Stack Exchange RPG is a collection of expert knowledge.

Question

This site is several things as outlined in the Stack Exchange FAQ. However not all Stack Exchange sites are going to be alike due to differing subject matter. This means different sites will emphasize different aspects of Stack Exchange.

The Q&A style pioneered by Stack Overflow is an excellent fit for questions about game mechanics. But RPGs are more than just the game mechanics. The roleplaying side, for a lack of a better term, is very subjective and very fuzzy. Strictly adhering to the Stack Overflow Q&A Style is going to stilt discussion of this side of RPGs. Thus causing this site to fail to be a repository of expert knowledge about Roleplaying Games.

Also there is intense interest in the hobby itself. But it is not large enough to sustain a separate site. So questions about the history, industry and why things happened the way they will have to be domain of this site or they won't get discussed anywhere in the stack exchange system.

I seen a lot of comments reflecting what I call Stack Overflowism. This along with the excessive editing is driving users away. I believe this site needs to have expert knowledge about all things roleplaying. Not merely a Q&A site about mechanics. (Yes there is a little hyperbole there)

I suggest everybody take a step back. Read over a Theory of Moderation especially the part about "With a Light Hand". Leave other people's posts alone unless there some obvious technical mistake or the author meant that post to be extensively edited.

Loosen up about the subjective questions. And if the question is that badly phrased get a discussion going in comments with the author about how to fix it. But let the author fix it. If it spirals out of control deal with it then not before.

Answer 1

I agree with the following points.

• We have to be more subjective than Stack Overflow.
• We need to gather experts.
• We've gotten way too emotional about what's on the site.
• Needless editing of other people's posts is disrespectful and needs to stop.

However, that said I think we do need to have limits. The point of this site is not so we can have another community for discussion. There are dozens of those. The point is to gather expert knowledge, and we do that here by questions and answers. I think that's our strength and we should stick to it. What does that mean?

• If you want to have a discussion about something, it needs to be asked as a question.
  • If there's no question you can make out of it, it needs to go somewhere else.
• Fuzzy questions are ok. I'm defining a fuzzy question as one where there are answers, but the "right" answer is entirely a matter of opinion. An example would be "What makes a good pitch for a new game?".
• Thinly disguised blog posts aren't questions. Ten lines of rant followed by a sentence that just happens to have a question mark at the end does not a a question make.

Which brings me to my main point about what should be closed. We have a close vote for "Subjective and Argumentative". Some questions are troll bait, and I really don't think we should have them on the site. My trivial example is "Why is D&D better than Vampire the Masquerade" (or vice-versa if you prefer). This question while it might get a useful answer or two, is going to get a whole lot of not useful answers, and cause more trouble than it's worth.

We want a great site that attracts experts. That means that not every question (or pseudo question) is going to be valid, but that doesn't mean we have to hate fun.

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Related:

• Discussion questions
• How much subjectiveness is OK?
• How should I approach editing?
• I figured out why the TTRPG vs. MMORPG question bothers me. Am I out to lunch?

Answer 2

I agree. We need to not allow excessively subjective topics that are just noise, but a number of the closures have not fallen into that category for me. We don't want volume of Q&A just to have volume, we want knowledge. I think looking at the original trinity is instructive - sure, it's "objective programming questions" but there's plenty of subjective "how do I do this better" stuff.

Looking at our closed questions - there's a number that don't in retrospect look to me like they should have been closed. There's more that were OK to close on being way too general, but I only see 1 or 2 ("Should a RPG be fun?") that I really think should be closed as subjective flame bait.

I think we should a) not mod-close, let the community close, unless it's CRITICAL - e.g. there's flags and crap urging us to take action and b) encourage the community to take it easy. Depending on how you define "subjective", every post on Stack Overflow is subjective - it's someone's opinion on a good logging tool, or how to best handle database cleanup. An opinion being involved doesn't make it subjective, having nothing but does. I think the real differentiator in practice is that if people really are making an answer it's a good question - if people are posting hundreds of comments in ghetto-discussion-forum style that means it's a subjective discussion.

And people are unused to the edit philosophy. On the one hand, there shouldn't be anything wrong with editing as long as it's not against the OP's wishes - I think the "RP edit mini-war" was the only case of that - but we should roll slow on it so that people can get over their initial fears. In the end, editing makes for a higher quality knowledge repo. But I agree we should go for "tell the OP to change it - then only change it yourself later." Exceptions for just plain typos and whatnot of course.

Answer 3

I think we should continue to push CW for questions that are looking to gather a list, or which are strictly subject (although I'm not sure where to draw the line on that second idea). People's voting behavior on that sort of question is a lot different from their voting behavior on other questions, and I think that needs to be recognized.

I DO think that we need to be a bit better about how we request CW status. It feels like we often vote to close while simultaneously leaving a terse "this should be CW" comment. Particularly for lower rep users (< 500), we should be using the term Community Wiki, and possibly pointing them in the direction of what they need to do (and mentioning why we think the post should be CW).

For posts that are unclear, or using broad terms, we should be asking for clarifications using examples. A comment like "What sort of roleplaying are you looking for? Immersion, acting, character simulation, social combat, etc.?" is probably more useful than directly criticizing choice of wording.

Finally, we should move away from long-form discussions in the comments section of questions. If you think a question is important for setting precedent, start a meta thread. Otherwise, let's try to do better about not belaboring the point.

It's okay if a couple of low quality questions make it into the site. Certainly much better than starting wars on a regular basis.