How should I handle my question about whether hearing is useful in spotting a hiding creature?

Question

I wanted to ask a question that goes against something that some (many? a lot? most?) DMs believe. I thought it would be best to be clear and thorough in explaining why I came to the conclusion I did, then asked the question as "is there something wrong with this?"

Here is the question in question: When spotting a hiding creature, is hearing useful?

Several users pointed out that it might be better to change the question to reflect the title, and cut out 95% of the post and make it an answer.

However to me this has several problems. I am interested only in answers that address the points, however if my question is posted as an answer, there is unlikely to be any discussion of the points on the question. The answer is likely to be downvoted until hidden. Other answers are unlikely to actually address the points.

How should this question be dealt with? I want to know if there is a problem with this logic, I am not interested in a generic copy paste of the rules that doesn't solve anything.

Answer 1

Separate argument from explanation.

The question contains two things: one is a completely valid question with explaining how this became to be an issue, the second is an answer to the question that builds an argumentative structure that answers the issue. You should separate the argument from the explanation.

The difference is in the intent: an argument attempts to settle whether or not some claim is true, and an explanation attempts to provide understanding of the event.

In your conclusions that follow your descriptions, you are using an argumentative structure that tries to convince the reader. This argumentative structure belongs to an answer.

To make this more actionable let us look at when your explanation starts to become an argument, this is the first instance:

This clearly divides the mechanics:

• You can't hide if you can be clearly seen
• You have to stay quiet, or you give away your position

Instead of explaining how you came to understand the issue, you start to make assertions that mean to convince the reader that your way of understanding the issue is correct. You are starting to build an answer with an argument that begs the question. At the end of your argumentative structure, you are asking a question that already assumes that its premises are true (detecting a hiding creature is a purely visual perception check, so you can't detect a hiding creature with hearing).

once again matching up with our expectation that hiding means you aren't making sound.
(emphasis mine)

With this structure you are hoping to influence the answers to your question. As Hey I Can Chan points out in their comment:

Why the resistance to asking something like It seems that the rules technically allow a creature to a remain hidden while making noise, its noise not revealing its location. Do the rules directly address the role of hearing in the stealth process? and seeing what others say first?