@ThomasMarkov need is a demanding word. It doesn't need solving, and we have one of the tamest section - should we be content with that? There is a real problem of accessibility and longevity when it comes to comment-discussions.
You will have answers from people who clarified things in comments to questions where if you don't read through the 17 footnotes of iteration seem like they don't answer the question. You have to read all of them, even when NLN - it comes down to the value of the time of everybody involved.
I think Akixkisu is saying there would be a net gain if comments were more thoroughly policed, and Thomas is saying that it wouldn't be enough to be worth it?
@bobble Sort of. I recognize that ideally comment sections would be empty once all concerns were settled.
But I’m not sure what the actual harm is when that ideal isn’t met.
And since I’m not sure what the actual harm, I cannot recommend doing anything beyond being more responsible for my own threads because moderating comments is mod work.
It's mod work that depends on the community, though. It's impossible for a few mods to keep track of every comment section, so flagging is an important mechanism to get more obscure areas addressed.
@ThomasMarkov it is a lot of extra work for us others to follow the question when user x has clarified some detail y which they use as the base of their answer, but y is not part of the description of the issue. Instead of accessible information where it belongs, you, as the onlooker, have to figure out that there is comment sixteen underneath answer three that clarifies this.
I’m not familiar with this phenomenon. I just read an answer and if it doesn’t make sense I downvote and comment. I agree, obviously, that I shouldn’t have to read through comments to give appropriate context to an answer, but I’m not aware that I’ve experienced this problem in the wild.
Question OP left a comment reiterating the question, Answer OP edited answer to include a section that should have been there anyway, then two days later someone started a new conversation in the comments.
@bobble Very much this: the number of comments that mods delete after having reached from a flag from the community is at least an order of magnitude, if not a couple, larger than those mods organically come across and delete.
One of my players has a Warlock character and is using Pact of the Chain for their Pact Boon. They most often cast a pseudodragon as their familiar, but neither of us are sure about how they should be using the pseudodragon during fights. Does the familiar get its own turn in the turn order? Or c...
@MarkGiraffe basically, "sit around a table and play a RPG together" is the focus of this site, vs computer-based RPG worlds, although modern virtual-tabletop tools and persistent world RP both blur the lines somewhat
@MarkGiraffe As the name suggests, a game you (traditionally) play at a table. These days, virtual tabletops & videoconferencing (or audio, or even just text) are also options.
Struggling to focus, but otherwise going pretty well.
Tomorrow I have to go into the office for the first time in over a year, to move my desk (not the furniture itself, just the contents). Another team is taking our area, so we're being relocated.
@MikeQ fun fact, Bing would translate "wizard" into Finnish as "ohjattu toiminto" ("guided procedure", so what an installer wizard is) well into 2010's
On the one hand, I agree with V2B that it's not literally identical but then.... what stops me from asking about literally every spell in the game as a separate question...
I was thinking about asking and self answering a question, and as I thought through my answer, I realized I would be writing a frame challenge to myself, and that felt dirty.
BTW, @AncientSwordRage and anybody else who might run into this: work-for-hire means that the Candlekeep authors have already made all the money they're gonna make off the book, before it got published. Unlike with novels where authors get extra money every time the book sells beyond what the publisher originally expected, work-for-hire means the authors got a lump sum up front and that's all. So any "buy the book to support the authors" argument doesn't make sense in a work-for-hire industry.
(This is also why Kickstarter campaigns which use marginalized authors as a marketing gimmick but don't have stretch goals to pay them more, as very suspicious.)
(Also, Wizards talks about the Candlekeep authors like WotC is introducing new talent to the industry, but from what I can tell all the authors were already indie-success stories. They're only new to people who weren't paying attention to anything outside the Big Press bubble. Which is condescending to the WotC audience as well as to these established authors.)
@BESW I believe misrepresentative is a more fitting descriptor than condescension. I think it's less about WotC looking down on its audience/authors and more them trying to convince you that they're just so gosh darn nice for giving these poor underrepresented authors a chance at the big time.
@BaconyRevanant Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately, being a fish in a small pond isn't equal to a big fish in a big pond. They're introducing known talent to a wider audience - and that is good thing. Not paying them royalties, that may be a bad thing, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about industry standards to say and I'll defer to BESW on that one :)
@NautArch Industry standards are trash and Wizards leads from the back; it's the collection action expressed in documents like the Unified (QT)PoC Standard Requirements that have made visible needle shifts.
2
And Wizards isn't saying "new to D&D" or "new to big press publishing," they're just describing the authors as "new authors." Which requires a very low opinion of their target audience, to think that'll fly.
Lady Bug by caradoc. Lady Bug is a business card RPG of facing down an ancient enemy in the name of the Queen...
This is late-stage capitalism 101: when your options are work or starve, and there are more people than jobs, the employer gets to dictate the terms of work.
Goes double for the marginalized creators Wizards targeted with this particular publication.
