59
Let experts make expert decisions.
This is the whole point of Stack Exchange. The entire model is people who know what they're talking about answering questions. People come here to ask questions because they expect someone here is equipped to solve their problem.
As linksassin admitted:
Sure, in 99% of cases we may be right.
Then we should let our experts ...
19
Per a previous answer: only if 5e doesn't occur in a vacuum
If there are sufficient contextual clues to determine "5e of what?" such that a player of the game and that edition can clearly recognize them - then "5e" has communicated what it needs to (and adding the tag becomes helpful).
If 5e is referred to and no contextual clues are ...
18
Citing materials is a way for someone who doesn’t know there are different editions of the game to tell us what edition they’re using.
When I got into Dungeons & Dragons, I didn’t know there were editions. I went to my local game store and said “how do I get started with D&D?”, and the clerk said “Buy this” and handed me the Player’s Handbook. I didn’...
18
Yes we can, and we shouldn't even need to ask this meta in order to do that.
We already discussed that we should "let experts be experts". Stack Exchange isn't meant to run on absolute objective rigid adherence to black-and-white law, we're meant to be the people synthesizing our available guidance into considered and careful subjective judgement. ...
17
I believe changes to scores in policy metas should be observed as reflecting the ongoing, developing will of the community. Leaving these metas open and unlocked is useful for gauging that will, and I believe it's important for telling us when we need to take another look at something and have another discussion about it.
I'll get to a generalised proposal ...
17
Re-ask the question with the appropriate system tag
(The following is a summary of what, as far as I can tell, should be done under the current policies and is neither my endorsement nor lack of endorsement for those policies; debates of them are best left in the various Metas more specifically about them)
Given the current policy to never add a system tag ...
15
The system (and edition, if relevant) must be explicitly stated by the asker
The simplest expression of the current policy is:
The question asker must explicitly state the game system (and edition, for games with multiple editions) that they’re asking about.
Not all questions require a system to be specified in order to be clear. Some categories of questions,...
15
Here's how this breaks down:
We do not, in point of fact, have a problem with answers talking about designer reasons.
We do have a problem with answers making big claims without proportionate citation, and with misleading answers. This usually gets corrected by downvoting.
Questions asking about designer reasons were banned because, simply, we saw a ton of ...
15
I'm pretty much an outsider nowadays, so this is an outsiders perspective, with little to no regard to policy or how it should work:
The brand name "Cola" in my country is being used to describe any kind of drink that is brown, sugary and fizzling. If you order a "Cola" it is assumed you mean Coke. Once in a while a restaurant may not ...
14
Answering the individual questions
Note that these "answers" are informal and reflect what I have seen occur in the past with these types of situations; they do not reflect what has always happened or will always happen, only what I would call the "typical" results:
Is there any kind of official guidelines that govern policies?
Aside from ...
11
I will echo my answer here. It’s about tweets, but it applies to interviews.
Readers decide if answers provide valuable information.
Our goal is to help querents and future readers find solutions to their problems, and each person writing an answer is going to do that differently. When you write an answer, you decide what you think is the information ...
11
Once a re-re-revisit is posted, lock it for a week.
This lets people draft up answers and prevents things like Fastest Gun In The West. It means that there will be an exact time at which the question will be unlocked and answers can then be posted at roughly the same time.
People will probably have free time somewhere within a week to draft an answer, so ...
10
Wait an arbitrary (at least a month) amount of time until a clear winner emerges
Obviously, having voting end after a day or two is nonsense. Some people, who are active community members and have seen DGtS and formed opinions on it as it applies to this site, are not active every single day, or even each week. I suggest at least a month of time (which is ...
9
How shall we frame our upcoming revisit...?
With an eye toward the actual stakes.
Frankly, which way we end up going with DGtS isn't a huge matter for site health. Montagues argue that one way of handling it causes net good for the site while Capulets argue that's a net harm. If we change the practice those will swap. (I'm a Montague, by the way. Forrealz: ...
9
On second thought... is this important?
