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If it is really a case of asking about the solution instead of the problem, it's OK to leave comments of the form "Can you state the real problem you're trying to solve so we can suggest alternate solutions?" or similar requests for more information (if it's relevant/needed).
However, in some cases there is already a solution domain chosen and that's OK. ...
answered Feb 15 '14 at 19:21
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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43
You should not answer in comments. Not partial answers, not full answers. Not "leads on" an answer. Not "I would answer but I'm tired/just woke up/am drunk so I'll just say this..." Not answers that you think aren’t good enough to post as answers. Not little helpful tips, not helpful suggestions, not useful anecdotes. These will be deleted. Answer in ...
answered Oct 16 '16 at 4:05
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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42
If you play RPGs, you're an expert and welcome.
The line "Asking Expert questions, getting expert answers" has a particular history dating to when it was just the original three sites. "Expert questions" was important because they didn't want to teach askers the basics of how to program. Being an expert meant that you already knew how to program and what ...
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No, not unless they are truly RPG-centric.
A Summary: What to do
Add a section to our FAQ defining what is on topic or off topic.
My second draft of the wording (that I'm still not completely satisfied with):
Question about a general real-world topic such as history, geography or economics, whilst relevant to RPGs, may be off topic if they are not RPG-...
36
Some resources: Challenging the frame of a question.
First, we require that people Be Nice. Insulting other play styles isn't being nice.
Second, if you are going to dissent in an answer, make sure to restate your assumptions. People may not share (or agree with) your model of gaming. Being clear in why you are answering in that particular way.
Third, ...
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They're not the same
This is a common equivalence that I've seen applied too, but it's a false equivalence. The idea seems to be that every GM could rule differently, so the answer is as diverse as the number of GMs in the world, so it must be primarily opinion-based, right?
But that doesn't quite pan out in practice in regards to how to use our Primarily ...
35
A good charop question is either very specific or very general. If you fall in between you've entered the no mans land of gimmie the codez.
There are 3 types of char-op questions that fall into the "good" category in my mind:
I'm 90% complete and I need help making the final selection or two. These kinds of questions are generally answerable because they ...
34
It's not appropriate to edit based on a guess. Make the OP clarify the question themselves.
Why? Because we're also trying to train new users on how to use the site. And worst case, you bait people into bad answers when you guess wrong.
If the OP never bothers to come back to clarify their question - then what good are answers going to do them anyway? ...
answered Mar 23 '17 at 12:12
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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33
Close them until the author narrows the scope of their question. It shows a lack of effort on the part of the author in identifying their problem space and encourages them to actually do some research on their questions before asking them.
More importantly DO NOT ANSWER A POORLY DEFINED QUESTION. This merely encourages people to not fix their question. The ...
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If, after well articulated research, you can reasonably suggest there's something missing for what's being sought in the originating system, and the querent doesn't explicitly forbid homebrew, you can answer with a "Your system doesn't support your request, but here is some homebrew I wrote, and here's how it played out in a game I ran."
That last bit is ...
33
This is much like the questions we get on religious sites about whether one sect should be excluded or given preference to another. The SE policy on this for religious sites is that all sects are created equal for the purpose of the site and if you really can't get on board with that, then you can find the door.
That said, one of the things that the ...
32
Code formatting should never be used for non-code markup.
Semantic markup (like code tags) was not added just to make HTML pages pretty, it was added to make the structural meaning of parts of the page comprehensible to software so that it can be rendered correctly. Misusing it can have unexpected consequences, especially for users who use accessibility ...
31
I feel that other formatting would be more appropriate than code tags. It's highly unusual for that formatting style to be used for every book title and game term, and some users may not appreciate their questions and answers being edited to include a non-standard formatting type.
It doesn't adhere to the HTML5 specification for the 'code' element, which ...
31
In my opinion:
Answers should actually answer the question. This is non-negotiable.
The real value of multiple answers is different perspectives.
I mean, really: five or ten answers just rewriting the same post are pretty worthless! All this really does is make sure the top 1-2 answers keep getting all the upvotes while all the other ones languish (because ...
28
I'll step in and provide some background here -- the reason why you see things that resemble "partial answers" in other Stacks is because troubleshooting is an iterative process. "Try turning it off and on again" is not an answer -- yet it may not be possible for anyone to answer the question well without the querent being guided through troubleshooting ...
