In our FAQ we explicitly allow questions about RPG tools and equipment.
Recently we got this question which someone suggested fell under that clause of the FAQ.
Are online communities really tools? I can see both sides of the issue, but this is better decided here, rather than just taken for granted.
So do questions about online communities (their mechanics, their locations, their histories etc) have standing here or should we close them?
I think questions such as this, the history question and the "scope of RPG" question are all parts of a bigger issue. We need to figure a way to guide new users to "good" questions, and our options are limited. Per the SE rules, we can only "answer" and "close" (and, eventually, "delete" but that's besides the point).
We really need a middle ground. We need a way to say "hey, I'm going to take this question out of rotation while we help you clarify it so it doesn't get cluttered with useless answers".
I would favor closing dubious questions with a LONG comment explaining why the question was closed, some ideas on how to narrow the scope, and a clear statement that closing is not permanent, just a way to keep clutter answers from clogging the site while said narrowing of the scope is handled.
For this particular question suggestions could range from @SevenSidedDie's "What is the popular successor?" to "Where did user XX go?" to "What other public pbp forums exist?". Point out that some of these might be valid questions, while some are most assuredly not. Then ask the original poster to clarify and narrow the scope with a promise that the question can be re-opened once the scope is narrowed to an answerable, on-topic version of itself.
The point here is to balance between "improving content standards" (which can easily be interpreted as hazing new users) and "being welcoming and inviting".
@mxyzplk ... I have to say that I personally found this community to be pretty reasonable on the scale of inviting <-> hazing. Mileage may vary, though
Closing is for when we're 100% sure that a question is unwelcome. "Bad" or "dubious" questions are for downvoting. Questions that are a roleplaying subculture's first question on this site are definitely to be given the benefit of the doubt.
RPing communities are integral to the roleplayer subculture of online RPers. If someone came here to ask about the history of OtherSpace's rule mechanics, that would be similarly on-topic.
Unless we're going to say that online RPers are unwelcome, we're going to have to be very cautious about closing questions that seem, to tabletoppers, to be off-topic.
For example, from the perspective of dice&paper roleplayers, the question about making armour seems like something we'd have no expertise in. Well of course we don't, if we don't welcome LARPers to participate and share their expertise. I don't know a damned thing about banded mail (it goes horizontal, right?), but it absolutely belongs here if we are going to accept LARP questions at all.
Ditto questions relevant to online RPers. If we drive them off, then of course we have no expertise. And, our tabletopper bias will make it seem reasonable to exclude such questions. The example about OtherSpace is a pointed example: most users here would look at such a question and think it's about videogames, or at best, about some trivia about an online RPing platform. In fact, OtherSpace runs on a Fudge variant, making it solidly on-topic. If we drive off online RPers, who here would know that?
If questions like this that are relevant to a roleplaying subculture have nowhere to call home, then we're not really the Role-playing Games Stack Exchange, are we?
As I noted in chat, I don't think this is a particularly terrible question. The problem seems clear1, and it seems relatively on topic. Depending on the size of the original site you could make a case for it being too localized (i.e. if the site was small enough that no one else had ever heard of it).
1 A point of clarification might be whether the asker is actually looking for the community (i.e. the people and the social contracts), the tools that were provided by that web site, or simply a hub for (some RPG related activity, such as PBP).
I think this is the sort of clarification that's going to need some guidance to get to, though.
Yes. It's fine. Why not? As long as they are related to tabletop RP. History of Facebook is off topic. Why do RPG.net Reviews suck now is on topic. (Perhaps restated more diplomatically, natch). Let's not be exclusionary for the sake of it. If the question has quality problems address the quality problems, but scope wise it's fine.
I'll be honest, I am considering getting more confrontational over the hazing of new posters over some mythical sense of perfect question quality. There's a difference between poor quality and legit questions people have not being a "question for the ages." People shouldn't have to justify themselves to ask questions clearly in site scope.
