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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 objectively correct answer, and no answer is better or worse than any other, so long as it simply meets the criteria provided. Our voting and accepted answer ...

I'm going to speak to the general policy question. I don't think the example cited is a very good question yet (it needs more than one recommendation criteria) but that's a discussion which should take place in comments, chat, or a meta post set aside for that purpose (and I'm not a 5e expert, so I probably shouldn't hold forth on it there either). We close ...

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 sites that do accommodate those people's needs: forums and other discussion sites, that are excellent for soliciting long lists of subjective recommendations. RPG....

Bounded list questions are on-topic But that doesn't necessarily make them 'good' questions. But 'good' is also a very subjective thing. Folks can think "Hey, I like this, it's useful" and give it a +1. Others may think "Hey, this person is just asking us to do the work for them" and give it a -1. No one is right or wrong. It has nothing to do with how ...

I think this might be a good use of a single-answer Community Wiki, as the list would be relatively stable and wouldn't change simply by a drive-by reader's opinion, and would only need to be updated when new material is released. Having it be a CW would make it easier for low-rep users to do that updating, and also give a stronger signal that anonymous ...

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 requirements and criteria, expert opinion and experience can be used to give the best answer to that question. A list question that just wants as broad a list as ...

This is probably OK. A constrained list of a very particular type of information which is not likely to change often isn't going to cause the kind of practical problems as asking for an unbounded list. Making the answer CW mitigates one possible issue even more, by allowing the infrequent additions to be put right into the canonical answer instead of ...

List questions are as Shog9 describes in the Meta Stack Exchange question you linked, What is the definition of a list question?: they're the types of questions from our Don't Ask which lead to unbounded opinion collection in which every answer is equally correct. These are for example the "tell me your favourite X" or "what do you use for X?" questions, ...

Yes, that's a (small) problem (and potentially a slightly larger precedent-setting one too). List questions can be a problem for a few reasons, most often due to being unbounded, but also if the answers will just be minor variations on each other, as here. As far as I can tell, the actual "problem" is curiosity about how metric units work within the system, ...

We have a 'too broad' close reason. We should use it more often (and more on things that are broad, not just things that are hard). These questions are usually pretty terrible in a down-vote-worthy way cause they generally show no research effort and provide no metrics to gauge the quality of content by, but when they don't do that (and when related ...

I don't have much of an argument to make other than the reasoning in the linked meta, and the good reception the two linked canonical-list questions have gotten. But here it is, for people to vote for or against: About UA/unofficial classes and features Have a separate question for them to both avoid clutter, and to also allow that question/wiki to fit ...

No, resource questions—that aren't inherently too broad—should be normal, non-CW questions and their answers should almost always be normal, non-CW answers. We're actually okay with lists—so long as they are closed lists of reasonable length, such that one expert user could compile an answer that will stay good for a long time. The Amn question is a good ...

List-type questions can be okay. You said in your answer: We don't allow list questions because the list has to be maintained in order to be correct. This isn't the problem with them, though; many good answers are susceptible to needing maintenance. The problem is that if we had a question asking what kinds of weapons exist (so that someone can put them ...

At this point, the mods' position is that we'll review old CW posts as they come to our attention (which usually means "make the front page"). None of us have the time or interest to go through the full backlog of CW posts. So what does happen when we become aware of one of these legacy posts? I generally look at a few criteria before deciding whether or ...

The other question is a tool recommendation that was asked before tool recommendations became off-topic. I have voted to close accordingly. Note that in both cases, the question could have been either a too-broad list question or a tool-recommendation question. The question about concentration was treated as a tool-rec, and yours was treated as a list ...

Also keep in mind that "these other questions aren't closed" doesn't mean they're good questions. They might be from e.g. 2010 before we were clear on stuff. They may just have snuck by. Mods don't see every single question and answer on the site and the community doens't respond the same way to every single question and answer on the site. "Why is it ...

Well, this is a complicated one. First of all, I'm having difficulty looking past the current set of answers. They are almost all worthless... "Hey, X is a system that doesn't use dice! Here's the theme of the system!" The only one that even begins to talk about the mechanics is your GUMSHOE answer, and even that one doesn't go into a great deal of depth on ...

While I agree fully with BESW's answer as a general policy, I think there's room to be proactive about these sorts of things as well. Rather than let a question we know will be bad in the future sit around and, more likely than not, remain bad after said future date because nobody gets around to fixing it, you can help prevent some confusion by preemptively ...

Asking for a list is not OK. Link-only answers are not OK. Asking for a link to a list should be doubly triply not OK. We don't allow list questions because the list has to be maintained in order to be correct. We don't allow link-only answers because the link can rot. A link to a list that may or may not be maintained adequately is the least reliable ...

I think there are some exploratory "list" questions that are a good fit. There's "laundry" lists, which are just long lists of simple game names or whatever. Then there's design exploration questions like Brian's Useful mental frameworks during character creation seem like perfectly good content for the site. Design exploration falls under "by experts for ...

Well, so let's see. I understand Pat's action. I haven't closed a lot of the old ones I run across, mainly when they are a legitimate question that was CW-ed because people were CW-happy back in the day and you can't un-CW a question. I don't think we should close an existing one (and likely open a new one) in that case - may as well have the legit ...

I believe this question should be made into a CW because it is of general interest, and while it may not have a right answer, it is not subjective or argumentative. Either something is a diceless mechanic or it isn't. The answer to this question would be useful to anyone attempting to incorporate such a mechanic into their system. It seems that the ...

Yes, it has been historical locked.

It was originally closed because it was asking RPG.se to create a list, but it was the kind of list that would continue growing over the years. A list question that needs regular maintenance for its answers to stay correct is off-topic for RPG.se. As a general guideline, SEs want “timeless” questions—questions that will always be asked, and that have ...

Yes, I believe that "CW should be rare" isn't the same thing as "there should be no CW" and with this particular question, rewording to have a "best answer" is nonsensical and would basically compromise the usefulness of the question, which is a design exploration of how various diceless resolution methods behave in play. The question in this question is ...

No, It is not a good candidate for Community Wiki. Our guidance comes from the StackExchange blog. Some snippets: Community Wiki is not a “Quick Fix” Community wiki isn’t only abused for “fun” or “getting-to-know-you” stuff, though. Many sites propose using community wiki to allow content that is on-topic and useful, but can be considered ...

Attempting to generalize from one action taken isn't wise. That said, any CW question that ends up on the front page is far more likely to receive scrutiny to see if it currently matches the StackExchange community standards and our FAQ. Just because a question was acceptable a year ago does not mean that it continues to be so. The StackExchange platform ...

I am against list questions in general but it seems some of them are useful. Not the ones that expire a week after they're posted, though. Examples... Fighting Skills equivalent to skills Not a good candidate for a list. What are some good chance/luck-themed spells for Sorcerers? This one is about an edition with very little publishing still going on so ...