TRPG General Chat

Akixkisu

10:08 AM

@ThomasMarkov the spoiler edit seems incomplete due to the title including the same information.

Thomas Markov

It’s progress, the exact details of the feature are hidden.

@AncientSwordRage Fact. I smashed upvote on that one pretty hard.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov that poor upvote button. It had a family....

doppelgreener

11:05 AM

I retitled this Curse of Strahd question (be warned: spoilers!) from an old title into a new one per a request from comments to not have spoilers in the title. Is that better or still spoilery?

Medix2

Does this sentence feel unsupported or just wrong to anybody else: "The most familiar is sexual dimorphism in many animal species: which is why female Dragonborn have breasts."

@doppelgreener I'm debating adding a line "Spoilers for the character [SPOILER] Baba Lysaga [SPOILER]" Using a spoilerblock

doppelgreener

@Medix2 [cough] do we wanna avoid that spoiler here

like i tried to do :P

that might be overdoing it though? you're either ready to read a question that spoils which character has shapechanging, or you're not, and once you click into the character name you now know who

we currently just do spoilers for the adventure or not at all

@Medix2 (gentle poke again to edit that out before the edit window's passed)

Medix2

Time limit reached

doppelgreener

rip

Medix2

I also don't know how much the name existing is a spoiler. But perhaps a lot

doppelgreener

11:19 AM

i mean, it's the entirety of the spoiler that was asked to not be in the title

Medix2

Fair, fair

doppelgreener

(that being X character can do Y)

@Medix2 @AncientSwordRage mind deleting a moderately spoilery message from chat? 🧹

Medix2

I'm just gonna keep debating commenting under Dale's answer

doppelgreener

actually it just clicked i never said what the character could do here in chat

@AncientSwordRage false alarm

@Medix2 yeah that paragraph is a stretch

(that's not even the why)

(i mean, they're lizards, there's a lot more "why" to be had there than just "oh, dimorphism")

Medix2

They're also anthropomorphic, so uh, of course they're like humans

Like, I guess you can say "members of a species look different because they look different" but I'd be confused

BESW

11:27 AM

I'm amused by 4e's "Okay so if anybody actually knows how dragonborn were made, they aren't telling, but one theory is that Io borrowed Moradin's template."

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener sure?

BESW

Like they obviously aren't lizards any more than dragons are lizards, and you'd need some aggressively competent art direction if you DID want to make them obviously non-mammalian in form, so let's just roll with "eh, whatever, it's cool."

AncientSwordRage

@BESW that works for me 🤷🏻‍♂️

doppelgreener

i like that too, haha

"whoever made them just copied someone else's homework with a different paint job, and that's how they wound up that way"

whoever it is, it was their very early work and they're kind of embarrassed about it so they've gone to significant effort to hide any link to it

Medix2

@ThomasMarkov Why remove the skills tag? We don't have anything better for ability checks. And we have the synonym skill-check

Thomas Markov

11:40 AM

@Medix2 wanted to make room for the system tag, and that one seemed like the best one to drop since the grapple tag was there.

Medix2

Oh truuuu

Curse you cap of 5

BESW

Feb 18 '17 at 4:04, by BESW

Dragons say that dragonborn sprang forth from drops of blood sprayed when the original dragon god Io was split in two; Dragonborn say they were created by Io after he made dragons, and he learned better how to balance the elemental with the astral so they're more reasonable and less temperamental; most everyone else says dragonborn are just the descendants of folks whose parents were a dragon and a humanoid.

Feb 18 '17 at 4:04, by BESW

(Dwarves have the same origin for dragonborn as the dragonborn, except they say Io had to borrow the dwarf template from Moradin for the job.)

trogdor

I like the Dwarf version

because it feels like they are just trolling the Dragonborn

in the best possible way

BESW

Aye, same.

Zachiel

Dwarves be dwarves, after all

BESW

11:48 AM

Though I also like that it can be read as more of a "our gods were pals and we're not so different" kind of thing.

Especially given how badly so many groups treat the dragonborn in PoL.

That the dwarves are willing to claim kinship even as a joke is perhaps a small... point of light in the darkness, if you will.

SmokeDetector

12:04 PM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with a link in answer (81): Does rolling AC to oppose an Attack Roll impact game balance? by tommyelliott on rpg.SE (@Rubiksmoose @ThomasMarkov)

Thomas Markov

spam delete that

KorvinStarmast

12:22 PM

@Medix2 that's what my advisor for my masters degree said: uses too many words to say the same thing.

