Revisit: Is "5e" a clear enough statement of game system by a question asker to determine that the question is about D&D 5e?

Question

Following the results of Revisit III: Don’t Guess the System policy this meta now refers to an outdated policy.

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This is a revisit of Is '5e' a clear enough statement of game system by a question asker?, which has for a while been cited as part of the Never Guess the System policy, specifically to the end that simply including ‘5e’ is not sufficient information to determine that the question is about D&D 5e.

However, votes have trickled in over time, changing what the top-voted answer(s) to that Q&A are. There are two problems here, which require resolving:

1. The meta guidance/policy isn’t reflective of current praxis, including how that meta gets cited; and
2. As one side would have much more motivation to go back to that meta and vote, it is hard to trust it as community consensus.

Thus, as much as we might prefer not to have a discussion on this again, we need a revisit.

The perceived outcomes to this meta are either to uphold our current praxis (of not accepting ‘5e’ as sufficient), or to confirm a change in community opinion.

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There’s a sidenote here about ‘closing’ meta discussions and locking in consensus to mitigate some of what has happened here. This is something we sometimes do, but there’s no set time after which that should happen, and thus very easy for that to slip. If there is such a meta discussion where it seems warranted – both consensus formed and useful to indicate such – we welcome a nudge to that end, either in chat or as a custom flag.

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Post Status as of 14 December 2020

Over a month after this meta was posted the top answer is Thomas Markov's at +62/-9 and the second answer is KorvinStarmast's at +25/-5. Given these two answers present very similar views and there are no competing answers with similar support we can consider this community consensus.

Going forward '5e' should be considered sufficient statement of the system to be D&D 5e, provided there is also supporting context information.

Answer 1

Let experts make expert decisions.

This is the whole point of Stack Exchange. The entire model is people who know what they're talking about answering questions. People come here to ask questions because they expect someone here is equipped to solve their problem.

As linksassin admitted:

Sure, in 99% of cases we may be right.

Then we should let our experts be right. 99% of the time, we are adequately equipped to solve the user's problem.

What is really our objective?

Solving the querent's problem. This should be our primary objective. Using the site and learning how to most clearly communicate questions should be a secondary, or even tertiary, objective of ours. By saying, "we cannot answer your question until you learn how to use tags, even though everyone knows what system you're playing", we are putting problem solving in the back seat and setting site mechanics as our primary objective for new users. We should never tell a new user that our problem with their lack of tags is more important than the problem they bring to the table. But that is exactly what we are doing when we know what they're talking about but artificially hold up the problem solving process because they didn't explicitly state what system they are playing.

We can teach asking better questions without artificially obstructing our primary objective.

We can teach users how to use the site and ask better questions without putting problem solving on hold. This should be obvious. When we know what a user is asking about, we can both answer their question and teach them about the site. This is what comments are for. This keeps our objectives properly aligned. We focus an answering their question and secondarily engage them on how to ask better questions and use site mechanics.

Readers decide if answers provide valuable information.

This is the solution to the 1%. The 1% of times someone is wrong about their system guess will be sorted out by readers' votes. Even when it is so unclear in a question what system is being played, answers can be made sufficiently clear to still be useful. If a question says "I'm playing 5e" and it could be D&D or Shadowrun, answers can easily enough state which game the answer pertains to. If OP never clarifies, both answers provide valuable information to future readers. If OP does come back to clarify, the answer for the wrong system will be downvoted or deleted. This is just the site functioning as intended.

A necessary distinction.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for a wild west editing policy. There is a clear distinction between "5e question with vague context" and "5e questions with uniquely D&D vocabulary". But I'm not going to reinvent the wheel explaining it to you. I stand on the shoulders of giants, so to speak: Doppelgreener explained this perfectly in her response to the meta we are now revisiting:

I think we should be OK interpreting “5e” as “D&D 5e” when the question is also talking about D&D-isms. (If they're talking about things that don't sound like D&D 5e, like talking about hackers, we should not guess.)

There are other games with a 5e, but their players tend to be acutely aware they're not the only RPG and not the only 5th edition RPG, so they'll say what their game is.

D&D players are the ones who have an observed tendency to forget or not know that other games exist, or get asked about on this site, or have a fifth edition. This means if someone says just “5e” and they're talking about monks or fighters or warlocks, they'll reliably be talking about D&D 5e. I honestly can't think of a time this hasn't been true.

Our super strict “don't guess the system” guidelines were created during a time when guessing was almost always wrong, and we had a disaster once a week or so: high frequency × lots of trouble = tons of trouble.

