Questions tagged [discussion]
The discussion tag has no usage guidance.
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Does Writing.SE accept critique requests?
For pretty much all of the time I've been active here (more than three years now), we've allowed critique questions and I've wondered if they're a good idea. Let me recap:
The on-topic summary says ...
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The next writing challenge could be yours
Welcome to the future writing challenge proposal thread.
This is where you will decide what the next writing challenges will be. The next challenge will take place in March 2022.
How does the ...
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What are the guidelines for asking for a critique of my work?
I want to ask for a critique of my work? Can I do that here?
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Announcing our contest results!
Update 2019-04-03: All swag prizes have been mailed (via US Postal Service). Those in the US should get them in about a week; unfortunately the postal clerk couldn't give me an estimate on delivery ...
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How would having the writing challenges on Meta work out?
Okay, bear with me. This may be a horrible idea, or it could be good - you decide.
For a while, you've had the writing challenges on chat. Great! Good idea! Unfortunately, the chat... isn't so active....
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Suggestion: Continue question pushes?
Since we only have 23 tags that have over 200 questions (but 4 that are close to that) and about 3 close to bronze-tag-possible status (100 questions), perhaps we have a "Theme" of the week, to push ...
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I'd like some guidance on creating tags
I was thinking of creating a 'diversity' and 'tokenism' tag, but unsure if this is a good idea and seek feedback.
How to balance respecting diversity and avoiding tokenism at the same time
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(DEPRECATED) Policy on Writing Critiques
We had a long, long discussion about this internally, and we've decided that writing critique questions are officially on-topic.
Edit: This is an older page, and has been superseded. The original ...
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Contest: ask questions, earn badges, win prizes!
Let's ask more questions! More questions will allow more answers, and good, answered questions make our site even more awesome. More good questions can also help in our quest to graduate. Plus, ...
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Writing.SE On-Topic summary
Many users have expressed confusion about what, exactly, is on-topic on Writing; even the mods have to look things up in meta. It's time to collect our many discussions of what's on- or off-topic in ...
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Clarification of critique guidelines
Edit: This meta thread, while of historical interest, is no longer accurate: Critiques are no longer on-topic on Writers. (Anyone who wants to discuss, please comment on this more recent meta thread ...
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Should we allow grammar/proofreading questions
Our critique guidelines were recently changed to specify that proofreading and requests for mere grammar correction should be off-topic. We've had two recent critique questions requesting grammar ...
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Custom Writing design and logo - Information gathering
Congratulations, Writing SE community! We’re going to be creating a custom site design for you that we hope will represent your subject and we want you all to really love it. You’ve been waiting over ...
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Research questions: Is it appropriate to ask questions on specialist knowledge areas?
Pieces of writing are often "made" by one or two telling details that show an expert insight into character, place or some other obscure but appropriate point about a particular subject.
Is Writers ...
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Your new site design is live!
As you can see, the new design just went live!
At this point, we are done with major revisions to the design (although you can still report CSS/styling bugs by starting a new post and tagging it with ...
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Are legal questions on-topic here?
Have a look:
Are Names of Characters Copyrighted by Authors?
Do I need to register my work to retain copyright?
These questions are asking for legal advice. For obvious reasons, I think we should ...
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Is [critique] a meta-tag?
Jeff Atwood has discussed meta tags, which he (via Aaronut at Cooking.SE) defines as follows:
Meta-tags [are tags which] do not describe the content of the question. They describe some other aspect ...
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Are literature questions appropriate on Writers.SE?
I do not think they are on-topic, that's why I've written "appropriate". I want to avoid a ping-pong-effect.
This topic was raised here, because of this question.
I think that question is best ...
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What makes a good answer?
This site is intended to provide well-supported (preferably sourced) answers which are helpful to the original askers of questions and also to other readers.
In light of the goal of being helpful, ...
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Are requests for rephrasing on topic?
A type of question that pops up frequently - and gets closed frequently - is requests to rephrase a few sentences. Some recent examples:
https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/5620/a-better-way-...
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Time to Exit Beta?
So, we still haven't quite reached the mark on questions per day. But we're killing all our other stats. It's hard to find a question here that doesn't immediately have a ton of answers and votes. ...
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This site is now Writing
In response to the recent discussion "Should we change our name?", we've made a subtle but crucial alteration to how this site presents itself:
As a general practice, we long ago moved away from ...
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Should we encourage users to give samples of their writing for critique?
This policy discussion is now out of date. Critique questions are off-topic on Writers.SE. Please look for more recent posts on this topic.
I feel like Jeff would want to close this kind of question ...
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Is a "Help me generate plot ideas?" or similar question on topic?
This question asks for help generating ideas for a very specific plot. It's an interesting question. It's specific (maybe so specific that it is too localize). It's writing-related. At the same ...
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Should this site help with specific writing software questions?
I can see this being a slippery slope. Scrivener questions seem like they ought to be on-topic, at least to some extent. You know, "How do I do this specific writing-related thing in Scrivener?&...
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The Red Ink Initiative
Edit: This meta question has been left here for historical reasons. This was needed at the time, but the mods now much prefer to let the community initiate closures.