Wizards doesn't negotiate. They don't have to, they're the TRPG company and having your name emblazoned on their pages is a ticket to ride the industry. If you don't sign their contract, there are three dozen other desperate creators who will.
So let's not act like a contract can't possibly be bad just because somebody signed it. We all know that Faust is a documentary about capitalism.
And then using them twice to paint themselves as progressive, once on announcement and again to cover up the snafu with The Book of Cylinders (Graeme's adventure)
Have the actual authors been upset about what's going on? OR do you think they are silent because they have to be (if they are)?
I've worked at shops that have hired freelance writers for major products and they are paid a set fee. I do think there is a trade-off for opting to be a freelancer, but I'm not sure if this is it.
I'm not gonna say a royalty system would definitely be better, just that Wizards' fees aren't proportional to their weight in the industry and they have all the power in negotiating terms.
I'm saying (a) claims that buying the book supports the authors are inaccurate, and (b) it's a known industry problem that writing TRPG text doesn't pay enough to live on.
Graeme's article is weird, though. Usually edits/changes that I've had with freelancers I've worked with them on. But if the contract was that they could make changes and they don't need to work with them, then I'm not sure complaining about that is the right process. But I don't know what the contract actually looked like.
@BESW I think what you're saying is the standards of the industry are bogus. The players are all stuck in it and only one part really benefits (the large companies.)
But it does put a tough position on things because if the folks directly involved don't say what is actually problematic, then we're left putting words in their mouth and making assumptions - which I don't like doing.
Which is why I'm not saying anything about the other authors, and am instead speaking to the general state of the industry and the fact that collective action is so far the only effective way to move the needle--and the needle's moving in small press faster than in big press.
@kviiri I like to think that he's also a satirical reversal of La Vérité sortant du puits armée de son martinet pour châtier l'humanité. (image search NSFW: painting of a topless woman)
@NautArch I got the impression that a) they said they be in touch if they wanted to make any more changes, and b) others got afforded that communication but not Graeme
Now did they need to do a) by the letter of the contract? No. Did they selectively do it anyway*? Yes (*according to Graeme)
Also, based on The Alexandrian's tweets, it looks like other adventures may have been tweaked last minute
We have quite a few questions about spell effects and what happens when their target enters a state where they could not have been targeted by the spell in the first place:
Is a spell suppressed or removed when the target temporarily becomes invalid?
Does the light from Branding Smite persist af...
To me it feels like you present an observation of the state of affairs and ask "what can we do to change the state of affairs" without explaining well the need for that change.
@ThomasMarkov it still is an edge case. Always was an edge case, but now it no longer is obviously a tool rec after the mending of the edit that made it obvious.
"What should cheat sheets of a new DM have for a better flowing game in 5E or any RPG?" Product Y, of course.
"what should a DM screen essentially have?" elements x,y,z
"Started with the starter set in 5E and the Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure" so in that context what DM screen should I buy?
" I thought to make a DM screen with some cheat sheets,of the most usuall things new players, and new DM's have doubts on, and how to make the game flow well without long," How do I go about making that product myself?
It is a messy q.
Then the product that they were using entered the q.
Which boils down to is this a good product?
At the core of it I think Korvin's meta prompt is an XY problem - it is also why I don't want to write an answer.
I think it plays into a bigger issue of how ought we to moderate things.
And it is only a tiny part of the actual problem set.
Which from my conjecture goes into the false dichotomy of "Are we here to help people, or are we here to abide by a principle of rules?"
Just to make it explicit, I think that Korvin is an awesome community member who put a tremendous effort into helping people in a down to earth manner.
@BaconyRevanant and that is the core of the issue, how ought we to handle those things. Like someone stating a question that is 99% likely to be a dnd-5e question, and someone wanting to post an answer, but the question is closed because neither 5e nor dnd is mentioned in the body. Like answering how to organise a filing system when the querent thinks they need to buy something, but you have an answer that lets them get a good filling system without recommending them something to buy.
In general terms, is it possible to ask any sort of question that's "How do I use ___ known imaginary material in/as an RPG?" Or is it simply that asking about how to adapt known material is off topic for this site? If it's the former, it seems there should be someway to edit this question to fill in that blank with the TMNT, but still fit the site's criteria. — machineghost8 mins ago
I guess in summary, I believe nearly all of us are coming from a place where we are trying to actively curate the stack positively. However, we have different views on how that works. THere are positives and negatives to different approaches and no one is 100% right 100% of the time. If we dislike how someone or a group is curating, unless it is truly actively creating a problem, we need to let it go.
@AncientSwordRage Yep, and I think the disagreement is unnecessary and unhelpful.
One person shouldn't get to say what the site does. The community should - and the community works as a whole. If we're working as a whole, then it's okay for things to go back and forth while the community settles.
And whatever comes out is okay unless it's causing harm.
This should be a community of compromise for the greater good of helping people.
