This was prompted by Mid-to-late 1970's Space Based RPG: what was it?, a question I've put on hold briefly so we can assess clean-up. The question needs some refinement (and this question will be updated later to provide guidance on what's useful to specify in an ID question), but the most alarming development was that every answer was basically just this:
I think it's {game name}.
{cover image}
(One answer mentions one feature in common; another answer mentions multiple.)
Another problem here is all of those answers are upvoted multiple times. Two of them have one downvote each. This isn't good. This is really bad. (To the community's credit, two answers were downvoted and deleted which were even worse than the quote above.)
If I sound alarmed, I am: answers not meeting basic quality expectations, and voters not enforcing and demanding those expectations, was what lead to the community voting that game system recommendations was no longer a viable topic here. I really want to see product identifications continue to have high quality expectations for answers and from voting and not head in the same direction.
What we need from answers to identification requests
When answering a product identification request, we need you to express why you think the identification you found is the appropriate one. You did the research effort, and you should be explaining to us what is with this product such that we can be confident you're right (or wrong). One of our post notices (called "insufficient explanation" in our mod tools) says this:
We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer; explain why your answer is right, ideally with citations. Answers that don't include explanations may be removed.
We can't go by the gut feeling or guess of some random person on the internet saying "I think it's this." We need you to give us confidence in what you're saying being the right thing.
Voters: Please downvote answers that have no explanation.
Dear voters: the entire community depends on you to enforce these expectations. If an answer doesn't include evidence and a convincing argument inside that answer that makes you think the answer might be right, downvote it. Request they improve, request they provide explanation and an argumentation case that can demonstrate this is the right product.
Please do this even if you think it's the right product from your personal knowledge. We need answers to meet a default quality bar, and "I think it's this" is not past that quality bar, nor anywhere near it. (In fact it's so not-above-our-quality-bar that if this were an Olympic event, those answers would be a misinformed athlete doing limbo at the high jump qualifiers.)
