qid int64 1 2.78M | question stringlengths 2 66.6k | answers list | date stringlengths 10 10 | metadata list |
|---|---|---|---|---|
20,791 | I am currently writing a `printer.cfg` Klipper file for my Tronxy VEHO-600. It is quite a challenge as there is not much info regarding this printer online.
Is recovery velocity something that I have to tune while the printer is operational, or can I give it an arbitrary value?
I have a CFG file for a VEHO-600 that a friend of mine put together, and he has it set to 300, but his printer is modified, so I'm unsure if this value would be the same for my standard VEHO-600. Hoping someone can advise me of what the feature is, so I can tune it myself. | [
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"text": "The only \"recover velocity\" I'm aware of is the [one for pause\\_resume functionality](htt... | 2023/04/07 | [
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20,804 | Hypothetically, if one has a print consisting of very simple shapes at some z-heights but very complicated shapes at other z-heights, it seems like it might be a good idea to run the overall mesh with different layer heights at different parts of the print.
Is there a common way to convince slicers to do this in general?
(Specifically is there any way to make Cura do this?) | [
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"text": "[**Adaptive Layers**](https://ultimaker.com/learn/print-detailed-objects-faster-using-adaptive-layers-in-ultim... | 2023/04/08 | [
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20,823 | I'm using a 65W heater cartridge and T-D500 type NTC thermistor. This setup has been working fine since I installed it sometime last year. Suddenly today, the temperature reading started jumping around 5-25° below the set temperature, but only while printing. It holds temperature solid at idle, and PID autotune produces numbers like normal.
How should I go about diagnosing what component is bad? Is it necessarily the cartridge or thermistor (or rather their wiring) or could it be noise or voltage instability or something else? | [
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"text": "[**Adaptive Layers**](https://ultimaker.com/learn/print-detailed-objects-faster-using-adaptive-layers-in-ultim... | 2023/04/12 | [
"https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/20823",
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20,847 | After encountering an issue where the original heater cartridge (~40 W) for my generic MK6 hotend was unable to reach/maintain stable temperature at ~260 °C (for PETG) I replaced it with a higher wattage heater (60 W). The new heater heats up faster and can maintain temperature, but I noticed that if I try to print too fast it will become unstable and the printer stops with a heater error, even with a lower temperature of 250 °C. This can be seen in the temperature plot below.
I have performed PID tuning (see the nicely flat spots on the temperature plot), so I don't think that's the issue. The thermistor is well-secured to the block.
I am using a BTT SKR Pico V1.0 control board with Klipper over UART to a Raspberry Pi A3.
Does anyone have experience with an issue like this? Could it be that the SKR Pico is not supplying sufficient power while also running the motors and heated bed?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/R97dd.png) | [
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"text": "This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question [Diagnosing sudden proble... | 2023/04/20 | [
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20,860 | I've been facing an issue with my 3d printer for the past couple of months: My inner layers are not sticking together when I print something vertically.
I'm trying to print white PLA at 200ºC with the following Cura settings on an Ender 5 Pro:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yJ8nL.png)
Here's the result:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mmHBy.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/C23NQ.png)
I've tampered with my settings a bit, but still, it doesn't seem to make any difference.
I'm pretty convinced it's a setting issue... Any idea? | [
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"text": "This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question [Diagnosing sudden proble... | 2023/04/22 | [
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20,863 | What kind of 3D printer (filament vs resin) and what kind of filament is recommended for individual LED diffusing?
The issue is that I am using a WS2812B-2020 LEDs (2mm x 2mm) so the size of my prints are quite tiny.
I am looking for a semi-opaque/frosted finish like on an LED strip diffuser.
For reference, I found a Youtube video which uses a regular filament printer with 0% infill, [LED Mood Lamp](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfRFWxaPOLY): | [
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"text": "This is very similar to what I recently experienced in the question [Diagnosing sudden proble... | 2023/04/24 | [
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20,867 | for my graduation project I have to compare cells in a 3D- Model to one another in regard of their volume, side faces and the corresponding forms and their numbers.
First, I have about 300 Tif-Files of microscopic planes of cells (black and white) that I want to create a 3D-Model orientating on the cell membranes.
Second, I need a code or program that can differentiate the cell membrane (white to grey in TIF) from the cytoplasm (black in TIF), kind of trace it and then analyze the volumina of each cell and side faces in regard to their forms (what types of polygons they resemble) and the number of each form in the whole 3D-Stack (not bound to the cells where they occur, just a numeric listing).
Can you recommend a program for these problems? Or for the individual programms?
I am unfortunately not very knowledgeable in this field and would greatly appreciate your advice. | [
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"text": "In 3D printing, the opposite is usually the desired project, that is, to take a solid and slice it into layers. M... | 2023/04/24 | [
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20,896 | Ever since I got this printer for my 15th birthday the cooling fan has made a grinding sound when the nozzle was near the wall. I thought it was just the clear wall vibrating but now when I start a print it makes the sound all the time and it's getting really annoying. How can I fix this? | [
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"text": "In 3D printing, the opposite is usually the desired project, that is, to take a solid and slice it into layers. M... | 2023/05/03 | [
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20,897 | This is kind of hard to explain but I have a 2 mm disc that has text on the top, it's a stamp effectively. I want my text to start right on the top after the top layer of the base (if that makes sense), but it's starting the text a few layers down into the top which is making the infill lines a right mess
The text seems to start a few layers down in the top of the base, and it's causing it to look a mess as it's going around it all.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZC5SL.png "3D rendering of a disc with outlines for 'Happy Fathers Day'; the word 'Day' is extruded upwards")
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/raaiH.png "Zoomed in screenshot of a slicer's preview showing the path of the filament being extruded") | [
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"text": "You should have tagged this with the slicer you're using. Presumably that's Cura, and this is... | 2023/05/03 | [
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20,900 | I replaced the nozzle on my S1 Pro with a Tungsten nozzle, but the issue is that the nozzle is too high. I think the nozzle I bought is a tad shorter than the stock nozzles. The CR touch sensor touches the bed before the nozzle does. The bed is level, and the gantry isn't quite square (different issue I need to fix), but the left side is higher than the right so that should have helped me in this situation. Is it possible to lower the heat break to bring the nozzle down a millimeter or so? | [
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"text": "You should have tagged this with the slicer you're using. Presumably that's Cura, and this is... | 2023/05/04 | [
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20,935 | I've recently gotten into Resin 3d printing with a refurbished Elegoo Mars 1 but I've run into a weird bug where the printer would not expose any resin to the LCD.
I tested it by taking off the build plate and basin and looked at the LCD when it was exposing the layers. I've tried updating the firmware and tested about 20 odd prints of various sizes and detail. With those I saw that prints with large individual layers essentially stopped the LCD entirely (The exposure would flash on the LCD for a second then the LCD would not turn on again until I completely restarted the printer). What is more bizarre is that the first test print I did worked perfectly and still does for some reason (which was the tugboat and a random miniature).
For specific printer details I have an Elegoo Mars with the C type motherboard. There are no burn marks on the wiring or circuits and the LCD screen was replaced recently with a brand new one. And nothing is misaligned or unplugged. I even double checked that the LCD was still functional with the test exposure tools on the printer.
From my observations it is a data streaming issue with how it is connected with the USB drive. But that is a software issue that I am not capable of knowing.
Any ideas on what could be wrong or if this has happened before?
**EDIT**: Discovered that the Firmware needed to be updated to the latest version. Also, after testing out several very different print files the original print file that was having this issue was corrupted in some way as rebuilding it and printing the new version more or less worked. I also did another go around with cleaning everything and making sure that both the plate was level/tightened, FEP replaced, and that there was no IPA leftover on either. | [
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"text": "Resin particles or residues can accumulate on the LCD screen, hindering its proper operation. Check th... | 2023/05/11 | [
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20,938 | My printer is the Creality Ender 3 V2 Neo printer. Firmware is factory new.
You can see the problem below:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/KZemP.png)
As you see, the long rectangle on the bottom is getting cut off when printed. Outline shown in red shows the path the printer is really taking. *(you can ignore the gray area, it is only there because both long rectangles are part of the same .stl file)*
Here is another view of the sliced print:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nZ9Kl.png)
Additionally, you can see in this other picture:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/tRprm.jpg)
* The print started quite a bit from the left edge
* The start G-code, which prints lines on the left, printed lines closer to the left edge than where the print started
Here is the start G-code:
```
; Ender 3 Custom Start G-code
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G28 ; Home all axes
G29 ;
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X0.1 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to start position
G1 X0.1 Y200.0 Z0.3 F1500.0 E15 ; Draw the first line
G1 X0.4 Y200.0 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move to side a little
G1 X0.4 Y20 Z0.3 F1500.0 E30 ; Draw the second line
G92 E0 ; Reset Extruder
G1 Z2.0 F3000 ; Move Z Axis up little to prevent scratching of Heat Bed
G1 X5 Y20 Z0.3 F5000.0 ; Move over to prevent blob squish
```
Slicer settings:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BlCKU.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4PCO7.png)
How can I fix this? Is this due to the slicer? Due to the firmware? In either case, how do I change it? | [
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20,954 | A small [7 cm long x 5 cm high x 10 cm deep] hard plastic piece of my old luggage broke (see attached). The manufacturer does not have spares for this old model.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vsvl2.jpg "Broken part of luggage")
Is there any way to scan the working piece on the left with an Android app and order a 3D printed one-off one? | [
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"text": "You absolutely could try using [Polycam](https://poly.cam/) to try to scan the piece on the left, and then create ... | 2023/05/15 | [
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20,957 | Sorry this is kind to embarrassing to post compared to other images but this is our first attempts. It starts out roughly acceptable then does this waffle thing. I tightened the belts and leveled the plate.
