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Many topics on Serverfault, Stackoverflow, etc. are framed as a question. People respond with their answers.

I have a topic that I would like to discuss, but it is more of a tip then a question. I would like to get people's feedback.

I'm trying to write the post like this: "I have this idea to do $SOMETHING. This seems like a better solution then what most people do. What do you think?"

Are we allowed to post tips? If you had a tip, how would you phrase it?

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only if they start with "PROTIP: <tip goes here>" –  snicker Apr 23 '10 at 18:43
    
@snicker, you could maybe tag it with tip or something like that, but PROTIP: just looks tacky compared to the rest of the site –  Earlz Apr 23 '10 at 19:40
    
PROTIP: Does the term "PROTIP" seem unfamiliar to you? You should read more Nintendo Power magazine! –  snicker Apr 23 '10 at 19:54
2  
You should check out this related question for some advice: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2706/… –  gnostradamus Apr 23 '10 at 20:35
3  
@Earlz: PROTIP: To kill the cyberdemon, shoot it until it dies. –  Phoshi Apr 23 '10 at 21:12

4 Answers 4

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Stack Overflow is a nice mini-blog

In addition to the "normal" question/answer SO use, I treat Stack Overflow as sort of my technical "mini-blog". These generally fall into two categories:

tutorial mode. topics expressible in a Q/A which I've wanted to write about. In a lot of cases I've heard these questions before in other areas, or they were something that I had to figure out myself.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24886/is-there-a-performance-difference-between-i-and-i-in-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/594/cx-oracle-what-is-the-best-way-to-iterate-over-a-result-set http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2053313/oracle-how-to-create-an-identity-column

"engineering notebook" mode. questions I've had and figured out the answer to. If I put them on SO, it will be easier for (a) other people to to get help from them, and (b) allow me to find the answer later when I've forgotten it!

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/40586/cx-oracle-how-do-i-get-the-ora-xxxxx-error-number http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2678228/good-tutorial-on-wavelet-compression

Of course, the SO system (software and peopleware) does not handle these cases specially, but treats them as normal questions/answers, subject to the standard rules and voting mechanisms.

I'm very grateful to Jeff for pointing out early on that this was a possibility. I used to write a lot, but slacked off for a while. Stack Overflow has gotten me back in the habit of writing about technical topics. Thanks Jeff!!

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In general, no. This is not a discussion site.

But, if your question is very specific like "I have this idea on how to make a jquery slider do this special animation. Is this the right approach to take?" This kinda thing is sometimes ok, of course you must always phrase it in the form of a question too... Also note that it's ok to write a question and then provide an answer to your own question

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Avoid it being subjective and that it would require an extended discussion and I think it would be OK.

Jeff has talked about posts like this being OK and Joel wants SO and related sites to be the the main source of information for it's type on the web.

In the Venn diagram we have a blog section so there is some merit for it. I wouldn't do this all the time but if the tip is interesting and could result in some community feedback, then I see nothing wrong with it.

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Am I the only person with >4,000 rep that has never seen the About page? –  Earlz Apr 23 '10 at 17:53
7  
@earlz: Yes, you are –  squillman Apr 23 '10 at 17:57
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@Earlz the about page was the first thing I remember seeing on SO. The graph and the peoples' portraits (although I think there were only three back then.. in the long long ago). –  Pëkka Apr 23 '10 at 17:57
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PROTIP: When visiting a new website, always check their about page. You could find some useful information! –  snicker Apr 23 '10 at 19:30

It's like Jeopardy: frame it as a questions and self answer it.

Why?

Because this is a Questions and Answer site, and if your tip doesn't fit well in that form it probably doesn't fit well into the mission and culture of SOFU.

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