The [rules-as-written] tag - still useful or is it junk? [duplicate]

Question

A brief history of the [rules-as-written] tag (though all the discussion is ~2 years old):

• What, exactly, is the RAW tag for? (A good summary of what the tag's for and other meta Q's related to it)
• The [rules-as-written] tag is a good tag, but we've made it sick. Let's cure it (newer, but I don't understand what it's saying)
• The [rules] tag has just been burninated (again), let's blacklist it (a "rules" tag is not useful and is blacklisted)
• Are our implicit-information tagging practices becoming a problem? (somewhat related, though that Q's about several things)

I have noticed the [rules-as-written] tag is becoming extremely common on the site. We are up to 570 uses of it, are getting more than 1 new one a day on average, and it appears to me most of them are using it as a pure synonym of [rules] as in "I'm asking a question about some rules" - which is not useful per the third link above. Of course you're asking about the rules; most questions not about gm-techniques or problem-somethings are. Of course questions about the rules should be answered with rules citations or at worst table-tested rulings that meet Good Subjective, Bad Subjective criteria. Answers that just say "well this is what I might do" should be downvoted and potentially deleted as bad answers, whether there's a rules-as-written tag on the question or not.

The tag is adding nothing to the vast majority of these questions. It's really only useful for fringe questions that intend to say "look I know that this is a pedantic loophole but come on and work the logic puzzle with me won't you"? (e.g. commoner cannons). I'm not sure that's tag-worthy; having any tag starting with "rules" becomes a default thing someone thinks they should add to a question because it's a rules question.

Here's the recent ones.

1. Clarification of Blink Mechanics, or "Should Someone have Punched in my Sandwich?" - "How does this spell work, there was disagreement at my table?" Slam dunk rules quote answer. No real "RAW" lawyering required.

2. Can one enter Leomund's Tiny Hut from below? - "How does this spell work, there was disagreement at my table?" As the spell doesn't say, all the answers are supposition and arguing from other perspectives anyway.

3. Can monsters be summoned to appear in mid-air to drop onto enemies? - "My PCs are trying an exploit is there a rule that says they can't?" Slam dunk rules quote answer. No real "RAW" lawyering required.

4. Hostage Situation: Do you miss, hit the hostage, or chance of either one? - "We aren't sure if there's a rule." Sadly the answers tend to jibber jabber about related things but a clear answer to the stated question is hard to find in there. Several of the answers are definitely not pure RAW.

5. Can I use Relentless Endurance after failing the Relentless Rage Constitution saving throw? - Slam dunk rules quote answer. No real "RAW" lawyering required.

6. Can you take a Squire at 3rd level? - two rules conflict, which way to rule? Almost not RAW by definition, as the RAW is trivially in conflict.

And so on. I don't see what value [rules-as-written] is adding to these questions - zero from a searchability and SEO point of view clearly (it doesn't appear in the search keywords analytics mods have access to, though those are limited), and I don't see any in terms of scoping the question or answers as it's being used. 50% of the RAW-tagged questions above have non-RAW answers and the OP seems fine with it.

If you look at a similar roundup of "just plain rules questions" they seem to be being answered identically. Simple (or even not so simple) rules questions get rules quotes, where there's no clear RAW they get designer tweets, (hopefully tested) table interpretations, etc. I contend if you took the questions tagged RAW off our front page, plus all the rules questions not tagged raw, took off the tags and mixed them up you would not be able to discern any difference.

If we're just tacking it on and the community's not e.g. enforcing no answers that aren't pure RAW on those questions (and there's no indication on any of them the OP objects to the non-pure-RAW answers), I contend the tag has effectively become [rules] and is superfluous and should be burninated and blacklisted.

Your thoughts are welcome.

Answer 1

Burning the rules-as-written tag is extreme and would be damaging to the site; other, less drastic methods should be found to alleviate any problem behaviour arising from its over-broad use.

Eliminating the rules-as-written tag would censor RAW questions de facto, though not de jure. The tag focuses the attention of appropriate experts who would otherwise have to sift through many questions they're wholly uninterested in. Getting rid of it would alienate experts from a large and popular category of question, reducing the quality of the site's answers on this topic.

Unfortunately, using rules-as-written in place of rules also creates noise obscuring RAW questions from RAW experts. If this is really a common practice, it should be dealt with--but removing the tag entirely makes the actual problem (failing to attract experts in the RAW lens) worse, not better.

(I suspect that re-naming the tag would obfuscate the questions from experts almost as much, and should be considered a desperate measure.)

I don't have an answer to how this should accomplished, but that's not what the meta question's asking: it's asking if rules-as-written has outlived its usefulness and should be burned. I say, "rules-as-written is still very useful and should not be burnt."

Answer 2

About other uses of tagging

Beyond the inherent scoping and, well, tagging value of the tag, I am also confused by this claim:

zero [value] from a searchability and SEO point of view clearly

This is not clear to me. I don’t explicitly search for [rules-as-written] that often (though it has happened), but I have the tag favorited so that (if things were working correctly) such questions are called to my attention (and I want this feature back, which is why I have attempted to push that bug report as much as I can). If I did not spend as much time on this site as I do, such a search would be more likely.