I have a Creality Ender 3 which I use together with UltiMaker Cura slicer. I print in PLA at 220 °C. The print bed is set to 70 °C. I use a print cooling fan at 60 %. The layer height I set to 0.[?] mm, the line width [line width/extrusion width] from the 0.4 mm nozzle. The Printing Speed is set to ? mm/s for walls and [?] mm/s for infill]. My retraction is [?] mm/off at [?] mm/s.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/LH06F.jpg)
Problem seems to be solved, thanks everyone. I dropped the temperature to 200 and fan speed to 100% and print looks much better. | [
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"text": "This is a severe under extrusion problem.\n\nWhat slicer are you using? It could be a filament diameter setting issu... | 2023/05/17 | [
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21,019 | Is 3D printing progress (the one you check on the display of a 3D printer) linear or not?
By linear I mean that equal differences in percentual progress will take the same clock time. | [
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21,032 | I have PrintrBot Simple Metal and over the course of today's use, I managed to get a piece of filament stuck in the hotend, just below the extruder gear. There's not really much to grab at, and my tweezers aren't that strong. How should I go about getting the filament out of the hotend? If it matters, I'm using [1.75mm MH Build Series PLA](https://www.matterhackers.com/store/l/gray-mh-build-series-pla-filament-175mm-1kg/sk/M-PL0-Q8ZD).
Though I solved my problem, I would still like for members of the 3D community to share solutions that work for them. | [
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"text": "Ok, so I finally figured out a way to get it out:\n\nI heated the hotend to the melting t... | 2023/06/08 | [
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21,043 | Recently, I've been noticing what looks like under extrusion. My first thought was a clogged nozzle, but it only occurs in some places:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1VvYB.jpg)
My printer is a PrintrBot Simple Metal, using [MH Build Series 1.75 mm PLA](https://www.matterhackers.com/store/l/gray-mh-build-series-pla-filament-175mm-1kg/sk/M-PL0-Q8ZD) and the model was sliced with Cura 5.1.0. What could be causing this, and how should I fix it?
Slicer settings:
* infill density 10 % (pattern: cubic)
* layer height: 0.2 mm
* print speed: 50 mm/s (travel: 150 mm/s)
* print temp: 200 °C (bed: 0 °C)
* retraction: enabled (Z-hop: disabled)
* cooling: enabled (fan speed: 100 %)
I'm not printing faster than usual, and I watched some of this print print, and there were no obvious issues like a clicking extruder. I find it strange that it occurred regularly along the edge of one piece, but the piece next to it was perfect. It seems to occur around two sharp corners. The other piece didn't have those sharp corners.
Another doubtful theory by me:
I've had some issues with a loose plug recently. Could this be causing a drop in temperature? | [
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21,104 | From day one I've always had my spool so that filament comes off "the top", but recently I wondered if it mattered, or there were any advantages/disadvantages to which side of the spool the filament came from. I did find [this](https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/original-prusa-i3-mk3s-mk3-general-discussion-announcements-and-releases/should-filament-spools-feed-over-the-top-or-from-under-the-bottom/), but it proved inconclusive. So, does it matter which side of the spool the filament comes from. Are their any pros/cons to either side? Or is this just a matter of personal preference? | [
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21,150 | I have managed to strip the threads on the mounting holes of the motor.
The extruder motor doesn't stay in place of the Bowden mount. It kinks to the left-hand side when the motor is extruding.
I was wondering if could I repair the stripped hole or do I need a new motor? | [
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"text": "Ultimately, your printer is pushing out less filament than the gcode is telling it to (which you know, but it... | 2023/07/06 | [
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21,160 | When printing with basic budget PLA, what are the consequences of having it slightly over temperature. For example 5-10 deg above the recommended temperature for the brand, or significantly over temperature such as 50 deg?
How will this be seen on the print, and what are the inherent risks - if any - to the printer?
Presuming that the print is allowed to complete, and there are no other external factors that might effect either the printer or the print. | [
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21,186 | I have a Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro that I'm trying to figure out.
I was able to make 3 solid prints using white Creality-branded PLA without issue and with just an initial auto-level pass, but after that, I had problems with small parts de-adhering halfway through my prints; the first 5 or 6 layers will print fine, and then small bits of the first layer will just slide off the print bed while the extruder is moving.
I think my first layer is maybe not going down well enough, though the pieces that do stick seem to be down pretty well (they require a decent amount of force to get them off of the PEI bed) - the image below is pretty close to the sort of thing I'm seeing with normal prints.
If it matters, my extruder temp is 200 °C and my bed temp is 60 °C. I left everything as the default settings and tried using both the latest Cura and Creality settings.
I think the issue is the globbing that's happening when the extruder changes directions when it hits a cold raised blob it just has too much torque and flicks it off. My leveling procedure is going through the manual leveling UX with the bed heated, sticking a piece of paper under the center and 4 corners (one at a time), and adjusting the wheels as best as I can until it slightly drags; once I'm satisfied with that I do an auto-level pass.
Below is an image of my first layer test grid; any ideas for what I can try? Is there anything I can do with the flow rate or first layer width to get better adhesion, or do I need to monkey with the Z-offset and leveling more? My gut is saying that the Z-offset is too low but when I raise it I have issues with even the outer nozzle-wiping passes not sticking (the straight lines that the default Cura profile prints usually stick fine, but the initial skirt around the part do not).
Is this just too small of a piece to print maybe? I printed two of these [Articulated Shark](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3845304) initially and they did not have any issues with de-adhesion, and they have similarly-sized first-layer parts.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/xHnVx.jpg "Photo of part of a 3D printed model that broke off")
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qLTVs.jpg "First Layer Test Grid") | [
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21,216 | I recently installed the CR-Touch onto my CR10-V3 printer. I updated my firmware to Marlin 2.1.2M and set my probe offsets and selected level bed which checked 81 points on the print bed and it said bed leveling was complete.
I tried printing something that I had already created G-code for from Prosi Slicer, and on the initial wipe and perimeter print the nozzle was way too high (maybe 10-15 mm off the print bed surface)
I searched for how to enable using the auto bed leveling mesh using Prosi slicer, and I found a couple of places mentioning adding `M420 S1` to the G-code to enable using the auto bed leveling mesh, but even after adding that, my print did the same thing and during the wipe and perimeter print it was way too high.
Below is the start G-code that I'm using in Prosi Slicer
```
G90 ; use absolute coordinates
M83 ; extruder relative mode
M104 S150 ; set temporary nozzle temp to prevent oozing during homing
M140 S{first_layer_bed_temperature[0]} ; set final bed temp
G4 S30 ; allow partial nozzle warmup
G28 ; home all axis
M420 S1 ; Enable use auto bed leveling saved mesh
G1 Z50 F240
G1 X2.0 Y10 F3000
M104 S{first_layer_temperature[0]} ; set final nozzle temp
M190 S{first_layer_bed_temperature[0]} ; wait for bed temp to stabilize
M109 S{first_layer_temperature[0]} ; wait for nozzle temp to stabilize
G1 Z0.28 F240
G92 E0
G1 X2.0 Y140 E10 F1500 ; prime the nozzle
G1 X2.3 Y140 F5000
G92 E0
G1 X2.3 Y10 E10 F1200 ; prime the nozzle
G92 E0
```
If I'm understanding the last part of that G-code, it should be 0.28 mm above the print bed when it does its nozzle wipe, but it's 10 mm or more off the bed when it does that.
I did some additional testing this morning, and the problem seems to be the z-values after auto homing. I have a z-probe offset entered of -2.122 mm that I got using the z-probe offset wizard in the Marlin firmware, and that offset visually seems reasonable for where the probe triggers vs the nozzle height.
After auto homing all axis, if I manually change the z-axis to be 0.28 mm, then the nozzle is still about 7 mm above the print bed which is where my prints are starting off.
If I manually deploy the touch sensor and lower the print head, the touch sensor engages with the print surface at around a z position of -5 mm, and then with the z-probe offset of -2.112 mm it's about 7 mm too high.
Where is this extra height coming from? I've checked and rechecked the z-probe offset, and like I said, the values seem reasonable, but I'm not sure where this extra height is coming from. | [
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21,218 | We need to move our Formlabs Form 3 printer to a new room and I would like to remove the resin from the resin tank. Is there a standard way to do this and can I reuse the resin once I remove it?
Thanks | [
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"text": "when moving the printer to a new room I would just remove the tank and then carefully move the tank to the new room ... | 2023/07/25 | [
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21,300 | Relatively new to 3D printing but have learnt a lot, I just need some help on the finishing process. I currently have some print-in-place PLA figures I need to sand down and some have holes I need to fill in (we made a bit of a mistake on layer thickness). I have a fair amount of hands-on experience with sanding and filling from my tenure making sculptures from foam/cardboard and the like but I'm unsure on the materials for plastic.
That being said, is regular poly-filler or wall filler okay? This is what I've used before while making sculptures, so I have the most experience with it. Or should I be looking for something more specialist or specific like using a two-part resin for filling and sanding that down? (I do have access to a well ventilated space I can do this in.) Should I simply go over everything with a soldering iron?
These figures will be primed and painted afterwards, so I would prefer if the filling material was relatively easy to paint over. Colour doesn't matter as long as it gets the job done though. :-) | [
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"pm_score": 2,
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"text": "CA Glue\n-------\n\nfor very small holes or print defects, I like to use a droplet of CA glue, which fills those sma... | 2023/08/09 | [
"https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/21300",
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21,348 | How do I add a base to the surface I'm trying to print?
Target machine is a Creality Ender 3 Pro.