In this situation, almost zero × lots of trouble = almost no trouble, maybe once in a blue moon.

We shouldn't just guess though: tell them “Hey, we're sure you mean D&D 5e here, so we've edited that onto the question. If you didn't mean that please let us know and we'll adjust.” When we're wrong we do damage control: we revise the question, remove the answers, ask someone to create a new D&D 5e-specific question to house them, and people repost their answers over there, and the original question continues on with its correct game. I expect this won't happen even once a year.

Answer 2

Per a previous answer: only if 5e doesn't occur in a vacuum

If there are sufficient contextual clues to determine "5e of what?" such that a player of the game and that edition can clearly recognize them - then "5e" has communicated what it needs to (and adding the tag becomes helpful).

If 5e is referred to and no contextual clues are available (as I discussed in the linked answer) this leaves the whole community guessing and we are better off closing, and then engaging with the user to clarify what game it is that they are asking about.

If this meta is an effort to make a policy based on the question and the title, it seems to me that the policy is based on an untruth: that the 5e is referred to (when it is D&D 5e that the person is asking about) when they don't also leave sufficient contextual clues for someone reasonably expert in the system to identify that.
It isn't that simple.
Sometimes there are clues, sometimes there are not.
There is more than the variable "5e" in this equation.

A rule, or an If/Then statement, isn't the end all and be all. It isn't as simple as an on/off switch.

The question comes across to me as an assertion that because we have a divided bucket of opinions that somehow raising this (yet again) will finally get the consensus that has remained elusive. I am not sure that's correct. We might just be picking at a scab.

How to think through this when you encounter such a question:

1. If there are sufficient contexual clues, it's not a problem, no need to close, 5e tells you enough add the tag if it is missing.

2. If there aren't sufficient contexual clues, close and get clarification.

   But Korvin, what are sufficient contextual clues?

• If you have to ask that then you aren't expert enough (see again what I address in the linked answer) so it would be best to skip that question and leave it to someone who knows enough. I sure skip a lot of PF questions in review queues, since I have no basis for making a call. A few years back I asked some questions for clarity in comments in some game systems I am not familiar with, and realized eventually that I was better off just letting those who are good at that system add assistance, or not, and just leave it alone.

Yeah, that's more effort, but it seems to me an effort worth making.

Answer 3

I'm pretty much an outsider nowadays, so this is an outsiders perspective, with little to no regard to policy or how it should work:

The brand name "Cola" in my country is being used to describe any kind of drink that is brown, sugary and fizzling. If you order a "Cola" it is assumed you mean Coke. Once in a while a restaurant may not serve Coca-Cola and may give you a Pepsi instead. Most will ask "we only have Pepsi, is that okay". Some will not ask and just bring Pepsi and a small fraction of people will be upset by this.

But what we are doing here is akin to me ordering a "Cola" and the waiter saying "I'm so sorry sir I cannot take that order, I will have to call my manager." And then 20 minutes later the manager comes and says "I'm sorry sir, you were ambiguous, did you mean the soft drink that is produced by the Coca-Cola company that our menu lists as Coke? We take this very seriously here, please be precise, we cannot serve you a Coke if you are that sloppy in your order."

I'd be dumbfounded. I'd probably not even have waited for the manager, I mean come on, that's ridiculous.

90%+ of our front page is about DnD 5e, so asking a question about "5e" that has no indication that is isn't DnD 5e should be understood. Sure, if it talks about spaceships or shotguns or has any hint that it's not DnD they are talking about, then absolutely, ask for clarification. But if it's a question about the armor class of a a paladin, insisting to clarify this because there is a hypothetical other system out there somewhere that might apply too... that's like the manager in the Cola example. Way out of line for a normal person.

Answer 4

Foreword: This post represents my view as a user not a moderator. It is largely a restatement of my view from the previous iteration of this meta.

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Allowing '5e' as a statement of the system would be a detriment to our site

A brief summary of the reasons I believe it is a bad idea to allow this:

• Multiple systems have a 5th edition

  D&D is not the only game to have reached a 5th edition. It isn't even the only game that is currently on 5th edition.

• Guessing wrong is worse than waiting

  Sure, in 99% of cases we may be right. But the 1 in 100 that we get wrong would cause more issue in total than simply asking a clarifying question. As I said in this answer, it costs us nothing to wait for OP to clarify.

• Not guessing helps new users learn the system

  By not guessing and prompting the OP to include the system tag, we teach the requirements for a good question on this site. This helps to prevent them from having this issue again in the future and in turn they can help teach it to others, helping to maintain our high standards.

