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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Boilerplate text to invite domain experts not familiar with Stack Exchange
Suppose I send an e-mail to invite an expert in an Earth Science domain, unfamiliar with Stack Exchange, to come to the site. How can I best formulate the e-mail?
Let's have CW answers in different ...
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Should I upvote an answer if I am unable to verify its correctness?
If I see an answer that seems well-researched, but I do not have domain expertise to verify its correctness, should I upvote the answer?
It is possible that an answer seems well-researched, cites ...
gerritMod
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Etiquette of switching "best answer"
On one of my questions, here, Coriolis effect and Cyclones, there were originally 2 answers and I decided to select what I thought to be the best answer.
After I had done this, the answer I did not ...
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Provisional Moderator Nominations
How do you become a provisional moderator for this site?
Soon after the site launches into "public beta," the Community Team will appoint provisional moderators from this community until the ...
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Is expert level the same as difficult?
There have been some discussions as to whether we want to be a site for experts, or a site for all.
There have also been discussions if some questions are too basic.
Are those two discussions ...
gerritMod
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Is history on-topic?
My question Why are weather kites no longer used (much) operationally? received (at the time of writing) two close votes; one for being not an expert-level question (I disagree), and one for being off-...
gerritMod
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A guide for asking "Identify this rock" questions?
Spurred on by the discussion on my earlier question about whether or not 'identify this rock' questions should be on topic and the appearance of our first such question; I propose that we make a guide ...
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Are software-requests on-topic?
We have questions like Does anyone know of a DBMS with global geospatial search? on the site.
Personally, I'm not sure if these are off-topic or on-topic. It seems to me like that question isn't ...
hichris123Mod
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Are questions about the availability of information on topic?
In my career I have had and have been asked a lot of questions regarding the existence, location, accessibility, etc of certain information. For example, "Where can I find information in English about ...
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What should we do with questions that might be welcomed on a mature site but we don't think are appropriate for private beta?
Related to Are we aiming to be an expert site? & Level of the questions so far
There is a category of questions that I, and I think some others, feel would be appropriate on a mature site, but ...
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Are we aiming to be an expert site?
There have been a number of assertions that this site is aspiring to be an "expert site". I take that to mean that it is catering for experts in the fields covered, to the exclusion (to some extent) ...
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Should we close questions with many upvotes?
Many of the questions asked but have received a few close votes have +10 or more net upvotes.
Now since we are in private beta, an upvote indicates approval of a question.
So if 6 more users have ...
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What is a reasonable ratio of downvotes to upvotes?
I, and perhaps some other people, feel that we are being unfairly targeted by a particular user, who has cast (as of this writing,) something like 16 downvotes to 14 upvotes.
My understanding is that ...
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Why are my questions being closed when others are not?
EnergyNumbers, who has only made 1 original contribution to this site apart from hundreds of close votes, and possibly others have voted to close a few of my questions for being too basic.
This is ...
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Do closed questions and other items count toward fulfilling your commitment?
As of yesterday, I had six questions and four answers, and the sum of the two is ten. That is versus the required ten questions and/or answers to make up a fulfilled commitment. (Actually I had a ...
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What kind of illustrations support questions and answers?
There are some illustrations, which do not contribute to the content, while others are an essential part of the content of questions and answers.
Which illustrations do we need, which are harmful for ...
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Are quantitative questions off topic?
Physics.SE includes both qualitative and quantitative questions that relate to principles in physics, and does not send all of their quantitative questions off to Maths.SE.
On Earth Science, are we ...
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Tag Abbreviations
Should tags use abbreviations where they are common?
For example I was thinking of tagging the Banded Iron Formation question "BIF" but thought that might be a bit obscure. On the other hand, banded-...
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When are paleontology questions on-topic?
Some examples:
What percentage of dinosaurs had feathers
What parts of the fossil record are most lacking in specimens
See also the paleontology tag.
Where is the dividing line between too ...
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Would a question about the future of numerical weather prediction with quantum computing be off-topic?
Would a question about the future of numerical weather prediction with quantum computing be off-topic? This is most likely going to create speculative answers, so I'd imagine it would be, but I wanted ...
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Would geosciences-specific software support be on-topic here?