I'm using numpy-stl and surf2stl to come up with the desired surface in python:
```
def SOquestion():
pᵢs = [i / 100 for i in range(50, 96, 1)]
pⱼs = pᵢs
X, Y = np.meshgrid(pᵢs, pⱼs)
Z = pₖGivenpᵢAndpⱼ(X, Y)
stlFile = "surfaceOfCriticalValues.stl"
surf2stl.write(stlFile, X, Y, Z)
theMesh = mesh.Mesh.from_file(stlFile)
plotFromStlFile(stlFile)
@np.vectorize
def pₖGivenpᵢAndpⱼ(pᵢ, pⱼ):
a = pᵢ * pⱼ / ((1 - pᵢ) * (1 - pⱼ))
return a / (a + 1)
```
I want this surface to be printable. I figure I could add the base to the mesh but I don't know how to draw all the triangles?
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iMWq2.png) | [
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"text": "CA Glue\n-------\n\nfor very small holes or print defects, I like to use a droplet of CA glue, which fills those sma... | 2023/08/22 | [
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21,371 | I have just purchased the Creality Ender 3 Printer and tried to print the model that comes with it on the SD card and the print was completed successfully with amazing quality details. So far, so good. After that, I downloaded Cura 3D printing software and installed it on my machine, and then tried to slice a model that I had just made with Fusion 360.
On the first try, I chose the standard quality Cura profile and saved it to the printer to print it but the print failed in the way the uploaded video. After playing around with some settings and trying to use some of the profiles that I found online, the same case with each new profile so I came across an idea if there is a way to extract the settings from the G-code file within the printer SD card and use to print the new 3D model.
Is there a way to extract the profile settings from in my case the `cat3.5h.gcode` file?
Or any other working solution for my problem such as a good cura profile to print with PLA filament
[Video of print failure](https://streamable.com/p22shx) | [
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"text": "That is not your Cura settings, it's just because your nozzle is too high off the print bed.\n\nAny profile you u... | 2023/08/26 | [
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21,382 | So I'm having a bit of a strange issue where I'm getting gaps between perimeter walls, but only on part of the print. Even more strangely, it doesn't happen with every print, though it will happen consistently on the same model if I print it more than once.
I know the go-to answer for an issue like this is `"You're under-extruding. Fix your e-steps or increase your extrusion multiplier"`, however I'm not sure that's the only issue at play here. I did try increasing my extrusion multiplier (tried both 1.05 and 1.10), and while the issue did improve, it didn't fully solve it. The print shown below was printed with an extrusion multiplier of 1.00.
Also worth noting is that there is a bulge in the side of the print toward the bottom, but I'm not sure if it's related to the perimeter wall gaps issue. I have no idea what would cause that.
---
Basic Info
----------
Printer: Ender 3 Pro
Filament: Hatchbox PLA ("gray blue")
Slicer Software: Slic3r
---
Slicer Settings
---------------
>
> Note: I am only adding the settings I believe are relevant to the question. If you would like to see a setting not shown here, please let me know and I'll add it.
>
>
>
* Print temperature: 200 °C
* Bed temperature: 50 °C
* Installed nozzle is 0.6 mm.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WFhg2.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/yj3xg.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TlZSM.png)
---
Print Images
------------
This first picture is to show the orientation of the print on the print bed:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rNB1C.jpg)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TBnv5.jpg) | [
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"text": "I had this in 3 new Ender 3 pro's. It was the nozzle was too small. I checked the output of the nozzles by e... | 2023/08/31 | [
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1 | I would like to open the meta discussion on the criteria for closing.
I think we should be a little more open than the rest of the SE community when it comes to questions that are
* **Localized**: academics travel a lot. Something that is localized today may not be localized for us tomorrow. I worked in 7 different countries since I started and I am still not done.
* **"List-like" or "opinionated"**: there are topics that may involve a list of options, and often, academia is not a "this way" kind of answers. Occasionally, there may be things that you have to agglomerate from different sources, in order to get a "better strategy". I am thinking, for example, about best practices for visas, which may favor different inputs from different people having different backgrounds. The "correct" answer may come from someone that is unmarried, and another answer from someone that is married. The first answer may not be useful to a future reader, but the second one will. It's the usual "bad subjective/good subjective" I think.
Opinions? | [
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"text": "I had this in 3 new Ender 3 pro's. It was the nozzle was too small. I checked the output of the nozzles by e... | 2012/02/14 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5/"
] |
8 | In reference to [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49/what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-being-a-professor) about being a professor, this is impossible to answer within the context of how SE wants us to answer questions. There's no definite answer, and even more so, there's no "right" answer. That being said, the question is valid, and probably fairly common. Should we allow that sort of question here? | [
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"answer_id": 9,
"author": "dmahr",
"author_id": 37,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/37",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "Based on the [example questions asked in the definition phase](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617?phase=defin... | 2012/02/15 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/8",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73/"
] |
12 | This particular SE has the significant problem that many answers will be "soft" in nature; there's no real literature on much of this, making many questions answerable only through "in my experience..." answers. [This answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/90/73) is a fine example of this... the answer may be correct, but only for a certain subset of the interested population, and there may not even *be* a "definitively correct" answer. That last point is the major problem... many of these questions will not have a definitive answer, but the "soft" answers will often do the job of addressing the question. [This question about seminar attendance](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/39/73) is similar... there's no real answer, but there are a few conjecture-type answers that seem to satisfactorily address the question.
So, how should we deal with "soft" answers to questions that demand them? | [
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"answer_id": 13,
"author": "eykanal",
"author_id": 73,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/73",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "I know I'm answering my own question, but I want to put forth the argument that **these style answers should be accept... | 2012/02/15 | [
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
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17 | By looking at the site today, it seems that "higher education" is an euphemism for "doctorate". The definition stage however doesn't imply that ([1](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/16618#16618) [2](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/16618#16618) [3](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia/22982#22982)...)
Is Academia only about PhD, postdoc and teaching positions? Are questions about Master's, Bachelor's, High School etc. off-topic? | [
{
"answer_id": 18,
"author": "aeismail",
"author_id": 53,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/53",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "I would not define \"higher education\" as including high school. The usual definition includes college and above (in... | 2012/02/15 | [
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
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21 | Based on my answer in [this question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/13/73), I propose that we modify the tag placeholder text (currently "at least one tag (graduate-school note-taking science), max 5 tags") to strongly encourage the poster to provide a tag identifying the field of research being discussed:
>
> 
>
>
>
The proposed text is:
>
> must include field of research (american-history mechanical-engineering), max 5 tags
>
>
>
My rationale for this change is that if the poster does not provide the field of research, 9 times out of 10 they will be asked for it in the comments immediately after posting. If they don't, then 9 times out of 10 the answer they receive will be too broad to actually help them. (I'm noticing that most people - myself included - don't realize how many fields of research there are.) | [
{
"answer_id": 28,
"author": "Andy W",
"author_id": 3,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/3",
"pm_score": 3,
"selected": true,
"text": "While the experience of individuals will be mostly limited to one particular field and likely a specific geographic area (... | 2012/02/16 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/21",
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23 | I would vouch for accommodation questions to be on-topic, as long as they are clearly focused for academic hosting (that is, "Channels for accommodation for 6 months at VU-Amsterdam" is on-topic, "Looking for accommodation in Centralia, Pennsylvania" is not). Also, direct "Does anybody here have a room available from/to? write me at" are completely off-topic.
The focus is to give *tools*, not *solutions* to the problem. The tools will stay valid and useful to other readers in the future. The "I have a room, write me" will not.
The reason is that relocation and quick finding of accommodation channels for short term rentals is a complete and necessary part of the academic lifestyle. Very, very often, the universities provide little or no facilities or preferred contacts for such task. Networking, unknown but dedicated services, local traditions, safest channels (e.g. commercial vs. private) on this regard is a necessity we have to endure as much as we have to endure applying for grants. | [
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"answer_id": 27,
"author": "Henry",
"author_id": 8,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "There's a narrow line between \"how does a person find short-term housing near such-and-such university\" and \"does anyon... | 2012/02/16 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/23",
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24 | This site should be pretty easy to publicize; simply post flyers around the various departments. Would someone with design skills be willing to throw together a flyer to be around the various campuses by Academia SE users? | [
{
"answer_id": 33,
"author": "Community",
"author_id": -1,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "I have some design skills. I suggest that people should think of (and post as answers) some things that could be sai... | 2012/02/16 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/24",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
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36 | In order to promote the site, it would be good to post a notification on some of the existing online forums where academics congregate.
* What online forums exist?
As side points
* What community does the forum contain? How big is the community?
* What rules exist regarding promoting other site in the community?
By way of example:
* <http://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicPsychology/> contains almost 2000 subscribers; Reddit permits posting links; links that the community likes get upvoted and then receive greater exposure. | [
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"answer_id": 43,
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"author_id": 77,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/77",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "* [Physics Forums](http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=139). Check the Academic Guidance forum. Even ... | 2012/02/21 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/36",
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39 | We have a new user who is being more disruptive than helpful:
[First question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/323/what-makes-an-undergradute-in-computer-science-with-a-1-2-degree-more-employable)
The initial question was not ideal for SE, so people voted it down and to close it. That sparked outrage and:
[Second "question," closer to a rant](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/339/use-of-stackexchange-looking-for-answer)
What is supposed to be done about users doing this? Are they supposed to be flagged as spammers? Is something else supposed to be done about that? | [
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"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/-1",
"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "It's a good question, I was also wondering what one can do. In my experience on some forums, the best to do is usual... | 2012/02/22 | [
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45 | I'm wondering whether we should loosen the criterion for "too localized" in this forum. My intuition is that many questions on this forum will be very localized, but the answers will be more general in nature. For instance, [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/363/career-advice-for-a-recent-social-psychology-graduate) about social psychology + art seems very localized, but the answers will probably be relevant to both social psychology *and* art majors, rather than only the intersection of the two. I think this will be a common phenomenon. In fact, I can't really think up with a good case of "too localized" for our forum. **Should we avoid closing questions as "too localized" at all?** | [
{
"answer_id": 47,
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"author_id": 118,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/118",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "In my mind, it should at least be possible for someone searching the site a month from now to find it helpful. It's a ... | 2012/02/22 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/45",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
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55 | When I saw this new StackExchange site, it first reminded me a lot of a tool that's being used in an increasing number of college-level courses called [Piazza](https://piazza.com/). Each "instance" of Piazza is a single semester of a single course offered at a university where students can ask questions and other students (or the course instructor) can create a "wiki-style" answer.
