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I just noticed this comment under an answer where I issued a "greeting to a new user" comment. What I wrote was:

Welcome to RPG.SE. Please take the [tour] and visit the [help] to seen how a Q&A site differs from an internet discussion forum. Wikis are sometimes good sources, and sometimes not. Please provide a link to the one(s) that you are referring to as resources for this answer. – KorvinStarmast Jun 4 '18 at 16:15

I've been doing that "RPG.SE" short hand in imitation of some of the comments I read when I first began to participate. There is another such greeting here.

Another user made the following point under my comment:

rpg.se is a Swedish domain, taken by a private citizen. Please abbreviate "rpg stack exchange" in another way. – CapnZapp Feb 4 at 20:25

That's a fair point. The appendage .se for sites in Sweden is a standard.

Recommendation

Make RPGSE a standard abbreviation in written prose (such as the above kind of usage) for our site so that we don't generate confusion, and since that is a common style of using initial capitaliations as a way to refer to Role Playing Games Stack Exchange.

Examples of this common usage include NFL for the National Football League, USMC for United States Marines Corps, RN for Royal Navy, RCMP for Royal Canadian Mounted Police, IBM for International Business Machines, SO for Stack Overflow, etc)

  • Would this run afoul of any of our network guidelines or norms?

  • Pursuant @Someone_Evil's comment, does this even need to be addressed?

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    \$\begingroup\$ MSE search for "meta.se" demonstrating (in some fashion) the prevalence of [site].se as a standard way of abbreviating within the Network. Contraindicated, intentionally, by my own use of "MSE" rather than "meta.se" in this comment and the equally-prevalent usage of "MSE" on meta.se. \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60 Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 15:34
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Hmm... wonder if it's relevant that rpg.se itself is a hard redirect to tobias.jp. \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60 Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 16:11
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is there any evidence for RPG.SE style causing any confusion? Or is the goal simply to make a abbreviation that doesn't have other meanings? Because that will not work. (googleing "RPGSE" brings up some aerospace thing.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Someone_Evil Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 17:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Someone_Evil I honestly don't know, so I am tossing this out there based on the comment under my comment. It may be that we don't have to do anything. I am hoping to benefit from the collected understanding of the experience of those who frequent this site. \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 19:10
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    \$\begingroup\$ Anecdotally, I have tried using rpg.se as a URL when referring to this site externally under the assumption that it did in fact point here after seeing it used so much here, despite never using it via that url directly myself. \$\endgroup\$
    – CTWind
    Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 22:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @CapnZapp probably should be notified of this discussion, since they may want to push back against the general consensus. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 1:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KRyan I left CapnZapp a reply that I'd bring it up in meta under the answer that inspired this meta. You can see that under the answer that I linked. \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 1:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KorvinStarmast Ah fair enough, didn’t think of that. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 1:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KRyan I do agree with you general point on that. :) \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 1:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ I also already linked the meta in a reply to CapnZapp after Korvin's comment there. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 2:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I'll give CapnZapp a bit more time to chime in should they be so interested, but I think doppel has the right of it. Profile says Last seen Jun 4 at 19:00 so they are probably still dropping by now and again. \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 12:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ "And RPG stands for rocket propelled grenade you need a different abbreviation there too!" \$\endgroup\$
    – mxyzplk
    Commented Aug 13, 2019 at 16:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mxyzplk True enough - RPGSE meaning Rocket Propelled Grenade, Soviet Edition for all of those cold war tactical combat games ... \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Aug 13, 2019 at 16:29

1 Answer 1

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We don't need to avoid calling this place “RPG.SE”. It's fine.

As anyone understands, acronyms can mean multiple things. Here, RPG.SE means RPG[.stackexchange], and it's normal vernacular.

In all nine years of the site's operation I don't recall someone expressing being confused thinking they were being welcomed to a different site at the rpg.se web domain. That still hasn't happened today; the person who left that comment is fully knowledgeable about our website and should know what we mean.

Language is ambiguous and people can figure it out.

Safe to say the frustration, difficulty, and strife involved in telling people not to use an extremely standardised Stack Exchange acronym form will not be worth the zero confusion we've ever experienced with that acronym.

To the bigger (or titular) question: we don't really need to pick a single standard name and it's not like people would stick to it if we did. This is a matter of personal preference and whatever way you pick to reference and acronym-ify the site name is fine and valid. For example any of these are fine: “RPG.SE”, “RPGSE”, “RPG Stack Exchange”, “Role-Playing Games Stack Exchange”, the [rpg.se] magic comment link that auto-expands to a link labelled “Role-Playing Games”, among multiple others I haven't listed, and your personal preference is fine too.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Also worth noting: [rpg.se] is also a "magic link" that automatically points to the front page of our site when typed in chat or comments. For example, typing [rpg.se] gives you: Role-playing Games. [rpg.meta.se] and [meta.rpg.se] work similarly: Role-playing Games Meta \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2019 at 22:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I think that is a very important point. I was about to comment the same thing. Should we perhaps use the magic link instead of the abbreviation in comments? \$\endgroup\$
    – linksassin Mod
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 1:29
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    \$\begingroup\$ @linksassin Up to you whether you want to suggest that, but the magic link's resulting text only says "Role-Playing Games" (mentioning nothing about Stack Exchange). A statement like "Welcome to Role-playing Games" would be pretty confusing for readers. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast Mod
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 1:31
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    \$\begingroup\$ @linksassin I avoid using the magic link for the same reason V2Blast mentions. We're not welcoming them to role-playing games, that sounds like we're welcoming them to the entire concept like they just found out about tabletop RPGs today. We're welcoming them to this site, which is Roleplaying Games Stack Exchange, or RPG.SE or RPGSE for short (your choice of how to write it). \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener Mod
    Commented Aug 5, 2019 at 11:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I think the risk of somebody thinking you're welcoming them to the concept of Role-playing Games, rather than to the site literally called Role-playing Games that they are currently on, is pretty low. Using the magic tag should be fine. \$\endgroup\$
    – Anthony Grist
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 15:58
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @AnthonyGrist I think that's a valid personal choice. I think it reads weirdly since "Role-Playing Games" is not actually our external name—the one we use facing the rest of the internet is "Role-Playing Games Stack Exchange"—but if you don't feel that way that's OK and it's fine to use it if that's your preference. I don't want to see us squabbling over there being one "correct" way to reference the site; all the names listed for it thus far on this page are fine. \$\endgroup\$
    – doppelgreener Mod
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 18:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ While I'd like to wait for CapnZapp to chime in, I feel that this is the best way ahead and has good consensus. Accepted, and thank you. But I think I'm going to use RPGSE anyway, most likely. \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Commented Aug 8, 2019 at 20:00
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @AnthonyGrist I’ll often use the [rpg.se] SE form, which is easier to read after the magic is performed. It helps with our name, but especially for some SEs, like Physics SE and the like. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Commented Aug 9, 2019 at 3:43

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