Don’t Guess the System is almost certainly due for a revisit regardless, and not only is it the only example of this that we have—it’s also just about the only conceivable controversy where this would even be a concern.
We simply don’t have policies as described in the question for much of anything—all of it is either
...
9
No, the ability to ask questions about a topic on Meta is not part of any policy.
Meta posts will always be able to decide individual cases
This didn't become a new part of the policy following KRyan's suggestion; it has always been part of the policy. Creating a meta post to propose something, reaching community consensus, and then acting on it is a ...
7
Please let’s not.
The entire point of that section of my answer was that isn’t worth anyone’s time or effort. It would be “an approach,” that would avoid the biggest problems with “just editing,” but it still isn’t a good idea.
Why? Because there is absolutely no value in doing so. The entire Stack Exchange model is about amplifying signal over noise. For ...
7
We should do nothing until the question is clarified.
Two instances of edits by different users accompanied by two rollbacks of the same user don't make an edit war. By majority vote, our current policy is to apply a principle of best judgement. However, it is a narrow vote that has been swinging in both directions on different occasions (it initially had ...
7
I think this is very much an important subject.
I also think that trying to raise it at this point—when we have only one example of the problem, and it’s this example, and that example is very much currently unresolved—is simply not going to work. The arguments are not going to be appropriately separated from the specific example; the highest-rated existing ...
6
(Non-D&D answer since this question is no longer D&D5-tagged.)
I think we've hit a point where different game systems have different standards and your answer should reflect that.
E.g.,
Modern D&D has a lot of rules, written by multiple authors, which accumulate over time.
There are official channels for rules updates and clarifications, which ...
5
Policy isn't a really useful term
Don't get me wrong, I see the appeal and I certainly have used it myself (and will probably do again). It is a nice hard edge by which to act or judge actions and that makes it easier. It's also an easy explanation to give, and we do find ourselves explaining certain things over an over again, so especially for those we land ...
5
On Rules, Policies, and Practices
Unlike a number of traditional forums and other places, RPG.SE (and other stacks) don’t really operate on a set fixture of hard rules (we have some, see below), we primarily operate on best practices. These practices are hard to articulate in completeness into words, so you won’t find a nice set of Q&A describing all of ...
5
If a question is unclear, close it until the querent engages and clarifies
That was the MO when I stumbled across this site over 5 years ago.
Perhaps our problem - as beautifuly illustrated by @Medix2's list of meta Q&As on this topic - is that we have, as a community, forgotten the KISS principle.
This SE didn't used to have any qualms about closing a ...
5
A resource list of previous, related posts
FAQ post and revisits:
What to do when an edit guesses the system being used rather than waiting for the querent to clarify?
Revisiting our "never guess the game system" policy
Re-revisiting the "don't guess the system" policy
What is the “Don’t Guess the System” policy?
General Discussion:
...
4
These questions should be unprotected going by the Privileges page
The Privileges page describes protected questions as follows:
[...] Questions should be protected when they are attracting poor answers from new users that exceed the volume which can be moderated in a timely manner.
Questions should be unprotected when they are no longer attracting large ...
4
Up front, just for some perspective, I want to point out that we don’t really have a problem here. Like, there isn’t a rash of ambiguously-history-or-intent questions that we need to deal with, there aren’t a bunch of history-of-gaming questions attracting the same kinds of problematic answers we saw with designer-intent, or a ton of solid history-of-gaming ...
3
Policies are rightly blunt to direct utility and support meta-discussion.
Policies are for in-the-moment decision making on the main-site. We defer to the law of policy to redirect the discussion to a place where we have a more open environment which is the meta-discussion.
We defer to the authority of policy on main-site because we want to prevent ...
2
Foreword: This post represents my view as a user not a moderator. It is largely a restatement of my view from the previous iteration of this meta.
Allowing '5e' as a statement of the system would be a detriment to our site
A brief summary of the reasons I believe it is a bad idea to allow this:
Multiple systems have a 5th edition
D&D is not the only ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