28
Don't guess
It's up to the asker to tag the question with the correct system. In the case of a new community member who doesn't yet understand this responsibility, it's up to the community to determine from the asker the system in the question.
If you are absolutely certain of the unnamed system (having eliminated all other possibilities because of an ...
25
Only specific kinds of alignment questions are on topic.
There are a variety of kinds of alignment questions, some of which can be constructively handled by our site and some that can not. There's not really a need for special rules for alignment questions; these are covered by the usual close rules (too broad, opinion based, etc.) but it can be hard to see ...
answered Feb 6 '15 at 19:51
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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24
The policy as stated is pretty clear. But.
Generally the policy is not enforced. Enforcing it capriciously is not appropriate and having a blanket "no swearing" policy is wrongheaded at best.
However, there is a much bigger issue here. Editing posts for language without bothering to edit the rest of the post. I don't care if we're going to edit posts for ...
24
Stack Exchange is a rigorous Q&A community with a mission to build up a reliable knowledge base for future readers. It's sort of like Wikipedia in that regard. To accomplish this mission we need our answers to be clearly backed up so visitors can verify our answers for themselves. Without any citation we are just random people on the internet and our ...
22
IMHO, requests for an open-ended list of occurrences are pretty much always off-topic for SE sites. Scoping them narrowly enough can make them answerable; it's not entirely clear that (a) this results in valuable, helpful content, or (b) that this helps the OP in what he's looking for.
So if a question that just asks for "what are examples of...?", then I ...
22
The 5 minute window is a pain - but note that the deletion limit is much longer.
The propensity of mxyzplk to delete comments on the basis of simply being "too forum like" in the absence of actual complaint... it's bad form.
Many times, comments clarify what's in the answer, and should be incorporated.
In others, they are tangential information. ...
22
We close Question A as a duplicate of Question B only when all of the following is true:
It's the same question, or Question A is already covered obviously as a subset of Question B. Obvious here means I can tell at a glance it's there.
Question B has an obvious answer to Question A. Obvious here means I get a straightforward answer without hard searching — ...
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No really, we mean it.
When, in the course of natural events (i.e. not searching specifically for it) you see signs of a poorly edited-in edit, correct it.
And regarding d7's claim about the flamethrower squad being called to deal with threads...
I can only allude to the Dragonriders of Pern, burning Thread.
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Most basic questions have been addressed network-wide on Meta Stack Overflow. Answer to this one is "no." Any way to send a personal message to another user?
The consistent response to this is that it's a bad idea, because:
It could hide information from the community: useful information transmitted privately is unavailable to other readers, ...
answered Jan 25 '12 at 12:49
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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19
After discussion, the mods believe we should stick to the standard SE "no expletives" policy to promote a friendlier and more civil site.
As on English.SE, exceptions can be made for actual technical terms. If, as seems oddly likely, there is "An Apocalypse World move called Fuckbunny" then that can be used in the technical sense in a question. Or a direct ...
answered May 21 '14 at 4:17
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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18
This topic was initially addressed in the beginning days of the site under How much subjectiveness is OK? but our understanding of this issue and best practices surrounding it have changed somewhat so this is the new normative guidance on RPG.SE and subjective questions.
Some, but not all, subjective questions are on topic, and there are rules you need to ...
answered Nov 25 '13 at 3:47
mxyzplk says reinstate Monica
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18
People come here with questions (often from Google) to find answers. They shouldn't have to sort through a pile of "Edit", "Edit 2" amendments to work out what the answer is. There should be a straightforward question, and a straightforward answer.
Consider the case of an answer saying something like this:
The answer is A.
Edit: Considering your ...
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I admit, I'm a long time lurker and a relatively new joiner. That said, I think pragmatism is an operative word. Unfortunately, this also introduces individual judgment, cultural variance, and a number of vagaries influenced by demographics.
While I'd like to avoid a deep dive into all that is profanity, I would like to point out that there is nuance here ...
18
We are all roleplayers, and there is a lot of room in this tent for the many ways we play. We have no need for comments that suggest there is one universal "true" way to play RPGs, disparage other playstyles as "wrong", or erase our or others' preferred ways of playing by asserting or implying that they don't exist; regardless of whether the motive is ...
18
Community Wiki seems pointless.
After reading through the history of CW on RPG.SE, and the blog post about CW, it seems like there really isn't much use for Community Wiki here. The main arguments that I have for this actually come straight from that blog post:
If a question is valuable enough that you believe it belongs on the site, chances are you don'...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
