In this post, moderators will cover a few important features of Biostars:
See also: How to Use Biostars, Part II: Post types, Deleting, (Un)Subscribing, Linking and Bookmarking
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written
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Ram
This is how you add a question:
Type in the question. Then, add a relevant title. And then, add pertinent tags. Use the following links to understand how best to ask a question:
3.2. ACGT blog post
3.3. Ten Simple Rules for Getting Help from Online Scientific Communities
You just did :)
A good question IMO should be clear, to the point and have as much relevant background information as possible.
I think this answers my question as well. Also, because I find this helpful, I will thank this person by up-voting their answer. To do this, I click on the green check mark to accept answer (as I did here) and also the green thumbs-up (seen above the green check-mark in the same image) to up-vote the answer.
Also read : How to Accept an Answer
Anyone can post comments that enhance discussion, even after a question has been answered. For instance, I forgot to mention that if the question involves code, providing a small reproducible example is extremely helpful. Here is an example of how to do it for R.
Frequently when formulating a question and writing it down with the reproducible code, I have figured out the answer by myself.
Looks like I have a typo in my question. How do I change the content of my post after I've already submitted it?
in the post/comment to get this window
Note: You can also change the question title using this procedure.
I would like to respond to Damian's comment. Here's how I would do that:
I find this answer helpful. It addresses the question and answers it. I will accept it as an answer to my question. How do I do that?
)Remember, you can accept multiple answers, as long as they provide valid solution to your top level problem. Accepting an answer is your single most important contribution to the community, as it helps others that face the same problem you did.
I would like to clarify a point. To do that, I can add a comment:
Actual clarification: I'm dealing more with the how-to than with the etiquette here :) This post is a WIP, that's why it's incomplete.
Log in to answer this question.
I changed this to a forum post. It may be worthwhile to revisit and discuss question posting etiquette and how moderators deal with posts that may not conform to standards.
Maybe we can create a separate post for moderators?
Eric Normandeau's post on this is the best overview IMO.
For this guide to be helpful for all, it needs to remain permanently/prominently visible on the main page (i.e. make it "sticky"). Any thoughts on how that can be done?
No, but I think this post needs a LOT of QC before we can make it a sticky guide.
You should consider changing the title of this post to "What are the various features and how do I use them?".
People have already figured out "How to ask a question on biostars" :-)
I made it a Part-1. We can focus on users self-moderating (to close a question), linking to other posts and hopefully a few more features in Part-2.
I wish this post could be pinned to the Biostars homepage. Good one @Ram :)
I will link this to the main page when I push out the next update.
It would have been good if 'confirming an reply' was also possible as what there is in 'stackoverflow'. It saves the time for readers to find proper answers quickly.
Sorry, but what does "confirming a reply" mean?
Acceptmark for replies too, I guess.I know you can upvote replies on SO, but accepting/confirming them is a feature I've never seen. If morteza.mahmoudisaber could explain what they mean by that, we can discuss if it's feasible.
I don't think it would make a much of difference. If a
commentqualifies as ananswer, the person answered can easily move his/hercommenttoanswerso that OP can accept.I have deleted most comments on this page to make the page easier to follow for newcomers. The large number of intertwined answers/comments made the guide hard to follow.
Regular readers will see only the relevant posts. The deleted content is still visible to moderators.
Very helpful!