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The official FAQ is intentionally minimal and concerned with how the site works. In comments, we often point to questions on this meta site for guidelines, etc. Taking a page from the SO/meta-SO book, perhaps we can take this a step further using the tags "faq" and "faq-proposed" to build a community FAQ. See the following link:

The general process is to tag a question as "proposed-faq". If it evolves to an acceptable point, mark it community wiki, usually with a CW answer which is a synthesis of other answers rising to the top through voting. Then change the tag to "faq" and place a link in the "master faq" question.

For details, please see the section "How should a question be added to this FAQ" at the link above.

As examples, some questions that might be considered for this category include:

Should we start doing something similar? Does the process outlined on the meta-SO FAQ meet your approval? Other thoughts, suggestions?

Bumped to renew discussion.

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  • $\begingroup$ Ideally, we should integrate the agreed upon questions in the faq page. Will we not have the ability to control that page (perhaps the mods have some control)? $\endgroup$
    – svadali
    Oct 30, 2010 at 23:44
  • $\begingroup$ Well, compare the SO official and community FAQs to get a sense of the difference. The official FAQ isn't overwhelming for new users and gives them a sense of how the sit works. The unofficial FAQ deals with all the stuff we usually end up discussing on meta, but don't really mark as "FAQ" -- yet. $\endgroup$
    – ars
    Oct 31, 2010 at 2:23
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    $\begingroup$ +1 I agree with @ars; meta is the right place for this so that it isn't overwhelming and is easily extensible. See the CS Theory example in my answer as well. The moderators will then link to this in the "official" one (see the CS Theory "official" FAQ as well: cstheory.stackexchange.com/faq). $\endgroup$
    – Shane
    Nov 1, 2010 at 13:33
  • $\begingroup$ We actually started doing something like this before, but never really developed it properly: meta.stats.stackexchange.com/questions/6/… $\endgroup$
    – Shane
    Nov 1, 2010 at 14:13
  • $\begingroup$ @kjetil, I think this thread was talking about a different kind of FAQ. $\endgroup$
    – gung - Reinstate Monica
    Nov 26, 2020 at 12:52

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Yes, I think that we should. It would make sense to do something like what we did on CS Theory.

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No, we should just link much more prominently to the FAQ for Stack Overflow, Server Fault and Super User. As far as i can see, virtually all of it applies equally well to all the StackExchange sites (the only obvious exception being 'How do I get my code blocks formatted?', though that applies to stats.SE too). People have clearly put a lot of time and energy putting it together and I see no need to duplicate their effort, especially given our much smaller base of avid users. Perhaps we might politely ask its maintainers if they'd consider changing its name though?

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    $\begingroup$ Sure, that works for all the questions they've covered and I don't recommend covering that ground. But this doesn't give us a way to track questions exclusive to this community. For example, statistical computing and programming, which has now shown up in some form or other in about 7 questions. Would be nice if we could just mark one question "FAQ" and let it rest. $\endgroup$
    – ars
    Oct 31, 2010 at 14:20
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe we just need to stress "please search before you post a new question"? $\endgroup$
    – onestop
    Oct 31, 2010 at 15:49
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    $\begingroup$ Because that always works? :) But, yeah, that might be sufficient. Still, an FAQ tag seems to be a fairly cheap and effortless solution that's easy to reference. $\endgroup$
    – ars
    Oct 31, 2010 at 17:06

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