All Questions
497
questions
25
votes
3
answers
2k
views
FAQ proposal: Back It Up and Don't Repeat Others
I'm considering adding the following clauses into the first bit of our FAQ:
How should I answer?
Make sure your answer adds helpful information and is a complete, stand-alone answer. Read other ...
16
votes
3
answers
9k
views
Custom Off-Topic Close Reasons Change
We have updated the custom off-topic close reasons according to two discussions held here on meta. The close reasons below are our new off-topic close reasons. As answers to this question, I am making ...
34
votes
2
answers
1k
views
What "comments" are not . . .
If you've noticed comment-discussions being unceremoniously deleted, there's been a lot of misuse of comments in this system. Let's see if we can nip this in the bud.
Comments are like Post-It notes
...
16
votes
4
answers
1k
views
What is asking for legal advice?
We have had several questions that have been closed because they had a legal component to them. But we live in a heavily regulated society so nearly every question on the site has laws that apply to ...
20
votes
4
answers
1k
views
We need to downvote answers more (even mediocre ones)
I propose that:
This site's core users MUST much more frequently downvote answers even if they are "only" mediocre or we are going to face a consistent decrease in quality
because (each of these is ...
12
votes
3
answers
572
views
Aggressive Edits
Update
3 weeks following this discussion, the question has been closed, is
sitting at -2 score, and has two answers with a combined +1 score.
This is not to say "I told you so", but rather ...
68
votes
8
answers
5k
views
Is 'Quit your job' an acceptable answer?
A lot of the questions on Workplace are getting an answer along the lines of 'You should quit'. There are some cases where i can see this as a viable answer but the majority of the time I think it ...
29
votes
7
answers
772
views
Does this site need a "back it up" rule?
There's all kinds of career advice out there on the Internet, much of it conflicting or wrong. The conflicting or wrong advice is especially prevalent (but not limited to) that found on open-access Q&...
17
votes
9
answers
1k
views
Our Comments Problem
our name is The Workplace, and we have a comment problem.
We definitely have a comment problem
We have tried to fix it, but haven't succeeded yet
We want your help to figure out a way to do that
We ...
9
votes
5
answers
318
views
How should we adjust our approach to editing to minimize conflicts?
We've had some questions asked recently that were edited by the community that changed the meaning of the post significantly, at least in the eyes of the asker or other members of the community. This ...
19
votes
3
answers
5k
views
How do I deal with the fact that I'm awesome and everyone around me sucks?
This seems to be the default structure of workplace questions. From the current front page:
Dealing with co-workers intentionally working slower to milk their
work hours?
How to not let co-worker's ...
139
votes
0
answers
4k
views
Public service announcement: Keeping the Workplace Professional
Be nice.
Stack Exchange has a Be Nice policy. The Workplace is no exception to this policy.
Lately we moderators have been spending a lot of time dealing with comments and posts including such ...
17
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Why was this question about handling the fallout of a crass joke deleted?
Why was this question (not mine, although I answered) deleted? It's currently at net +4 (with one favorite), and several constructive answers, but it was deleted by Shog9. Per the FAQ,
Generally we ...
9
votes
1
answer
391
views
Improving the System for Dealing with Poor Answers
On the advice of Shog, this has been reposted on Meta, slightly simplified
So it's no shock that we have a lot of poor answers here. We are having issues with understanding the current flagging, and ...
22
votes
6
answers
4k
views
When asked 'How can I foo the bar?' is 'Don't foo the bar' an appropriate answer?
On Cleaning Up Bad Answers on Popular Questions a comment by Yamikurone says:
There seems to be a flood of "Not an answer" flags on answers on this post. Many of the answers so flagged were,...
13
votes
2
answers
250
views
What can we do about me-too answers?
On Workplace more than any other Stack Exchange site, I see Me Too answers duplicating most or all of the content of earlier, better/more elaborate answers. We've got some question quality problems ...
