90
votes
Accepted
Why did our primary chatroom get nuked?
A problem has been festering in SFF's chatroom for some time now. And in spite of the best efforts of your moderators and room owners, it doesn't seem to be going away. I've observed the activity in ...
57
votes
Why was a moderator on our Stack asked to step down?
First of all, allow me to be clear - Richard is an active and well-respected member of the community. His contributions and participation as a user are not in question. However, over the course of the ...
35
votes
Accepted
What is a Movie Night, really?
What is Movie Night?
A movie is chosen, either via a meta question or simply by royal decree.
How is it supposed to work?
At the agreed time, we all gather in the main site chatroom and press start ...
32
votes
Pronoun trolling - what to do?
The problem with questions like this is that it's basically a live hand grenade waiting for some imbecile to throw themselves upon it.
While it seems reasonably clear and common sense that grimble ...
26
votes
Accepted
Why the massive rep-drop yesterday?
I can't get super deep into detail here, but it deserves some explanation. I know this question touches a... whole hell of a lot of users on this site.
To be brief, we released a new tool to help mods ...
25
votes
Pronoun trolling - what to do?
A new FAQ regarding the updated CoC is due out shortly. I've seen a draft of it but until it is public it is not official, and until official guidance is due out I don't think it makes any sense for ...
NullMod
- 69.5k
23
votes
Accepted
Suspensions from chat with no notice
ArtOfCode put it very well, but I'm chiming in here for the sake of clarity.
SFF's main chatroom is in an unusual place right now in that it's being guided back to the Be Nice standards of the rest ...
23
votes
first who, second why
You were suspended for posting inappropriate content by a mod who has been entrusted by the powers that be (read: the community team) to make that judgment.
In my opinion, it was merited. And for ...
22
votes
Accepted
How do I search for questions on the site?
First of all, go to the search box in the left-hand side of the topbar:
You can type any word or collection of words into there to get a list of all posts on the SFF site containing all of those ...

Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
22
votes
Accepted
Which question on SFF has the highest number of downvotes?
I've forked "Most Downvoted Answers" to show the most downvoted questions.
The top 5 (at the last edit)
1) What is “DON'T PANIC” a reference to on the dashboard of Elon Musk's car? (71 downvotes)
2)...
22
votes
Accepted
Why do some questions get 4k views, and some only 80?
Basically, it's luck of the draw.
There are a number of factors which can go into how many views a question gets. The most important ones I can think of are as follows, in (IMO) decreasing order of ...

Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
21
votes
Accepted
Why are people interested in undeleting this question?
Probably because deleting duplicate questions is discouraged here.
We have a very clear meta consensus, and it's even tagged faq. To quote from the question:
If I post a question after searching ...
21
votes
Please, clarify Answer Deletion privilege clauses
I can't see anything in that answer that would qualify for deletion. It's not spam, it's clearly an answer to the question being asked, and there's nothing rude or offensive in it.
I've vote to ...
20
votes
Pronoun trolling - what to do?
The new Code of Conduct doesn't give you room to do anything about it.
Neo-pronouns are not clearly defined, there is no authoritative list of them, they're rarely used, and they don't follow common ...
19
votes
Accepted
What is alt text, and how do I write good alt text?
This text is called the alternative text or "alt text." Users with impaired or no vision, poor internet connections, or other difficulty with loading and viewing images will see or hear this text ...
18
votes
Accepted
Why do we have pentagrams as our "favorite" icon?
Stars are commonly used to denote favorites
It’s not merely Science Fiction and Fantasy Stack Exchange that uses a star to denote favorites. The other stacks do, too. Here are the “favorite” icons ...
18
votes
Accepted
Why was this 'not an answer' flag on a rant about US declined?
There is an answer buried in that wall of text:
So back to question, why would a Jedi serve a corrupt democracy? well why are our leaders doing the same thing in real life? because generations of ...
NullMod
- 69.5k
18
votes
Accepted
How to find a quotation?
What I do largely depends on the media in question.
Books
I have all of my main books in (full-text searchable) e-book format:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, etc.
All seven Harry Potter ...
18
votes
Major Complaint
I'm very sorry to hear that you're not having a good time on your first day with us. Let's have a quick review of your actions so far;
Q. "Genetics and Origins of Mutants/Inhumans" - Rather too vague ...
18
votes
Why was my answer deleted?
I marked your answer for deletion because you seem to be trying to make some sort of ham-fisted political point about Hitler and the British Empire rather than making a serious effort to answer the ...
17
votes
Why can't I add a comment?
For commenting anywhere, you need 50 reputation points. (This equates to 5 upvotes on answers or questions, so you should be able to pick up those points fairly quickly if you have good content to ...

Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
17
votes
Accepted
Pronoun trolling - what to do?
I've come around to @Valorum's position, which is:
Editing it into shape means that you're going to give a troll account a boost.
So even if it could be salvaged by a deep-cutting edit, it's not a ...
16
votes
Accepted
Why can I not protect a question?
Because it's too young:
Which questions can be protected?
Any question at least a day old can be protected and unprotected by users that have the privilege.
There was a feature-request put in to ...
16
votes
Would my The Force Awakens questions get closed if I ask them right now?
I would be happy with a policy that said it was askable when it's answerable. The only repeatable metric, for its answerability is its release date.
Otherwise anyone can say they have an answer, ...
16
votes
Why was this 'not an answer' flag on a rant about US declined?
Although I can't comment on the particular moderator's reasons for declining the NAA flags, I agree with the decision; despite all the noise, there is an answer in there:
why would a Jedi serve a ...
16
votes
Why can't I review posts anymore?
In that dialog, you are expected to do something to the post you're reviewing. You have all the same options you do when looking at a post outside review, and once you do, the review is considered "...
16
votes
Accepted
What does closing a Question as a Duplicate actually do?
Duplication is a type of closure, but it's less punitive than other types.
We close questions as duplicates. The option to mark it as a duplicate is found under the list of vote-to-close options, for ...

Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
15
votes
Accepted
How do I log out when I'm ready to leave the site?
You can simply click On Stack Exchange (top left of your screen) then click log out :
Then you will be asked if you want to quit all Stack Exchange communities.
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
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