Having been a user of it for a year, it has some terrible shortcomings (questions are sorted only by the date their originally posted, making useful threads terribly difficult to find; formatting of posts are limited to a small set of HTML; etc) that StackExchange has usually found elegant solutions.
This may be the wrong place to start this discussion, though it would be great to see StackExchange offer a service as a Piazza alternative. It would seem the current Academia software already exceeds the functionality of Piazza, it would simply need to be instanced for courses to have the ability to adopt it. Is this something we could expect in the future? | [
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"pm_score": 4,
"selected": true,
"text": "In my mind, it should at least be possible for someone searching the site a month from now to find it helpful. It's a ... | 2012/02/24 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/55",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
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60 | I was wondering whether we should allow questions about academics searching for industry positions. [This question on jobs outside of academia](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/441/what-opportunities-exist-in-the-industry-for-a-researcher-in-computational-astro) was closed, based on our brand-new FAQ, but I thought the question was a good one. **Do we want to allow those sorts of questions here?** This would include questions about...
* Which industries may be a good match for a particular field of researchers
* Networking with industry while in academia
* Any questions from non-research master's students
I personally (and quite biased-ly) feel that this is relevant to academicians, as the move from research to industry is quite common, and it is something many academicians will want to know about. What's your thoughts? | [
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"selected": false,
"text": "Certainly not. There's a risk as it is that there are several posters treating this site as a careers advice forum. T... | 2012/02/26 | [
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64 | I've noticed that it's only possible to mention another SE user using the "@" symbol in a comment thread where the user appears, and I was wondering if it was a feature or a bug. In particular, I couldn't find any easy to refer to another member, or just to draw the attention of another member to a particular question. Similarly, on [this question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/51/proposed-faq-what-kind-of-questions-should-i-not-ask-here-entry), eykanal mentioned my name in a comment, but I didn't receive any message, although I would have liked to.
I know that the point of SE is not to create a mail platform, and clearly there should be some kind of regulations, but I wouldn't mind indicating a list of users who can "refer" me (or say, put a default level of reputation), so that I don't miss out a potentially interesting question.
I don't know if such a mechanism already exists, but somehow it could be nice (with an opt-in mechanism, so that by default, nobody can refer to you). | [
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"answer_id": 65,
"author": "Adam Lear",
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"selected": true,
"text": "There are no plans right now to introduce any sort of notification feature along these lines. Stack Exchange is by de... | 2012/02/26 | [
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72 | Many of the current answers begin with "It depends on your field" / "There is no one answer".
Indeed, each field is unique, although they share common grounds.
For questions that depend on the specific field, I would expect to see **many** answers, each for its own field, rather than having an answer that says "it varies" and that only gives a brief description of the common grounds.
For instance, for the question
>
> Should I publish my recent result in a journal or a conference?
>
>
>
I would expect to see
* **Anser A**: "In CS, conferences are very important and you should publish there (and then submit the ful version to a journal"
* **Answer B**: "In our field, , there are no serious conferences, thus one should aim for journals..."
(see also [this related question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/58/including-country-region-and-discipline-in-qa-for-which-it-is-relevant))
Do you agree with this paradigm? How do we lead the community to avoid "it depends on your field" kind of answers and replace them with "In field XXXX, the answer is.."? | [
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73 | I'm relatively new to Stack Exchange, so I'm not sure if there is a universal policy for closing questions across sites. But I've noticed here that there are questions with low or negative scores or questions that are similar to ones asked and answered before, and they're left hanging on the front page. Turnover seems slow compared to other SE sites.
I just wanted to put this out for discussion, I don't have a terribly strong opinion about it either way. | [
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"text": "It's a good remark. In general, I think it can be good to leave the time for the OP to reformulate the question befo... | 2012/03/06 | [
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83 | Since we're about two weeks into the public beta now, I would think that it would be time to start considering adding more moderators (right now, I believe Owna is the only moderator, and she's with SE, as opposed to being a member-moderator.
Is it time to begin the process of adding [*pro tempore* moderators](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/07/moderator-pro-tempore/)? I think it would help improve board "flow", and keep things moving in a more productive direction. | [
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"text": "**Yes**. This community, while still small, has had it's share of low-quality questions and trolls, and internal moder... | 2012/03/07 | [
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94 | How can we fix [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/842/should-a-postdoc-obey-when-is-asked-to-do-things-she-knows-little-about) to be more focused on helping postdocs and less argumentative and provocative? | [
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"text": "**Yes**. This community, while still small, has had it's share of low-quality questions and trolls, and internal moder... | 2012/03/23 | [
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99 | I note that this question implicitly prefers questions with a general topic but in fact very localized content (one's life story + a question of type 'What should I do?').
For example, one I asked a general question (i.e. if one can use his/her personal e-mail instead of institutional) then it was pointed out that in fact there were such question before (as a side part of a compound/story type question).
AFAIK it is not a good practice for a SE site.
First, it makes things less reusable.
* An answered question makes less sense to others.
* It is harder to find.
Second, it makes harder to make meaningful answers.
* If there are more subquestions and answer covering only some may be accepted.
* As a specific context is given, the answer may not be true in a more general one. | [
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"text": "**Yes**. This community, while still small, has had it's share of low-quality questions and trolls, and internal moder... | 2012/03/27 | [
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111 | We've had a couple questions since the dawn of Academia.SE asking for advice about undergraduate-related topics, the most recent being [this well-formulated and generally pretty solid question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1407/73). In the past, we've [discouraged these kinds of questions](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/38/73). That was a while ago, though, and we've matured as a forum since then. Given how many upvotes the current question has received in such a short time, I'm curious what the community's current view is on undergraduate-related questions; should we continue to discourage them or should we allow them? | [
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"text": "You make a good point. For me, what I really want to avoid, are questions like: \"I like this and that, what progra... | 2012/05/04 | [
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115 | I would love to ask a question on the tenure system that is in vogue in US. I see a few publications in Google, and also a few blog posts talking about the pros and cons of the system.
I wish to know the following:
* Is the tenure system efficient as such?
* Is it likely/probable/possible that it will get overhauled in the near/far future?
* Why do we not have an annual incentive-based system (or something similar) instead of tenure?
* Are there universities which have begun to do away with tenure already?
I am a bit doubtful if these questions are permissible or if they belong to community-wiki or if they belong at all. Most importantly I am afraid the answers may result in camps of people. Any idea how I should approach this? Thanks :)
PS: First post in meta, excuse me if I am not supposed to ask this here. | [
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"text": "I think that all of this discussion will fit in very well into most academic discussion forums. It's a discussion yo... | 2012/05/08 | [
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118 | I was looking over our stats on area 51, and we're doing poorly on two counts: #questions/day and number of visits. I'm more concerned about the latter than the former for now (because fixing the latter will probably fix the former).
I was hoping this could become an open thread for ideas on how to boost the visit numbers, so we don't go the way of econ.SE and theoreticalphysics.SE. | [
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123 | You love your site and we love your site, but there is a whole world of people out there who might not even know it exists. When they do find it, their first impression will either scare them away or keep them around. Given this, let's take a hard look at the questions and answers here and make sure newcomers see the site at its best!
Below you'll find ten questions randomly selected from this site. What do you think about each of them and their answers? Are they the best they can be or can they be improved? Would they look interesting and inviting to an outsider or are they a little embarrassing?
Upvote the corresponding post here on meta when we're awesome. Downvote when our content just isn't quite up to par.
Oh, and do comment to let everyone know your thoughts and take part in this conversation. :) | [
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"text": "[What do principal investigators (PIs) look for in prospective post docs?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/quest... | 2012/05/24 | [
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138 | I've noticed that many of the [recent questions asked by newcomers to the site](https://academia.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts) are low quality and/or off-topic, dealing with "what's the best university for discipline X?" and "how can I get into field/program X"? On a similarly worrying note, there have not been any new users asking more academic-related questions, such as those asked by site regulars. To me, this suggests that we are attracting the wrong kinds of users, and we are *not* attracting the kinds of users we want. My interpretation of the data is that we are attracting typical SO users, who make up a very diverse (and typically non-academic) population, and we are not marketing this site well enough to the general academic crowd.
My question is, what do you think of this? Do you agree? If so, what should we do to fix this? If you disagree, what do you make of the trend?
---
In response to the comment below:
1. **[What academic discipline does “Productivity Science” come under?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1884/what-academic-discipline-does-productivity-science-come-under)**
This question is completely unrelated to Academia and is unlikely to benefit any future readers of this site.
2. **[How can I make up for weak grades while applying for a masters?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1992/how-can-i-make-up-for-weak-grades-while-applying-for-a-masters)**
This question is almost impossible to answer. Sure, it's common, but there are far too many factors for a definitive answer.
3. **[Part-time/non-degree computer science studies](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1989/part-time-non-degree-computer-science-studies)**
Off-topic, as it pertains to undergraduate work.
4. **[How to get enrolled in a German university for Ph.D. in computer science](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1987/how-to-get-enrolled-in-a-german-university-for-ph-d-in-computer-science)**
This type of question is the most dangerous, because the information is freely available on department pages of individual programs. Many questions like this here will significantly decrease the value of this site, as all answers will be "check [this](http://example.com) link" and "-1, check department webpage".
