The Bridge

Grace Note

3:00 AM

Evenin', @Ami ♪

Ami

Evenin'

alexanderpas

the comments of he OP on this question:

2

Q: What is the most powerful experience you have had, playing a game?

What game gave you the most compelling experience in your entire life? For me it was playing Steve Meretzky's Planetfall. I won't say what happened in the game, because it would be a spoiler. But when it happened, I will never forget that my opinion of how much a game could affect you, change...

retro-gaming

used the Community Wiki isn't a "get out of jail free" card on the comments for that question.

Downvoter

I feel like the beginning of SO all over again

Ivo Flipse

7:16 AM

hi oak :-)

Oak

OK, who changed "game-recommendations" to "game-rec"?

Oak

(@Ivo and hi :) )

Ivo Flipse

no idea, they didn't grant me any mods right, so I can't go and check

and they'll probably say I need to be elected :-(

Oak

I thought we didn't have any mods yet

Ivo Flipse

we don't someone with more than 1k rep must have been about

Oak

7:19 AM

I didn't know 1k rep users can retroactively change tag names

Ivo Flipse

best start a meta topic about some of the tag synonyms

they can manually edit all 30+ questions

2 edited tags
edited yesterday
C. Ross
5219
game-rec space

Oak

But it wasn't manual edit

Ivo Flipse

hmmm not every question has been edited, which makes me suspect someone like @Jeff has done it instead

Oak

Precisely

Oak

I'll start on meta

Oak

7:21 AM

Also, I'm torn on my position regarding list questions

Ivo Flipse

torn about what?

your free to change your mind ;-) as long as you think you have valid reasons for doing so

Oak

If someone asks for the best gaming easter eggs, should it be closed? Or for the best typing game

Oak

Or for the best gaming comic

Ivo Flipse

the problem with our close reasons, is that the reasons themselves are subjective too

Oak

Many say that "yes", but objectively these kind of questions are successful and very fun

Oak

7:24 AM

That's true, though the need for 5 people who agree is good

Ivo Flipse

well last night we were just posting questions here and people would discuss (though not at length) and boom they would be killed

but for me this is like the discussion about webapps on SU

we have more than enough valid questions left when we NOT allow them

we can always change our mind and reopen them

but for now it's probably for the best not to

but you're absolutely right, they are fun and can be useful

however, the focus shouldn't be on coming up with the next list to assemble

Oak

On the other hand, people say they might have potentially harmful effect on the site in the future

Oak

And they might be right

Ivo Flipse

they set a precedence, users will point and complain: look but this question was allowed

I'm sure people will bitch at me for that typing of the dead answer

Oak

Actually I thought the typing question didn't get a close vote

Ivo Flipse

7:30 AM

meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/5935/…

nope, but I close other peoples lists and answered another, kind of hypocritical ;-)

Oak

Anyway, I didn't vote. At the moment, I vote to close questions that are really broad. So I voted to close "what games are there for linux", but didn't vote "horror FPSs"

Ivo Flipse

and I even suggested a list myself, since I would create a few and shut down the rest pointing back to those original ones

that seems a valid metric, though when is it no longer too broad? (rhetorical question)

Oak

yea... but then the 5-people-to-a-close thing helps to make it a little less subjective

Ivo Flipse

well on a SO size audience 5 people is still not even 1%

but I wouldn't worry about it too much

instead we should keep posting great questions (not a star in that area...)

Oak

I see Jeff is also torn:

Oak

7:34 AM

17

Q: Should we have a "List of X" close reason?

We're seeing a lot of the Let's make a "List of X" problem on new Stack Exchange 2.0 sites. Like so. Our engine is absolutely brilliant at surfacing these questions, and they can have some utility ... but they're not really what we want -- they tend to be polls and copy-pasted content, not origi...

discussion close-reasons

Ivo Flipse

I think Jeff feels we should avoid them during beta, but he knows we have to cut the community some slack

some users point and say: we only have 35 lists, but that's still 5 lists a day!

but some list questions should be changed to something: where can I find or how will I know if this works

I'm sure there's a database with Linux supported games or a website dedicated to Linux games. That answer is less likely to be out of date tomorrow than a list

Oak

I agree with that, but then we also had some people saying that this site should list the actual answers rather than only point to other websites

Ivo Flipse

also lists are even more subject to drive-by's. Post an answer and never look back at it, even if things change over time. Things like DLC or sequels