As for SEO, “rules as written” is a term used in the broader RPG-playing community, at least within D&D. It is not implausible that it could be included in Google searches, though I have no independent knowledge that it actually is.

Answer 3

I would like to see evidence that the tag is misused.

As far as I can tell, the entirety of the alleged problem with the tag is the idea that it is used by people who don’t know what it means and don’t intend it. Yet in every single one of these discussions, we only get vague comments alluding to this problem, without any evidence. The last time we really dug down to look, someone came up with a list that they claimed were cases of misuse, and yet the majority of those questions that had accepted answers, had accepted the answer that followed the rules as written. Even, in some cases, above higher-rated answers that did not. Which is rather weak evidence.

The new list, in mxyzplk’s question, are all rules questions. As has been stated time and time again, rules questions do not require the RAW tag. However, questions with the RAW tag are pretty much always going to be rules questions. It is applied to rules questions to constrain what is being asked about: the text in the books themselves. Just because it’s a rules question does not make the RAW tag superfluous.

I don't see what value [rules-as-written] is adding to these questions [...] I don't see any in terms of scoping the question or answers as it's being used.

Every single one of those questions is asking about the rules text, and every one of the answers to it cites rules text. The tag indicates that this is not a question of what should be done, or what would you have done, but what the rules actually say. That is how they have been answered. How is this a problem, again?

And, most importantly, what evidence is there that this was not the intent of the author when the question was asked and tagged?

As for the list that mxyzplk offers:

1. Clarification of Blink Mechanics, or "Should Someone have Punched in my Sandwich?" - "How does this spell work, there was disagreement at my table?" Slam dunk rules quote answer. No real "RAW" lawyering required.

So? The querent did not know the answer when they asked the question (that’s why they asked), so they did not know if would be a “slam dunk rules answer.” It is not necessary to “lawyer” in every rules-as-written answer, only in those where, ya know, it’s necessary. If this question had turned out to have a torturous interaction of rules, then it would have been – and an answer that didn’t, and just went with what they considered sensible without reference to the rules, would be a bad one where otherwise it would be a fine one by the default assumptions of the site.

2. Can one enter Leomund's Tiny Hut from below? - "How does this spell work, there was disagreement at my table?" As the spell doesn't say, all the answers are supposition and arguing from other perspectives anyway.

Here we have a problem with voting practices (many upvotes on a question that explicitly eschewed the rules as written; I for one have downvoted it), but since there is not yet an accepted answer to the question, we have no evidence that this answer is something that the querent wanted or will accept. The other answers do a better job of trying to work with only what is made available by the rules.

Moreover, challenging the frame is still an option on rules-as-written questions. As noted in that meta, doing so is a risk (I would not have downvoted the answer on a question not tagged rules-as-written), but risks do sometimes pay off. I don’t think it should here, but that’s neither here nor there.

If the OP does accept this answer, then he or she has accepted a non-RAW answer, which definitely suggests that the rules-as-written tag was applied erroneously. It does not, however, make that conclusion absolutely certain: it could have originally been intended, and then the querent was convinced by the frame-challenge. Also possible. But I would support the removal of the rules-as-written tag from the question in that case.

3. Can monsters be summoned to appear in mid-air to drop onto enemies? - "My PCs are trying an exploit is there a rule that says they can't?" Slam dunk rules quote answer. No real "RAW" lawyering required.

As with #1.

4. Hostage Situation: Do you miss, hit the hostage, or chance of either one? - "We aren't sure if there's a rule." Sadly the answers tend to jibber jabber about related things but a clear answer to the stated question is hard to find in there. Several of the answers are definitely not pure RAW.

The accepted answer goes through all of the available rules, and only at the end notes that a gap in the rules and suggests a houserule. That is a reasonable frame-challenge in a rules-as-written answer. (On a sidenote, I think that the claim that there is no rule for that is not actually true, and intend to research that topic and either suggest an edit to that answer or offer my own.)

5. Can I use Relentless Endurance after failing the Relentless Rage Constitution saving throw? - Slam dunk rules quote answer. No real "RAW" lawyering required.

As with #1.

6. Can you take a Squire at 3rd level? - two rules conflict, which way to rule? Almost not RAW by definition, as the RAW is trivially in conflict.

As with #1.

Answer 4

Since there seems to be no consensus on anything other than the fact that we have very little data about any supposed issues with rules-as-written because all the data is in comment discussions that are getting cleaned up -- I have an even more radical proposal to share:

We put a hold on cleaning up comments on rules-as-written questions and answers until this situation is firmly resolved.

This would allow us to aggregate the commentary that is being said to provide insight into this issue over space and time, and then analyze it as a body of work instead of as a few, disjointed examples notable only because of their recency.

