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We have covered some of the individual elements in separate questions here on Meta, but I would like to collate the relevant information about what russian.stackexchange.com is or is not. This could well be then linked to from the FAQ. I'll start here by summarizing what I found in other meta question. Do add as answers anything else of note.

Russian.stackexchange.com is:

  1. A place to ask questions related to the history of the language. If you want to know how a certain side of the language evolved, this would be a good place to raise it.

  2. A place to ask questions about word differences or usage. If you are learning the language or simply have doubts about the difference between two or three or more similar words, ask a question here.

  3. A place to ask questions about the Russian grammar. If you are unsure about verb tenses or noun declensions, this would be a good place to ask.

  4. A place to ask questions about word structures. How/why/where/what specific prefixes, suffixes, endings or word roots mean, constructed, assembled, etc. should be asked here.

Russian.stackexchange.com is not:

  1. A place to request translations to or from Russian. You can ask whether a particular translation is a good way to convey the meaning, but not "how to translate X from A to B".

  2. A place to have a discussion. This is a question-and-answer site. Your question should really be that - a question, that calls for answers. Open question that solicit discussion, such as "What do you think about X?", are not a good format.

  3. A place for flame wars. If you dislike a particular member of the forum and want to express your thoughts, take it outside the forum. Don't blame, swear at or try to humiliate other members of the site in your answers. You can downvote the answer if you believe it is not correct or useful.

  4. A place for retaliations or voting wars. Do not downvote somebody's answer just because they may have downvoted yours. Votes should be used to show whether answers are correct/incorrect and useful/useless. Downvoting somebody's answer to promote your own is also highly frowned upon.

  5. A place to get others to do work for you. Your question should contain some thoughts. There are questions that can be answered with a very simple/short web search - so do that search and get the answer. If you're still unhappy and need more explanation, then post a question on RSE, but indicate what you have found so far and why you are not happy with that.

  6. A place for free advertising. Do not post any kind of covert advertising on the site - in any form. Such posts will be quickly deleted anyway. Question "why is product X so good?" will most likely be construed to be advertising.

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  • FAQ content.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Jun 21, 2012 at 9:44
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    Are these PROMINENT problems warranting front-door placement on your site? I would caution you against contriving a long laundry list of "problems" if they are rare or only hypothetical. It's not clever, and it doesn't make the site feel welcoming.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Commented Jun 21, 2012 at 19:20
  • @RobertCartaino I'd rather read through a longish FAQ than invest time in writing a question that's going to be closed.
    – kotekzot
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 20:54
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    @kotekzot Robert's point is that most of these points are "obvious" for any SE site, so it would be useless and maybe counterproductive to repeat them. For example "A place for free advertisting" (6th point) is already covered in the standard FAQ.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 21:58

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I think that we also need to explicitly state that RLU is not a language learning site, and that is the reason behind many "not"-s in the definition of the site. For a language learning site, it would make perfect sense to ask questions like "Is my translation correct?", or "Is there an online dictionary of electrical engineering terminology?", or "What are my mistakes in this sentence?". These questions are not the best possible questions to ask here, because this site is not there to help one learn Russian, it's there only to answer one's questions about the language itself.

Somehow, this piece of information is not immediately obvious for new RLU users, especially when they are also new to the whole idea of SE sites.

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    Even a question like "Is this verb good for this kind of situation?" (an example) are good for our site, yes they are also useful for learners. The last one you mentioned is bad, but it depends. If there is some research effort and it's not like "do it for me", then I'd say to keep it. The other ones are bad.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Jul 31, 2012 at 15:27

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