What is "meta"? How does it work?

Meta Linguistics Stack Exchange is the part of the site where users discuss the workings and policies of Linguistics Stack Exchange rather than discussing linguistics itself. It is separated from the main Q&A to reduce noise there while providing a legitimate space for people to ask how and why this site works the way it does. Meta is for...

  • ...Linguistics Stack Exchange users to communicate with each other about Linguistics Stack Exchange (asking questions about how the websites work, or about policies and community decisions)
  • ...Linguistics Stack Exchange users to communicate with Stack Overflow the company (posting bugs, suggesting improvements, or proposing new features), and
  • ...Stack Overflow the company to communicate with the community (soliciting feedback on new ideas or features, or discussing policies that affect the whole network)

Please look around to see if your question has been asked before, and avoid asking questions that have nothing to do with Linguistics Stack Exchange or the Stack Exchange network. This is not a random discussion area; rather, it's a place for improving our community and website, together.

Voting is different on meta.

Like normal Stack Exchange sites, Meta allows members to vote on questions and answers. For most posts, votes reflect the perceived usefulness: well-written, well-reasoned, well-researched posts tend to get more attention and more upvotes. Highly-voted and frequently-linked posts may become part of the community-curated FAQ or codified as part of the site’s Help pages.

Unlike normal Stack Exchange sites, Meta invites the community to discuss, debate and propose changes to the way the community itself behaves, as well as how the software itself works. On posts tagged feature-request, voting indicates agreement or disagreement with the proposed change rather than just the quality or usefulness of the post itself.

If you have an account on Linguistics Stack Exchange, you have an account on its meta site.

You do not need to create a separate account for meta; once you are logged in on Linguistics Stack Exchange, you are also logged in and may post on its meta site.

Votes on meta do not affect your reputation; your meta reputation is the same as your reputation on Linguistics Stack Exchange (synchronized hourly), though you earn separate badges. You must have 5 reputation to participate on meta.

Meta has required tags.

On the main site, we ask that you avoid using meta-tags.

Because meta-discussion sites are different and serve multiple purposes, some meta-tags are okay, and even required. Each meta question is required to have one of the following tags:

  • [support], which indicates a request for assistance with one of the site's features.
  • [bug], denoting a reproducible problem on the site that you believe is due to a mistake, malfunction, or programming error
  • [feature-request], for a proposal for a new feature on the site, or requests a change to an existing feature.
  • [discussion], for posts that may not have a clear-cut right or wrong answer and are often subjective. If it's not a bug or feature request, it is probably a discussion.
 
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