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The "What topics can I ask about here?" section in the help center has not been modified since the birth of our site back in February 2015.

Now that the site has grown and gained in traffic, I feel like it could be updated to reflect the decisions which have been taken thanks to some meta questions asked these two last years.

I think that an update would help new comers to understand better what they can and can not ask or why their question was closed without having to dig the meta site.

It would also be helpful for our users handling the review queues to have an easily accessible compiled list of topics are allowed here.

I redacted an update for this section that I will post as a wiki answer to this question. My proposal contains 3 new paragraphs about questions that I feel like I often close, as well as links to the meta questions about these topics.

My writting in English is not always the best so it might need a bit of rewording by people more litterate than me and maybe it also lacks some topics I didn't think about. So as always on our site: let's discuss this update and make a decision!

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EDIT 27/03/2018 Since no one added new modification in the last week I updated the help center with the current version of this answer.

Here is the proposed update, this answer is a community wiki so that everyone can give its opinion and improve the proposal. The updated parts are:

  • Note for questions about plugins
  • Note for questions about "vim clone plugins"
  • Note for questions about vimgolf and workflow improvement

The proposal:

Please limit your questions to specific queries about members of the Vi and Vim family of editors. See this meta question about What is considered to be vi?

Questions about Vim plugins are on topic but be aware that bug reports and feature requests for a plugin would be better off in that plugin's issue tracker. Most of the plugins available on Github use the built-in issue tracker. (The "Issues" tab in the top menu.)

Questions about plugins that replicate Vim's editing model in other editors (VSCode, Sublime Text, Emacs, etc.) may be on topic if they are about features or behavior that also exists in Vi or its derivatives, as discussed in the meta question linked to, above.

While pure VimGolf questions are not on topic here, questions about how to do something more efficiently or how to improve your workflow in Vim are allowed as long as they are not too broad.

Please look around to see if your question has been asked before. It’s also okay to ask and answer your own question.

If your question is not specifically on-topic for Vi and Vim Stack Exchange, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area 51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.

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  • Is it possible to add HTML anchors to other pages? I'd like to link "too broad" to a definition, but the explanation on vi.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions is some way down that page.
    – Rich
    Mar 8, 2018 at 12:02
  • @Rich Thanks for your edit. About the community wiki I was sure I checked the mark when I posted it, seems like I was wrong but I just changed that. About the anchor in the other page I'm not sure it is possible, I'll try to see how we can do that.
    – statox
    Mar 8, 2018 at 12:07
  • I'm not sure if the linked question backs up the assertion that questions must be about standalone apps. The top-rated and accepted answer disagrees with this point.
    – Rich
    Mar 8, 2018 at 12:10
  • Right, Questions about plugins that attempt to replicate Vim's behaviour in other editors (VSCode, Sublime Text, Emacs, etc.) may be on topic, if they are only about the vi-like behavior of the plugin would be better?
    – statox
    Mar 8, 2018 at 12:17
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    I feel like "the vi-like behavior" is not a really clear term for a new comer.
    – statox
    Mar 8, 2018 at 12:18
  • How about: Questions about plugins that replicate Vim's editing model in other editors (VSCode, Sublime Text, Emacs, etc.) may be on topic if they are about features or behavior that also exists in Vi or its derivatives, as discussed in the meta question linked to, above. (A bit too wordy, perhaps)
    – Rich
    Mar 8, 2018 at 13:31
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    I don't think it is too wordy. Looks great to me.
    – John O'M.
    Mar 10, 2018 at 5:09
  • My version which removes some unnecessary language (IMHO). I removed the paragraph about "replicate Vim's editing model in other editors" as that's already covered in the link.
    – Martin Tournoij
    Mar 19, 2018 at 7:54
  • @Carpetsmoker Actually highlight this part in this page is what made me create this question in the first place: I feel like a lot of new users won't dig the meta post far enough and regularly post questions about these off-topic plugins. That is why I wanted to add this paragraph... Now I'm not sure how we can get a consensus of the community about that.
    – statox
    Mar 19, 2018 at 9:46
  • Well, it's linked on the page now (instead of being hidden in meta), so it seems a bit superfluous to me. At any rate, my version is just a suggestion (which is why I didn't edit he answer directly). I don't have very strong opinions on this – not in the least because I suspect not many new users actually read this page – so this version is fine.
    – Martin Tournoij
    Mar 19, 2018 at 10:15
  • I wanted to avoid the link because as you said not a lot of people read this page and even less people follow the links in this page. Now the best would be to have the community to make the decision... But given the low traffic on the question, I'm not sure how to do that.
    – statox
    Mar 20, 2018 at 13:37
  • So status-completed?
    – muru
    Mar 30, 2018 at 14:26
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    Thanks @muru, that was my first featured question and I forgot this tag :)
    – statox
    Mar 30, 2018 at 14:36

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