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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Should hackspaces have their own tags?
As a follow-up to this question:
Should we allow hackspaces to have their own tags?
I think this is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure about how well it would fit into the SE format, or if it ...
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Reaching out to hackspaces
In order to get more knowledgeable1 active users I think it would be worthwhile reaching out to all the hackspace2 communities out there.
I've asked questions of my local hackspace and got great ...
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Naive design questions (NDQs): "How do I design ______?"
There have been a few questions where users with little to no training are requesting instructions on how to design some object.
Some examples (both happen to be structural):
Asking for a "set of ...
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Is oil engineering on topic?
Oil companies invest money in research (sometimes!) and this leads people that are not in the field with a lot of questions. Also some problems that happens are though and not easy to explain to ...
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When should I use math markup?
Prompted by this suggested revision.
Here is the body of the question as it appears in my browser (Chrome 40.0.2214.111 m):
Marking up this paragraph with MathJax simply to introduce superscripts ...
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Should comments like "this belongs on EE.SE" be deleted?
Robert has made clear that, at least at this point in time, we should aim to accept questions from all engineering disciplines and not restrict our scope based on the existence of other engineering ...
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Community Ads to use in other sites
I just noticed your site and I'm happy you guys made it into beta; I wish you all the best in making this a great site.
One nice way to let the world know about this site is via the Community Ads ...
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Should our beta icon be changed from Eg to Eng, or an icon?
I have noticed that Cognitive Sciences SE and probably others use three letters in their blue (beta) icon. Engineering uses two (Eg). It's non-intuitive, and I feel e.g. "Eng" would fit the name ...
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Is social engineering on topic?
I know there are other questions with great answers explaining the broad scope of Engineering as a topic, and how other sites should not influence how we define our scope. I agree with all that.
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Should some questions wait to be asked?
I couldn't find any discussion on any other stackexchange site on whether asking too many specific questions is good or bad at the beginning of a site.
My concerns are:
There may not be enough ...
hazzeyMod
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Are micro- and nanotechnology related questions on-topic?
Are micro- and nanotechnology (and micro- and nanosciences) related questions on-topic here?
Some example questions could be
How do you manufacture carbon nanotubes with a specific chirality?
I want ...
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Questions purely on Electrical Engineering - here on EE.SE? [duplicate]
I understand questions that bridge engineering domains, involving electrical engineering but not limited to it should be welcome. What about questions like Motor Driver board: limited current? It's ...
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How to ask about the content of math education for engineers?
In our private beta, a university maths educator asked this follow up question:
Math Engineers Use
Did you find it beneficial to have about four semesters of calculus?
Maybe you do not use ...
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How to encourage users to explain downvotes
It would be good to make sure / very strongly encourage users to explain every downvote. The commenting can be brief but at least point towards the high level reason for downvoting.
I suspect there ...
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Have all the good questions from the Proposal been asked?
Have all of the good sample questions from the Proposal phase been officially asked here?
I ask about "good" questions, because I will be the first to admit that my Proposal questions probably aren't ...
hazzeyMod
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Should ethics questions be allowed?
Engineering ethics is of concern to all practicing engineers. However, some ethical dilemmas can be difficult to resolve, and outside input may be useful in coming to a conclusion. Unfortunately, ...
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Are career related questions in or out?
Just found this question here:
In Engineering fields, how often do you find yourself being asked to be a "salesperson", and what is your reaction?
which is somewhat career related; ...
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Are questions about engineers on-topic?
History questions are on-topic, as evidenced by the engineering-history tag. In a similar vein, what about questions about engineers?
We had a similar discussion on HSM, where it was decided that
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Should questions on schematics be allowed?
I am aware that most StackExchange websites consider questions regarding recommendations or where to find additional information as out of scope, since they generally atract too specific anwers or ...
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Is it appropriate to name suppliers and link to their products in answers?
So, a few times already I've found myself really wanting to drop the name of a commercial program or company that I use. I've specifically avoided doing so because I didn't want to endorse a ...
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Do we need a "homework" tag?
The consensus of this post is that homework questions should be allowed, so long as they satisfy certain criteria. That begs another question: Do we want a homework tag?
The tag would have the ...
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What should our position be on homework-type questions?
This comes around as a direct result of this question, but I'm sure there will be more questions of a similar nature in the future. As commenters have noted, it sounds like a homework problem, but ...
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Canonical book recommendations versus Finding Things Questions
As a community, we've come down pretty clearly against "Finding things questions" (FTQ). That said, there are some edge cases that deserve additional consideration by the community.
