Questions tagged [discussion]
The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.
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How to handle a topic where a biology answer is neeed following a claim by an official entity?
A question of mine was closed because off-topic. While I understand the rationale for pointing me to Skeptics SE, I probably failed to express my question correctly, thus this post.
The core of my ...
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Drive for the use of correct English on Biology SE
I realise that for a great number of users English is not their native language, and therefore the English writing will frequently contain mistakes. I have no issue spending some of my time making ...
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Why so mean? Not a good first impressiong
So I just asked this question:
How does a chicken egg go from one cell to many
And rather than a response like "I know all about this, let me explain it to you" I just got downvoted, and ...
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Is linking to a related question an abuse of the comment box?
I was told that adding a comment to a question with a link to a related question that contains good answers was "an abuse of the comment box". That user flagged the comment for removal, and ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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Inserting an _invented chromosome in a being to be born in and knowing it will be healthy
I would like to know whether it could be appropriate to ask whether:
It is possible to make never existing before (in no other human or species), changes to DNA (and the corresponding DNA pair, of ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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Question migration
This question was asked in Biology and migrated to the Gardening SE yesterday. https://gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/65239/stages-of-leaf-drop-in-trees
As I note in a comment there:
While this ...
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Would asking a question about potential environmental impacts a non-native species to an area would be?
I have a question about using an animal non-native to an area to try and combat an unwanted animal of the same species, and what the environmental impact would be, or how the ecosystem would change.
...
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Moderators and community curators are on strike - how will it affect the site?
Many moderators, former moderators, and community curators (regular users who vote on, comment on, edit, flag, and close content) are on strike across the Stack Exchange network as of June 5, 2023. ...
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Why is my question about causation downvoted?
I have a question on the main site that asks for studies that give a causative connection between two events/situations. In my opinion, causal inference is a viable field of research. However, the ...
AliceDMod
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How similar must a duplicate question be?
This question seems very similar to an earlier question, differing mainly in the earlier question asking why earlier species were giant (or why such is less common now). (The answers to the earlier ...
CommunityBot
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What is a moderator's job?
Ok this might be a little personal and not much useful but I am just curious so bear with me.
First
Is a moderator's job a full-time paying one or is it more like a hobby as for most other users?
...
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Is Bioethics on topic for biology stackexchange
I recently posted a question on the bioethics of brain organoids and was confused by a comment about bioethics being off topic? What does the community think? Is biology stack exchange not for ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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To Answer, or not to answer (that is, the Question without research)
When I first joined this site, we didn't require prior research in questions. It was more fun. It felt inviting (ugh!) and encouraging of learning about the magnificence that is Biology.
Sometime ...
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Line between evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology
What is the evolutionary explanation for why lions sometimes kill their own cubs when they acquire a new pride?
Is definitely on-topic to Biology.SE
What is the evolutionary explanation for why ...
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Should book recommendation questions be allowed on Meta?
I have always been of the opinion that requests for book recommendations did not fit on SE biology, and have voted to close them on the technical basis that they are matters of opinion. My broader ...
AliceDMod
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Is it standard policy here to remove links to well-written scientific articles from a question if they represent potential answers to the question?
I was asking a question about the 100+ definitions of "life" referenced in the Wikipedia article
I am active on math.stackexchange where everyone is encouraged to show the thinking that they'...
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2022: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
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Ban ChatGPT and AI-generated answers on Biology.SE
See Ban ChatGPT network-wide for reference.
Briefly, ChatGPT is a language model that uses the statistics of words in a training dataset to generate grammatically correct responses to plain language ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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What are some good, informative comments I can leave for new users?
Many questions on this site are from new/low-reputation users who may not know all of the common rules and expectations of Biology and SE sites in general. Compounding this is the fact that users ...
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Would this be on-topic?
Recently, I was asked to participate in an evolution vs. intelligent design debate as the representative for ID. As a result, I have been busily putting together some arguments.
Being as I am a ...
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Proposal to split and retitle the community question on good and bad traits
Background
In 2016 a Meta post discussed the problem of questions “that ask for why evolution did not lead to situation-X”. It was suggested that a community wiki question be created, and provided ...
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Are theoretical biochem/biophys questions "off-topic"?
I was just browsing through the biochemistry and biophysics tabs and noticed a question that was commented as being "off topic" and better posted in the Chemistry SE.
How does one derive a ...
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Questions from novices
I want to ask the following question on Biology Stack Exchange. However, I don't know whether I can post it without it being closed.
My question is:
Suppose a group of cells have the same shape. Will ...
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Questions asking for evolutionary reasons
We do get a lot of questions that ask for why evolution did not lead to situation-X?
Recent examples:
Why don't mosquitoes evolve towards muting themselves?
https://biology.stackexchange.com/q/...
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New bioacoustics SE site may be of interest to you
The Bioacoustics Stack Exchange has reached the Beta stage and is LIVE! It is also in a critical stage, and we need your help to keep it alive. It is related to the Biology SE, but really different ...
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Do you prefer to see a rigorously defined question in a textbook, or a less rigorous original question?
