How can we improve this community? [closed]

Question

As a web developer I frequent a lot of Stack Exchange communities and never have I experienced one with such a community of judgement and nitpicking. Some of these exchanges don't even phrase topics as questions, but if you do that here you risk being down voted, or bombarded in the comments criticising your ability to communicate. RPGing is a conceptual topic, but if your answers and questions aren't as literal as possible you risk a flame war.

Is it that this particular community fosters this kind of fickle behaviour, or is it just the luck of the draw of personalities?

Personally I'm really frustrated - it's not fun to engage here when you have to agonize over your wording to avoid confrontation with people who can't see the forest for the trees.

I would like to be a regularly contributing member of this exchange, and I would love to help lift the dark cloud I see over this place. I am open to ideas and suggestions to uplift this community, either personally or as a whole.

PERSONAL EXAMPLE BY POPULAR REQUEST:

I recently posted a question in regards to a character mentioned in a campaign. I couldn't find him in the book and needed to know what page of the book, or what city I could find him in.

I wrote out: "What city is X in?" "Who is X?" "Where can I find x?" "What page of the book is x's bio on?" "Where is X in the book?" "Is X in City Y?"

And I didn't know what question to use because even though an intelligent human being would know what I wanted from all of those questions, I felt like if I didn't ask it the exact right way I would receive criticism instead of an answer.

Answer 1

Obviously no community is perfect and there's always room for progress.

In my experience, sustainable improvement follows a pattern of reflection on what's been happening, study of any relevant material, planning a course of action, acting on the plan, and then beginning again by reflecting on what effect the action has had.

Each Stack site has to go through this cycle on its own, because our subjects and communities are different. This is why RPG.SE enforces the network-wide comment guidelines more strictly than many other Stacks do, but also spent four years trying to accommodate a type of question which the rest of the network had given up on.

When citizens on RPG.SE ask for clarification and more details in a question, we're optimising for pearls based on years of experience with RPG questions in the Stack format. The RPG landscape is ridiculously broad, and even within a single system there's great variety in playstyles, goals, group compositions, and so forth. We regularly see cases where implying shared knowledge or assuming some common experience leads to lots of confusion. What's obvious and old hat to some is totally new and alien to others. This is very different from, say, a programming question which has a pretty strict set of possible variables and solutions which can be independently verified.

We frequently have meta discussions about specific problems we've identified on the site and share tools for making the site both friendlier and more efficient. Currently we're collaborating on a meta FAQ to help explain RPG.SE's reasons for embracing the network-wide policy of not expecting comments to explain downvotes; it's something that's been reviewed for years, and writing this answer made me realise we need to include this discussion of what voting means. I may even propose that we tag it as a FAQ.

However, I can't make any specific actionable suggestions to improve the community based on your "dark cloud" metaphor because it's unclear what specific actions you find objectionable. Apparently you're okay with that, and only want suggestions from people who already know what you're talking about; I hope I'm wrong in understanding your statements to mean that. Until you clarify the challenges you think the site is facing, many people will be unable to offer their insight and experience: we can't make useful, actionable plans without first reflecting on the reality of the situation we're hoping to change.

If the intent of your question is to get people to say what they think is wrong, we've tried that, it's a mess. Please, express your concerns so we can face them with a shared understanding of what the problem is or we'll be talking at cross-purposes. What's obvious to you may be obscured and subtle to others.

Answer 2

I'm going to attempt an answer to this question by challenging the frame:

Is there a problem?

You describe a "culture of judgement and nitpicking". To test this, I decided to look at the three questions at the bottom of the main page at the time of writing (1, 2, 3). I focused on the question, and first few answers.

The first question received no comments, but was edited by a moderator for clarity. The user did not challenge the edit, so I think that it is safe to assume that they were happy with it. Users commented on the accepted answer, asking the answerer for extra information and clarifications. These were added, improving the answer. Answers that did not answer the question (as clarified in the edit) were downvoted, as per SE policy.

The second question was edited by the OP, to add additional detail, then by a moderator to add extra tags. The question received an answer that was accepted. No comments.

The third question was edited by another user for clarity. The accepted answer received a comment asking for additional information, which the answerer duly added, improving the answer. The other answer received no comments.

Analysis

In this, albeit limited, survey of questions and answers on the SE, I found litte evidence of nitpicking or judgement. What I have noticed is a culture of frequent editing of other's posts, and comments asking for additional information. I do not believe that editing a post to improve it can be deemed "nitpicking", particularly when such edits have to be approved, and can be rolled back by the OP. Similarly, comments asking for additional information or clarification are useful for both askers and answerers to improve their posts.

Your Example

Forgive me if I misunderstand you, but it seems that you did not receive "criticism instead of an answer", but thought that you would if you posted the question. My advice is to post the question, and see what happens. I have often seen in this meta (although I can't find an example right now), questions along the lines of "Can I ask this question?". The answer is almost always the same: ask it, and find out.

Could we do better?

There are certainly areas to improve. For example, the Stack can be a bit baffling for new users. Perhaps we are a little to quick to edit, or comment, but overall I have found this a very welcoming community to be part of.