Frequent Questions
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How does the bounty system work?
It's possible to offer and award bounties of reputation on questions.
What is a bounty?
How can I find questions that have a bounty attached?
How do I start a bounty? When can I start a bounty?
Why ...
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How does "Reputation" work?
On Stack Exchange, users may gain a certain level of reputation.
What does reputation do?
How can a user gain or lose reputation?
See also:
What is reputation? How do I earn (and lose) it? in the ...
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What can I do when getting "We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?
If you are reading this, you may have been affected by one of our post quality bans. If so, it is important that you read the following information to understand what has happened and how to regain ...
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The Many Memes of Meta
Catchphrases and concepts that spread from person to person are known as memes, which, courtesy the Internet, can now explode across the Earth like a highly contagious virus (hence "going viral&...
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What are the badges I can earn on each site, and what are the exact criteria for earning each badge?
Formerly List of all badges with full descriptions.
What are badge name's requirements?
Why didn't I get badge name (right now)?
Which badges can I earn multiple times?
Jump to:
Question Badges
...
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How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?
What circumstances can cause a question or answer to be deleted, and what does that actually mean?
How can a post be deleted?
When can't I delete my own post?
Can I still see my post even after it's ...
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Which computer science / programming Stack Exchange sites do I post on?
There seems to be more than a few computer science/programming Stack Exchange sites. Stack Overflow, being the first, has by far the most users, questions, and answers.
What is the reasoning for ...
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How do comment @replies work?
How do the comment replies (aka "pinging users") work?
Who can I send an @reply to?
How do I respond to a specific user when entering my comment?
Will they be notified?
What do people mean ...
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Formatting Sandbox
Notes:
Answers will occasionally be moved to the Sandbox archive when there are too many of them. When using them to report bugs, keep an eye on the post.
You may also want to take a look at the ...
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FAQ for Stack Exchange sites
Community FAQ
For sites in the Stack Exchange 2.0 network
To see a list of commonly used words and phrases, see the glossary.
For official guidance from Stack Exchange, visit the Help Center.
Asking ...
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How do suggested edits work?
When clicking "edit" I see:
Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.
We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because ...
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What are "Community Wiki" posts?
Some questions and answers are marked Community Wiki and are owned by a community wiki user:
(In fact, this very question is one of them)
Why have Community Wiki posts?
How do Community Wiki posts ...
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Give each site a parallel site for polling, recommendations and subjective-ish stuff
Stuff like polls, recommendations based on subjective constraints, puzzles, webcomics etc. do not belong on the serious main SE sites, where professionals should be considered at work and having just ...
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How do I get attention for one of my own questions without a good answer?
I asked a question almost as soon as I got my account. I got a few decent answers, but none of them helped solve my problem. The question has long since become buried by newer questions, and there's ...
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How does accepting an answer work?
What does it mean to accept an answer to my question?
How do I accept an answer, and what are the rules?
Can I accept my own self-answer?
What are the reputation benefits?
Which answer should I accept?...