I feel that many SE communities are starting to encourage precisely and unambiguously defined questions with cute solutions, and discourage original, unpolished questions. The former questions usually ...
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Should we allow questions related to specific, experiment-related technologies?
I noticed this question, which has accumulated quite a few up and downvotes. My immediate thought was that it really doesn't have anything to do with biology and would be off-topic.
Having said that, ...
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What is wrong with my question
https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/107934/pc2-lab-build-cost
I put in the comments why I wrote the words, which lbh, were meaningless, my question is very related to biology - specifically ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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Do we want to experiment with changing the close/reopen vote threshold?
Would we rather have a close/reopen vote threshold lower than 5?
Recently, Stack Overflow experimented with and decided to change the threshold for close/reopen votes from 5 to 3.
They found an ...
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Should the glymphatic system be covered by extending the lymphatic system tag? Does it warrant a separate tag? Neither?
Wikipedia's Glymphatic system includes the following:
Glymphatic flow was initially believed to be the complete answer to the long-standing question of how the sensitive neural tissue of the CNS ...
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What does "Be Nice" *mean* to you?
Seriously, does "Be Nice" = "Be Mean" on this site?
Sometimes I just have to shake my head at the lack of simple kindness shown on this site.
What pushed me over the edge into ...
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Asking to reopen a question closed by mistakes
One user initiated a closing vote to this question: What are some of the earliest known species on earth that display pecking order?
One user explained that my question is "homework", ...
AliceDMod
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Why this question is closed as "health advice" and "medical advice"?
I have a question about my Biology Stack Exchange post: How likely is a rabies virus from dog saliva will enter a human body through this kind of finger skin?
This question is closed with following ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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Etymology tag on-topic?
I've thought about creating a new tag for etymology on a number of occasions, but have always hesitated to do so.
I've seen a number of questions on Bio.SE where etymology is specifically asked about ...
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What is the problem with breasts?
Until a few minutes ago, Biology SE had questions with the tag breasts. Then, a moderator swiftly orphaned the tag by editing the following questions in quick succession:
What controls the size of ...
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2021: a year in moderation
As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year.
As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
- 100
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Replacement for "Homework" close reason
I'd like to prompt suggestions for replacement of the "homework" reason.
I've taken the format from https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4710/new-audience-specific-texts-for-our-...
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What is a "post notice" or "notice on answer"?
A message appeared in my Inbox informing me that . . . a notice had been attached to one of my accepted answers. The notice seems to me a comment from a moderator, but as far as I can tell the author ...
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What to do about Berg?
This is part (bad) news, part question. The publishers of Berg et al., Biochemistry have withdrawn the title from NCBI Bookshelf:
This raises the question of what to do about all my answers that have ...
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Closing low effort, non-homework posts, as 'homework' is confusing and should be changed
It seems like the policy is to close posts as 'homework' if they are simple and don't show much effort. I'm fine with closing low-effort posts, but I think it's unnecessarily broad and potentially ...
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Should the answer that appears on "top" be the OP's "accepted answer" or the answer with most votes?
On Biology.SE, all other StackExchange sites, and until recently Stack Overflow, the answer that appears first is the accepted answer (if there is one), the one that the OP decides is to be marked &...
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Is a source that must be viewed not good?
In this question that I deleted because of it being on minus two and having two different objections to it in the comments:
https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/105319/which-parts-if-any-of-...
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When is it appropriate for a moderator to take a side in an argument and delete only the half of the argument they disagree with?
I do no intend to make this post purely as a rant post (though it may at first come across that way) but rather because I genuinely find myself experiencing what is a definitively poor example of ...
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Why was a question asking for further explanation on why a homework answer was wrong removed?
I was in the process of answering this question: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/104975/synthetic-biology-olympiad, when it was removed from the site, apparently "for reasons of ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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Is this popular question on mycotoxins in oatmeal off-topic?
How to reduce the quantity of (carcinogenic) mycotoxins in oatmeal?
I'm surprised by the amount of attention this question has received. Currently, it has a score of +7, many thoughtful comments, and ...
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Guidelines I’m missing?
I realize I’ve been gone for a while, but a no-comment close vote to my first question since coming back:
Boost of Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine increasing Immune Response to Vector
Caught me by surprise. ...
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Community Ads for 2021
September update: Community Ads are now live network-wide. All ads with a score of 6 or higher, or with a score of 4 or higher and no downvotes will be displayed (except for any that have a note from ...
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On the recent appearance of Community Comments
Recently I have been seeing comments on questions signed "Community ♦". This seems to be a new thing (at least on SE Biology) and I am unsure how to react to them if, for example I feel I ...
Bryan KrauseMod
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Why is this question on blood supply in tendon downvoted?
Because of one downvote, the question got removed after 30 days. I reposted it and it got downvoted then removed again after 30 after days. The mods don't want me to repost the question as such for a ...
CommunityBot
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Voting down answers because you don't like the question
I have noticed a pattern that some people seem to vote down answers to questions not because they have any actual objection to the answer but because they do not approve of the question.
A recent ...
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