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User peterh doubted my reasons and decided to engage in an edit war with me, ultimately downvoting my question. I used an image instead of the text because, as explained, I don't want my client's FQDN listed or cached in search engines because of this question. The user doesn't accept my reasoning.

Maybe he feels that there is some malicious intent on my part, but the site whose FQDN is being ommited IS listed as a client on my profile's website.

Would someone please lock this question for editing after I undelete it?

Thanks

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  • 3
    in the future, just use our placeholder john q domain to avoid any confusion.
    – MDMoore313
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:53
  • 7
    @BigHomie I would have done so, but it would be nearly impossible to help with the problem without a specific domain name in mind.
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:59
  • 16
    @BigHomie When people want to use a placeholder, they should use example.com (or .net, .org, or .whatever).
    – Jenny D
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:11
  • 4
    @JennyD You're right, shame on them. The RFC clearly states that's what example.com is for.
    – MDMoore313
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:18
  • 1
    Unfortunately, trying to evade crawlers by using imaged text without an alt-text description is also bad for accessibility. I encourage you to make an effort to write your questions without resorting to such a bad practice. Try to rephrase the question without the specific domain name. If you really must include a domain name then try to use example.<TLD>-style domain names instead of one that you're actually trying to keep private.
    – James Haigh
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 8:24
  • 1
    @JamesHaigh it would be nearly impossible to troubleshoot this problem without the domain name stated. Now that the problem has been solved I will switch to example.com.
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 11:46
  • 2
    That's because you've written it like a support query rather than a Q&A-style question. If it's impossible for you to troubleshoot without your specific domain then how is it possible for anyone else to use it to troubleshoot their similar problem? Questions are meant to be well-researched, useful, and clear – I don't think that (currently) your question is either of those. If the question is appropriate for the Q&A format then it really should be possible to rephrase it to be more generic.
    – James Haigh
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 19:45
  • 3
    @JamesHaigh When it comes to trouble-shooting certificate issues, it's usually hard to do without seeing the actual certificate - just as trouble-shooting DNS issues is hard to do without the ability to lookup the actual zone. Once the issue has been found, it may be possible to rewrite the question, or at least the answer, to be more generic.
    – Jenny D
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 9:32
  • @JamesHaigh as Jenny concurred, it would have been impossible to effectively help w/o the specific domain name. The important thing is that now that the domain has been removed the Q&A still provide enough value to the next user that has a similar problem. In other words, it IS possible that in cases which tshooting is possible only with a specific domain there can also be value once said domain is removed.
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 13:27
  • @Jenny D: I thought that support queries were off-topic on Stack Exchange. If a question is not a support query then it should be possible to rephrase it generically. In other words, if it's impossible to phrase a question generically then it should be off-topic on wiki-style Q&A sites such as those of the Stack Exchange network.
    – James Haigh
    Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 1:13
  • (With the exception of the meta sites, which of-course have the support tag, as used by this support metaquestion.)
    – James Haigh
    Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 1:28
  • 4
    @JamesHaigh The help center says "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face." Which, IMO, implies that if you have an actual problem that can best be explained by including the actual configuration with which you have the problem, that is on-topic and encouraged. What part of the help center do you base your "support quieries were off-topic" on?
    – Jenny D
    Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 5:13
  • @JamesHaigh: Note that SO and ServerFault both have Google sponsored tags, specifically for what most developers would call "support queries". If your point is that framing a Question to be more generally applicable improves it, then I agree with that up to the point that the Question remains specific enough to be answerable. Striking this balance is difficult in the initial iterations of a problem.
    – hardmath
    Commented Mar 21, 2015 at 13:56

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You flag it or post in meta.

It's not locked, to allow answers, but I put a comment warning about the edit war on it. Flag, or notify me (@HopelessN00b) if there are any more problems.