Over the past year and a half, ...
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Would there be interest in a promotional "question drive" of sorts?
Around SE the team has been known to sponsor a variety of contests to encourage quality content on the different Q&A sites. For example Seasoned Advice has a topic of the week contest where one ...
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Congratulations, you're no longer in Beta!
This site started private beta before July 2012, so it is no longer "beta", it is a full site by our definition. We've removed the word "beta" from your site banner because we believe that you aren't ...
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What have our users published?
What have our users put out in the world recently? And how did Writing.SE help you do it?
Anything published through a traditional publisher or self-published is fine here. (We may refine this after ...
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Can Writers Graduate? Correlation between voting and progressing?
tl dr: Vote early. Vote often. Heck, just vote!
Yes, I'm new to Writers, but not new to SE. I have been a writer for some time, though. You probably wouldn't or couldn't tell it from this Meta post, ...
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Should we allow grammar questions on here?
I believe that we should not allow grammar questions on this site. It should be a place to discuss writing techniques, styles, etc., but not to have your work copy-edited.
There is already a ...
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Do the on topic rules fit non-fiction, particularly technical writing?
This site is supposed to be about all forms of writing equally. But, as has been noted before, it is actually dominated by aspiring and hobbyist fantasy fiction writers. We have discussed how to ...
user16226
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How can we attract questions from all the OTHER writing domains that are on-topic here?
In a comment on Can Writers Graduate? Correlation between voting and progressing?, Mark Baker wrote:
[W]riters is very clearly not doing everything else right because the participation by ...
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Tags of the week! April 1-7, 2019: Poetry & Non-Fiction — RESULTS
WEEK: April 1-7, 2019
TAGS: poetry and non-fiction
Results
Our first tag promo week got us off to a great start. 7 new questions from 4 users.
And our winner is... April.
Congrats. April posted ...
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Tags of the Week Promo—Stage 1—COMPLETE!
We started with a terrific tag-boosting contest that ran Feb 21-Mar 23, 2019. This was an official SE contest with real prizes and everything. Entrants got a point for every question they asked (...
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SE has removed a moderator
As many of you may have noticed, Monica Cellio is no longer a moderator on Writing.SE, or on any of the several stacks where she has served for years. This was due to a sudden decision by Stack ...
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Moderator resignation
The past several days have been turbulent across the Stack Exchange network, to say the least. In fact, more so than what has been the usual case even lately.
The immediate situation came to a head ...
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Should we change our name?
This is done. See: This site is now Writing
Back when Writers was created, the convention on Stack Exchange was to name sites for their audiences -- Programmers, Super User, Webmasters, Database ...
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Getting Writers out of its Rut
This site is in a rut. It has been in beta for six and half years. The most obvious factor preventing us from graduating is our questions per day stat. All our other statistics are excellent. (https://...
user16226
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Does a writers Stack Exchange even make sense?
The Stack Exchange websites are intended to provide specific answers. In general, their purpose is to discover the one best answer to any given question. Their purpose is to resolve objective ...
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Is writers.se in risk to fail? What can be done to avoid this?
I know, that communities often get time to grow, until they are matured enough to go out of Beta. But sometimes also a site will fail. See this blog entry for an example. Is writers.se in risk to fail ...
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Moderator Pro Tem Announcement
Throughout the beta, we need members from the site whose focus is to engage the community, both in community-building issues and site management. That's why we select a few members from each community ...
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How technical should questions on Writer be?
Since almost all writing is (eventually) done on a computer, is it reasonable to ask technical questions on Writers?
The kinds of things I'm thinking of are: document formatting, automated ...
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Writing challenge: Rise to Power - 30 July 2019 - 17 August 2019
Welcome to another Writing Challenge!
In line with previous one, this includes a topic, a prompt, and also a challenge.
Topic
The topic of this challenge is rising to a position of power. It may ...
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If we could have a custom design, what elements are most important?
Disclaimer right up front: I have no privileged information or special authority. I don't know when, or whether, the results of this question will be used. But I want to start collecting input.
The ...
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Should we be answering questions about what to write about?
This question asks for guidelines on what to write about. In the realm of fiction we have already declared questions asking generically for plot ideas off-topic. In the linked meta question ...
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Is a tips tag worthwhile?
I saw and removed a tips tag, and I believe it should be removed as it is a meta tag. Meta tags are officially discouraged on SE sites.
Is this a meta tag? Do we have other meta tags in the wild? ...
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Should we have a death tag?
Death seems to be a pretty common topic on this site. Some example topics:
Characters dealing with death:
Character motivations facing death?
Writing character deaths:
What makes a good death ...
linksassinMod
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Tags of the week! April 8-14, 2019: Punctuation & Naming — RESULTS
WEEK: April 8-14, 2019
TAGS: punctuation and naming
Results
Our second tag promo week kept the momentum going with 7 new questions from 6 users.
And our winner is... Linksassin.
Congrats. ...
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Can we improve our short network pitch?
All SE sites have a short blurb that appears on network profiles and the list of all sites. Here are some examples:
Ours currently is:
That feels weak to me. First off, I think "professional and ...
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