One case for us ...
user16
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Are Questions About Engineering Software On-Topic? What questions?
A few days ago, I asked this question. On the one hand, it received a couple of upvotes and got a good answer, which also received a few upvotes. On the other hand, several people voted to close it as ...
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Who should our pro-tempore moderators be?
From The 7 Essential Questions of Every Beta:
Discussing the criteria of a great moderator is important and picking out potential candidates is a great way to introduce outstanding contributors to ...
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How are we doing?
This post is to help the community track how we're doing as we progress through our private beta into a public beta and hopefully into a full-fledged SE site.
Statistics are provided by the Area51 ...
user16
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Change name of chat room?
Currently, our chat room is named "Engineering." While not terribly exciting, it does make the room pretty easy to find. The down side is that it's not terribly exciting and doesn't reflect much ...
user16
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Field distribution of users: what kind of expertise do we have on our SE site
It would be nice to know, more or less, what is the expertise base that we have on Engineering SE.
Instead of each person giving a separate answer akin to "Hi, I'm an X engineer", where X is their ...
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Engineering.SE manifesto
By the fifth day of our private beta, we have publicly lost our first user.1
The summary of their reasoning was that they felt the answers to a question they had asked mocked the premise of what the ...
user16
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Biomedical Engineering: Where does the engineering stop and biomedical begin?
Aka: Is Estimating maximum lift or strength off topic?
Looking at the definition of engineering:
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the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, ...
user133
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Once again, "Would experimental physics themed questions be on topic?"
This was originally asked by Sabre Tooth on Area 51 not too long ago. Perhaps it's relevant to put it on meta now that we're in beta, because although all the people here have clearly been on Area 51, ...
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What should be do about cross postings?
I refer to this question, which was posted (or cross posted) on electrical engineering, and our site.
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/150511/how-can-i-measure-the-brightness-of-a-led
...
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Are history questions on topic?
This was inspired by What engineering advances paved the way for "modern" computers?
Are history questions on-topic for Engineering.SE? We decided on HSM that history-of-engineering ...
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Let's write tag wikis (sort of)!
We have accumulated quite a lot of tags throughout the first days or so, which is really good! They seem to be helping guide questions and categorize them better.
Let's start writing descriptions! ...
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Surveying questions on topic?
Surveying can be a big part of civil engineering. Most of us have probably had to take a surveying class in college, but it isn't "Engineering" in a strict sense, and can be a separate field. A quick ...
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How should we promote our chat room?
When the web chat gets a reasonable population, we can think about how chat might complement Engineering.SE
Please come and visit, and think about how to promote it.
http://chat.stackexchange.com/...
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Questions about conforming to legislation such as CE-marking - on topic?
For example, should my following question be on-topic? I have desperately looked for places to ask such questions, and was the main reason for joining the Engineering SE site (among others with ...
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What might the guidelines for hobbyist questions?
I have seen a number of questions that are asked by hobbyists, or others who are looking to learn more about engineering because they are inspired by something awesome they saw.
It seems very prudent ...
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Don't forget those "high level" tags that target an engineering discipline
There is a huge potential in this site that lies in the same premise that made Stack Overflow one of the largest sites on the 'net — it united all the world's Programmers Engineers regardless of ...
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What should our reference policy be?
A lot of sites on Stack Exchange require - or at least strongly advise - users to include sources in their answers (and questions, when possible). Should we try to move in that direction? Requiring ...
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What is the scope of "Engineering" that this site covers? [duplicate]
Are there any disciplines of engineering that this site specifically excludes? It seems Electrical Engineering is covered by EE.SE, whereas Software Engineering is covered by StackOverflow and ...
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The Engineering.SE position on recommendation/finding stuff questions
In general, most Stack Exchange sites do not deal with recommendation questions such as:
What is a good book to teach me x
Please recommend a widget to help me <...
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What does the tag "quality" mean?
Well - obviously I understand the english word. But in the context this post, I dont see any use of it. Maybe there is - but a description would be nice. Or is it some kind of meta-tag for describing "...
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Our Scope (and Overlaps with Sister Sites)
This question arises in part from my first question (since deleted). I realized while asking this that perhaps it had already been asked at Aviation Stack Exchange. While they do indeed have an "...
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Expected level of effort or detail in asking questions?
What level of effort or detail should we expect from questions on the main site?
Some of the initial questions so far have been lacking in details that could materially affect the answers provided.
...
user16
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Anybody can create tags on newly created beta sites?
Just created this question in our wonderful beta.
What really surprised me - I created some initial tags, and they was created without any trouble. Although I have only a simple user with minimal ...
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