We have had some very good questions recently (e.g., [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2067/paper-reprints-of-articles), [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1999/how-does-a-faculty-member-get-to-work-at-two-universities-or-more), and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/849/can-i-pursue-a-phd-while-working-as-an-instructor-lecturer)), but of those three, two were asked by "old" site members, while only one was a newbie. My main worry is that new folks are viewing the site differently than we are, and that the way they're viewing it isn't good for our long-term health. | [
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144 | Well this question is bound to be controversial. What should we do?
[What is being done to make the academic environment more women friendly?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2113/319) | [
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"text": "My feeling (mentioned in comments) is that the second part of the question (asking for references to work studying t... | 2012/06/24 | [
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149 | As a followup to DQdlM's [question about pedagogy](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/104/are-questions-on-pedagogy-on-topic), are questions about student recruitment, success, or retention on topic even if they are not related to curriculum development or instructional design?
For example:
My institution does a little general recruitment. Most recruitment is handled in the academic departments. I am not a college recruiter. I assume that research has been done on targeting and recruiting students who are likely to be successful, but since my research background is in chemistry, I do not even know where to begin looking for this kind of information. Would a question on locating resources on recruiting undergraduate students be on-topic? | [
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"text": "I would definitely imagine this is on-topic. It's related to academia and specific to academics. I would suggest that... | 2012/06/27 | [
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152 | I've just been to the stats of travel.SE and I found their stats phenomenally better than ours. While 8 questions and 1800 visits per day is excellent, I do think that some part of this has to do with the objective of the site: academia is much more exclusive than travel; in other words, all academics can have travel queries at some point of time, but some or many travellers may never get academia-related queries.
This is the basis of my question: how sound is it to judge different SE sites based on the same set of criteria? Should A.SE shoot for the same targets as others? | [
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"text": "According to the SE \"targets\" A.SE is currently weak in questions per day (4.6/15) and visits per day (448/1500... | 2012/07/04 | [
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157 | In this [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/2545/929), the user has decided to provide a evidence for what makes him qualified for answering the question. While I can see it as potentially useful, I am not sure it is needed or desirable. Has the practice of prefacing answers with qualifications been discussed?
My concern is that providing qualifications could intimidate junior people. It seems like such statements are saying "I am so important that my answers should be given extra weight". I think our site rep (and past question/answers) should give the indication of the type of person who submitted the answer and how much extra weight the answer should be given (if any). | [
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163 | I was going to ask a question about graduation and I didn't find the tag I was looking for. I was thinking that an "events" tag would be useful for questions about different events that academics go to (e.g., graduation, new student invocation, thesis defenses, fund raising).
**EDIT** In response to aeismail's answer, I am thinking of questions more from the faculty side of these events and not the student side, although student side questions would also work. For example a question about etiquette when walking in the graduation procession as a member of faculty.
What do people think about an EVENTS tag with a description of
>
> about what can be expected of and by attendees at different academic
> events including graduation, thesis defenses, and tenure review
> meetings.
>
>
> | [
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"text": "Perhaps \"milestones\" is a more appropriate tag than \"events?\" It's a better descriptor, at any rate. \"Events\" ... | 2012/08/03 | [
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168 | I am thinking specifically of [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2772/are-there-any-specific-teaching-techniques-to-handle-virtual-classroom-session#comment4504_2772), where my answer would be wholly different based on the type of virtual teaching environment. I would like to provide separate answers for each environment so that they can be evaluated (and voted on) separately. Some answers may be more useful than others.
I know that I have the ability to provide more than one answer to a question. If the two answers are substantively different, is that preferable to a single long, rambling answer of the type "In situation A, do this, ............ and in situation B..... this other thing"? | [
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"text": "The vote is done to the answer as a whole. You would probably get higher votes for a more complete answer,... | 2012/08/12 | [
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171 | I know that the site stats (on the left side of the front page) include visitors/day. I'm guessing that is averaged over some time frame. Is there a place that I can see the number of visitors on each particular day? | [
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"text": "Unfortunately, they don't make that data public. The number you see is pretty good for gauging trends, though."
},
... | 2012/08/23 | [
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174 | Are questions on software on topic?
This question on [writing software](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3054/openoffice-vs-libreoffice-vs-msoffice-for-academic-writing) seems almost identical to questions on [poster](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1880/software-to-use-for-creating-posters-for-academic-conferences), [illustration](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1095/software-to-draw-illustrative-figures-in-papers), [notebook](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1085/software-app-for-electronic-research-notebooks), [citation](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36/how-do-the-various-citations-management-software-programs-compare), and [data analysis](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1098/what-are-the-most-common-types-of-software-used-for-data-analysis-by-scientific) software. The citation and data analysis questions were closed. All but the data analysis questions are highly voted. | [
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"text": "As I stated [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2993/73), I think software questions are definitely **on-topi... | 2012/08/31 | [
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180 | In [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3086/opportunities-in-industry-after-a-phd-in-organic-chemistry), the OP wants to know the opportunities in industrial R&D after a PhD in organic chemistry. In general, industry vacancies and requirements do not have anything to do with academia, so Vharluz has rightly cast his vote to close the question.
But on a previous date, we have enthusiastically answered [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/96/what-kind-of-opportunities-exist-in-the-industry-for-someone-with-a-ph-d-in-theo?rq=1), which asks almost the same question for CS.
How do we decide if a particular question asking about industrial R&D opportunities for PhD and post-doc scholars is on-topic or not? Asking about software jobs after MS is obviously out of scope, but aren't professors in academia better informed than most about research opportunities? Shouldn't we give a concession to questions about industrial R&D after PhD/post-doc alone? | [
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"text": "**No.** Questions about careers outside academia should be off-topic.\n\nThey're suitable to a career-advice site f... | 2012/09/05 | [
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181 | I saw [a question](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/190453/is-it-morally-right-and-pedagogically-right-to-google-answers-to-homework) on the ethic of googling one's homework. The questioner, though having posted it on Mozh.SE, asks about the "pedagogical" merit of doing the same. This question has been closed as **not constructive** on Mozh.SE, but many would opine it is off-topic as well.
Does the question belong here? The way it is phrased may refer to math problems, but it is an issue that is certainly faced by most professors and students. A (kind of) compelementary question on how a professor should keep himself ahead of the homework-googling menace has been asked by DupeKx [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1705/setting-exercises-and-assignments-when-everything-is-on-the-web). | [
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"text": "Funny you bring this one up; they had asked us whether we wanted it, and I turned it down as being too pedagogical. Th... | 2012/09/05 | [
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188 | Are questions that are US-specific on-topic on this site? (i.e., only relevant to academia in the United States)
(Do people want to see those kinds of questions tagged or marked in any particular way?) | [
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"text": "Yes, these questions are fine. As of now we're not tagging these questions specifically as such; just indicate the tar... | 2012/09/14 | [
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201 | Some users create tags while adding question; some are highly useful and some are simply meaningless. Do SE have any mechanism to encourage users to add tag wiki as well, on creating tags?
Esp. see this question [In conference review process, what do “author response” and “author notification” mean?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3022/in-conference-review-process-what-do-author-response-and-author-notification) What actually the tags ([wording](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/wording/info)) ([dates](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/dates/info)) ([call](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/call/info)) mean?
So, if the tag creator him(her)self propose a tag wiki, it is good for the community. | [
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"text": "I don't think there is a way to \"encourage\" a tag creator to edit the tag wiki. However, you can retag the questio... | 2012/10/02 | [
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205 | **What is this community’s take on deleting closed questions? What are the criteria for deletion?**
In the past few days, I have voted on deleting some of the closed questions that seemed to have absolutely no value to the site ([way off-topic](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3203/extraction-of-jpegs-of-slides-from-a-video-recording-of-a-lecture), [way too localized](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3534/need-help-working-through-the-pros-cons-of-two-schools), that kind of stuff). I do it on other sites, as part of the “janitorial” activities of high-rep users.
The questions gathered no other delete vote, so I flagged a few others (e.g., [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1845/njit-vs-university-of-oklahoma-health-sciences-center) and [there](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1153/java-developer-or-sap-softwares)). The mods declined to delete, saying “there's no need to flag a question as low-quality if it's already been closed”.
So, I wonder: does this site have a deliberate policy of not deleting these very low quality closed questions? Argument has been made in other parts of the SE network, including by the SE team itself, that deletion is the final destination of many closed questions. For example, see [here](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/04/the-stack-overflow-question-lifecycle/):
>
> Why would you *delete* a question? Isn’t closing it enough?
>
>
> * Some questions are of such poor quality that they cannot be salvaged. They’re literally nonsense. Not every byte of data that is created in the world is infinite and sacred.
> * Some questions are so incredibly off topic that they add no value to a programming community.
> * The mental cost of processing these closed questions is not zero, particularly for users who are actively engaged and scanning questions to find things they can help answer.
> * If users see a lot of closed questions, they’ll note that we don’t enforce the guidelines, so why should they? Without any final resolution, asking questions that get closed becomes something we are implicitly encouraging — a broken windows problem. If this goes on for long enough, we’re no longer a community of programmers who ask and answer programming questions, we’re a community of random people discussing.. whatever. That’s toxic.
> * If enough of these closed questions are allowed to hang around, they become clutter that reduces the overall signal to noise ratio — which further reduces confidence in the system.
>
>
>
Or see [there](https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4058/24799):
>
> Closed questions should be kept on the site when:
>
>
> 1. They are a duplicate of another on topic question. As there are many ways of asking the same question it's good that we have the different examples on the site.
> 2. ....
>
>
> Well that's it really.
>
>
>
I could see no meta post on the topic, hence I create one. **When does the community feel it is appropriate to delete closed questions?** | [
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211 | Following up on our recent discussion [on closed questions](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/205/what-should-happen-to-closed-questions), I'm wondering if it might not be a bad idea to create a tag for closed questions. This might help us to "corral" them a bit better.
