a need for editing and it has always been occurring. In the past it seems like one person at a time was responsible ...
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I have a doubt about "doubt" in doubt titles
From the depth of the stack exchange network I bring to you the newest season (7) of our community effort against buzzwords in question titles. The word of the season this time is doubt.
In Indian ...
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Everything you need to know about Synthesis Golf
Contents
What is synthesis golf?
What should my answer include/ are there any rules?
What previous synthesis golf challenges have taken place?
How often does synthesis golf take place/ how long does ...
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Do we really need to badger everyone to use MathJax for chemical formulas?
I've observed it a few times now that negative comments were posts simply because a user was not using MathJax to format chemical formulas. I don't mean gentle encouragements to properly format a post,...
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Encouraging better questions: the topic challenge
As discussed many times previously, there can at times be a severe lack of 'non-homework' questions here on chem.SE, meaning that it can be very difficult to actually engage (which has, I admit, made ...
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When is it safe to answer homework questions?
The current homework policies of Chemistry and Physics were adapted from the FAQ of Mathematics. The first rule about answering homework questions is: you do not provide a complete answer to homework ...
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What to do about rudimentary questions?
I've come across a number of questions in the past week or so, often in the review queues, that require an answer that's exposition of this or that rudimentary aspect of chemistry (example). In many ...
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What are the site policies surrounding paywall circumvention?
There is an answer to a question that I am hiding as a comment in the source below that very clearly and explicitly links to Sci-Hub in order to provide a PDF for a paid article.
Without bringing up ...
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Functional group tagging - revisited
Back in 2015 it was decided that we should create and apply tags for a bunch of functional groups. See: Should we create tags for common functional groups?
I'll be upfront about what I think: after ~...
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Guidelines for closing as off-topic, belong on a different SE
Thinking about:
Why room gets heated (closed and deleted, access to moderation tool > 10k reputation required)
Now, I agree that this question has a strong physics bent to it, but thermodynamics is ...
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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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What kind of subjects in chemistry are considered "too easy"?
Since we're in the Stack Exchange Beta, it's always stressed that easy questions should be avoided, in order to attract experts. I'm not entirely sure whether the questions I have fall into that ...
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Chemistry site design
I’m Kurtis, senior product designer at Stack Exchange. First, I wanted to congratulate you because this site is now starting the process of moving out of beta to become a fully-graduated site! Well ...
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