Questions which do not have research are normally closed/deleted by moderators. Down voting is one option, but the correct option is closing. That said, it is not the only reason the questions you mention should be closed as off topic.
There are 3 reasons I can think of right now: - Information already exists and is easily obtainable (outside the scope of SE sites). - Any additional information will be purely opinion. (Things like "it is fun" and "it has lots of X". Things like "It has 5 times more X than Y" would not be opinion). - It falls under the ["Shopping advice and recommendations"](http://gaming.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) restriction.
Do you have link for the down voted statement?
I have spent much more time on Stack Overflow, and I have seen it fairly often.
This is a proposal to add the following new close reason.
no prior research/work
The question refers to a complex problem where the asker has shown no evidence of prior research or work.
Reasoning
Recently, Stack Overflow has been victim to a lot of questions where students post full h...
Possible Duplicate:
How should we deal with Google questions?
Fairly often, I come across questions that can literally be answered by typing the key words of the question title into Google and picking any of the first page results. Some examples of what I am talking about:
Stupid Sor...
Second one states "By the way, I don't think there is a hard rule here. Someone else might vote to close independently from that. And even I wouldn't do the same thing in every occasion, we're not robots. I'd go case by case."
Generally Meta posts are the suggested rules to follow. These are supper seeded by the site specific rules, which indicate that this particular subject is off topic. The rule "Blatantly off-topic" seems best, as it is not about gaming dictionary.reference.com/browse/gaming, it is about games.
The hard part is the subtly between the two words
A description of a game is not asking about playing a game (or gaming).
As I remember, the point of your post meta post is to determine what should be done with the questions. I think we are clear on that point. As for explaining it to others, that is not something I am concerned about. If there are issues you can always send them a link to my answer. metaSE posts are supper ceded by site rules, which indicate that the questions are off topic. As for closing the questions because they do not indicate research, I already have 2 meta posts which indicate that yes they should be closed, or down vote and they might need to be closed.
Okay, if you're not interested in explaining your reasoning, I'm not interested in debating this further. Come back when you have more investment in the site.
As it stands, your reasoning is faulty, and non-existant.
At the moment, your argument is, "It's off-topic because I said so."
No, my reason is "It is off-topic because the rules of the site say it is and because they are not asking a legitimate question." If you have a reasonable counter example, then please share. If you do not understand my statements then please ask for clarification.
No, you keep changing my words, which is making this harder than it needs to be. Rules state the following topics as acceptable: Gameplay strategies and tactics Puzzle solving or obstacle clearing Game mechanics and terminology Plot and characters in games Game-specific hardware and utilities
The questions are regarding descriptions of the game, not questions about how things work in the game.
As such they are off topic because they are not related to gaming. Asking the question "What game mechanics does GameX employ?" is too broad.
You skipped some important words there. The rules state "If your question generally covers things such as [topic list], then you are in the right place to ask your question"
It is not intended to be a comprehensive list of allowed topics, and should not be read as such
If your question generally covers things such as …
Gameplay strategies and tactics Puzzle solving or obstacle clearing Game mechanics and terminology Plot and characters in games Game-specific hardware and utilities …then you are in the right place to ask your question!
Are you saying that asking for a description of a game is similar to the topics listed?
In any case, we explicitly allow other topics that are related more to the descriptions of games than playing them, including [game-identification] (with some restrictions) and [version-differences]
@Trisped "Plot and characters", for example, relates more to describing a game than to playing it
I find it ironic, game-identification is explicitly on the list of not allowed: "Requests for game identification based on personal recollection alone"
Please note, however, that site policies prohibit questions of the following types:
Game and Mod Development (try the Game Development Stack Exchange instead) Speculative questions about developer intent, with respect to both mechanics and narrative Requests for game identification based on personal recollection alone Catalogues (listing games that fit specific criteria or are like an existing game) Shopping advice and recommendations Speculation of the future of the industry and of upcoming releases
@Trisped That's why I said "with some restrictions". You need something besides personal recollection. Specifically, an audio/visual artifact from the game
In any case, we explicitly allow other topics that are related more to the descriptions of games than playing them, including [game-identification] (with some restrictions) and [version-differences]
Ok, do you have any others besides the "Which game is this?" (which is not a game description type question, nor does it related to game descriptions) or the "what is new in game x version y?" (which is a question which is not easily search for (in many cases) and falls under the "Game mechanics and terminology" topic)?
To clarify, "Which game is this?" is a game lookup question.
Questions related to the description of the game or finding a description of a game. Since our definitions did not line up, I was looking for more examples (to go with your statement "I'm asserting that two of the listed allowed topics are in fact sufficiently similar to "game description" And that, in addition, we allow other "game description"-type questions") so I could get a better idea of what I was missing.
I can see that they are all related to games, but related to descriptions of games I cannot see.
@Trisped "game description type questions are questions related to (finding) the description of a game" doesn't tell me anything. You just restated the question
Actually, I don't think this difference in how we define things really matters. The fact is that this site allows questions about video games, as long as they aren't in the list of disallowed topics. You're overthinking the strict definitions of the individual examples given of allowed topics.
@murgatroid99 I disagree, the site does not allow questions about video games. It allows specific questions about video games, but not any question about video games.
As for your statement about what I consider to be part of the "game description type questions", that is my point, I cannot think of anything that is related to the description of the game than the description of the game. Weather it is finding a game based on description, finding a description based on a game, or asking questions about the description of a game.
Now I see that you added the work "finding" which has changed the meaning of my original statement, but perhaps more context would be helpful?
This is a proposal to add the following new close reason.
no prior research/work
The question refers to a complex problem where the asker has shown no evidence of prior research or work.
Reasoning
Recently, Stack Overflow has been victim to a lot of questions where students post full h...
Possible Duplicate:
How should we deal with Google questions?
Fairly often, I come across questions that can literally be answered by typing the key words of the question title into Google and picking any of the first page results. Some examples of what I am talking about:
Stupid Sor...
Either answer nothing, or give a correct answer. But please do not answer
Tried www.google.com?
I hate such useless posts.
Discusion about http://meta.gaming.st…