Are we losing the character of our members in our answers?

Question

One thing that I've seen a lot lately is people questioning the tone rather than the content of questions and answers. Actually, I've seen it a lot period... recalling a few older debates.

One of the great things about sites like this is the breadth of viewpoints and experiences. I've learned a lot about the differences in ways that changes in culture and language alter the experience of games, and the way that they are played. It helps to give new perspective on old games and old ways of playing.

However, when we choose to take offense at something that might be grating, yet not insulting, we alter the character of the answer, and I'm not so sure that's what we're trying to do. Or is it? Are we after a site devoid of the passion behind the hobby... warts and all? The struggles between RAW and homebrew approaches- those are the things that define gaming and bring up good discussions. As long as its not handled in a flame-like manner, should those things even be on the table?

I'm just trying to get a discussion going about the site's direction and purpose beyond what's in the help as it doesn't really address these types of issues.

A mild example:

How do I run a dungeon crawl, communicating how various rooms/passages look?

Look at Sardathrion's answer and the comments. And then look at the history. Is the part that was added a part of the answer? Or a way to explain around the 'meh'?

A more fractious example:

How do I get my PCs to not be a bunch of murderous cretins?

In this case, mxyzplk didn't budge, and didn't remove the word cretin, though there was a whole meta thread about the use of the word. And I, for one, appreciate that he stood his ground. Look at the conversations and answers generated by the phrasing of the question.

There's a principle that I never thought of that was posted on meta a while ago- how to be more awesome, and generate traffic for the site. And that's by making the site have personality, not just be some dry treatise and resource for answers. But somewhere that people want to come to and participate in; not just when they have a question, but to stay around an participate. This site only works if people participate. It's not a discussion site, for sure... but just mechanically voting down things because they don't sit right with you without any explanation or trying to help the answers be better, or trying to sanitize anything that hit's you wrong seems... wrong. Very much so.

Can't we be civil and ourselves at the same time?

Answer 1

I think we can retain personality and fix the "tone" debates, because I don't think it's actually tone that's the problem as it is a certain kind of meta-message sometimes embedded into advice.

It's very easy for a bunch of separate issues to get all rolled together here. I see a few things often happening all together during these disagreements:

1. There is disagreement with the proposed advice. That's valid and fine in principle. It's only the explosion of comments when repetition and talking past each other sets in that's the problem (says the pot to the kettle, I know), not the presence of disagreement. We like disagreement, which is why there's downvotes.

2. There are declarations of how another answer is "wrong" or "right". Such declarations are inappropriate in an answer. That's what votes are for. I oppose all answers that reference others or have elements of "replying", because they are ill-suited to our format and lower the quality of our answers. It also makes the site look like a forum, which is misleading to new users and makes it harder for them to become good users of the site.

3. There is championing of a playstyle. That's valid in an answer. It's especially useful when the playstyle provides a context that can organically solve the problem at hand. It's also useful simply because the playstyle of the original asker and the next reader who has a similar problem are unlikely to be identical, so the variety of approaches to gaming is just as useful as a variety of solutions normally is.

4. Writing as if, or outright saying that, other playstyles don't exist or are "badwrongfun" or simply don't work. That's invalid. It's neither true, nor helpful. The worst consequence of this is that inexperienced readers are unable to separate the advice in an answer that's universal from the advice in an answer that is specific to the playstyle goals that the answer is pretending are universal. This can lead to readers taking advice that seems good but is going to conflict with their game and group, potentially disastrously. We are not here to promote playstyle at the expense of clarity.

These four things are often jumbled together, and it's hard to disagree with one and say so in a comment without mixing it up with the rest. Often what seems like disagreements over the advice are over (2) or (4). These are usually called out as "tone" disagreements, but I think it's actually a matter of content: a message about what is the only right way to play, rather than solutions to the problem at hand. It's content that is a meta-level to the advice, but it's still communicated ideas, which is content. We are rarely asked what is the right way to play, and offering that as advice is almost always going to be holding a match to dry tinder.

Drawing a line in the sand and saying "This is the one true way to play", even only by implication, is what makes the rest of the RPG internet-o-sphere so argumentative and low signal-to-noise. We need to not do that here. It's really easy to accidentally do (2) while doing (3), since "not like that over there" is an easy way to differentiate a stance. I think the way to avoid turning "championing" (2) into "this is the one true way" (3) is to avoid normative statements. That takes practice, but is not too hard once you start.

I think we can all agree that not all content belongs here. I assert that if we can be stubbornly pluralistic in how people play games, we will manage to avoid many so-called "tone" disagreements while retaining our personality.

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In practical terms, these are the two things that (I think) are productively objected to in a comment:

• references to other answers (positive or negative; though we don't argue about the positive so it's less an issue)
• normative statements about how to play

Calling just those things out explicitly, without commenting simultaneously on the advice itself and how you (dis)agree with it, avoids jumbling up a valid objection with a value statement. The less confrontational the objecting comment is, too, the more likely it is to be heard charitably and not mistaken for an attack on the otherwise valid content of the answer.

Answer 2

Believe it or not, We value civility very highly

Tuesday and Wednesday a bunch of stuff went down, flame wars in comments, spilling over into chat, old hand users complaining about moderator comment deletions and a few other things. A new user popped into chat who had been genuinely trying to work out some issues, right in the middle of the chaos.

Instead of continuing the back and forth I directed that comment (the civility one there above) at the new user. Because frankly, what was going on in chat and in the comments on the site was not representative of what this site is about or the level of civility I expect from this site.

The fact is, one of the best things about this site is that we keep a civil tone. If we lose that we've lost far more than the character of our members, if allow incivility to reign we become like the rest of the Internets.

Stack Exchange is somewhere where being nice, being civil and keeping a passionate but respectful tone is valued highly and abandoning this standard would be a huge mistake. Reining in brusque users is an important part of maintaining this civility. Passion is great, but incivility is not. When disagreements go beyond differing playstyles and personalities and start spilling across additional questions or get personal then they have gone too far.

Answer 3

Yes. Is that a bad thing though? I thought the whole point of SE sites was to curate answers. Self expression takes a back seat to that.

While I find the discussion here unsatisfying, I have forums for that kind of thing. When I want a solid, well thought out answer instead of some wishy washy opinions, SE delivers.

Answer 4

I’m going to break one of SevenSidedDie’s guidelines to discuss my rationale for responding directly to another answer in one of my own, and also respond to his a little. Should be a neat little experiment.

The reason why I consider direct response to be important is because while we expect answers to display expertise and authority (either you’ve dealt with the issue before, you know a lot about the circumstances, or you did the appropriate research), we do not have the same expectations for voting.

And so there is the danger of an answer that sounds good but is actually wrong in some fashion – and for the sake of argument, let us assume a hypothetical case where the answer is objectively wrong. In this case, it may be necessary for other users to include information that directly rebuts another answer.

Comments are available for such purposes, but comments may not always be appropriate for this function: they can be ephemeral, they can invite back-and-forth debate, and they are obviously limited in how much room they provide to make the case.

Thus, here I make my case that SevenSidedDie’s claim that such answers are bad is, itself, wrong. Certainly, such a rebuttal is not usually warranted, and I could see cases where it degrades an answer. But I think there are cases where it is appropriate, where we benefit from not having so absolute a view.