Oak

Though I don't entirely agree with that

Ivo Flipse

well I agree, though we can't copy/paste everything

but I mean we don't want people to have to search through several forums themselves

If I point you to gametrailers.com, I can't go embed all their video's here

but regarding those classes, we should have an expert on that class create a source of info HERE not anywhere else

Oak

7:40 AM

No, but for example take a look at the poe spirits question, which I answered"

Ivo Flipse

guess it depends on the scope of the question

Oak

1

Q: Poe souls in Zelda: Twilight Princess

Where are all of the Poe souls located in the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess?

guide zelda-twilight-princess

Oak

I just provided a link instead of actually writing the list

Oak

But the list is huge and the links have screenshots and stuff

Ivo Flipse

It simply wouldn't fit either, so no worries

also the format of your question will change a lot of people's opinion

Oak

7:41 AM

Which question?

Ivo Flipse

for instance, if you post some of those screenshots, so people will really believe that following that link will solve their problem

they will upvote it even more

Oak

Well, maybe. I just felt like someone invested a lot of effort into making those lists

Oak

Should just provide a link or 3

Ivo Flipse

3

A: Why was [game-recommendations] shortened to [game-rec]

From chat: Ivo Flipse: @Jeff did you change the games-recommendation to games-rec? Jeff Atwood: yeah I hate "recommendation" as a tag..

well your answer is valid and surely answers the question

Oak

I don't understand what does "it's enormous MMMMM giant letters" means

Ivo Flipse

7:45 AM

meh, it's chat probably nothing

Oak

I'm gone

Ivo Flipse

bye :)

Jeff Atwood

what I mean is that M is a very wide letter

recommendation is "long and wide" -- it is a long word for # of letters and because the individual letters it contains in a proportional font are also wide

compare:

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

same # of letters.

Ivo Flipse

8:04 AM

I agree with your logic @Jeff, but isn't world-of-warcraft or lord-of-the-rings-online also horribly long?

Jeff Atwood

yeah should be [wow] and [lotr]

[recommendation] is just, pardon my french, a shit tag

for both reasons I replied to

Ivo Flipse

but then fps can be frames-per-second and first-person-shooter

off course people will use fps + monitor

Jeff Atwood

3

A: Why was [game-recommendations] shortened to [game-rec]

Two things Recommendation is a poor concept on our sites. "Recommend me a computer to buy! Recommend me a game to play on my VIC-20!" So the presence of this tag is like a big "this question is very likely to suck" sticker slapped on it. Recommendation is far, far too long as a tag. Recommendat...

gamers know what these terms mean

Ivo Flipse

though with crysis it could be fps + fps + gpu

Jeff Atwood

if I say [fps] to you, you don't go WHAT? EH? WHAT IS THIS EFF PEEE ESS THING?!!

if I say "hey I was playing wow the other day" you don't go "huh? how do you play a WOW?"

Ivo Flipse

8:09 AM

6

Q: How to tag: use acronyms or not?

I would like to ask the general approach we have to follow in tagging game names. This question already shown the problem: wow or world-of-warcraft. But there any many other examples: hl2 or half-life-2 tf2 or team-fortress-2 mw2 or modern-warfare-2 etc. Maybe we can use google to look whi...

discussion tagging

Jeff Atwood

the point is that you use tag terms accepted by the community and in general use

Ivo Flipse

then your input is wanted here ;-)

Jeff Atwood

no gamer says "world of warcraft", they say "wow"

Ivo Flipse

do those tags matter for SEO actually?

Jeff Atwood

3

A: How to tag: use acronyms or not?

I disagree strongly with the other positions here. if I say [fps] to you, you don't go WHAT? EH? WHAT IS THIS EFF PEEE ESS THING?!! if I say "hey I was playing [wow] the other day" you don't go "huh? how do you play a WOW?" The point is that you use tag terms accepted by the community ...

marco.ragogna

8:28 AM

I like to use short tags for very famous games like wow, tf2, hl2, cod, etc. This short version is also well known by Google and SEO will be not affected. For not well known games I instead would prefer long form

Jeff Atwood

@marco I agree with that

add it to the meta answer

marco.ragogna

9:04 AM

do we have decided to close recommendations questions?
http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/2297/creepy-horror-fps-recommendations-closed

Ivo Flipse

Well I would vouch against any more list questions until we get a more decent body of real questions

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