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Can someone please stop this insanity: What is the Plural of WordPress?

It is out of scope as defined in the FAQ. It is not constructive, because it solicits opinion and extended discussion.

IMHO, this question is nothing more than yet another example of just because the question is asked in the context of WordPress does not cause it to be inherently in-scope for WPSE.

The grammatical pedant inside of me desperately wants to weigh in on the question itself, but doing so would only exacerbate and facilitate the problem of an off-topic, non-constructive question being asked.

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Yes, someone can: the community. There are currently 33 regular users able to cast close votes. They can close the question, and the moderators will respect that. But no moderator will (or should) use the mod power to close a question with 10 upvotes.

And I think calling other members contributions insanity doesn’t help your argument.

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  • That's why I brought the issue here to Meta, rather than flagging for Moderator attention. And I stand by my assessment that asserting that debating the correct, grammatical pluralization of "WordPress" is in any way in-scope or constructive for WPSE.
    – Chip Bennett
    Nov 29, 2012 at 18:23
  • Also: we do have 33 (now 34) regular users who can cast close votes. However, not all of them are especially active. (For example, only 12 of them have at least 1,000 rep in the current 2/3 quarter. Last full quarter, only 9 such users earned more than 2,000 rep.) As a site, we are nowhere near a "critical mass" of community moderators to rely on use of community-moderation tools such as close votes as some sort of metric. So, that's basically like asking for 50% of active users with close-vote capabilities to cast close-votes before questions get closed.
    – Chip Bennett
    Nov 30, 2012 at 3:43
  • I can assure you we mods are watching this very closely. :) The active members are using their close votes already very often, especially since the new review system is out of beta. Several questions have been closed without mod intervention. I think you are too pessimistic.
    – fuxia Mod
    Nov 30, 2012 at 5:21
  • Not pessimistic; just realistic. We are a still-not-yet-fully-mature SE network site, and simply don't have a sufficient number of active members to make crowd-sourced moderation as efficient/effective as it's intended to be. I'm glad to hear that we're getting closer to that goal, though.
    – Chip Bennett
    Nov 30, 2012 at 14:43
  • To be fair I once mod-closed question with 146 upvotes and I consider it was justified. :) Upvotes might actually pressure mods into action - it is easy to let low profile disruption slide and fade into obscurity, but it is critical to handle high profile issues.
    – Rarst
    Dec 1, 2012 at 0:52
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Problem here is that at least one mod (me) agrees that the question is off-topic and non-constructive. However my voting to close would be "[using] the mod power to close a question with 10 upvotes."

So while I am leaning towards closing the question, I won't since doing so would be seen as unilaterally abusing my binding vote.

Keep the scope of the site in mind here ...

WordPress - Stack Exchange is for WordPress developers and administrators to ask questions about:

  • theme and plugin development
  • development and management best practices
  • server configuration for WordPress

Questions about spelling, casing, or pluralizing product names, WordPress or otherwise, do not fall on this list.

Furthermore, under the "What questions should I not ask here" section of our FAQs, we explicitly call out ...

Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

So should the question be closed? I personally vote yes.

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    A look at the comments threads for the question and all posted answer provides a preponderance of evidence that this question solicits opinion, debate, and extended discussion; so even if it is in-scope, it is likewise not constructive.
    – Chip Bennett
    Nov 29, 2012 at 18:47
  • Currently, there's 3 close votes on the question in question (no pun intended). Just as an aside, once there's 4, you could use your own vote, since it wouldn't be more binding than a fifth "regular" user, no?!
    – Johannes Pille
    Nov 30, 2012 at 2:32
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Initially, when seeing this, I meant to downvote Chip's question (not because it is unreasonable, but because I thought I'd disagree) and leave again.

Since I wouldn't do so without reading the contents of it as well as the answers I ended up agreeing with all three of you and your notions. I appreciate the two moderators not (ab)using their powers, nonetheless.

Why did I initially think the question was good?
Because I personally enjoyed it (given the upvotes it received, I wasn't alone) as well as the following discussion and the multitude of legitimate answers/opinions. I still do, but you guys are totally correct in calling it either off-topic, not constructive or both. In the comments to the question toscho called it a borderline case, but by the scope as quoted by EAMann, I guess it's not even that. And while I thought it to be answerable definitively, the follow up on ELU.SE clearly showed that it isn't.

I don't think this one (!) question alone would have too big an impact on others being lost or pushed off the front page, but it does not set a good example.
So while I still enjoyed it and still would like to hear Chip's take on it, especially if that would add yet another angle to the discussion, that's what it is or became - a discussion. That's bad and when it comes to this stack remaining clean and organized personal joy is neither here nor there. Hence you guys have my close vote. Convinced.

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I see this as simple:

The question has a real grammatical answer that is not opinion, and one was provided.

Sure its easy to devolve into opinion but that's where moderation tools and downvoting come into play. It's a fringe question as it is

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  • I think the volume of answers and comments refutes the assertion that the question has a single, definitive answer. Also, such assertion doesn't address the question regarding whether grammatical questions are in-scope for WPSE, according the the scope as defined in the FAQ.
    – Chip Bennett
    Nov 30, 2012 at 0:42
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i think i am also facing this type of issue. grammar. as i know not English person. English support to be not perfect. but when it will grammes problem few question/answer then it get auto banned for ask question.

i already get warning message for ban. but i don't what do now for that.

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  • I am sorry for the situation your in, but for one this meta question was about a specific post on the site and not grammar of questions/answers in general. And: This is a English speaking community. As much as I feel for you, being able to express a question at a level where it can be properly understood just is a necessary prerequisite...
    – Johannes Pille
    Aug 20, 2014 at 13:41
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    Just to add to @JohannesPille most users, including me and Johannes are not English speaking. I can speak for myself here, I do sometimes find it difficult to express myself in English. Luckily I have English friends and google to help me out. So my advice would be, if you find it difficult to express yourself in English, find someone that have a better understanding in English so that they can help you construct a better understandible question. Also look at the google translators, it will also help
    – Pieter Goosen
    Aug 21, 2014 at 7:17
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    you're | Fck.
    – Johannes Pille
    Aug 29, 2014 at 16:38

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