Thoughts? | [
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"text": "That's a good idea, I was actually looking for a way to search only for closed questions. \n\nEDIT: The keyword \"c... | 2012/10/16 | [
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215 | There has been some discussion recently here about deletion. What I could suggest, in order to avoid having one question here for each content we might want to delete, is to post as an answer to this question any other questions, answer or comment one would like to delete.
**If you have at least 2000 reputation**, you can directly vote on posts for deletion: please do so as appropriate. You will also be able to see [recent posts that have accrued some delete votes](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tools?tab=delete&daterange=last30days): click on the `most votes` and `recent votes` headings to see them all.
**If you do not have at least 2000 reputation**, then please vote on the proposed deletions below: An upvote on the answer means that the post should be deleted, a negative one means that the post shouldn't. All comments are welcome. By default, if after a few days, there has not been any comment *against* deletion, the post will be deleted.
What do you think of such a process? It can also allow to keep track of the deletion, and the reason pro/against. Furthermore, it would move some parts of the deletion discussion from the hidden mod room to a more open space.
As F'x pointed out, good candidates for deletion can be found [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?tab=newest&q=-%22possible%20duplicate%3a%22%20migrated%3a0%20closed%3a1) | [
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"text": "A rhetorical question [What is IRDAM Journal?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3690/what-i... | 2012/10/16 | [
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238 | Stack Exchange sites that have graduated run so-called “Community Promotion Ads”: these run in the right sidebar of each page, and are designated according to votes on the Meta of each site. For example, see [on Physics.SE](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/980/community-promotion-ads-2012) how it works.
The good thing about these ads is that the new visitors they bring are, for the most part, already users on other Stack Exchange sites, and they now how the system works. Over at [Chemistry](http://chemistry.stackexchange.com), we have [placed an ad on Physics.SE](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1334/91) and it does bring us some traffic.
**I’d like to propose that we come up with an ad to run on our sibling SE sites**. I see three points to deal with:
* finding a nice motto or a catchy sentence
* creating the ad itself (having a nice graphics improves one’s click-through rate, but it's not absolutely necessary)
* coming up with a list of sites we want to target: I’m thinking [Mathematics](https://math.stackexchange.com/), [Physics](https://physics.stackexchange.com/), [Theoretical Computer Science](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/), [TeX - LaTeX](https://tex.stackexchange.com/), [Mathematica](https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/), [English L&U](http://english.stackexchange.com), [Electrical Engineering](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/) (sorted roughly in decreasing order of suitability IMO)
What do you think? | [
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245 | When tagging this question: [How can I apply to be an adjunct faculty?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/4930/344), I came across four tags that could either be synonyms or at least have more distinct definitions.
To be clear, I think that these could either be merged into two or even one tag with synonyms.
For reference, here are the current definitions of these tags:
* [career](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career "show questions tagged 'career'"): Career is a person's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". Questions related to academic career comes under this tag.
* [career-path](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/career-path "show questions tagged 'career-path'"): Queries related to progression of academics in various capacities from a student to a professor and the various stages involved in the process.
The following should be considered as well:
* [job](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/job "show questions tagged 'job'"): Refers to academic job, its advantages and disadvantages. Also related to duties and responsibilities associated with an academic job and academic job search.
* [jobs](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/jobs "show questions tagged 'jobs'"): (no summary) | [
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"text": "[job](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/job \"show questions tagged 'job'\") and [jobs](https://aca... | 2012/10/23 | [
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258 | As a community, where do we want to draw the line between editing old off-topic closed questions and changing them completely? This [recently edited question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1525/how-do-you-avoid-favoritism-and-personal-relationships-from-affecting-grading) has received many comments (well, a few comments with many upvotes) that the edit was over the top. I think I do agree, because while the theme of the question is the same, the question has completely changed (and not only by being more constructive). In particular, the answers given (and upvoted) already some months ago are now completely irrelevant to the question.
So, what do you think should happen to this sort of questions? (meaning: questions closed, with existing non-trivial answers, who cannot be salvaged by minor edit or simple removal of subjectivity)
1. No edit, delete
2. No edit, delete, ask the improved question as a new question
3. Invasive edit, delete all answers (and all comments, which was actually done)
In my opinion, option #2 has the best benefits: it increases the value for our site by adding a good question, and does not create an unclear situation with mismatched question/answers/comments. Also, it properly attributes the good question to its rightful author (though it probably is a minor point). | [
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262 | Along the lines of "[Third excellent..."](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/178/third-excellent-on-area-51-congratulations-to-all-nearly-ready-for-graduat), we now have [no more "needs work" categories](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia), having just bumped over the 5 questions/day mark. This is more of an announcement than a question, so it can be removed later if necessary. | [
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"pm_score": 1,
"selected": false,
"text": "Thanks for posting, good job to everyone who's participated and made this site as good as it is."
},
{
"answe... | 2012/10/28 | [
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270 | What all we know, we (i.e. academia.SE) are hacking the system for objective verifiable Q&A for the purpose of advise questions. (And, IMHO, we have hacked it successfully).
However, I have some doubts when it comes to accepting answers. On StackOverflow it's obvious if an answer solves your problem. Then, out of such, you can choose the approach you actually took.
For soft-questions you don't have "I copied and pasted your code, it works, thanks". Usually there are piece of advice and wisdom in many "answers". And none of it "solves" the problem (actually differences in opinions are often fruitful and show academic landscape).
Of course sometimes there is an answer which is worth to be singled out among other. But in other cases, **when there are more compelling answers - what to do?** | [
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"text": "If there is no clear right answer possible, then the question doesn't belong on the site. It should be closed as \"... | 2012/11/10 | [
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273 | Informally watching our stats on Area 51 leads me to the conclusion that our number of users and visits per day have increased faster than our questions per day. We use to be averaging a question per 100 visits and now we are averaging a question per 200 visits. I am concerned that we do not have enough questions to keep the interest of our new visitors. Should we as frequent users ask some general interest questions, by which I mean questions we had earlier in our careers and now know the answers to, to try and keep interest/visits high. Hopefully more questions would encourage new users to ask more questions. | [
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"pm_score": 3,
"selected": false,
"text": "Before we jump to conclusions, do we have statistics about the rate of question generation on \"graduated\" sites?\n... | 2012/11/10 | [
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283 | Moderators have a view of the site's statistics, but they cannot share the specifics. So, I'm starting this post to keep track of the evolution of our statistics over time. Please feel free to update it every now and then:
```
Date Qs/day Visits/day A. ratio Total users Avid users
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2012-07-04 4.6 448
2012-10-04 4.0 700
2012-11-12 4.0 994 2.5 1986
2012-11-19 3.7 1005 2.6 2048 184
2012-11-28 5.2 1068 2.6 2123 190
2012-12-03 5.7 1068 2.6 2154 192
2012-12-10 3.9 1093 2.6 2194 195
2012-12-17 4.4 1109 2.5 2275 200
2013-01-01 3.1 765 2.6 2361 207
2013-01-07 3.5 772 2.6 2402 209
2013-01-14 4.9 1056 2.6 2471 212
2013-01-21 6.1 1308 2.6 2549 216
2013-01-28 6.0 1392 2.6 2640 222
2013-02-04 6.1 1397 2.7 2786 235
2013-02-11 6.1 1452 2.7 2835 237
2013-02-18 5.5 1312 2.7 2903 240
2013-02-25 4.5 1361 2.7 2978 244
2013-03-04 4.9 1449 2.7 3101 248
2013-03-11 6.2 1533 2.7 3173 254
2013-03-18 6.5 1557 2.7 3240 262
2013-03-26 5.8 1653 2.7 3324 271
2013-04-02 5.0 1651 2.7 3486 283
2013-04-08 5.7 1621 2.7 3545 288
2013-04-15 6.0 1572 2.7 3612 292
2013-04-22 6.6 1497 2.7 3684 293
2013-04-29 6.9 1485 2.7 3749 296
2013-05-14 4.5 1458 2.7 3861 303
2013-06-10 5.7 2008 2.7 4142 318
2013-06-18 4.6 2008 2.7 4198 322
2013-07-15 5.4 2139 2.7 4465 329
2013-07-29 6.8 2392 2.7 4656 339
2013-08-19 6.6 2503 2.7 4914 351
2013-08-26 7.1 2739 2.7 5049 356
2013-09-09 7.0 3127 2.7 5188 369
2013-09-17 7.6 3251 2.7 5279 372
2013-09-23 7.8 3256 2.7 5341 372
2013-09-30 6.9 3350 2.7 5414 390
2013-10-07 6.9 3568 2.6 5504 392
2013-10-14 7.4 3572 2.6 5595 401
2013-10-21 6.9 3863 2.6 5666 408
2013-10-28 6.1 3954 2.6 5754 411
2013-11-04 5.9 4229 2.6 5851 419
2013-11-12 6.5 4408 2.6 5951 425
2013-11-19 7.1 4711 2.6 6082 430
2013-11-25 7.9 4938 2.6 6180 438
2013-12-02 6.0 4452 2.6 6284 443
2014-01-10 9.5 3932 2.6 7118 473
2014-01-17 10.3 6332 2.6 7408 487
2014-01-24 9.3 6409 2.6 7603 493
2014-01-31 9.3 6264 2.6 7832 501
2014-02-07 10.9 7012 2.6 8109 507
2014-02-14 11.9 7351 2.6 8308 518
2014-03-14 10.9 8138 2.6 9418 565
```
I use the [Area51](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia) page as source for those stats.
---
Graphs of the visits/day, number of users, and questions per day:
And here's the Quantcast estimate of site traffic, with a sparkline for the last 6 months, mean number of visitors per month, and highest and lowest daily visitor count in the last 6 months:
[](http://www.quantcast.com/academia.stackexchange.com) | [
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288 | I am currently in my grad program in CS, and I am interested in studying software engineering processes, project management, and metrics in a PhD program.
