Frequently Asked Questions

What kind of questions can I ask here?

College questions, of course! As long as your question is:

• detailed and specific
• written clearly and simply
• of interest to at least one other person somewhere

... it is welcome here. No question is too trivial. Oh yes, and it should be about college.

Please look around to see if your question has already been asked (and maybe even answered!) before you ask. If you end up asking a question that has been asked before, that is OK and deliberately allowed. Other users will hopefully edit in links to related or similar questions to help future visitors find their way.

It's also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, but pretend you're on Jeopardy: phrase it in the form of a question. Just don't accuse other's mothers of barking like dogs yestereve.

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are too subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. You are welcome to ask others opinions of schools, for example, but those answering are encouraged to give concrete examples supporting their opinions. We want this to be helpful to everyone, not just endless "I hate my school" threads.

Be nice.

Treat others with the same respect you'd want them to treat you. Bring your sense of humor. Don't talk trash. You get the point.

Be honest.

Above all, be honest. Provide stronger, faster, superior answers of your own!

Do I have to log in or create an account?

Nope. You can answer and ask questions to your heart's content as an anonymous user, much like Wikipedia. However, there are some things you won't be able to do on the site without registering. But it's easy to register if you want to. All you need is an OpenID account.

What is reputation?

Reputation is completely optional. Normal use of Discuss Campus — that is, asking and answering questions — does not require any reputation whatsoever.

Remember, Discuss Campus is run by you! If you want to help us run the site, you'll need reputation first. Reputation is a (very) rough measurement of how much the Discuss Campus community trusts you. Reputation is never given, it is earned by convincing other users that you know what you're talking about.

Here's how it works: if you post a good question or helpful answer, it will be voted up by your peers: you gain 10 reputation points. If you post something that's off topic or incorrect, it will be voted down: you lose 2 reputation points. You can earn up to 200 reputation per day, but no more. (Note that votes for any posts marked "community wiki" do not generate reputation.)

Amass enough reputation points and Discuss Campus will allow you to go beyond simply asking and answering questions:

At the high end of this reputation spectrum there is little difference between users with high reputation and moderators. That is very much intentional. We don't run Discuss Campus. The community does.

What if I don't get a good answer?

In order to get good answers, you have to put some effort into the question. Edit your question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question and get more people interested in it.

If, after two days, you still don't have an answer you like, you can offer a bounty. Slice off a bit of your own hard-earned reputation -- anywhere from 50 to 500 -- and attach it to the question as a bounty. We'll even throw in 50 reputation to sweeten the deal. The bountied question will appear with a special icon in all question lists, and it will also be visible on the home page Featured tab.

Once initiated, the bounty period lasts seven days. If you mark an accepted answer, your bounty is awarded to the answerer (do note that accepted bounty answers are permanent and cannot be changed). If you do not accept an answer in seven days, the top voted answer will automatically become the accepted answer, and half your bounty will be awarded to that answer. You will always give up the amount of reputation specified in the bounty, so if you start a bounty, be sure to follow up and accept the best answer!

Of course, bounty awards, like all accepted answers, are immune to the daily reputation cap and community wiki mode.

Other people can edit my stuff?!

Like Wikipedia, this site is collaboratively edited. If you are not comfortable with the idea of your questions and answers being edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you.

Who is behind all of this?

Discuss Campus is the brainchild of the same guys who started the best student-run blog out there, HackCollege. (Okay, we're a little biased. Let's just say it's a pretty good blog.) The guys can't write a post for every question they receive, so Discuss Campus hopes to alleviate some of that while empowering other smart students.