• A strict policy is easier to comprehend

  Tiggerous stated in a related meta:

  Our current policy is very clear, easy for new users to understand (even if they disagree with it) and relatively simple (if not always painless) to enforce.

  Any alternative to this policy, however well intentioned (and perhaps both sensible and justifiable in the abstract), will be much less clear, more contentious and harder to enforce.

• Allowing this promotes the D&D-centric view of this site

  We are rpg.se, not dnd.se and we want to remain that way. We have a history of D&D dominating our site. See Dungeons and Dragons is dominating the site in terms of page views for just one example. It is likely that our high proportion of D&D content is what leads to missing system tags on D&D 5e questions in the first place.

  Additionally, on the occasions we are wrong we are harming the quality of life of smaller rpgs on this site. There is an excellent meta question that addresses this issue. I think it is important to keep that issue in mind when discussing policies like this.

• Not all users are equally well versed in RPGs

  New users come to the site and see tags for various D&D editions and some other tags they don't know. Then mention 5e in their question assuming that is enough because, as far as they know, this site is only about D&D. By not assuming 5e = D&D 5e we might just be telling them for the first time that there are game system's besides D&D. That is an opportunity for new users to learn and expand their horizons that might otherwise be lost.

  We already have a problem where users assume questions are about D&D 5e when they are not. On a recent Pathfinder 1e question of mine a user posted a comment "oh thank you I actually missed that this question is not about dnd 5e. My bad". I'm not trying to shame users, simply showing that it is a simple mistake to make. You see a question that has lots of terms you know and you assume it is the system you know, I've been guilty of it too. Allowing users to edit this assumption in without confirmation from OP would enable users who are only familiar with D&D 5e to derail questions about many systems that share keywords or other similarities to D&D 5e.

In conclusion; no, 5e is not enough to add the dnd-5e tag, and it should never be.

Answer 5

Statistically, it's a clear enough statement, but to be fair, we should treat it as though it isn't.

It isn't fair that people who ask questions about industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition can get useful answers to their questions without even having to name their system, while people who play anything else, even if they correctly name and tag their system, get non-useful answers from people who assume any question they recognize D&D 5E terms in must be about D&D 5E.

People playing other systems can encounter scenarios where they want to put armor on in combat, or mitigate critical hits, or be a druid and turn into a blink dog.

And yes, the answers that assume those questions are about D&D 5E get downvoted with a quickness, but that's also kind of a problem, in that often those answers will get deleted and low-rep users viewing the question don't see deleted answers. (Or answers hidden because of very low score? Is that a thing too?) So it's just an empty question that they think they know the answer to, and then the original question gets another unhelpful answer and the respondent gets another tranche of downvotes.

It seems like a waste of time and opportunity to wait for some kind of explicit statement of "I am playing industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition" from the original poster, even if that's just adding it in as a tag to not break the conversational tone of the question, before a question is opened for answers. But I'm still in favor of doing it to establish the contrapositive; that is, if there's a question that's open for answers, and neither the title nor question body nor tags mention industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, people can be sure it's not a question about industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition even if they don't know the system that it actually is about.

Because it also isn't fair to present people without much experience outside industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition with a front page full of questions where they can tell that some are definitely about D&D 5E, and some just seem like they might be about D&D 5E and other people have assumed they are and answered, and some seem like they're about D&D 5E but nobody's answered, and the way they're supposed to tell which ones are okay to assume and which ones aren't is... a volatile list of acceptable substitutions on the meta?

I can't read somebody else's mind who writes an answer, any more than I can read somebody else's mind who writes a question, but of the five people to swing and miss at those other system questions, one has continued giving answers. Just a couple, and they had a gold badge already.

Part of this unfairness is that we don't have a way to clearly specify the game system in a question. A proper noun could be any number of things in the big tent of industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition; a setting, a structured play environment, an unfamiliar game element. It's highly probable that a system tag for that proper noun exists, but does every system tag mention it's for a game system? There's no way otherwise to tell system tags from non-system tags.

The judgment of whether or not someone has specified a game system is left up to people who volunteer to flag and review. It's the best we can do for now, and I hope they have a good degree of awareness of what game systems are out there, but when they're making that decision I'd like to leave them a few clear guidelines rather than an arbitrarily-sized list of exceptions.

Because, lastly, it's not fair to the future. Industry-leading product Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition might not be industry-leading forever. As time stretches on, all human projects will dissolve and fail, and I'd rather maintain a clear identification policy than have to keep revisiting acceptable alternates for popular games as time goes on.