10
votes
6
answers
182
views
Should we have country specific tags?
Some questions are inherently quite localised. For instance How important is a grade point average on a resume? makes little sense to those of us outside of the united-states.
I don't think questions ...
46
votes
2
answers
886
views
Site design for Workplace.se
I’m Stéphane, the new designer at Stack Exchange. First, I wanted to announce that this site is now starting the process of moving out of beta to become a fully-graduated site! Congratulations!
...
15
votes
5
answers
615
views
Fair to VTC for trolling
If you think a question is trolling is it fair to VTC (Vote To Close)? If so what reason should be checked?
I don't want to link the question as I don't want to get into a discussion on if that ...
14
votes
6
answers
1k
views
Do we have a Quality control issue?
We have a few questions that while not off topic I do not think are high quality questions as asked but have been upvoted:
Workplace gossip makes me uncomfortable - how do I deal with it?
How can I ...
10
votes
5
answers
803
views
Good Subjective/Bad Subjective and Agony Aunt Questions
"questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates, opinions — should be closed as subjective"
That's what Good Subjective, Bad Subjective says. And then it goes on to give us 6 ...
7
votes
3
answers
128
views
Are "it depends" answers a sign of a bad question?
(My title is a bit facetious, since the answer is probably "it depends".)
I'm seeing a lot of questions like this:
How can I reduce the size of a long resume without hiding all my skills and ...
22
votes
0
answers
2k
views
Get a Room, a Chat Room!
Get a Room, a Chat Room!
Did you know it only takes 100 reputation to create a chat room on Workplace SE? It's not a moderator-only privilege, nor is it reserved only for the highest reputation users....
13
votes
3
answers
522
views
Repairing our broken windows - we need YOUR help!
Background
Like other successful Stack Exchange sites, The Workplace gets a lot of questions. This is great! And we have a good-sized group of knowledgable users who answer those questions. This is ...
12
votes
1
answer
584
views
When there are many answers already, help me check that mine won't repeat others
When posting my answer I check that it doesn't repeat others as required by our FAQ.
In current UI, this becomes difficult when question already has many answers.
I would want that questions with 10 ...
8
votes
6
answers
320
views
High volume of questions being put On Hold or Closed - is that a problem?
At this moment, 7 of the top 10 questions are either On Hold, or Closed.
Does anyone consider this a problem? How does this compare to other SE forums?
7
votes
5
answers
329
views
Why was my question edited/closed/downvoted?
Based on this post by jmort, and a suggestion by enderland in chat, I thought it would be useful to create a consolidated post where we can point users to when we downvote/close/edit their questions ...
36
votes
10
answers
1k
views
Experiment concluded: a comment by any other name
This experiment has ended; you can view the report here.
Last year, Robert Cartaino relayed this one weird trick to fix comments:
I also flag dozens-to-hundreds of posts daily simply to remove ...
31
votes
3
answers
732
views
Can you add an ask anonymously feature for Stack Exchange sites like this and onstartups?
I understand reputation is an important aspect of Stack Exchange. However, on sites like onstartups and this site, sometimes you want to ask a question anonymously. You can always use a throwaway ...
19
votes
2
answers
304
views
What are the day-to-day activities of Moderators?
Now that moderator elections are upcoming, it would be nice to know: just what do moderators do?
How much time per day does it take?
What are you expected to do each day?
I know that moderators move ...
16
votes
1
answer
344
views
What's it like being a Workplace Moderator?
As experienced job-seekers (and regular readers at The Workplace) know, an interview is a two-way street. Just as it's important for the community to ask questions of candidates, it's also important ...
13
votes
7
answers
533
views
Do we want a community blog?
It's possible for a Stack Exchange site to get it's own blog provided we follow some steps to prove a couple things:
We want it
We can make it happen
I know some of our most active members like the ...
