Super User 
Super User
Introducing the Windows 8 Challenge
October 26th is coming fast. Are you ready for Windows 8? Super User is!
We’re having a party and you’re invited. Ask and answer questions to complete the challenge levels, and complete different tasks like editing, voting, and blogging to win the eight tile challenges. Each level you beat and each tile you finish enters you for sweet prizes, including the grand prize of a Microsoft Surface RT! more »
Are you interested in writing Blog Posts?
The purpose of the Super User Community Blog is to highlight what you want to see.
We are always excited to bring new writers and editors to the Super User Community Blog; so, if you are interested in contributing, please let us know! There are various ways in which you can contribute — ranging from your own stories to product reviews, tips and beyond. Don’t be afraid that you don’t come up with an idea because we already have some ready for you, but you are always welcome to share your own ideas…
Writing a blog post is simple:
- Register at Trello and leave us a message in the Super User Blog Editor Room with your Trello user name, we’ll set up access for you so that you can see our ideas and share your progress. Consider bookmarking both links for your convenience.
- You can start writing your post while you wait, we can later import it from any format into the WordPress Dashboard. Keep us up to date on your progress, so we can give you access to our WordPress Dashboard after you have shown a first draft, as well as proof-read and schedule your final version.
- The Blog Editor Room and Trello are our main communication points about the blog, feel free to share your progress in either. Remember that we are here to help you…
- Have fun! Enjoy expressing yourself, as well as being part of the Super User Community.
From idea to draft to finished post.
Blog posts mainly develop out of ideas and questions, for some you might have to do some research. From that point on you can think up the different paragraphs you will write in a draft, then it’s a matter of writing and rewriting them. Just writing one paragraph after another might not cut it for some…
Add some nice pictures for those that are easily distracted, get at least two other editors to proof read the blog post and we’ll schedule it for you. Please note that we don’t publish blog posts immediately, but intend to spread out the posts such that we regularly have new content and they are published at an optimal time. We’ll do this for you.
Don’t have a fear of writing, you know you have been doing it before!
Some Updates to the FAQ
The next time you’re taking a look at our Frequently Asked Questions list, you may notice some small changes:
A few months ago, we had some discussion on meta about whether home networking questions were within the scope of Super User. The community proposed via Super User Meta that we update the FAQ to more directly represent that home networking questions are allowed on Super User, and always have been – it just hadn’t been specifically mentioned in the FAQ.
In the course of this discussion, it was also agreed that we should include a statement to the effect of questions dealing with corporate networks and support being off-topic, as they are more appropriate for Server Fault.
After some editing and discussion, the following changes were decided upon:
- Adding to the “If you have a question about” section: personal and home computer networking
- Adding to the “question is not about” section: issues specific to corporate IT support and networks
Please note that these changes to the FAQ do not represent a change in policy for Super User — questions which were previously on-topic are still on-topic. We just changed the language to make the site’s policies more explicit.
Several people have already asked about the distinction of professional IT support and corporate networking. Increasingly, the line between “business” and “consumer” computers is blurring. Indeed, the definition of what constitutes a computer is itself a topic of debate.
To clarify: any question where the answer would be essentially the same whether you asked it about your workplace computer or home computer is perfectly valid on Super User. Data recovery, installing operating systems, connecting between computers, and so forth are all still welcome. The types of IT questions we discourage are things like volume licensing, active directory, business-grade routers, mass image deployment, and other issues which are irrelevant to non-corporate users. These are the sorts of thing we mean by “issues specific to corporate IT support”.
If you have any further questions, feel free to leave them in the comments on this post, and the Super User moderation team will respond to your queries. You can also reach us in the Ask a Moderator Chat Room.
Announcing the Winners of the Super User Anniversary Contest!
Super User turned two years old a few weeks ago. To celebrate, we held a Super Contest to reward you, our dedicated users! To read up on the contest categories, check out the announcement blog post.
Today, we are excited to announce the winners of the 2011 Super User Contest! This year prizes were divided into four categories:
- Level 1 Prize: An official Super User T-Shirt
- Level 2 Prize: $35 of official Super User or Stack Exchange swag
- Level 3 Prize: $100 of Super User or Stack Exchange swag and/or computer hardware or software
- The Grand Prize: $250 of Super User or Stack Exchange swag and/or computer hardware or software
We’ll be working with the winners to figure out exactly what fancy Super Goodies they’ll be receiving. If you’re one of the winners listed below, make sure to watch your email for information about your prizes!
Table of contents:
Super User’s 2nd Birthday Super Contest
It’s already been two years now that Super User has been running, and we’ve come a long way. We still continue to provide as an excellent source for questions and answers to the online community for anything computer related. We have also added the new officially blessed blog and had our very first community elections for moderators where we added 4 new moderators bringing us to a total of 8 moderators!
Update: the contest has ended! The judges are hard at work deciding the winners – expect the official results within a week. Thanks to everyone who participated in Super User during the contest!
Super User Recent Feature Changes
After BloodPhilia asked you guys what the Super User blog should be focusing on, slhck pointed out that it would be nice if we could address recent changes to Super User and the Stack Exchange network. So here’s our first overview of recent changes.