Someone asked a question about the D&D 3.5e spell Mage's Magnificent Mansion, which can be found under that name in the online SRD. An edit was then requested to change the name to Morkenkainen's Magnificent Mansion; the name under which the spell can be found in the Player's Handbook.
I have no idea which of the two would be better/prefered here and would like to hear what others would think is better.
I don’t think it matters; the names are distinctly similar enough that it’s unlikely to cause confusion, particularly with those who have even a passing familiarity with the SRD. I definitely don’t think it’s warranted to edit someone else’s question to make that change; I would have rejected that change if I’d seen it in the review queue.
For the sake of those with zero familiarity, though, I tend to try to just keep things consistent. If someone asks a question about Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion, I won’t have my answer randomly talk about mage’s magnificent mansion – I imagine that would be confusing for some readers. And vice versa, of course – if the question uses mage’s magnificent mansion, then so will I.
When asking a question, I’d probably use the SRD name, just because it’s easier to remember how to spell most of the time...
An edit should not replace OP's language unless that language is wrong or unclear. As @KRyan and @doppelgreener have pointed out, neither was the case with linked question.
The best option when something as specific as spell names are "distinctly similar" may be to use a footnote. Another option would be to add a parenthetical reference of the alternate directly following the first in-text use of the term. In these ways, searches for either term will return the appropriate results. This is not a requirement, but a best practice.
With the linked question, no change would be made to the title, but the first sentence would read either:
... if somebody tried to dispel Mage's Magnificent Mansion1 ...
- Called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion in the PHB
or
... if somebody tried to dispel Mage's Magnificent Mansion (called Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion in the PHB) ...
Vice-versa with SRD if OP used the book term.
The first rule should be respect and consistency, just like in the american versus british english debate:
Respect the querent's language and try to maintain it.
Beyond that, edits which only edit the proper nouns of the question are insufficient and bad.
For answers, consistency with the querent's jargon is important, but if you want to mention the alternate wording (especially if it's a gotcha when searching) that's fine. It may be worth a comment asking a respondent to update their language to match the querent's if the differences are incomprehensible.
If it's a question about D&D 3.5e and they've used an incomplete reference from another source, it's legitimate to edit the question to use the names that appear in the actual game. Conversely, if they specifically ask about the SRD, then it's appropriate to alter any references to D&D 3.5e material to match what's actually in the SRD.
Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 and the d20 System Reference Document are two different things — the former is a roleplaying game, the latter is a 3rd-party designers' reference document that is deliberately altered and incomplete, with spell names in particular being deliberately shortened or altered to remove product identity.
