Help center
Welcome to the Stack Overflow Help Center!
If you are unable to find the answer you need here, you can also search for or ask a question about Stack Overflow on Meta Stack Overflow!
We have a curated list of frequently asked questions. Top FAQ questions include:
- What can I do when getting “We are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account”?
- How do I ask and answer homework questions?
- Why did I gain/lose reputation? Can I audit my reputation history?
- "This question already has answers here" - but it does not. What can I do when I think a question is not a duplicate?
AI-assisted Generated Content Ban
Please be aware that all AI-assisted generated content (including ChatGPT) is currently banned. For more information, see:
Find out more about…
Asking
- What types of questions should I avoid asking?
- What topics can I ask about here?
- What does it mean if a question is "closed"?
- What is Question Assistant?
- What should I do if no one answers my question?
Our model
- Code of Conduct
- Expected Behavior
- How do I use tags to find topics I'm interested in?
- How do I format my posts using Markdown or HTML?
- What is "meta"? How does it work?
Reputation & Moderation
- Who are the site moderators, and what is their role here?
- Why is voting important?
- What is reputation? How do I earn (and lose) it?
- What are free votes?
- How do free votes work with reputation?
Answering
- How do I write a good answer?
- What does it mean when an answer is "accepted"?
- Can I answer my own question?
- Why and how are some answers deleted?
- How to reference material written by others
Privileges
My Account
- I accidentally created two accounts; how do I merge them?
- How do I add or remove login credentials from my account?
- I lost my password; how do I reset it?
- How do I delete my account?
- How do I opt out of experiments on Stack Exchange?
Review Queues
- What are review queues?
- Why was I issued a review warning?
- Why was I suspended from reviewing?
- How do I use the First answers queue?
- How do I use the Close votes queue?
Collectives on Stack Overflow
- What is Collectives on Stack Overflow?
- Article guidelines
- What are the different types of users in a collective?
- What is a recommended answer?
- What happens when a provider-focused collective transitions to become a topic-focused collective?
Staging Ground
- What is the Staging Ground?
- What badges can reviewers and askers earn in Staging Ground?
- As an asker, what is considered a successful question from Staging Ground?
- Guidelines and best practices for reviewers on the Staging Ground
- What stats can I see as a Staging Ground reviewer?