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Since the Area 51 Discussion Zone was launched around 10 days ago there have been 10 actual topical questions posted as discussions. Here's some examples. I think they're actual questions rather than sample questions because of their length and the fact that they're almost all asked by new users.

Maybe it would help to have an extra explanation of the purpose of Area 51 and the Discussion Zone on the "Ask Question" page, especially for new users. Something along the lines of the page new users on StackOverflow see when asking a question.

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I am willing to bet that BenV means to introduce more text in this column: A screenshot of the Ask Question page on Area51

I guess some examples of text to be added might be:

  • If you want to ask a question about a specific topic, perhaps you might be better served by visiting one of the StackExchange sites.

Or something.

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  • I don't think it needs any more, I think that text needs to be displayed a little more prominently, at least for new users.
    – BenV
    Feb 6, 2011 at 23:03
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    Good lord man it's navy on a tan background. The only way to make it more prominent would be yellow on black with black text ... or blink.
    – jcolebrand
    Feb 6, 2011 at 23:08
  • Well it's obviously not working. I was thinking more of an "are you sure" message that they have to click through before submitting their question. Regardless of the colors, I honestly doubt people read the sidebars. I know I usually don't :)
    – BenV
    Feb 7, 2011 at 16:50
  • True, and I don't know that I see them all that often either, but I doubt there's much that can be done about that. Aside from making them click to dismiss that on every page load before actually getting to type a question, below 125 points.
    – jcolebrand
    Feb 7, 2011 at 16:51
  • +1 for that hideous freehand circle and "more?" text XD
    – The Unhandled Exception
    Feb 19, 2011 at 0:03
  • I prefer freehand oval :p
    – jcolebrand
    Feb 19, 2011 at 0:05
  • For a newbie, the question under how to ask is just a frustrating and rather meaningless bit of text. Perhaps explaining the relevance of the question would be helpful. "do you really want to post here? Is your question...." at least leads the user to the intent of the comment - if I understand it at all. And, a time-honored tradition for answering questions is to use a statement or two, rather than a responding with another [rather obtuse] question. Just saying.
    – David Rogers
    Mar 28, 2019 at 15:55

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