Which means when someone does something we don't agree, we need to just use our votes and maybe voices, but otherwise let it go. Fighting about what we do or that one way is better than another when there isn't any evidence of either creating harm? That needs to stop and we need to trust that we are all trying to curate positively and with good intentions.
Akixkisu and I curate and moderate differently - and that's okay! It's about consensus here, not what any individual thinks. Let the community come to a consensus without badgering each other about the 'right way'.
Which is why I regularly say "Can we please just try the new thing? If the world falls in on us we will recover and have learned something because of it"
We can rage against the wind as much as we want, but if we can't support that the actions are actively causing harm, then I see no reason to rage. Other than to just be heard - but that's not a great reason.
@Medix2 Just go ahead and try it. You believe in it. See if others follow.
If they do,l then the community has decided.
The meta discussions I think have often ended up doing more harm than good. Not always, but definitely have.
It just lets people dig deeper into their positions.
@Akixkisu I'mnot sure it's really necessary. I haven't gone through each, but unless there is something in a spell that makes it different or requires a different answer, I think any that don't are duplicates and we can just go and close them.
@Akixkisu ah, I'm not sure that's a real issue, either :( I do think that when updates need to go into a question, then they shouldn't be left in comments.
I'm often wary of adding those to someone else's question in case they dont agree fully or want to say it another way.
But others aren't, and that's okay, too.
But when clarifications are added in a discussion, then we should prompt OP to update and then flag as NLN when they've done so.
As for older stuff, flag as you see it. I don't think it's causing any issues.
@Akixkisu Can you support, from anything other than your own approach to interaction, that it's causing an actual problem?
Are people not answering correclty because of missing info? You did say that one, so that's a more actionable issue.
I'm not sure we should have meta questions about things we aren't sure are real. Or, if we do, it's about figuring out if there is an issue and not about solving it.
Problem identification needs to come before problem solution.
FWIW SE as a whole and numerous Meta posts mention the ephemerality of comments and that they should disappear over time and are not helpful by being left around as noise. However, there's probably also a denies feature request of having comments auto delete after X amount of time...
@NautArch yes, an obsolete comment is also one that the querent addressed and no one has yet put into the body of the question (it should be a part of the question and then flagged).
it is a lot of extra work for us others to follow the question when user x has clarified some detail y which they use as the base of their answer, but y is not part of the description of the issue. Instead of accessible information where it belongs, you, as the onlooker, have to figure out that there is comment sixteen underneath answer three that clarifies this.
But if you want to start curating comments, that's not a bad thing and I don't think you need a meta for it. You can just do it, and if it's a problem, it'll be seen and said.
I will continue to do so - most likely. But I'm willing to go with the stack. If we are normailsing that comments are the regular place for forum-like discussion then I can stop doing that.
I think I agree with all of this, which still leaves us at a place where we have thousands of comments that are addressed or could be moved to the body of a q/a.
To me, there's no immediate, horrifying, pressing need to resolve such comments. There are already measures put in place that incentivize removing such comments (other than just altruism, which, ideally, is all that should have ever been required). And any further incentives might result in people incorrectly flagging comments
But I'm unsure how to turn that into an answer that isn't just... "You can't make people do something"
Oh, I don't like badges and reputation really at all. I wish they weren't needed, and I know users who actively avoid gaining them at all despite being extremely active.
They gamify the site in an attempt to get people to perform the actions that SE has deemed "good" instead of letting communities create their own badges. I understand various privileges being locked behind reputation counters, but I'm one of those people who thinks that letting people accumulate "big numbers" that are prominently displayed is... not the best idea. Egos exist, and so do new users who will see scary, imposing 200k rep monster user saying something
But others have worded statements against rep and badges far better than I ever could
How much does that perception change if the 200k user, who clearly is well ingrained in the site and community is saying something in a welcoming and understanding way?
@NautArch While probably not representative, I found being welcomed, engaged with, and taken seriously by high rep users (admittedly not quite 200k) a strong positive
@NautArch I was actually more thinking once I started taking part in moderation etc. Say with my first post on meta (which I'll save myself the embarrassment of linking)
If there isn't a proper policy concerning a particular curatorial issue, a curatorial action cannot be called "wrong", it can only be called "inconsistent with a particular interpretation of existing guidance".
There's at least two kinds of easily confusable questions here though:
I hear the DMG has rules for X. I don't have the DMG. What are the rules for X?
Are there rules for X? What are they?
#1 is a deeply problematic question that asks us to engage in violating copyright: the person should buy...
I feel like those questions should *especially* be answered honestly. 1. It can genuinely be difficult to *find* the part of the book that needs to be read. 2. Bad questions will get the downvotes they deserve regardless
There's at least two kinds of easily confusable questions here though:
I hear the DMG has rules for X. I don't have the DMG. What are the rules for X?
Are there rules for X? What are they?
#1 is a deeply problematic question that asks us to engage in violating copyright: the person should buy...
