Would my question about pdf rendering quality be on-topic for GD.se?

Question

I asked the question Why does transparency disable subpixel rendering in Adobe Reader? on superuser.com. Because I haven't gotten any answers or even comments there, and because I see technical issues are being discussed on GD.se, too, I asked a moderator to move my post there. He doubted whether the question would be on-topic here, and he has a point. So I thought I'd ask: Would my question be welcome here?

Answer 1

I think only someone with expert knowledge of the under-the-hood inner workings and architecture of Adobe Reader could answer that. You might get lucky, but I'd be very surprised - we're good for tips or tricks in using software as tool, but we're not technicians.

When it's more "fixing the under-the-hood workings" than "tips and tricks for creating things", we recommend the manufacturer's own forums and tech support, which for Adobe is usually the best option, or superuser since it's the SE world's equivalent of tech support -but unfortunately, as you've found, I think they don't have many Adobe specialists.

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I saw your comment:

"people on Graphic Design discuss technical issues, too, they routinely work with pdfs, and they are highly concerned with quality"

While this is true, when it comes to things like Adobe bugs and quirks, it means we designers are great at spotting and complaining about bugs, quirks and frustrations in Adobe software... but aren't necessarily qualified to fix them... This one doesn't sound like the kind of thing where there might be a workaround, so if you want a fix, I'd ask the under-the-hood Adobe software experts directly on the Adobe forums.

I'd suggest targeting Acrobat as well as or instead of Adobe Reader - in my experience, the forum people take Acrobat much more seriously than Reader, but I think the PDF rendering is the same.

Answer 2

Sorry for not explaining last night we were having a very bad storm here. We try to focus on design and artistic questions, if you reference our help center it has great information under "What topics can I ask about here?"

To your comment:

"Well, that can't be generally true, seeing that about 50% of the questions listed are of a more-or-less technical nature. Your top question, "What should you ask the printer?", is a good example.

and in response to not explaining my comment:

technical questions are outside the scope on GD.

Every question could at some degree be considered a technical question but this community, based on the question's contexts, will close technical software questions. As stated by user568458 it may not be a good fit here and you should address the issue at the manufacture's forum. We have in the past been visited by some experts that can address issues that pertain to them, such as What is Pantone Cyan used for?.

Another point to consider is technical questions in regards to software needed to be worded in a careful manner that they can be helpful to someone else, dont have to be diagnosed or appear to be "I have to see this" to be able to fix it.