> Questions about Game Design and Development are off topic. This includes speculative questions about developer intent, with respect to both mechanics and narrative. You might want to ask over at GameDev.SE, but be sure to read their FAQ
Yes, it's not as clear as it used to be. The community voted. We accepted the community result.
If it was for me, we'd have about 15 extremely specific close reasons.
That's probably why I don't get to make these calls.
@badp Vote as unclear what you're asking because you need to set up some specific criteria, or vote to close as primarily opinion based, depending on my mood that day
@StrixVaria If 5 of our most trusted users decide that the question cannot be reasonably answered to our standards, the question is closed. It's how the site works.
You certainly can answer "What happens when a pokemon trainer dies?" Since however you can't answer without making shit up, that's not answerable to our standards.
I really don't have anything new to contribute to this discussion that I haven't said in meta.
I do wish @LessPop_MoreFizz would weigh in on it. All I've ever seen him say is his statement that "answerability is a poor metric for question cromulence" with no real followup
I honestly don't see it. You need to be knowledgeable about something before you VTC questions about it - or we'd have a lot more cross-network mods and privileges
@Alex "cromulent" is a word anti-prescriptivists use to show that as long as you understand what's being said, then language is doing its job, and rules are stupid.
@badp It's not just us, it's also askers. I find it a reasonable expectation that a user who knows our policies should be able to know whether a question is appropriate, whether or not they do know.
For me it boils down to this: Your sample question about "What happens to pokemon trainers when they die?" shouldn't be on-topic for pokemon-abcd because it happens to address that, but off-topic for pokemon-efgh because it doesn't.
Asking a question, in most cases, entails that the asker doesn't know the answer, or if there is one. That's why one asks. A user knowing that we have a rule against questions where the answer doesn't exist... almost results in non-information because he has no idea and that's why he is asking in the first place.
@badp That still makes an incredibly awkward experience for a user, not entirely friendly, and they still had no means to prevent this in the first place.
@GraceNote That's why I originally phrased all of the close reasons as "Sorry, but we can't help you with questions about/that do X, try Y instead."
At the end of the day, when we agree that we don't want fanfics to be acceptable answers, we only have three options:
1. Close the question
2. Have answers that say "There is no canon about this", which are almost impossible to prove authoritative and almost doomed to become wrong as canon expands
3. Ban lore entirely, throwing the baby with the dirty water
Or, I suppose more to point, I think we just crushed about three different axes into a single plane, as the issue isn't much the counter as it is the premise we begin with.
The mess with our rule is that it's very in-specific about the bounds it applies to. Which is illustrated very handily by your option 2 - canon expands over time, or sometimes contracts as well.
The reality is that there isn't an easy solution to judging these as an asker - it requires serious thought about what is being asked and how it relates to the material, to figure how far you're going from what I've thrice almost written a Meta post about, "Relevance". But quite honestly, requiring serious thought is a pretty darn fair thing to expect out of people.
Each time I see this discussion come up, we keep seeming to lean towards the extremes. The complexity of analysis to these is why we keep leaning towards this very lazy and more to point foggy set of rules that people are on edge about. They work - exactly because we do have standards and we can apply those standards. But we aren't even clear to ourselves where our standards sit right now.
Anyway, what I'm saying is, the resolution is pretty clear - we have standards we can enforce for closure of things that are too wispy for us. We can use those without having to do weird political statement dances or deciding that nothing can be allowed. We do have to refine those standards, though, and it will take a hefty amount of thinking if we want something more solid than what we currently have. Until such time, what we have is still usable, even if disagreeably so.
One of these days, maybe I'll finish that whole "Relevance" post.
Think of it as a new approach - quite frankly we open a meta now and we all have heated thoughts that we can throw out, and then others will jump in with heated thoughts, and then voting is all over the place.
@GraceNote I think you're going to get that to some degree no matter when you post the question. I think @StrixVaria's idea would prevent it with at least some effectiveness.
Because the other issue with an empty start is that when you do have the plans to formulate a rather fortified position, having to deal with a huge wall of all the other sides already up and so you have to work against all that and in a lot of cases, the intent of your original fortification is lost as you drew your focus to opposition.
He was at a rally for his party and basically asked if they wanted to see less people from Morocco in Holland, to which people cheered "Less less!" and he said "We're gonna take care of that"
@OrigamiRobot That is an issue with many collectible type games. Luckily I have a group that I play with semi-regularly, so my models don't just collect dust.
@sterno I have a meta post half written with that as a title. It has been half written for like six months. Someday I'll finish it. Today is not that day. Keep bugging me and pointing out situations where it's relevant though! That'll make me finish it. Someday.
@OrigamiRobot I started off with Vampire Counts for fantasy, and that's what most of my models are. I also have a smattering of fantasy Empire models and I've started a 40K Ork army.
@OrigamiRobot That would be fun. I've been using the Orks to teach my kids about amorality, since they fight 'cuz fightings fun, and not because of good or evil.
I want to buy in the Auction House gear for salvage into craft-material. But I don't want to buy the wrong gear for the wrong craft material.
How can I accomplish this?
Craft-materials vary based on the difficulty, and they are:
Normal
Subtle Essence
Fallen Tooth
Nightmare
Shimmering...
@badp I'm not sure how you're automatically assuming the question is no longer applicable. It still has relevance. The comments, not so much. That was specifically what I was addressing.
The Big Idea
Create a page that summarizes who I am as a developer, and lets me show off the stuff I am most proud of. Some of this information is only available by creating a careers profile, but we want to open it up to everybody, even if you don’t have one.
Background: The Problem
Our curr...
I know how it feels to try to get into a closed group. He's just looking for attention, and has no clue on how to do it in a positive way, so it turns negative.
@Frank gnome and retro IIRC are on the list, and both have been behaving good lately. gnome still posts links, but it's not the spam it once was, and retro(slowpoke now) seldom visits, and I didn't see anything wrong with it in his latest chat sessions.
I've decided that @badp has been lying to us this whole time, has nothing in his Careers profile, or just doesn't exist and is really a figment of our imagination.
Except my headcanon now goes on actual numbers, and if you're going to sit here and argue that that's somehow wrong, just for the purpose of saying I'm wrong, then I'm leaving.
Cardinal Quest 2 just released on the app store! Get it while it's fresh, share with your loved ones :D https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cardinal-quest-2/id732353646?mt=8
Yeah, but their posts basically imply that anyone without a demo is doing it because the game sucks...and also implying that the large, large majority of games must be trash
And also ignoring all the problems free to try causes; the current store gives you no hint as to the real price of games, it's monetization strategy, so it's open to all the icky free to play lots of people hate
IN fact it all but enforces icky free to play and paid nags
I was wondering if anyone has a trusted website link where I can get the X-ray mod for Minecraft. Thank you!
I want to buy in the Auction House gear for salvage into craft-material. But I don't want to buy the wrong gear for the wrong craft material.
How can I accomplish this?
Craft-materials vary based on the difficulty, and they are:
Normal
Subtle Essence
Fallen Tooth
Nightmare
Shimmering...
The Big Idea
Create a page that summarizes who I am as a developer, and lets me show off the stuff I am most proud of. Some of this information is only available by creating a careers profile, but we want to open it up to everybody, even if you don’t have one.
Background: The Problem
Our curr...
