When I clicked "Ask Question", the next page shows "Ask a public question". I heard that Stack Exchange can be purchased for use within a company through the Stack Overflow for Teams product, but on this public website, are there private questions?
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11I would assume this is a remnant from when Stack Overflow for Teams was integrated directly into Stack Overflow. This was to make it clear that you would be posting to a public site, rather than your private team. Some screenshots of what the question location selector used to look like prior to the separation of SOT from the public Q&A: i.stack.imgur.com/E7jNAl.png (Image from this question on MSO) and i.stack.imgur.com/TGtky.png (Image from this question on MSO)– Henry EckerFeb 17, 2023 at 3:49
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6@HenryEcker If you were so inclined, that sounds like it'd be an acceptable answer if you wanted to turn that comment into one.– SpevacusFeb 17, 2023 at 4:03
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As @HenryEcker notes in the comments, this terminology was introduced with Stack Overflow for Teams, then called Channels - on Stack Overflow, you had to be careful not post a private question intended for your Team to the public network. There was a button for confirmation as well, which later turned into a checkbox.
Now that Stack Overflow for Teams has its own domain and a slightly different UI, accidental public posting of private question is much less likely, so I'm actually wondering if the word "public" can be dropped now? That would be a feature-request though ...
Shadow Wizard Love Zelda
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answered Feb 17, 2023 at 9:39
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4While Teams does look somewhat different from the public sites and is on a slightly different domain, I expect that it's still fairly easy for Teams to be confused with the public site for those people for whom the "Public" text and confirmation were added. Just having Teams on another domain doesn't really change the potential for confusion sufficiently to totally prevent it, unfortunately. In other words, removing the "Public" text and confirmation doesn't seem appropriate, given that there's still a real possibility for confusion.– MakyenFeb 17, 2023 at 14:54
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1Might be worth noting that since the system can no longer determine whether a user is a Teams member or not, it displays the word for everyone and not only Teams users. Feb 17, 2023 at 18:18
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2Maybe we should change it to "Ask a public question on <site name>", so that people don't accidentally post tweets here.– Kevin BFeb 21, 2023 at 16:12
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@KevinB if you mean the off topic questions we get here, that won't help. People don't read, especially those who wander to different site and don't notice. Feb 22, 2023 at 10:23
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@ShadowWizardChasingStars Sarcasm is sometimes difficult to detect on the internet– Kevin BFeb 22, 2023 at 15:22