@Axoren nothing, unless you hate contractions

AncientSwordRage

1:21 PM

@BESW that's nice

goodguy5

1:49 PM

I did it, team. I gave the party a legendary item. (Black Dragon Mask)

I think we had a good game last week. Gave the Warlock (well, one of them) more information about her Patron, made the schmuck mayor more complicated, and and doled out some gear.

Does anyone else use a rough template of the Resident Evil mansion any time they use a mansion in game?

Thomas Markov

2:06 PM

The reasoning in this answer is incorrect, it should not be cored as highly as it is.

Axoren

@KorvinStarmast Contractions killed my father, so now I am an edgy Rogue driven by vengeance.

When I experience folly? I will say "I've become what I swore to destroy."

KorvinStarmast

@goodguy5 I'd use Tegel Manor if they ever bothered to send it to me from the Kickstarter. Jerks never made good on that ... Grrrr.

@Axoren as well you should! 😁

AncientSwordRage

2:31 PM

@ThomasMarkov I've upvoted your competing answer, not downvoted the wrong one, because I think as a rule of thumb self spells do only effect you it's just that 5e is wonky enough to have exceptions.

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage I counted. 45% of all spells with a range of self affect or target more than only the caster.

So not a great rule of thumb when it is wrong almost half the time.

49%, actually

found another. At least have of all Self spells do not target of affect only the caster.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov that's 5e for you

Roll on 5.5e/6e

bobble

@AncientSwordRage ATLA update: my sister highly approves of Azula and thinks she's much better at villian-ing than "that boy"

Akixkisu

@Medix2 Generally, I remove passive voice when reading the text gives me a headache, and always along with other edits - in the specific situation "that" indicating the (distinct) object - the poison one drinks; and the poison tag.

Axoren

2:47 PM

All the passive voice sentences are written by users that were failed by their English teachers.

Sorry is what I am for that.

The headaches of a native speaker are generally a good measure for when to change a sentence to a better structure, as long as they're characteristic of other native speakers.

bobble

I write like the English I've imbibed - mostly, a wide array of poorly written YA novels. Or, if it's for a school thing, like a stuffy textbook.

Someone_Evil

Some of us were made to use passive voice after we stopped having english classes. Blame academia

Axoren

In research, the passive voice crops up A LOT in research paper drafts.

If the researcher isn't confident in their work, they won't commit to direct statements about it.

And the peer review system may or may not instill self-esteem issues in young researchers.

"Our results show that our method achieves 90% accuracy on this data."
"It is shown by our results that our method has 90% accuracy on this data."

Edited to be a fairer comparison. This is the kind of stuff we find a lot.

bobble

English, ain't it grand?

Hot RPG Questions

5

Q: What happens to this Curse of Strahd character when using their Shapechanger ability?

My confusion comes from the use of the word polymorph, and no mention of what happens to her other stats while polymorphed into the swarm. Every other shapechanger has a clause about what doesn't change while polymorphed using it's shapechanger ability. Does she shapechange as though she was usi...

Akixkisu

3:00 PM

@Axoren in bad research.

@Axoren I'm an academic whose third language is English; I already struggle enough with the language. I learned it frustratingly late, mostly self-taught in my late teens

Axoren

@Akixkisu It's rough even in native English speakers to avoid the call of passive voice.

You write well enough to convince me, at least.

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren nice. My advisor made the same observation.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble she get even better

and so does 'that boy'

KorvinStarmast

@Axoren yes, and the unfortunate cultural habit of talking around points doesn't help.

but let's remember for RPGSE: there is no style guide.

AncientSwordRage

3:16 PM

@Someone_Evil You mean "Academia is to be blamed" surely ...?

KorvinStarmast

I had to conform to a style guide when I drafted official stuff in the Navy, and while I was effective at it, my creative writing suffered a lot from picking up those habits.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble sure is

Axoren

I definitely can't write stories the same way after academia. I tried to continue a novel I was writing that I was 100 pages into, and I just couldn't match my old writing style.

It was almost sterile by comparison.

AncientSwordRage

@Axoren ooof that sucks

Axoren

Yeah, it's something I'll have to see if I can ever get back into a comparable headspace, but it's not something that's gonna come as easily as it used to.

The Oracle

3:25 PM

0

Q: Should we make the recommendation tags throw a warning or error?

A while back there was a rewamp of the ask page which introduced a lot more per site customization. Of relevance here is that we can have the page react to tags: Tag-related error messages and warnings, regex-based (seen with custom error text in screenshot 4, with the default text on screensho...

discussion feature-request tags user-interface

AncientSwordRage

@Axoren advice to myself as well, but would reading more help?

Someone_Evil

Is anyone else getting notifications for chat replies you've already seen?

Akixkisu

@Someone_Evil You get an additional one due to edits. Could that be it?

Someone_Evil

@Akixkisu Neither of them have been edits. And to be clear, I've gotten inbox notifications for chat messages I've dismissed the message for

Axoren

@AncientSwordRage The way I wrote back then was I wrote the way I wanted to hear someone tell a story, like around a campfire. So that's how my older work read. I could read it out loud to friends and people would lean in. And the flow would feedback into itself and I'd get more into reading it myself. I personally still feel like that's the kind of story I want to read, but it's no longer easy to write in that way and get into the flow-state.

AncientSwordRage

3:40 PM

I wonder where you picked up that style from

Axoren

I didn't really read much literature, but what I did read gave me a good baseline for "Wow, I don't like this."

D&D and Video games probably played a huge part in settling on that style

Thomas Markov

4:01 PM

I'm showing only 19/48 questions tagged dnd-5e on the front page right now.

Akixkisu

@ThomasMarkov You could do some retagging ;) -[dnd-5e] -[dnd-4e] -[dnd-3.5e] -[dnd-3e] -[dnd] -[pf-1e] -[pf-2e] -[adnd-2e] -[adnd] -[odnd] is:q dnd

Someone_Evil

You can use wildcards in tags when searching btw, so -[*dnd*] -[pathfinder*]

Akixkisu

Lots of them won't get dnd tags, but some of them still use incorrect tags.

@Someone_Evil wildcards in tags spook me :D

Someone_Evil

It shows you which tags it catches when you search

Akixkisu

(It would also not show the playtest qs which I want to look at, but thanks for trying to help out)

AncientSwordRage

4:06 PM

@Someone_Evil I didn't think it worked on both sides...?

Someone_Evil

@AncientSwordRage It does; https://rpg.stackexchange.com/search?q=-%5B*dnd*%5D

bobble

that's not the link you think it is

Someone_Evil

@bobble yeah, I realized that

bobble

the wildcards on both sides don't seem to work if you're searching for something, only if you're excluding something?

Someone_Evil

I think all the dnd-next-playtest questions have been specifically retagged as such, as the tag at the time got synned into dnd-5e

@bobble Wat?

Thomas Markov

4:09 PM

@bobble works fine for me

bobble

maybe because I'm anonymous?

Thomas Markov

[****dnd] is only one tag, [odnd] and it gets included when you search [*dnd****]

Someone_Evil

It does seem to work, but searching with wildcards and other tags don't play very well

bobble

okay, this is wild

Thomas Markov

my asterisks werent playing well with markdown

bobble

4:11 PM

is what I get searching [*dnd]

Thomas Markov

Thats correct

bobble

note that while that's the [odnd] wiki, the title is wrong

Thomas Markov

@bobble its not wrong.

Ah, I see the "questions tagged with [*dnd]"

The search results are correct though.

Someone_Evil

That wildcard only catches one tag, no?

bobble

searching [*dnd*] gets me that

AncientSwordRage

4:13 PM

@Someone_Evil whack, not sure where I got that idea from

also, hullo bobble

bobble

Can one of y'all try searching in an incognito tab or somesuch?

Thomas Markov

Searching [*dnd*] got me "[dnd-5e] or [dnd-3.5e] or [dnd-4e] or [dnd-adventurers-league] or [adnd-2e] or [dnd-3e] or [adnd-1e] or [dnd-beyond] or [dnd-bx] or [odnd] or [dnd-next-playtest] or [dnd-4e-character-builder] or [dnd-becmi] or [dnd-encounters] or [dnd-insider] or [dnd-miniatures-game] or [dnd-holmes-basic]"

AncientSwordRage

I think something ate her

Thomas Markov

Also [*dnd] isnt picking up any of the adnd tags

AncientSwordRage

oh no, she's ok

@bobble I'm not allowed incognito at work :(

bobble

4:14 PM

But if I try to search it directly it stutters

Someone_Evil

Use \* to stop markdown eating your *'s, btw

bobble

oh wait that's because it's the minus, nevermind

Someone_Evil

I get the same as you when not logged in. Probably worth a bug report

Axoren

@ThomasMarkov How about [*dnd*]?

Thomas Markov

@Axoren it got 1

Axoren

4:19 PM

Oof

Thomas Markov

but theres more than one

Axoren

I figured.

Medix2

@Axoren We had an entire, rather lengthy, discussion on this earlier, and I'm not going to recount it all, but I extremely disagree

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 I was taught by my English teacher when to use passive voice as a rhetorical tool. It has its place.

Medix2

I'm probably just gonna stop asking about grammatical and prescriptive edits people make because it will probably get me nowhere but angry

Someone_Evil

4:23 PM

@ThomasMarkov There's two AD&D tags, and [*dnd] picks up neither and [*dnd*] picks up both as expected. It doesn't pick up synonyms though, which should have put the 1e tag in with the former

Axoren

@Medix2 That was just a passive voice sentence that was made by me as a joke. It's a view that isn't strongly held by me, if at all. Sorry if it wasn't clear that facetious is what I was being.

Medix2

Thank you text, where tone is even harder to discern than in real life XD

Axoren

Worry is what you shouldn't do about it.

:P

Medix2

I wonder if the recommendation Meta should also mention designer reasons or if that should be separate

Axoren

Christ, though. It reads worse than Yoda-speak if you go all-out.

AncientSwordRage

4:26 PM

@Medix2 english will do that to you

Thomas Markov

@Medix2 probably wouldnt be helpful because users dont use the designer reasons tag when asking questions usually.

Medix2

TIL the system-for-setting tag existed

Thomas Markov

what the heck

Axoren

21 questions already tagged?

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov the stack used to be pretty wild

Medix2

4:28 PM

> A system-for-setting question should specify the setting features that should be mechanically supported. An answer should explain how those features are supported by the system.

Axoren

Nearly every question is closed, lol

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage I know, I see so much stuff that would get VLQ flagged today being highly scored way back when.

@Axoren the one that isnt closed is manually locked

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov It feels like most of those were my questions whenever I go looking >.>

bobble

I'm writing up a bug (when I should be doing studying...)

AncientSwordRage

@bobble oh no

The Oracle

4:41 PM

0

Q: Answering off-topic questions

Recently this question was closed (correctly I think) as off-topic. By my understanding the Roomba will clean it in ~9 days (depending on how many edits come) and then it is deleted. I had not known that it was considered off-topic and already written an answer. The answer is now deleted so not v...

discussion closed-questions deleted-questions

Thomas Markov

@medix @NautArch use your dupe hammer here

Medix2

I feel we have a better dupe somewhere in the ether

Like something about multiclassing and preparing the same spell twice

Though, yeah, David Coffron's answer answers this very clearly

Akixkisu

^

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil can you trim the last sentence of this comment?

@nitsua60 not sure this is really what the star board is for, but okay, whoever you are.

Medix2

I'd ask that nitsua's message be un-starred; it is somewhat ironic though to increase the traffic towards a call out that warns against the traffic a different call out may receive

nitsua60

4:53 PM

@Someone_Evil and while you're at it, do you mind deleting my message from two minutes ago? (Which I can't delete... I guess because it once had a star?)

Akixkisu

Aug 9 at 22:28, by Akixkisu

I think we have to approach the subject "what language barriers do we no longer accommodate" due to the severe downvoting and closure of questions asked by Jhyarelle Silver. They ask honest questions on the internet in various forums, and almost all of them are usually poorly phrased and on-topic. Unfortunately, several veteran users seem to have developed a particular dislike of their questions.

AncientSwordRage

Reminder that the star board is not for super-liking stuff, and is instead intended for interesting stuff that should be visible for longer

4

@nitsua60 Hmm? I cancelled the star

Akixkisu

Reminder that stars are for all things useful for the transcript.

We should not tolerate unkind behaviour or harassment towards users, and as far as this user is involved we should eventually approach the topic.

Thomas Markov

@Akixkisu Characterizing users as not being accommodating of a language barrier is not at all a fair read of the situation. On occasion, Silver has responded to questions for clarification, going into extensive detail of the thought process and research that went into question. They just didn't bother including it initially.

Yes, the language barrier leads to the confusion behind the questions, but they have proven themselves more than capable of writing a good question if they just put in some effort.

Akixkisu

Then downvote and move on.

In either case, a reminder should be sufficient action, and airing frustration is unnecessary and fruitless.

bobble

5:12 PM

first half of my bug-sleuthing: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/368894/…

AncientSwordRage

@bobble I'm envious of your thoroughness, that's some excellent sleuthing

bobble

heh. My mom was a QA person before moving to management.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble that checks out

as a developer QA is so important

Thomas Markov

Hey I made it into the post, Im famous

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov bobble-famous

bobble

5:17 PM

aw, it's intended behavior

AncientSwordRage

I'm not completely following animuson's answer? It seems like it only covers part of it?

ahhh

bobble

Dupe-closing myself because of the line "Anonymous users are limited to... three tags at a time" - not something I was looking at originally because I assumed wildcards were borked somehow, not more fundamental limits. — bobble 33 secs ago

I looked through the wrong FAQs, dear goodness

AncientSwordRage

@bobble what, you mean the FAQ wasn't clear? :o Admittedly it's pretty niche aspect of the site, so I'm not that surprised

bobble

Now, I looked through FAQs about wildcard searches in general - it didn't occur to me that rate-limiting would be the answer

Medix2

Well, time to reopen a question just to closed it XD

AncientSwordRage

5:26 PM

@Medix2 or flag for a mod to handle?

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage good idea.

AncientSwordRage

@bobble you've made an excellent dupe target though

Thomas Markov

Me and Medix cant hammer it.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov :p Rogue users, running round with hammers.... tsk... :p

Medix2

I was cautious of using a flag, worried people might think it isn't a duplicate, but fair enough

AncientSwordRage

5:27 PM

@Medix2 no use a custom reason and send to a mod

Medix2

I suppose I could always flag just for it to be reopened, hmmm

bobble

I was actually a recent editor of that FAQ - but never managed to internalize the tag-limit for anonymous users, I guess. Don't think I've run into it before.

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage can get the dupe close votes going

AncientSwordRage

@bobble I doubt most registered users have

Medix2

@bobble That seems like an extremely niche case, so I'm not surprised

AncientSwordRage

5:28 PM

you can tell your mum that you found an edge case today :D

bobble

Still got two more wildcard-search bugs saved up, though

(since I found 3 total during my sleuthing for that one bug...)

Though I haven't looked carefully about whether the others were reported yet.

AncientSwordRage

probably worth cross-checking the FAQ after studdies?

bobble

There are a lot of FAQs on Meta

The key is knowing which to check, and I apparently got the wrong key this time

AncientSwordRage

@bobble yikes

@bobble easily done

bobble

And then there are things that aren't in any FAQ, because they're perhaps extremely focused cases, but they're FAQs for my purposes

So for my purposes, e.g. meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231364/… is an FAQ - it details how wildcard searches should work

1% of the time of a bug report is noticing it's the case, 9% is taking pictures and writing up a Q, and 90% is searching to get links and see if it's actually been addressed before

AncientSwordRage

5:42 PM

sounds like a lot

nitsua60

6:19 PM

@AncientSwordRage Yeah, it was weird. Even though the star was gone, and it was within the 5-min window, I still couldn't delete.

Thomas Markov

@Catofdoom2 Howdy

Cat of doom2

i'm back

@ThomasMarkov how are you thomas?

100ft tall and 10ft thick a bad ratio for a wall?

bobble

What's the purpose of the wall?

Cat of doom2

its the wall defendng the capital city

MikeQ

Defending it against very tall people?

Thomas Markov

6:32 PM

That's a lot of wall

Also its probably much too skinny for 100 feet tall.

Cat of doom2

supposed to be invincible. unil of course a monster turns it to dust EZ

ok

@ThomasMarkov 12ft or 15ft or 20ft

MikeQ

For a large city, it might make more sense to have layers of multiple walls that divide the city districts, rather than one very big perimeter wall around everything.

Cat of doom2

okay

MikeQ

But if it must be a single 100 ft tall wall for story reasons, then it would need to be very thick or very magical. Also consider what it was originally built to keep out, assuming it wasn't designed to prevent large monsters from breaking through.

Thomas Markov

For perspective, the walls of Troy were up to 8 meters high and 5 meters thick.

KorvinStarmast

6:43 PM

@Catofdoom2 you'll want it to be a slight bit thicker at the base than at the top and taper up to a couple of fee thick at the top. (See also the side view of how a dam is built to stop a river, but not as pronounced of a different in thickness)

@MikeQ A good example is Minas Tirith(LoTR) or Baldur's Gate(FR)

nitsua60

7:52 PM

If it needs to be a 100-foot wall for story reasons, I'd consider growing it.

Medix2

8:25 PM

@Someone_Evil Can I use this screenshot in a bug report?

Someone_Evil

Sure. What the bug report about?

Medix2

The word "inquiry"

or rather, "inouirv"

Someone_Evil

It's not covered here already?

Medix2

Much scrolling later ah, it is

Akixkisu

11:14 PM

Meta regarding open-ended system-intoduction questions, come help decide what questions are on- or off-topic. (also consider that all of them are non-dnd questions)

The Oracle

1

Q: Are open-ended system-introduction questions off-topic?

I asked What is Avatar Legends: The RPG, and how does one play it?. It was closed within 30 minutes with the reason "This question needs to be more focused." Should we close it and questions like it? Such as: Is there a summary of Nobilis 3rd edition rules for new players? Learning Fate systems f...

discussion on-topic

Akixkisu

11:30 PM

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/58966046#58966046 except for rpg.stackexchange.com/q/35459/44723

BESW

11:42 PM

Some historical context, especially the bit system-introduction was often used as a replacement for new-gm...

4

Q: How can we make sure [new-players] and [system-introduction] are distinct?

Right now these two tags have significant overlap, in that they both 100% equally apply to "I'm teaching a system to players for the first time" questions, with no distinction I can see between them to help choose the right tag. new-players: "Players new to a specific system or to RPGs in gener...

discussion tags

6

Q: Do we need the [trying-new-systems] tag?

I stumbled upon the tag trying-new-systems. Sadly it has neither a tag wiki excerpt nor a full tag wiki, and I can't find any discussions about the tag to learn something about the reasoning behind the tag. It's currently used for four questions: Fate based minigames in a historic/fantasy rea...

discussion status-completed tags burninate-request

Thomas Markov

@Akixkisu lol did you just downvote my answer without even reading it?

BESW

That's... not a very charitable assumption.

Akixkisu

@ThomasMarkov I read it and disagree with it.

Thomas Markov

You must read exceptionally fast. The score changed before I finished reading the first sentence after I posted.

BESW

I know people whose reading speed seems impossible, except that I've seen it.

Akixkisu

11:46 PM

I make up for it by typing exceptionally slow, much to my dismay.

BESW

[glances at answer] Yeah, I'd be okay with a downvote on that, the debate around "read the book to me" questions is complicated but a pretty common benchmark is that expertise includes being able to find information spread out across a text and collect and summarize it effectively. Also we've established pretty well that questions can be about material that the querent hasn't read.

Thomas Markov

@BESW “I read the rule and just don’t understand it” is a problem that isn’t solvable just by reading the rules. Lots of questions that appear to be “read the book to me questions” are this type, and they usually work out just fine.

BESW

...also, the quoted material from [help] is inherently bad because it defies a basic content-generation goal of the Stack as a whole: it implies that if you can Google something and find an answer, you shouldn't ask it on the Stack; but a major Stack goal is to become the top answer on Google searches. That tension isn't a problem with the answer itself, but an answer which relies on it is going to be weaker because it's built on a faultline in the Stack.

Thomas Markov

It’s not clear that Akixkisu’s question is this type, and if it is, it needs more focus because as written, it’s about every rule.

BESW

So you're arguing that if it's a different kind of question, it's a bad version of that kind of question. The conclusion is sound but the premise is not.

Are you arguing against system-introduction questions as categorically topical, or are you arguing that this particular question is improperly tagged and it's not a system-introduction question but instead a bad expression of a different but topical category?

Akixkisu

11:55 PM

The associated tag does the majority of defining the issue at hand. I could add an utterly pointless paragraph to, redundantly, satisfy an eligibility criterion. I don't think that it would be meaningful.

BESW

Because "explain the system" and "explain this rule" are fundamentally different and it's weird to me that you seem to be talking about both at once.

Thomas Markov

@BESW I don’t really have any interest in the tags here. I just think The question is either about all the rules at the same time and so needs more focus, or we don’t know what the question is about and so needs details.

BESW

"all the rules at the same time" is literally what system-introduction is for?

Thomas Markov

As written, copy and pasting the entire rules text is an objectively correct answer to the question. But it’s probably not helpful, but the question doesn’t tell me why it wouldn’t be helpful.

BESW

What? no, copy-pasting text without explanation is never a good answer to any question.

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