6
  • I don't care about a couple points but the downvotes could entice ppl to not care about the question as much. Aren't downvotes reserved for questions that don't fit SO's guidelines instead of questions that don't fit an editor's personal feelings?
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 13:17
  • 6
    @Gaia Nope, with the exception of revenge-downvoting and sock-puppetry, people may vote however they wish, for whatever reasons they wish.
    – HopelessN00b Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 13:25
  • Understood and accepted, although "whatever reasons they wish", especially the last word, seem awfully subjective for this community - I am surprised. Thanks.
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 13:32
  • 7
    @Gaia I see your point, especially in this context. However, it's pretty much impossible to in any reliable and reasonably objective way monitor the reasons for any given vote. The only exceptions are the ones where it's possible to see from site data that someone is voting down or up a person rather than a question - i.e. where there are many votes for one person/question by accounts that can be correlated to a single user, or where one user consistently down- or upvotes another user. But apart from that - all votes are subjective to some extent, and the only recourse is voting differently.
    – Jenny D
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 13:57
  • @Gaia See my reasoning in my answer. The question remains: do you really want this question to be well-indexed by the google, or not?
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:04
  • 7
    @peterh Why don't you ask Google before assuming? "Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the ALT attribute to include a few words of descriptive text." source
    – Nathan C
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:07
-18

Yes, I doubt your reasons, because:

  1. Google and every better spider has OCR (optical character recognition) in their spider. Thus it doesn't matter if you insert your domain name as an image, it will be indexed.
  2. Your domain name it already visible in the page history. Your first version contained the textual domain name.
  3. Your image was big and well-designed, thus your marketing goals couldn't be closed out.

Your only way to avoid the mentioning of your domain name, if you delete your own question. You can do this only if your question has at most 1 answers, and even this answer doesn't have an upvote. After that, you will need the help of the mods.

I would happily switch my vote to an upvote, but I must mention: this will probably contradict your current goal, because the SE actively tries to make the non-negatively voted questions yet more better indexed by the web spiders.

P.s. independent from these: if you don't want any of your data to get out into the internet, then don't post it to well-indexed sites as this...

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  • Ah! You thought I was trying to use my "big and well-designed" image to market my client's website. Now it all makes sense, to me and to at least 4 other ppl here.
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:17
  • @Gaia Honestly, I never wanted to make a such scandal from that. I've seen a logo, I quickly removed it, that was all. I also never wanted conflict with you. I ask again: do you really want this question to be well-indexed by the google, or not? (If I change my vote, it will be!)
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:28
  • 5
    @peterh If you didn't want conflict, you could have stopped the edit war a bit earlier.
    – Jenny D
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:32
  • @JennyD Would you check the edit log again?
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:33
  • 10
    @peterh You made the same edit three times. That is a bit excessive.
    – Jenny D
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:36
  • @Gaia Do you understand my question?
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:38
  • @JennyD Well, maybe. And what do you think? Do this company logo have a good place there?
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:39
  • 5
    Of course I do, but I am done discussing with you. Thank you for your oh-so-kind help with my privacy concerns by downvoting my question after inserting the FQDN into it 3 times. BTW 1: I didn't put the text in there the 1st time around. BTW 2: That is not the logo, pull up the site and see. BTW 3: If that's a well designed image I feel sorry for your sense of aesthetics. BTW 4: Meet my designer, text2image.com
    – Gaia
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:41
  • @Gaia Ok. Then you want from me to change my vote, or won't? (I ask this fifth time from you.)
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:47
  • 10
    @peterh Quit holding your one, single vote over the OPs head. Just move on. You are making yourself look really bad. Just leave it be.
    – EEAA
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:48
  • 12
    -1, The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images. If you must use images for textual content, consider using the ALT attribute to include a few words of descriptive text.
    – MDMoore313
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:06
  • 7
    And revisions aren't indexed by Google as well, see meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57277/…
    – Sven Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:10
  • @EEAA Sorry, I don't understand. Maybe you want to say I shouldn't change my vote? This is what I will do.
    – peterh
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:19
  • 4
    @peterh I think what he's expressing is that this has gone on too long and that your single vote isn't really the point of contention here.
    – BE77Y
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 15:24
  • 4
    “Your domain name it already visible in the page history. Your first version contained the textual domain name.” – Here's the page history. Where abouts is the textual domain name in the first revision?
    – James Haigh
    Commented Mar 18, 2015 at 8:07

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