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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Renaming the homework policy
There seems to be some interest in going over the infamous homework policy. Imho reviewing all of it in one go and coming up with something new is simply not feasible.
We should go about attacking ...
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How to deal constructively with questions that have a severe problem in grammar/vocabulary
Many a question asked here is barely understandable, and it seems we're very reluctant to point this out, obviously because it's hard to do so in a polite and helpful manner, without knowing about the ...
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Gaps to Fill Without a 'Homework' Close Reason -- Overview
I realize this 'homework' topic has been discussed before, tiringly so, but please Paddington with me. I'll try to attack it from a different angle. If you're not all caught up, check these previous ...
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Why is this question down voted? What is the tradition in here?
I've been an active user in the SE network, especially on math.SE, physics.SE etc., but not chemistry.SE, and today I asked the question: Why is Avagadro's number independent of substance?
However, ...
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Dealing with common misconceptions
There are some very common misconceptions about quantum mechanics out there that repeatedly show up in questions. Every once in a while new people ask about these same things, and someone has to write ...
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Speed at which questions are put on hold
Today in particular there were a couple of questions that were put on hold by one or two people (at least one person being a moderator) shortly after posting (within a few hours) without displaying ...
Buck ThornMod
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Lo and behold, the return of editing galore
There has been a huge spurt in the number of edits on questions and answers, as most of you would have noticed.
I am not against editing; I actually appreciate many of the edits, including the ones ...
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Tagging questions on diffraction of things other than X-rays?
The question What is “detwinning” as a 2D crystallography technique? and neutron diffraction brought this to mind, but electron diffraction is an established technique as well, and there may be others....
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Instead of writing a comment asking the OP to google it, we should sometimes ask them to stackexchange it
In response to a question that is not well-developed (one-liner, trivial because it asks for the definition of a common technical term or a comparison of common technical terms), we sometimes suggest ...
KarstenMod
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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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2019 Community Moderator Election Results
Chemistry's third moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied and the two new moderators are:
They'll be joining the existing crew shortly—please thank them for ...
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What are the rules about incorporating material from StackExchange Chemistry into open educational resources?
I think teachers and students can learn a lot from the questions and answers posted on the site. When I tried to compile a list of questions on different topics directly on the site, it was not met ...
KarstenMod
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How appropriate it is to improve typography of quoted text from the third-party source?
Often there is a quoted question (e.g. a block quote with >) from the textbook with certain typographic flaws which I would edit without any doubts, among which ...
andseliskMod
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Would some step-by-step guides be relevant to the site?
Would posting a step-by-step guide for something, such as drawing resonating structures of a given compound or elucidating some beautiful revealing connections, where people often get stuck at, be ...
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2019 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire
In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as ...
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2019 Community Moderator Election
The 2019 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,...
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What are the key differences between the conception of "question and answer quality" on SO and this site?
I posted a question under the "2019 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection" which was not that well received, apparently because it was not considered to address practical aspects of ...
Buck ThornMod
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Using mathrm versus rm MathJax index formatting
I do not understand well, why is so much preferred \mathrm to \rm for index formatting ?
(by occurrence and by user script formatting support.)
Note that I currently use LaTeX/MathJax only in ...
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2019 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.
Chemistry is scheduled for an election next week, April 29. In ...
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When a low quality question turns into a fascinating tutoring dialog
A new contributor asked a question, Mechanism of ring formation of an epoxide under acidic aqueous conditions. It has "homework" written all over it. The original title ("did not understand the ...
KarstenMod
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Is it safe to boil carbonated water in a kettle : Why's it 'unclear what you're asking'?
I rewrote Is it safe to boil carbonated water in a kettle? a minute ago, but I saw no comments counselling what was unclear?
user7952
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Let's not forget to pay tribute to questioner if the question is good enough
I believe this has been discussed in one form or another before, starting with the famous Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote post.
Several SE sites promote voting occasionally too via a pop-up message:...
andseliskMod
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Why do we downvote without commenting?
Ah! This is a big challenge I am facing while writing answers.
Usually all users try to write their answers as clearly as possible, but still errors do occur.
But what are the errors?
Conceptually ...
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Can we please ask information based questions?
Sometimes there are questions that have answers in terms of information and dont need some explanation but often when i ask such questions i am told to first google it.(my questions have been put on ...
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Do mods have access to classified information?
I was just wondering, do the honorable moderators have access to the following information? Sorry if its mentioned somewhere and I haven't paid attention.
Can a moderator see..
Who upvoted or ...
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Buzzwords Season 9 - Number of Moles (reboot)
For seasons 1-9 see:
I question the use of "question" in question titles
(search here)
Help make help questions have more helpful titles
(search here)
Houston, we have a "Problem&...