Answer 5

I do think we need a tag for the “let's play around with the literal interactions within this game”. It's significant enough as a playstyle, with its own particular issues and problems and needs, that it is often inherent to the subject of questions. And describing the core subject of questions is what tags are for.

The tag has value for those who invest in a RAW-centric way of playing also because it can be used to filter and highlight questions related to their expertise.

However, I do also think that it's being mistaken as a synonym for rules by novice RPGers unfamiliar with the particular meaning that “rules as written” has for established RPGers. And we obviously get a lot of novice RPGers interested in D&D 5e.

I have a proposal to fix that problem then:
Rename rules-as-written so that it doesn't contain the substring rules, and don't make rules-as-written a synonym. This will ensure that it's not used by those who are just looking for “the rules tag.”

The only downside is that, without a synonym containing the substring rules it becomes less discoverable. However, someone who deliberately wants answers that approach the question RAW-centrically will either find the correct tag, or failing that will declare this need in their question. Either way, questions truly about RAW will be explicitly so. We have enough tags that aren't discoverable without hanging around the site for a while that it's really not a problem to rename it to solve the “rules tag” problem.

Answer 6

I think generically having a Rules-As-Written tag makes sense, but I don't think it makes sense to try to insist it mean a specific thing or warrant heavy moderation or deletion of answers.

That is, if it were my site, the tag would just indicate the question is about the rules as written, and would prefer answers in that context.

One of the main reasons I tend to avoid participating in this site very much, is what seems to me like excessive negativity and limiting of discussions for reasons I feel often limits the usefulness of the site even if the intention is to make the content better.

So personally I'd keep the tag but go light on the moderation and downvoting of interesting answers that have non-RAW content.

Answer 7

[Addendum at the start: In the last few days the overall conversation has moved me toward a more moderate position on this tag's role--specifically I've been convinced of the tag's value in directing experts to their field of specialty, which makes me interested in seeking a less extreme fate for the tag. I will not delete this post however, as it is representing an option and argument that is important to have present in the discussion.]

Yes, the RAW tag is turning into noise, and its signal was never very strong to begin with.

RAW's never been a very useful tag for search-ability, or for connecting experts to questions in their field. The intent the tag is used to convey is just as easily communicated through writing "I'm interested in the written rules with as little interpretation as possible" or something similar in the body of the question.

Looking at RAW questions on the site (including the ones Mxy links above), often the accepted answer deals with intent and best practices. That means many querents who request RAW are also okay with less stringent answers, and the citizens who enforce the tag tend to not be the querents themselves. This indicates to me that in this instance a tag isn't the right tool for indicating the kind of answer you want to get.

Additionally, I've seen some debate over exactly what "rules as written" means outside of the tag use, with some folks feeling that it's actually impossible to entirely avoid interpretation of rules and so the phrase is just a matter of subjective degrees of what interpretations are "acceptable" or "unavoidable." Having querents put their request as a full sentence in the question text will help mitigate this kind of confusion.

If the problem with the tag is simply that new citizens don't know how to use it--well, we aren't consistently enforcing the proper use, which implies citizens who know about it don't care.

Whatever the cause of the tag's decline into noise, I'm not seeing it as a big loss. Put the poor thing out of its misery.

Answer 8

TL;DR -- Figure out what to do with existing uses of rules-as-written, then burninate/ban the tag, replacing it with a better tag -- likely by-the-book

This is a case of people who don't understand how the tag is intended to function -- i.e. splitting:

• A question about the rules that can be safely answered by a per-table house-rule or even an on-the-spot DM ruling (the "hey, this rule is broken, lets toss it and replace it with something else" answer), or is an "obvious case" -- we will get "obvious case" questions, especially for the larger systems out there, because there's simply so much material that people will not have run across something before and not know where to find it

from

• A question about the rules that is seeking the rule itself to be interpreted, irrespective of how stupid it may be in anyone's eyes

The new users on this site aren't grasping this difference, and thinking that rules-as-written is a synonym for rules. Pixie's suggested synonym of strict-rules-interpretation is a reasonable one, although I personally prefer Hey I Can Chan's suggestion of by-the-book.

While both suggestions disentangle the tag from the RAW vs. RAI debate, I feel that by-the-book is an easier to grasp name for a newcomer -- this is the tag you use when you want a "by the book" answer to your question. On the other hand, Pixie's strict-rules-interpretation seems long, and slightly obtuse, in addition to risking more misuse from newbies who see the word "rules" in it and go "oh, this tag is for rules questions" when it really isn't, just like rules-as-written isn't for straightforward rules questions or questions where RAI, rulings, and houserules are OK answers.

I'll leave the problem of what to do with the existing uses of rules-as-written up to you folks, though -- I'm not fully versed in how Stack tags work.

(Also: the intent of rules-as-written is not an issue -- SO has language-lawyer for similar reasons, and it has not given them this much grief as far as I can tell! This is most likely because the SO language-lawyer is derived from a term the community generally agrees upon the meaning of, instead of having a Stack-specific meaning, though.)