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I suggest that we allow one question on each of the following resource types (list is incomplete) to create a list of resources: As in this post Blender resources for architects?

The questions should be marked as community wiki.

If these questions would be tagged as resource they could be easily found. I'm aware that we already have this post Beginner's Reference where we collect some resources but it isn't available in the main site and unlikely to be found by many users.

If we decide that this types of borderline post are useful, how could we avoid that users close the question as off-topic?

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I think you'd be much better off having a single question on resources, and using an answer per type. You could even use the list you made in your question as an index in the question itself, such as what I did for the Mandarin Chinese Resources question.

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    $\begingroup$ I am one for this method as well. $\endgroup$
    – iKlsR
    Aug 27, 2014 at 22:14
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This sounds good to me, as long as we decide what these should be beforehand.

We've already had a good number of these kinds of questions:

I'm not quite sure about how to pick the topics though. Your list seems fine to me, but IMO we should have some defined way to decide when a topic deserves a canonical post.

For the GPU post, we decided it deserved one because we were getting lots of questions asking about enabling GPU rendering.

However we don't seem to get many users asking about resources (which is good, because they wouldn't be considered good, on-topic questions), but it makes it hard to say which topics would be the most useful.

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  • $\begingroup$ what do you think about the extra 'resources' tag? $\endgroup$
    – stacker
    Jun 26, 2014 at 8:45
  • $\begingroup$ @stacker It sounds useful to me, but I'm hoping some other users will see this and weigh in before we do anything. (only 10 views so far :/) $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3 Mod
    Jun 26, 2014 at 19:14
  • $\begingroup$ @gandalf3 I would add it now and see if anyone uses/misuses it, and based on that, I would keep it or remove it. $\endgroup$
    – GiantCowFilms
    Jun 27, 2014 at 15:23
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For lack of ability to comment (needs 50 rep), I'll leave my reply here. I hope I can comment on my own reply as I guess even on meta, somebody may think I'm abusing the reply field.

In short, I think the answer is yes, it's okay to have such questions, although I think it goes against a rule that seems common to SO style Q&As, where basically they seem to disagree about having open ended questions that promote debate. (I personally disagree with this notion - I think that trying to channel such questions would be a lot better than censoring for fear of 'endless debate').

I have concerns...

"If these questions would be tagged as resource they could be easily found"

Really? Is it what people would search for when looking for "resources"? The word "resources"? Wouldn't they just google "blender materials", "blender addons" (and so forth?)

"as long as we decide what these should be beforehand".

Why? I think people increasingly preempt how Q&As should work, where (asymptotically) moderators are trying to turn user question sites back into glorified Q&A sections. Not meaning to be annoying (I do hope my feedback can be constructive), what I mean by this is that, preempting what questions should be allowed may help avoiding duplicates, but I think there is an organic element to this: duplicates appear because different people address the same question from a different angle.

So I'm wondering, exactly how is it helpful to control what questions are being asked? As I'm not a moderator, I guess there is something I'm missing. Can somebody shed light on this point?

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  • $\begingroup$ As a 14 year long blender user, I find it ridiculous to be unable to comment for lack of rep. I guess it's just a matter of time but... I actually purchased Blender once upon a time, never mind giving back to the community by blogging helpful advice in several places. All that to bump into Q&A rules all the time. Am I being sour? I guess. Anyway in the meantime I hope somebody will find the above reply constructive. $\endgroup$
    – user3345
    Jul 6, 2014 at 3:22
  • $\begingroup$ Wow, 14 years is a long time. congratulations on your accomplishment :) And thanks for your reply. By "decide what these should be before hand", I was suggesting that we should decide on a list of topics based on some criteria (what people are asking, a community vote, etc.), and not just post "resource questions" all over the place. As for the 50 rep limit, see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/53647/…. Not that your answer would fit in a comment anyway, imo it's fine as a meta answer.. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3 Mod
    Jul 6, 2014 at 23:32
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I submit for consideration two proposals for the list of Blender resources. First, besides being tagged as resource, they should also have a difficulty tag, new to blender, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Second, include published tutorial works, including Blenderart magazine, and the printed on using Blender by Ben Simonds, John Blain, Tony Mullen, Roland Hess, and any others.

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