Would questions asking for help performing a given task with a geosciences-specific software or library such as GPlates, PmagPy, PaSt or any stratigraphic tool such as RASC/CASC, CONOP9, UAGraph be on-...
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Why do people vote down a question or answer anonymously and should we 'allow' it?
Of course there is no way to enforce commenting on a downvote, but shouldn't a downvote always be accompanied by a comment why you think a post is wrong, or how the post can be improved to revert the ...
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Should I stop asking questions on private beta?
I'm interested in Earth science but I am far from an expert. I'm have many questions in my mind about the Earth that I think are interesting, and I have asked some questions such as "Why is the Earth ...
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Where is the boundary between geology and chemistry?
After reading this question on diamond, my first thought was: is this really an Earth science question? Then I noticed that it was tagged geology. Fair enough, I don't even know enough about geology ...
gerritMod
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Can the misspelled [meateorology] tag be deleted?
meaterology is obviously a misspelling and so should be deleted (unless Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs actually has a scientific basis ☺) and not made a synonym of the correct spelling.
user26
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What should we add to tag wikis?
What is the policy on creating/adding to tag wikis? I think this is of great importance, that we get some of the fundamental tags defined, such as Geology, Geophysics, and Geochemistry.
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Are questions such as "Can you identify this rock?" on-topic
Here is an example of the style of question which I am referring to from outdoors.SE.
Are questions such as these on-topic here? What difficulties might this type of question present?
One major ...
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Subdiscipline tag convention
Do we prefer tags like this:
volcanology
speleology
glaciology
or like this:
volcanoes
caves
glaciers
?
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How can we ensure this site gets off the ground?
This post isn't about how we can make the site be the best it can be. This post is about how to avoid the site being closed by the moderators like what happened to many private beta sites I have seen ...
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Level of the questions so far
I've been delighted to look in very early in the private beta and see lots of questions. However, I'm a little concerned about the nature of these questions.
The majority seem to be at a "popular ...
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What's our elevator pitch?
From The Real Essential Questions of Every Beta:
4. What’s the “elevator pitch” for our site?
Imagine you’ve just gotten on an elevator with a friendly stranger. You have precisely one floor to ...
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Vote early and vote often!
This is copied from Scott Morrison's post on meta.latexSE:
I'm a moderator from MathOverflow, and this "question" is actually unsolicited advice, based on our experience from the initial launch of ...
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MathJax request
Although we are only on day 1 of the private beta, I figure we might as well get this request out there. Being a science Stack Exchange site, no doubt math is going to spring up in both questions and ...
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Is Earth Science education off topic?
IE, questions about Earth Science graduate school, field camp, curriculum, teaching in Earth Science. Is the SE purely for the discussion of the science itself?
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Is it useful to invite experts *before* the public beta?
I know some experts who I think may be interested in helping out shaping this site. Is it useful to approach and invite them as long as we are in private beta, or can I just as well wait until we are ...
gerritMod
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Shall we have a "cite your sources" policy for answers?
I want this site to succeed. I want a site that attracts experts. Real experts. Not people like me, but scientists with 25 years of experience in a sub-field of atmospheric science.
I'm seeing ...
gerritMod
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Are ecology questions on topic?
There's certainly a lot of interaction between the interactions between organisms and the environment - that's what ecology is all about.
As for where ecologists interact: some certainly interact ...
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What about an "essi" tag?
"ESSI" stands for "Earth and Space Science Informatics" and identifies the overlap between Earth science and computer science (or use). It's a distinct field or discipline at the AGU conference.
What ...
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Are list-questions welcome?
Other sites include list-questions, but many of those questions are old and policies have changed. For example, would a (community wiki) question on a literary canon for a particular field within the ...
gerritMod
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Introduce yourselves here
So I'm curious: what area of geoscience do you study, and where do you study it? What is your background and what is your general story?
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What are some good ways to reach out to our desired audience?
One of the Big 7 Questions: How do we promote our site?
What is the best way to reach out to the community of experts (both professional and amateur) in the Earth Science community?
Share your ...
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Is planetary science on-topic?
The title of the site is Earth Science, which implies questions should be limited to, well, Earth. But the term Geosciences may be considered a synonym, and the European Geosciences Union (EGU) does ...
gerritMod
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