12
votes
12
answers
472
views
2018 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection [closed]
As hinted recently, the Workplace Stack Exchange is scheduled for an election starting next week, May 14th. In connection with that election as we have done in previous years, we will be hosting a Q&...
12
votes
1
answer
288
views
Delete votes and you!
I've noticed a number of our users have enough reputation to delete posts so I thought I'd write up a little primer.
When can I vote to delete posts?
Why would I vote to delete a Question?
Why would ...
8
votes
14
answers
319
views
2014 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
In connection with the moderator elections, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic ...
1
vote
8
answers
317
views
Practical Concept Handbook for navigating The Workplace [closed]
Inspired by this Meta post:
Just as travelers' immune systems can be assaulted by new diseases in new places, new users are increasingly likely to be miffed by an ingrained meme and left sitting ...
92
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Let's try to work with users before chasing them off
The Workplace gets a lot of questions whose initial versions don't fit. We correctly close those. Our closure rate is around 50% (I can't find an exact number in the tools), so this is a widespread ...
49
votes
1
answer
665
views
The Workplace is a worldwide site
Please remember: The Workplace is a worldwide site, and this means there are going to be some differences in context that we all need to be careful about.
Language: The language of the site is ...
21
votes
6
answers
1k
views
Should anything be done about a user posting fake questions
I believe we have a user posting questions based on the plots of soap operas that are not broadcast in the US or Europe. Several of the questions have been popular though not really believable. Is ...
19
votes
5
answers
961
views
Recent string of trolling questions
Recently we've had a large number of questions deleted because they were clearly trolling. Some examples (sorry, this is going to be all 10k+ links): New coworker demanding $10k, Autistic teenager, ...
16
votes
2
answers
484
views
Are we using NAA and VLQ flags correctly?
I've been noticing for a couple months that the 10k flag queue seems to have NAA and VLQ flags for things that I think wouldn't be flagged that way on other sites I'm active on. These are generally ...
15
votes
3
answers
596
views
Cleaning Up Bad Answers on Popular Questions
Due to graduation, privilege levels have dropped to the point where most of us can no longer delete answers making this less productive. We can revisit it in the future when we have more 20k+ users.
...
15
votes
4
answers
275
views
Adding an after-the-facts
I asked for advice a while back in a question here.
And I ended up acting on said advice, in a way that actually had a positive outcome.
I'd like to put this somewhere, to show the people who ...
15
votes
5
answers
436
views
Are Ethics part of our purview?
We've collected a fair amount of ethics questions. In my opinion "ethics" in general is too subjective and distant from a "real" problem to be an answerable question; everyone has an opinion, but no ...
12
votes
1
answer
357
views
Reason for deleting comments?
Several days ago (perhaps week before last?), I posted a comment on this answer:
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/a/36407/16724
As closely as I can recall, my comment was:
This answer is the ...
11
votes
4
answers
568
views
What is rude on The Workplace?
Due to the widely varying attitudes in the question, answers and comments on the post Can this site be more "friendly" to users when closing questions? I really think we need a quick primer ...
10
votes
1
answer
270
views
What is "legal advice"?
We say that questions asking for legal advice are off-topic (rightly so). I always thought this meant "what should I do in this situation?" (which may also be too localized), or "what exactly does ...
10
votes
2
answers
155
views
Do we need a policy on bad/"me too" answers?
More and more I'm hearing "the problem is bad answers, not questions". I disagree that the questions are not partly at fault, but I'd love to see more answer moderation.
The problem is the community ...
10
votes
2
answers
755
views
How can I ask questions on this site anonymously? [duplicate]
I've just joined this site and would like to ask a question, but I'm concerned about employers/colleagues etc seeing my posts.
How do I keep the questions anonymous?
7
votes
5
answers
268
views
Should we add a "Back It Up" rule to the FAQ now?
When we discussed the Back It Up rule before ChrisF suggested adding the rule to the FAQ when we go public to make sure people are aware of it (when they bother to look). His post was highly voted and ...