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Here is wikipedia's definition of "canonical":

Canonical is the adjective for canon, literally a 'rule', and has come to mean also 'standard', 'archetypal', 'typical', or 'unique distinguished exemplar'.

They are mentioned on Meta at:

What is a good way to look for a canonical answer to a frequently asked question?

Introduce a Canonical Question tag

Canonical answers for repeated questions

Process for nominating and promoting canonical questions

Return to FAQ index

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    The question should probably be asking "What is a canonical answer?" And all the links and information should have been posted as an answer. Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 20:56
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    @guest271314 Thats all well and good, but since you intend this to be a canonical question, it should be constructed as one. If you are actually asking the question, well, your post doesn't make much sense. Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 20:59
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    @guest271314 I'm not saying its trivial, you just posed this question in a very odd way (hence the downvotes). Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:07
  • @BradleyDotNET Actual definition of "canonical" for example from a dictionary, perhaps, should remain at Question , for disambiguation ? As appear slightly different than your answer , below ? Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:16
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    @guest271314 Feel free to edit my changes in any way you like, I left the definition you provided intact. My answer addresses how "power users" on SO will use the term. Remember, you are actually asking a question. Leave the answer in the answers Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:16
  • @BradleyDotNET Good question / answer at meta.stackoverflow.com/q/284236/1783619 ! Is that linked to that "How to ask a question" page stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask ? Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:33
  • @guest271314 No, that would be up to SE to link it from there. Its not even in the FAQ yet, so its probably got a ways to go :) I appreciate the sentiment though! Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:38
  • @BradleyDotNET In your opinion , is this a good question for meta.so , so ? Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:41
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    @guest271314 I think it's a reasonable question for Meta in its current form, yes. I'm not sure what the new downvotes are about. Commented Apr 30, 2015 at 21:41
  • this is VERY very interesting to me. my main way of contributing to stackoverflow is: 1. if there is not a question/answer to a canonical problem 2. I work very hard to think/write up a good canonical question. Commented Sep 23, 2016 at 15:14
  • OP, would you consider making this into a faq post? Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 18:43
  • @TravisJ What is a "faq post"? If that would be helpful to viewers and users, see no reason why not. Would any content of original Question need to be changed, again? Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 18:48
  • @guest271314 - I don't think the content would necessarily need to be changed, aside from retagging it to support and faq-proposed, and converting it to a community wiki. At the bottom of this question there is an explanation of how a post becomes part of the faq. I think it would be helpful for this post to get more attention, as there seems to still be many users who are unaware of what a canonical post is. Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 18:52
  • @TravisJ Appears reasonable enough. Ironically, was unaware of that document itself. Feel free to perform the necessary steps. Or, are you suggesting that this user performs those necessary steps? Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 18:57
  • It would need to be you, I cannot mark your post as a community wiki for example. I think you would either need to do that in an edit or flag the post for it to happen. Commented Jun 9, 2017 at 19:06

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A canonical question is a broad question/answer pair that is intended to be a duplicate target for commonly asked questions, or address a commonly found problem (for Meta Stack Overflow). The intent is that we aren't posting variations on the same question/answer pair over and over again.

For example, here's one with 2,654 dupe targets (and that doesn't include the deleted ones, if I had to guess):

What is a NullReferenceException, and how do I fix it?

Here's one I wrote on Meta:

Why is "Can someone help me?" not an actual question?

Note the pattern. The question addresses a specific type of problem, or in other words, doesn't get into specific code or posts. The answer is usually a self-answer, and attempts to give general guidance in regards to the question.

You didn't ask what piece of canonical posts was confusing you, but these kinds of posts are what we refer to when we use the term.

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    Citation, please. I can't find information about them in the Help Center. The best I can tell, someone is trying to circumvent Stack Overflow's voting system and declare something superior by fiat. In this case we know it is not because the newly anointed question and answer is missing content present in past questions and answers. Commented Jun 16, 2019 at 15:49
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    @jww Its not an "official" thing, just a term people throw around to say "Here's something really good that can be used as a dupe target". No voting is being circumvented. Superior by fiat... sure, whoever writes the canonical post is claiming their's is better than anyone else's, but that is checked by people, you know, using it. Commented Jun 17, 2019 at 16:08
  • In the Python tag, it's also used to refer to questions that have ended up being a common duplicate target and that have been vetted by the community, almost like, we couldn't write a better question-answer pair if we tried (or we've made this a suitable target by clarifying it). Is that widespread? Commented Sep 21, 2023 at 23:33
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I would suggest, a canonical question should serve as a reference case for the underlying issue. This means, it should present the problem clearly and describe what measures have been used to try and resolve it. For coding issues, it should provide a minimal reproducible example.

Then, a canonical answer should be a comprehensive answer. This means, it should address all the issues in the question and include an explanation for both the original problem and the solution.

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