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Redefinition of pH
Fundamental SI units like the kilogram and the mole change definition this year. We should not stop there but redefine some quantities describing aqueous solutions of acids and bases as well.
A ...
KarstenMod
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Generally question of answering and deleting of posts
I answered to a question to this topic
Preparation of solution with hydrated molecules
I got first an comment my answer didnt answer the question.
By a guy namend Felipe S. S Schneider.
I want to ...
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Should we mention free and/or open-source software used for writing Q&As in the same post?
I often put a name with the URL for the free program(s) I used in writing an answer.
Also, adopting a standard practice among theoretical chemists (which I'm unfortunately not), sometimes I drop ...
andseliskMod
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What to do with the [ph] tag
Usage guidance for acid-base (2091 questions)
This tag should be applied to questions concerning acid and base reactions.
Usage guidance for ph (558 questions)
pH (or the potential of hydrogen) ...
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Do we need [polymers] and [plastics] tags?
Current usage guidance for plastics (116 posts)
For questions relating to the structures, properties, production methods and potential hazards of polymer materials commonly known as plastics
...
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Why was this question downvoted?
I have a question about my Chemistry Stack Exchange post: Action of sulphurous acid and active metal
I wish to ask what went wrong when I asked this question. I feel that I followed all the rules and ...
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New users might have a different view on homework than those who frequently answer questions
As a new user, if my question is labeled "homework" in a comment, I might feel accused that I am using StackExchange to cheat in my school work. In many cases, that is probably a good description of ...
KarstenMod
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2019 Potential Moderator Election Community Interest Check
Quick Update
We welcome the reception this post has gained, and appreciate all of you who are considering to run. We will therefore hold an election. As soon as new details are available, they will ...
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Your edit gets rejected, then the reviewer who rejected the edit does essentially your edit...?
I have done some edits to questions, here and on other stack exchanges, and some have been rejected. That is perfectly alright. What is annoying to me though is when my edit is rejected and then the ...
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Stepping down as a moderator
I've been inactive for many years at this point, occasionally dropping by and handling some flags but not really participating.
I love this site, but I also don't have the time to give to it, and I ...
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Decline in activity
Running this query gave this graph.
As we can see activity in terms of total questions asked has significantly declined. Since the peak in 2017. And as per my knowledge excluding myself only ...
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Is there a daily pattern in closing questions?
Anecdotally, I get the impression that more questions are closed at night then in the morning (my timezone is UTC -5). Are there times of day where questions of the same quality remain open longer? Is ...
KarstenMod
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Use of a diagram in a publication
I am a PhD student and I'm conducting research into the measurement of citrate in human biofluids using the indirect citric lyase method. The final step involves the differential absorbance of NADH/...
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Vote to Promote (Cross Site Community Promotion Ads)
To rehash an older point(Posting "Community Promotion" onto other SE sites), I want to encourage people to vote on Chem SE community ads on other Stack sites. We currently have ads posted to ...
TyberiusMod
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Community Promotion Ads — 2019 [duplicate]
2019 is here! And with the new year, as usual, comes a new iteration of Community Promotion Ads! Let’s refresh these for the coming year :)
What are Community Promotion Ads?
Community Promotion Ads ...
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Heavy question editing
I think the practice of heavy question editing, especially after answer(s) have been provided, especially if the edit contains new facts that the questioning person (or user(s) that have already ...
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Please don't post links to the mobile versions of the websites (unless there is a really good reason to do so)
Often I stumble upon the so-called mobile links both in the comments and in the answers, e.g. URLs that lead to a mobile version of the website and often seen as ...
andseliskMod
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2018: a year in moderation
It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land...
A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated:
We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in ...
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Wouldn't be text highlighting useful?
Often quote citations of literature references are included in an answer, with original text formatting features like bold and/or italic font. Sometimes it is desirable to emphasize specific text ...
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Do we have a close-voting but not closing problem?
I noticed within the last few weeks that more often when I come to the site the review queue icon is marked with the red dot. That usually happens if there are queues which have an unusually high ...
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Why was homework badge deprecated?
This site (like many in SE) gets peppered with non-optimal quality homework questions and for someone interested in looking through the questions quickly this is a pain, not least because well ...
Buck ThornMod
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May I convert one of my ill-received, deleted questions to a completely new one in order to try to work towards lifting my question ban?
I recently have asked a question that received no answers but has gotten a down vote. Since this is my first time to ask after 6 months question ban, my options are limited.
With the down vote and ...
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A tag for complete active spaces, multi-reference, multi-configuration
We have gotten a few (good, some excellent) questions about multi-reference, multi-configuration, complete active space, and possibly more related terms, recently. I would guess the grand total is ...
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Polymer formula bond-bracket crossing representation
I could not find any rule in Graphic representations (chemical formulae) of macromolecules (IUPAC Recommendations 1994) that would state that the bonds at the ends of the constitutional units must ...
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