Can I ask here or on the main Academia site which universities are currently focused on researching the areas in which I am interested? | [
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299 | I have noticed a lot of computer scientists, physics, and a few more subjects but I think there is a lack of people from a lot of other major fields, for example Biology.
How do we attract people to contribute to the website from less computer-centric areas? | [
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"text": "Maybe ore or more of the more creative ones among us could contact Jorge Cham ([PhD Comics](http://www.phdcomics.c... | 2012/11/17 | [
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301 | Currently, most of questions here are very general. It also reflects in upvotes per question (which is very, very high, compared to any other SE site I know.)
It is good that we are able to produce high-quality content, appealing to a broad audience.
But... maybe it means that we are too unforgiving for valuable, but localized, questions?
Sure, some localized advice questions are hard to answer (because they are too subjective, or requires additional knowledge, or can't be answered with anything better that "check department website, and if it is not there - make a phone call"). But others may be valuable (even if only for a dozen of people).
And more importantly, restricting ourselves to only broad may lead to an end.
Related to: [Why aren't more questions being asked?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/273/why-arent-more-questions-being-asked) | [
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311 | I have recently acquired moderator privileges. Academia is the first SE site where I do so, so I was curious to see what they are like.
One thing that struck me is how quickly some questions get deleted. For example, [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5495/1033) (only visible with moderator privileges) was asked Nov 27 at 22:50 and deleted Nov 28 at 13:36, e.g. less than 15 hours later. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5494/1033) was even deleted within an hour. The instructions in *Access to moderator tools* state that *You must wait for a question to be closed for 2 days before you can vote for deletion*.
From previous experience elsewhere on the SE network, a user asking a question gets no notification if the question is deleted, and is unable to view the question or the comments. They will simply get error 404. With such a quick deletion, it's quite possible that the OP never got the chance to read the feedback and learn how to ask better questions.
Would it be wise to wait a little longer before deleting questions? Personally, I think even 2 days is a bit quick. Closing is clear enough to signal "this is off-topic". Does it really hurt to leave the question for at least a week to give the OP opportunity to read and consider the feedback? | [
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320 | Is there any sense of when we'll be able to leave beta ? I've been watching the stats, and while the number of questions/day bounces around the magic 5.0 mark, all the other markers seem quite strong (and the number of visits/day is steadily increasing). | [
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"text": "A site graduates out of beta whenever The Powers That Be™ decide that the site is ready to graduate out of beta. [Her... | 2012/12/20 | [
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323 | [Here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5879/any-suggestions-to-create-and-maintain-a-good-research-atmosphere "here") I got a close vote. I have no issue with it **but** how can I know the intention behind closing voters. How to get their attention. Are voters required to explicitly justify their actions?
Apparently, I see nothing off-topic or not constructive with its current shape. It discusses possible academic activities to encourage collaborations. | [
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"text": "Close votes are anonymous by design. You can't specifically message the person who submitted the close vote and they a... | 2012/12/20 | [
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336 | (I don't know if it fits better to meta or nor meta.)
As we see very often, many problems in/about academia are not suitable for close-ended questions. Also, some important things involve polling questions, like software, university, scholarship, conference or journal recommendations.
(For example, I'm involved in projects about creating new software for new ways for collaboration and discovery sharing, <https://gist.github.com/4540942>, and I have a lot of related questions, but all of them are open-ended.)
So:
* do we have a good place to redirect people asking such open-ended question?
* or: should we start one?
* or: maybe we should start a blog on Academia.SE? | [
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347 | Sometimes we get [questions](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2113/how-can-we-make-the-academic-enviroment-more-women-friendly) which can be deemed too broad. Broad not precisely because the question is too general and thus would have many specific partial answers, or be subjective, but too broad because the answer is not simple - a book could be written about the topic. However, these could get asked frequently. **Should we delete such questions, or keep them in order to at least explain in the answers specifically why the question is non-trivial?**
This question is inspired by the discussion [we had here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/215/which-of-these-posts-should-be-deleted/306#comment1481_306). | [
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352 | I think we need to be nicer when closing questions. I think of new people look at having their question closed as being a slap in the face and a real turn off for the site. The automated messages are informative, but not that nice. I don't think they suggest welcoming edits to improve the question. We have had a couple of recent questions be closed/edited/reopened very quickly and I think that is a good thing.
I think the last (generally the 5th unless you have mod powers) person who votes to close a question should post a "personal" comment. This should only get added when the question actually gets closed since the OP will not find out about close votes until the question is closed (unless they have enough rep, and then they presumably understand the process).
I would propose something like:
>
> Your question was closed as a duplicate. A link is provided at the top of your question to the possible duplicate. If you don't think your question is really a duplicate, please edit your question to highlight the differences and then we can reopen it.
>
>
>
Obviously something different would be needed for localized and not constructive questions.
What do people think? Can we just change the automated text to be nicer? | [
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"text": "I think is an *excellent* idea. I find myself writing something like that very often (one example [here](https://acad... | 2013/01/24 | [
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353 | I think we down vote too often here. SE has some reasonable guidelines about when to down vote.
>
> Use your downvotes whenever you encounter an egregiously sloppy,
> no-effort-expended post, or an answer that is clearly and perhaps
> dangerously incorrect.
>
>
>
Our answers and questions often are a little on the subjective side, but nowhere in the guidelines does it suggest down voting just because you disagree (which I think is why many down votes get cast).
I would really like to see more explanations as to why things are getting down voted. This would allow people to fix the problems instead of just slapping them in the face. I understand this will make the down vote not anonymous, but I think it is a nicer way to go.
I see this as more of a problem when down voting answers. I can provide examples from my own answers which have received down votes. I am using my own answers since I can easily find ones with down votes and not because I need justification or want the down votes reversed.
[Why should the scientific community avoid double submissions?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/6100/why-should-the-scientific-community-avoid-double-submissions/6102#6102)
[Is it ethical to use another university's journal subscription if yours doesn't have access?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5206/is-it-ethical-to-use-another-universitys-journal-subscription-if-yours-doesnt/5216#5216)
[What are the various designations/stages in the academic career of the person](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3163/what-are-the-various-designations-stages-in-the-academic-career-of-the-person/3197#3197)
I also have a question with what seems a spurious down vote:
[Are abstracts confidential during the review process?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3600/are-abstracts-confidential-during-the-review-process)
Again, I am not complaining about these down votes, it is the fact that it happens to new people also. | [
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357 | We've got another [question with a background in humanities](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7455/what-is-the-factor-that-made-us-higher-education-system-so-potent-and-popular) which was closed almost immediately. Another such is discussed [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/347/should-we-delete-too-questions-which-have-too-extensive-answers-but-its-diffic). The reason in both cases was that it's too subjective, rather argumentative and no objective answer could be provided. It seems to me this might be a pattern we need to be careful about. It seems to me that both questions and discussions around them implicitly assume that the question cannot be objectively answered. That however rules out any scientific discourse based on softer criteria. I argue that such questions should not be closed so quickly, there indeed might be good answers to them rooted in research in humanities, history, sociology, etc.
Considering the discussion [here](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/299/how-do-we-attract-people-from-all-research-areas), my feeling is that due to the current composition of academia.SE audience which is skewed towards people from exact scientific disciplines, we might be too dismissive about questions from humanities. This way, we won't succeed to attract people from those areas. We should rather find a way to embrace such softer questions. | [
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362 | We currently have two separate tags for [publications](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/publications "show questions tagged 'publications'") and [papers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/papers "show questions tagged 'papers'"). As far as I can tell, they're identical; both discuss research articles. I propose to merge them, but just in case I'm missing some nuance, I wanted to bring it up here first. | [
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"text": "I imagine that publications is broader than paper: a book chapter is a publication, it's not a paper. Probably, so is... | 2013/01/25 | [
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373 | [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/7508/4227) had certain comments by 2 users( JeffE , and scaaahu ) which although were not strictly on-topic, but nonetheless added to the discussion by providing a different viewpoint. Why were they removed ? | [
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380 | I find that the [writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/writing "show questions tagged 'writing'") and [scientific-writing](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scientific-writing "show questions tagged 'scientific-writing'") tags are used interchangeably in existing questions… [I suggest we make them synonyms](https://academia.stackexchange.com/tags/scientific-writing/synonyms). Please give your opinion in answers, so the mods can make it happen if the community feels it's okay. | [
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396 | I see a trend among some members to shoot down questions they *presumably* not have an straight-out answer for. I don't think this makes much sense. Nobody has answers to all thinkable questions, besides we don't all think (and express our thoughts) alike. Shooting down questions that you might not have an answer for prevents others who might actually have an answer (especially if the users "shooting-down" are high-rep users).
I am a supporter of productive critique instead of destructive attitude and can imagine the above mentioned attitude hurting this site in the future.
Am I the only person who feels this way? | [
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"text": "Questions that are closed usually have run afoul of the FAQ's for the board. It's not a sign that there isn't a good... | 2013/02/05 | [
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400 | [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7817/representing-experimental-data?noredirect=1) about representation of experimental data was migrated to [CrossValidated](http://stats.stackexchange.com), the SE site for “statisticians, data miners and data analysis”. Below, I make the case that this question is actually a pretty good fit for our site, too, and that it should be reöpened. I welcome comments on this position, and would like to know the feeling of the community at large.
---
First, let me state that there is no doubt that the question is on-topic on [CrossValidated](http://stats.stackexchange.com). However, I think it is not off-topic for Academia.SE. That case (a question on topic on two or more sites) happens from time to time (for example between Physics and Chemistry), and the SE policy for such a case is clear: the first step for migrating a question is “is it off-topic?”. If it's not, it stays, even if it might be a “better fit” for the *other* SE site.
