Back when I joined RPGSE, I of course noticed how big the D&D demographic is here. And at first I thought, 'Hey, I can just Ignore all the AD&D tags and Watch tags of my games and everyone has fun without negatively impacting the other'. However, then I noticed that there are effects whose source is the D&D5 demographic, but which actually or potentially affect other demographics, to a large extent due to the way RPGSE is set up as a single 'pond' in which everyone swims. Examples of effects that I can clearly remember recently:
- Pushes to table policies which are inspired by the D&D5 experience, but are meant to influence the whole site, including demographics which are not D&D5 (e.g. assuming/guessing a system when one is not specified, shutting down questions about reasons/reasoning behind a given design choice of a system etc.)
- Newcomers getting the impression that this SE is dedicated to a single family of systems, and thus being more inclined to seek answers elsewhere (in a way this effect can be self-perpetuating even when nobody does anything wrong).
- Differences in relative-per-tag reputation vs. absolute reputation, meaning that the top 10 members who are active in a 'big' tag will quickly attain moderator privileges, while even the top member of a 'small' tag who answers every new question will still take a long, long while to unlock significant privileges.
- People answering questions not by describing the way things are/done/etc., but by describing how they aren't this-or-that-D&D-expectation.
- I'm inclined to believe that there are other similar effects which I either forgot or didn't notice yet; feel free to add to the list.
Now, I must say that from what I've seen, the community mostly reacted favourably to the objections of small-fandom members when objections were brought up. And yet it looks like an unconscious 'pressure' that still exists.
Given the above observations, my question is how can the quality of SE life of small-fandom members be protected from being accidentally diminished by broad generalisations of politics? How can newbie misunderstandings like the one above be avoided (especially since they can only be corrected personally after a newbie creates an account, which may not happen at all for someone who makes the wrong conclusion early)? How can the relative-vs-absolute reputation discrepancy be accounted for - can RPGSE be 'federalised' or something like that? What other things could be done for these concerns?