This post is on behalf of all of the mods.
This is designed to be a sequel to this post:
To be a successful Stack Exchange site, we not only have to ask good question and have a good user base, we need to make it easy for new users to grow our community. The easiest way to do this is with help documents and other faq posts on meta.
The biggest problem (besides question quality) is off topic questions. Site scope is fairly easy for most people, but there are a couple of grey areas that are complicated for me. I can't imagine how confusing it must be for a new user when asking a question in this 'grey area' and learning SE's policies on duplicates, accepting, comments, and scope in general.
Moderators have special tools for edtiting certain parts of the site. We can edit the tour (as specified in the "part one") and one page of the help center. Here's what it says:
What topics can I ask about here?
Please look around to see if your question has been asked before. It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question.
If your question is not specifically on-topic for Arduino Stack Exchange, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.
That's the standard cookie-cutter template. It's not really that descriptive. I think we should preserve it, or reword it. it seems to be a
The following is a draft of what we should change the help center to. You can submit an answer if you would like to suggesting changes. I'm no wordsmith myself, but us three mods feel it's pretty good. You can also suggest other things to add (a meta link would be fine with a little text) or, if you disagree with a bullet, feel free to either: a.) post an answer or b.) ask another question on meta and link it.
Before you post a question, please look around $SiteName to see if your question has been asked before. If you've already asked this on another site, please don't ask it again. Either flag it for moderator attention and request migration to $SiteName or delete it on the other site and re-ask it here. Also note that it’s okay to ask and answer your own question.
Here at $SiteName we have specific criteria to determine if a question is fit for our site. If after reviewing the following list you're still not sure, visit Meta $SiteName, a site to ask about $SiteName.
On topic:
- Specific questions about Arduino boards, code, and the Arduino IDE. Feel free to ask about anything related to Arduino.
- Questions about other IDEs, clones/counterfeits/derivatives, and other coding languages for Arduino. Feel free to ask about any language for coding Arduino.
- Board recommendations. Make sure to include detailed information about the project you are doing and your requirements. If your question is too vague, it may be put on hold.
- Library recommendations. Make sure to include detailed information about the requirements. If your question is too vague, it may be put on hold.
- Code review: Use the tag project-critique for advice on how to improve your code/project.
Off topic:
- General Coding: If your question is about coding not related to Arduino, try Stack Overflow.
- If the solution would be the same with or without Arduino, then it's usually a general coding question.
- General Electronics: If your question is about making electronics or other electricity questions not related to Arduino, try Electrical Engineering.
- If knowledge of Arduino would improve a question, it's on topic. Otherwise, it might not be a great fit for our site.
If your question is not specifically on-topic for $SiteName, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area51, the place of where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.