Now, is [that specific question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7817/representing-experimental-data?noredirect=1) on-topic at Academia? Our FAQ says on-topic categories of questions include:
>
> * Requirements and expectations of academicians
>
>
>
**The question is *exactly* about the requirements and expectations of plotting data in an academic context.** It's a common question for people to ask, an usually a topic about which people have not received formal training, even if great books exist (see: [Tufte, E.R.](http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)). So, in my opinion, it is both on-topic and of great interest. It's not a specialized data-analysis question (which *would* probably be off-topic), but rather a common question.
I welcome other people's comments, in particular those of people who voted to close and migrate. I genuinely don't understand how this question was judged off-topic, so I'd be happy if you could explain it to me. In particular, *if it is judged off-topic*, how can it be modified to be on-topic? (I know it cannot be edited now that it's migrated, but it can be reäsked.) | [
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408 | Continuing with my push towards more liberal stance on deleting questions (we are developing here some [deletionists vs. inclusionists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia) issues, I guess), let me ask the following:
>
> Suppose we've got a trivial, localised, or otherwise not-that-good question, but thanks to a slight shift in its interpretation and seeing through the question somebody provided quite valuable, even though only tangentially related answer. **Should we delete such a question?**
>
>
>
Before diving into the review of (currently 43! proposals to close), I would like to get an idea of the moderators'and the community's opinions whether my, openly inclusionist, stance has any merit and approval.
I am referring to questions, such as these:
* [Distance Learning vs Free Online Education](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1417/distance-learning-vs-free-online-education), or
* [Funding for Belgian student to do a PhD in UK?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7338/funding-for-belgian-student-to-do-a-phd-in-uk)
In the first one, the answer by Vharluz is something worth to keep, and in the second one it's the rmounce's reply. | [
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415 | I noticed [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7231/what-is-tvl-13-position) which made me wonder what the policy here is regarding localized questions. There seems to have been a discussion of "too localized" questions based on research area specific questions, but only meta question regarding country specific questions is about whether or not US-specific questions are on-topic?
Does the current state of the "rules" approve of country specific question, if so to what extend? | [
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"text": "As I said in a comment to [Are US-specific questions OK?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/188/a... | 2013/02/27 | [
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417 | I flagged a question as off-topic but it was declined, with the comment:
>
> declined - Please use the closing vote mechanism
>
>
>
Close votes require 500 reputation, correct? Why would this be declined if I **can't** do that? What is the purpose of being able to vote as off-topic if I am not supposed to...?
The question was: [I and my advisor have a crush on the same woman, what should I do?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8209/i-and-my-advisor-have-a-crush-on-the-same-woman-what-should-i-do) | [
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"text": "As I said in a comment to [Are US-specific questions OK?](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/188/a... | 2013/03/07 | [
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423 | There is a lot of questions asking for life advice, e.g. describing a problem with their PhD advisor (or the head of the department). It's very common that there is a list of possible decisions and the asking person wants to pool what do people advise?
On one hand side, they are not good questions in the SE sense - as they are subjective, mixing a lot of questions in one, and somewhat localized.
On the other hand - very often they raise important problems, or *contain* questions that could be extracted.
More than often such questions remain open.
EDIT:
My main point is not to set criteria for closing questions, but to ask what should we do is a question is "asking for a general life advice, given the described situation"?
* Close first, ask later?
* Suggest to focus on one topic or split into subquestions?
* Leave it as it is, because it captures important issues?
Bear in mind that such question come mostly for people who are not yet familiar with SE, and may be not aware that open-ended subjective questions (and even worse - invitations to discussions) are not welcome here.
But at the same time they might be eager to rephrase the question. | [
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425 | Recently, someone posted the question "[Fee surcharge for international students](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/8565/73)", which was an undisguised rant. Someone mentioned this in the comments, and the user tacked on a question. To me, the question as added is likely off-topic here; it's a legal question about academia, not an academic question. However, the fact that the question was tacked on as such indicates to me that the user is looking more for discussion than an answer. I would vote to close, but my vote is automatically binding, so I wanted to see what the community thought. Do you think this question should be closed as "not a real question"? | [
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438 | Let's get real here. Academics in mathematics ARE different from acedemics in medicine. We should embrace the real world !
This is not to prevent general questions.
For example a general tag of tenure promotion could have multiple questions in different fields. Just like on StackOverflow questions about X-Path could be asked specifically to various languages (Java, C, Perl). | [
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443 | My understanding of the answers and votes on the [question whether software-related questions are on-topic](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/174/are-questions-on-software-on-topic) is that indeed, questions on software as tools for work in academia **are on-topic**. Now [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8578/how-to-physically-handle-hundreds-and-hundreds-of-papers/) was closed recently. To my understanding, the question is about tools too. Perhaps it is on something many would regard as too lowly and dirty issue, but I think it's relevant to work people in academia perform. So I would like to finally see how to deal with questions regarding tools, be it software, hardware, or otherwise practical things making life of a teacher, or a researcher easier.
P.S.
As I expressed already elsewhere, I'd rather take an inclusive position regarding deleting question on this site. This should be a place to provide answers of whatever kind relevant to academia, rather than a list of FAQ for academics. Hence my question above. | [
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"text": "That question is well-phrased as an academic concern, and I agree with you that it's on topic here. \n\nTo the broade... | 2013/03/29 | [
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447 | I was reading [this post from the main site](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/phd-at-a-low-ranked-university-leading-to-frustration) and found myself confused why there are four votes to close. As my comment there says, I think the underlying question (though it could have been asked in a better way) is widely applicable. While the question is about a personal situation it seems to me a situation that many students may find themselves in.
I saw [this meta question](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/99/personal-advices-instead-of-general-questions-means-low-reusability) and it is similar but I don't feel that other question really answers my question.
My question remains, if a question is generalizable, then even if it is about a personal situation, shouldn't it be on-topic? Should we edit the question to make it more generalized? | [
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"text": "The question as it stands is \"What should I do to make my life better?\". I can see how it is generalizable sinc... | 2013/04/02 | [
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461 | [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9105/whats-the-best-researchers-could-do-for-their-native-country) on what's the best researchers could do for their native country was closed. It reads like a sentimental question and may even lead to chatty answers, but doesn't it have some potential? I cut off the emotional and patriotic part and this question seems to ask for thoughts on how to transcend country-borders in academic collaboration. With a minor edit, shouldn't that be on-topic?
Another grouse is with the answer: 1) it is fitting as a comment. 2) it does not answer the question. 3) it reads like a rant. Somehow the irrelevant answer has got 5 votes. | [
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463 | Over the last few days, we have had rapid closing votes on [a question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/how-to-deal-with-the-frustration-of-doing-phd-at-a-low-ranked-university), followed by reopening. Even in questions which are ostensibly off-topic, but not on careful thought ([example](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9039/how-to-deal-with-the-frustration-of-doing-phd-at-a-low-ranked-university)), the closing votes have been dealt swiftly.
For a site like ours with [4 excellent](http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16617/academia) grades and 1 Okay grade, is delaying the graduation out of beta harmful? More users with fewer points may have the privileges and there is the possibility of handling them without care.
For now, we could appeal to all for sincere consideration before downvoting or closing. We would want to be welcoming to new users and their questions. We also do not want to shuttle back and forth between closing and reopening. | [
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"selected": false,
"text": "To answer your question, no, I do not think so. The goal of any SE site is to increase the audience and hopefully mai... | 2013/04/04 | [
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467 | Welcome to the academia.SE Community Poll thread! (shamelessly stolen from [TeX.SX](https://tex.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1564/tex-community-polls))
This thread is used for opinion and usage polls around Academia and academia.SE. The poll questions are added as "answers" to this "question". Their answers have been added as comments below them. To participate simply up-vote the comments which apply for you. If there is no suitable answer yet simply add it as comment by yourself. You can't up-vote your own comments but the comment author will be counted manually. Please do not add any other comments to these posts. General comments can be added to this "question".
Rules
Rules
-----
* Community poll questions are placed as "answer" posts below. Feel free to add your own1.
* Answers to these poll questions are placed as "comments" below them. Because this is also an opinion poll subjective questions are welcome.
Please do not ask too specific questions and allow for multiple choices and votes, e.g. instead of something like "My absolute favorite for X is .." use something like "For X I often use ...".
* To participate up-vote the comments which apply for you.
* If required add a new answer as a comment.
If applicable hyperlink the entry to allow other users to learn more about it. Feel free to flag comments for moderator attention if they should be modified for some valid reason (wrong/missing hyperlink, etc.)
* Feel free to up-vote the poll questions ("answer" posts) as well to indicate that you liked the question. This will push the most favorite questions to the top.
* Do not post any other answer posts or comments. Please provide feedback and critic on the [corresponding discussion thread](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/468/discussion-about-academia-community-polls) instead.
**Some things they learned over at TeX.SX**
* Edits to polls after they started should not change the meaning
* Subjective topics are okay
* Yes/No question are okay
1 Should you be affected by the "Trivial answer converted to comment" feature simply post a longer dummy text and then edit it down to the correct content. | [
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"answer_id": 469,
"author": "StrongBad",
"author_id": 929,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929",
"pm_score": 4,
"selected": false,
"text": "Comments on this [answer](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/437/929) made me curious on our demographics.... | 2013/04/04 | [
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"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
] |
468 | Please discuss any ideas and issues about [Academia Community Polls](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/467/academia-community-polls) in this thread to keep it tidy. | [
{
"answer_id": 475,
"author": "Ran G.",
"author_id": 324,
"author_profile": "https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/324",
"pm_score": 2,
"selected": false,
"text": "Regarding the question \"Are you currently working in Academia (i.e., employed by a university with a primary duty o... | 2013/04/04 | [
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/468",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com",
"https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/users/929/"
] |