26
votes
What's so problematic about a recommendation question having potentially hundreds of answers, anyway?
Why do these questions get closed?
We close these questions because they're list questions, which we declared as off topic in 2010. List questions tend to break our Q&A format: there's no single ...
- 36.9k
18
votes
Accepted
Community self-evaluation: How are we doing with game recommendations?
Our guidelines serve two masters, and neither well:
Helping the asker find a game or games that will suit what they are aiming to do.
Ensuring that we can meaningfully judge and vote on the answers.
...
- 239k
17
votes
What's so problematic about a recommendation question having potentially hundreds of answers, anyway?
This is what forums are good at
RPG Stack Exchange hasn't evolved mechanisms to accommodate people who really don't have any more detailed requirements because there are already a hundred and one ...
- 239k
17
votes
Accepted
Is it good to use a Q&A to help other users discover a system?
You can ask real, relatively specific questions (and answer them)
Quoting from Brian Ballsun-Stanton's answer to "I want to write a Q&A: how do I go about doing that?":
Find real, ...
- 47.8k
16
votes
Accepted
Accepting an answer on a game-recommendation question
You accept the answer that is most useful to you. If no answer is useful to you then you probably want to edit your question or post a comment on it to specify what about the current answers does not ...
- 4,600
14
votes
Game-rec and designer intent
No, game-rec wants what actually works, not what is supposed to work
The game-rec rules rely on one simple premise: you, or someone you can point to, has actually tried what you recommend, and it ...
- 318k
14
votes
What's so problematic about a recommendation question having potentially hundreds of answers, anyway?
To elaborate on doppelgreener's answer, I'd like to focus on the fact that StackExchange's goal is to be a repository of experts and expertise.
When a recommendation question contains detailed ...
- 10.3k
13
votes
Can we respond to a closed recommendation question by self-answering another question?
To SSD's points:
Does [this Q&A] avoid the problems, and so make it ok?
It might. If nothing else, it's a new approach to an old problem: users want to ask game-rec questions, users want to ...
nitsua60Mod
- 98.7k
12
votes
Two Answers - One Deleted - What's the difference?
It's absolutely crucial that game-rec questions draw on experience (your own or someone else's) with the querent's criteria. In your answer I see your experience with DFRPG, but no mention of having ...
- 52.7k
12
votes
Is it good to use a Q&A to help other users discover a system?
No, do not use a self-answered game-id question for this
We don't do game recommendations any more, and trying to "sneak in" game-rec questions as game-identification will just end up causing trouble ...
- 172k
11
votes
RPG hacks as answers to game recommendation questions
Remember the game-rec rules. You have to have done it or seen it done. Given that criterion, and assuming the question itself doesn't put it out of scope by saying "no really, something published" ...
- 172k
11
votes
I want to ask for recommendations, but that's off topic. Is there any way to ask my question?
There are two major ways to get your recommendation question asked and answered.
1. Rephrase the request as a problem to be solved
Recommendations can almost always be rephrased by stepping back and ...
- 239k
10
votes
Community self-evaluation: How are we doing with game recommendations?
The current guidelines promote objectivity and answers backed up with experience and rationale. Having been on open forums that discuss the same topics, I think this isn't just a good thing, it's ...
- 734
10
votes
Accepting an answer on a game-recommendation question
As Mourdos said, you accept the answer most useful to you. (In fact in general I strongly agree with his answer here.) You're under no time pressure or obligation to accept an answer. What you accept ...
- 36.9k
10
votes
Accepted
The policy change regarding game-rec questions needs review
The mods were surprised by the overwhelming support for the view that "the guidelines don't work and should be abandoned" (+19/−3, and twice the score of any other feedback).
Given the steadily ...
- 239k
9
votes
Overly broad game recs are being reopened and left open
This is a good point. The other mods and I tend to exercise our closes and reopens "once only", so once we've closed a question, if the community reopens, we just grouse and move on, mainly because ...
- 172k
8
votes
Community self-evaluation: How are we doing with game recommendations?
(Note: Please read the entire FAQ linked below on game-recs, including the Meta.SE blog post and linked Arqade metas linked from it, to be sufficiently informed for your opinion to be taken seriously ...
- 172k
8
votes
Two Answers - One Deleted - What's the difference?
What Makes A Good Game-Rec Answer
As we have said many times in our guidance on game-rec questions, they (like all subjective Q&A on the site) need to adhere to core SE guidance on Good ...
- 172k
8
votes
The policy change regarding game-rec questions needs review
I agree this was unfortunate and inappropriate from the standpoint of jurisprudence. Nonetheless, it's not clear to me that proper procedure would have yielded a different result and the ...
- 65.8k
8
votes
Can we clarify Game Recommendation/Shopping questions further?
I've added the following summary to the top of Are Game Recommendation Questions On Topic, Revisited:
This means the following kinds of questions are off topic:
I want to play (details) ...
- 36.9k
7
votes
Accepted
Permanent banner for game-recommendation tag
Done, tweaked as follows:
As this is a game-recommendation question, please adhere to the FAQ, the rules for subjective questions as outlined in Good Subjective, Bad Subjective and our rules for ...
- 101
7
votes
Community self-evaluation: How are we doing with game recommendations?
This answer does not entirely reflect my personal opinion, but I feel that it is important for the community to be able to vote on the idea of banning game-recs entirely.
We should ban game-recs ...
- 141k
7
votes
"Grim & gritty" in game recommendations
The Question You Asked But Don't Really Have - "What's Grim And Gritty?"
It means what it means to the poster.
Whenever any poster uses a term you think is ambiguous, ask them to clarify it.
That ...
- 172k
7
votes
What actually is a shopping question?
This question seems to imply that the terms "shopping question" and "game recommendation" are synonyms. A game recommendation is exactly what it says, a question asking for a recommendation on what ...
- 1,328
7
votes
Accepted
Community Cleanup Duty: Game Recommendations
We are equipped to handle this through community moderation.
We have pretty low volume review queues here. SSD wrote in this answer:
Reviewers can just take bites out of it, and bow out when decision ...
- 107k
6
votes
Game-rec and designer intent
Game-rec guidelines allow citing other people's experience using a game for the exact use described in a question. Designers are people too.
In practice it's very rare for there to exist clear, ...
- 239k
6
votes
How should we deal with game-recs now that we have a notice?
I think this is a case where flagging would be silly. It makes for an odd workflow for mods and puts a permanent black mark on the record of the user who asked a question that is quite likely in ...
- 102k
6
votes
Accepted
Are the game-rec guidelines strictly equivalent to GS/BS?
The article Good Subjective, Bad Subjective is targeted at questions. But it's advice provides an outline of what we want out of answers (i.e. The Back it Up! Principle).
Specifically:
Back It Up! ...
- 43.8k
5
votes
RPG hacks as answers to game recommendation questions
Hacks are totally appropriate for game rec. TRPGs are a heavily DIY-based culture. From a pure "System Does Matter" perspective, it's often better to recommend a way to reskin and tweak a system that'...
- 28.3k
5
votes
Community self-evaluation: How are we doing with game recommendations?
I think our current guidelines are working well and the moderation is effective. I have had a game-req question answered usefully this year, and learned a lot from other people's recommendation ...
- 65.8k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible