@NautArch I...don't think that is it. Or if it is they need some major rephrasing. Note that I made some edits to it already.

Look at the last line "If it is affected by things that affect both living creatures and/or construct creatures; they have both the strength and weaknesses of both. What are the full implications of this?"

It is asking for implications given an assumption.

@Rubiksmoose Right, they want to know if it is both a Humanoid and a Construct. The full implications are a lot if you you're going to list everything that effects/doesn't effect those creature types.

But yeah, I guess if they're assuming Mearls is correct, then they want a list of everything that can target or can't target those types.

@NautArch I VTCd since at the very least it is unclear. And probably too broad.

@NautArch Might be worht looking at the orginal version before my edits: rpg.stackexchange.com/revisions/82581/3

I'm not sure i'd VTC. It's not too broad, it's just a list question. It's a -1 to the vote. But I think it is clear they want that list.

I'm not a fan of those question, or questions that feel like they're trying to cheese.

I think it is unclear. Fwiw BESW did not make that comment you refered to. OP did.

@Rubiksmoose I was referencing this comment:

@NautArch ah ok I guess I just misunderstood what you took from BESW's comment then. All he's saying is that Mearls is not officail right?

@Rubiksmoose right

Cool well at least somebody understands the question I guess. I'll leave my close vote since I still think it is unclear (otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion). Fwiw the answerer also seems to have misunderstood the question if you are correct since they did not provide a list or anything comprehensive.

@Rubiksmoose you are correct. They too get a downvote, but i'll put up a comment.

although it is 2 years old...

(though I think they solved OP's actual question even if they don't like or agree with it)

and answerer hasn't been active since 2016

Yup that is indeed why I didn't bother commenting

airatome is active, so maybe they'll come back to the question

@Rubiksmoose Confirmed, Mike's tweets are his if I was GMing, but Crawford is the official Dev rules resource you should ask on twitter for a "ruling" of sorts beyond/before published erratta

@JoshuaAslanSmith Yup. No worries I understand that, I just misunderstood what @NautArch was saying about the comment I guess.

coolio

I had forgotten SE had an explicit design goal of being unwelcoming to new users. Sigh.

@Carcer what happened?

@Carcer Oh, on the system tagging?

yeah

@Carcer I do agree that we should put on hold while we ask for the tag. Theyshouldn't have to tag themsleves, but confirming is the bare minimum. Teaching them how to tag is the cherry.

to be honest I was fine with holding questions where it is plausibly ambiguous what they're on about

I'm even okay doing it when it's fairly clear. Only because I don't know every system and maybe there's one out there that utilizes similar/identical terminology.

[mumbles about full quotes and page references]

It's been awhile for me - is there a welcome email you get when you sign up for RPG.SE?

What about when a question is tagged with something that is specific to a system? As in, not the system tag, but a tag that mentions a system in its description.

@MikeQ Are things 100% specific to specific system? I just don't know enough to answer.

@MikeQ often no good, people don't actually read the tag descriptions

@NautArch many tags are. In some cases it'd plausibly be enough to positively ID the system, in others not, due to that similar terminology issue

@NautArch There are some that mention something that only exists in one system

I think magus is PF-specific

@Carcer I still don't love the idea of best guessing. I think bloodcinder said it well in providing an avenue for wrong information is worse than waiting until we know the parameters.

I don't think it'd be safe to say generically say a system-specific-but-not-the-system tag is positive enough identification, but if you've got that plus concepts/mechanics which look very much like that system, that probably is

@MikeQ We're assuming that they have tagged magus appropriately, too.

@Carcer Unless there is another system you're not aware of that uses similar things.

I guess I think the problem is more about the negative perception of hold.

@NautArch at that point I think you have to assess how significant the actual risk is

Well sometimes the questions are indeed ambiguous, but other times it's very obvious from context, and it seems very pedantic that we can't answer it due to improper tagging

it is always possible that there is some obscure system which uses much the same words and has very similar mechanics

@Carcer Given that we are trying to get good answers here, I don't see the issue in getting that information.

but what are the odds someone is actually playing it? How overwhelmingly more likely is it that they're playing one of the big systems that almost everyone plays?

I remember a question that used PF-specific terminology, was tagged as magus, but not pathfinder, and I got snapped at when I wrote a comment suggesting that it was answerable

And that the bigger issue is still in the perception of hold.

I am going to be honest - answerer frustration, as I suggest in my comment on SSD's answer, is a significant factor in how I feel about this

I thought the other stuff was also important, mind, but I can be taught that SE doesn't really care about how new users feel, just whether or not they can be quickly made to ask questions the way we want

It's because SE aims to be both a Q&A site, and an information repository

This is one of the points where we have a tradeoff between the two goals

@Carcer This is in somewhat odds with what you just said. If your frustration is as an answerer (veteran), then it's not as much about new user issues.

@NautArch I'm a multifaceted being! I can have complicated feels about things

I can care both about the new user experience and my own experience at the same time

@MikeQ Wasn't there a question where when we all figured it was probably 5e based on his quotes he literally told us that the group was mixing rules from every edition? Even with system specific non-system tags, we shouldnt guess

@Carcer How dare you!

@DavidCoffron That's kind of a fringe case, though

@DavidCoffron And I heard one time a guy went outside and got struck by lightning! I stay in the house, to be safe.

@MikeQ but it makes the case for waiting just to make sure. No reason to rush into it. If they don't come back to clarify, then our answer is useless to that new user anyway

but the answer is not useless to everyone

i.e. SE is trying to be an information repository

@Carcer that's a dishonest representation of my argument. Staying inside has other severe opportunity costs. Waiting for system to be specified has very little OC

@DavidCoffron There's a workaround, right?

@Carcer then reask the question with a system tag if you think it's important. You are allowed to do that. Then if the person returns and tells us the tag, we can just dupe mark and the new user gets his answer too

Basically, if the original asker doesn't clarify, then one of us can re-ask the question but with the tags added. Is that allowed?

@DavidCoffron okay - say instead I got a worm in an apple once, now I never eat apples

@MikeQ I've done that at least once before

the actual point is the same - the perceived risk being avoided seems very small, but we go to great lengths to not do it

Okay, so that practice would kinda address @Carcer 's concern about an incomplete information repository

@Carcer I know people who do that. If they don't like apples that much, the opportunity cost is low enough that the risk isn't worth it. I for one love apples so would take the risk

Bah stop mixing apples and metaphors

and if you love answering questions?

at the moment I'm kind of regurgitating things other people have said because I'm a bit stressed out waiting for a delivery which should have been here an hour ago

@Carcer Under the current policy, you can answer via the workaround: Close the original, re-ask with the tags, and then self-answer. Technically speaking, you get to answer the question this way.

@Carcer then ask the question and answer it

it seems a bit wrong to immediately reask and answer the question before the user gets back and maybe clarifies it, doesn't it?

@Carcer Oh, absolutely. I'm not saying I agree with it, just pointing out a possible loophole

Under the current policy, it's permissible to effectively plagiarize another question because it didn't entirely conform to our hidden standards, and claim the reputation for it

I think my most upvoted question on Gaming did that.

@Carcer you could also wait and reask a few days or weeks later if they never come back

@DavidCoffron Odds are, it's going to get answered and updated before it even gets closed. It stillt akes multiple close votes for 'unclear' - there is no dupe hammer equivalent.

@MikeQ those standards aren't secret. We tell almost every new user in the comments (which shows up in notifications).

@DavidCoffron Right, but we tell them after they've asked

@MikeQ if they never come back to clarify why does it matter if we "steal" the reputation

@DavidCoffron I'm not sure how to answer that one. Some people may take issue with that practice though.

@MikeQ then downvote. Some people already downvote self answers in general

Er, I meant, if a new user asks a question, and then sees the experienced users close it, re-ask, and then take credit for it. The new user may consider that unfair. Or plagiarism.

@MikeQ oh... I gotcha now. That's why I'd definitely wait at least a few days before reasking.

Technically, it's not exactly plagiarism, because content that gets submitted to the site becomes part of the site, or something like that, so the community kinda has authority to claim ownership

I made a feature requesting asking for a way to indicate that a system tag is usually needed before submitting a question without one. Turns out it's probably more work than is worth it, but I see the problem now

S.O has a similar problem with some questions that don't provide a programming language when needed

Modifying the tour (e.g. "Tag your question with the system you're using") would be a good start

@MikeQ agreed, but we do get a lot of questions about the table itself rather than the system itself. Maybe if it said, "if you have a rules question, use a system tag"

Yes, something like that would probably help, and would be easier to implement than overhauling the Ask a Question form

@MikeQ has that ever actually happened?

@NautArch probably somewhere, somewhen in SE's long history

@NautArch Pretty sure but I can't remember the exact details

@NautArch I've reasked a question before. Not sure if the new user ever came back though. Let me see if I can find it

@MikeQ there is a meta about magus FYI can't remember if it stemmed from that question though.

@DavidCoffron yup! Happened more than once but I remember that one for sure.

@NautArch can't find it. I've just been scrolling through my asked questions trying to remember what spawned them.

I suspect the meta discussions about this subject are misleading because they use words that unintentionally suggest the primary purpose of the policy is to prevent tagging errors.

That's a red herring.

The "don't tag system unless the asker tells you the system" policy is an extension of the pearls not sand philosophy.

Does it provide an artificially high bar for new user entry? Yes, and the Stack Exchange knows it and is okay with it: our Stack Overlords' position on the matter is that they are picky about the users they want to court: users who are already primed to learn the SE systems and rules; they're willing to lose users who need hand-holding to get to that point, and to sacrifice a small number of questions along the way.

yeah, SSD's flagged that up in his answer on the meta and linked the blog expressing that philosophy

I suspect there are more compassionate and effective ways to go around curating a community, but this "users as faulty incorrigible cogs in an ambivalent, morally neutral machine" attitude is typical of the programming epistemology.

I'd love to see a policy that subverts it, but the site's mechanical infrastructure fights it at every step.

likewise, I'm not a tremendous fan of it because I care about how people feel

but it seems unlikely to change significantly now, as you've observed

Our Stack Overlords have indicated an interest in making the site more welcoming of diverse peoples, but I don't get the impression they understand that this means challenging some of their basic assumptions about the system's best practices.

I get the impression they think they can solve the hostility problem with policy updates and cosmetic changes.

Someday someone will make their own Q&A repository, with blackjack and accounting for the value of emotional labor.

I don't think it will be revival of this Q&A repository, but the Stack serves as valuable experiential learning to all of us no matter what communities we create or participate in.

@Ash In the long run it feels inevitable, the question is simply when. (Just like with the inevitability of someone creating a professional-grade graphic design suite whose customer interaction isn't the PR equivalent of setting the customer's hair on fire, and then Adobe will be the one burning to the ground.)

doesn't the GIMP count?

</sarcasm>

The GIMP is a not-unreasonable alternative to a single tool. There are many not-unreasonable alternatives to single tools in the Adobe design suite. There are not not-unreasonable alternatives to ALL the tools, and they're all too unpredictable in the long run for a professional company to rely on.

There's an RPG, "Dog Eat Dog," based on the premise that in order to effectively oppose a dominant epistemology those opposing it must to some extent also adopt it.

It's a little simplistic for the realities it tries to depict, but it's super effective in communicating the harsh lived experience of that particular principle.

...hm. I wonder what a DED/SOWM mashup would look like.

Aside from bitterly depressing, I mean.

SOWM?

Sell Out With Me, a game about punks rebelling against a dystopian authoritarian setting of the group's creation; when you fail a roll you can sell out one of your positive principles for a cynical inversion of it, leading to the question "how much are you willing to sell out yourself in order to save the world?"

ah, interesting

sounds like a game I would hate to play but I'm glad things like that exist

Sorry, the original game is Misspent Youth. "Sell Out With Me" is the setting book I spend most of my time referring to because it's got less depressingly cynical variants.

Like, there's one which is about activist band groups, inspired by real and fictional artists like Janelle Monáe and Jem and the Holograms.

And another where you play bitter, cynical old people who used to be the idealistic punks but they sold out in order to save the world... and now the world needs saving again, but in order to do it they'll have to find their youthful optimism again.

lot of answers on that giant ape door question which seem to be failing to realise that they are effectively ruling that humans cannot fit through normal doors

@Carcer ...oops!

@Ash :(