The Bridge

McKay

20:00

You can't dress a mii?

Drat, my edit didn't go through, I was going to also add:

Otherwise you might just want to look for any other M-rated Wii game.

Arda Xi

oh yeah, a Mii's only customisation is colour clothing-wise

tzenes

@McKay I think a game-rec is so subjective that you could litterally put anything and it would be correct

liked Godfather? then you'll probably love PONG

it has moving particals

but yeah, don't suggest Phoenix Wright, that's just mean

interesting, getting an answer accepted also bypasses the rep cap

Macha

<3 that gaming is always near the top of chat.

tzenes

20:15

?

Arda Xi

we're one of the top chatrooms on mso

tzenes

ah

Oak

I disagree with the above opinions. [game-rec] is awesome. I mean, I'm not fond of "I liked X, what games are similar" questions. But I like questions like "I liked X because of the following 10 reasons: ... , are there similar games with these traits?".

Oak

It requires people who are experienced with many different games to answer, such as the common gaming.SE user,

tzenes

the problem is that there are never 10

Macha

20:19

** - 34 minutes to id 138 on Linux SE

tzenes

it is usually 3-5

Oak

And it nicely leverages the voting properties of the site.

tzenes

and at least 2 of them are general enough to include any game

Macha

I got 109 on gaming after a day. Guess SE is more poular now

Oak

So I say: close the ones judged by the community to be too broad.

Oak

20:20

But don't close them all.

Oak

(just make them CW to prevent abuse)

tzenes

right now they make up 7% of the site

Oak

And because they match CW more

tzenes

but if you're a new user who plays video games but isn't an expert, where are you going to go?

flip side, if you are an expert and you see a bunch of recommendations are you going to stick around to answer a question on theorycrafting?

or are you going to find a site that caters to expert level questions?

I'm not saying you can't use the SE engine to do this (I think there are better engines, but its possible). I just believe that its really a different website

Oak

But a bunch of our users do enjoy recommending games a great deal. I know I do.

tzenes

20:23

I'm not saying you shouldn't. Only that is really a different topic

Either we are about providing expert answers to gaming questions, or we are a site about recommendations

one excludes the possibility of the other

Oak

But I don't see why we need to make that distinction. This is a site about answering gaming-related questions.

tzenes

Let me give you another example then

Oak

A recommendation is a gaming-related question.

tzenes

I don't think a recommendation is a question, but let's ignore that for a second

Oak

I really don't see why recommendations exclude more specific questions

tzenes

20:25

suppose you're a hard core theorycrafter on Elitistjerks. You know the exact formula for calculating the dps of a subtalty dagger rogue at level 80. Why would you come to our site?

McKay

@tzenes I think I agree.

There's a lot of programmers who are on both StackOverflow and the Game Dev SE

tzenes

that wasn't a rhetorical question, I want you to answer

McKay

Because that question might get asked?

Oak

Why does anyone come to Stackoverflow? Because they used to get a lot of answers there. That expert user is not drawn to our site because that's the place to give answers about topic X, he's drawn because others are providing answers there about a variety of games, and even more general answers such as for game recommendations.

tzenes

its asked on a million sites on the internet, why this one?

McKay

20:26

Because you want to show that you can answer that question? You are an elitistjerk after all.

Oak

Really, my first gazillion visits to SO were not to help, but to get help.

tzenes

That's why you go to SO @Oak, that's not why John Skeet does it

McKay

techdirt.com/articles/20100810/00531310564.shtml

Most people go to sites to get information, but don't participate.

tzenes

If your life is wow, which if you're that expert on elitist jerks it is, you don't care about bubble bobble, or dwarf fortress, you care about WoW

McKay

But that's okay.

tzenes

20:28

@McKay thats why I said expert, not most people

Oak

@tzenes John Skeet is in a minority. John Skeet is not the reason I came to SO.

tzenes

So all you care about is WoW, and not just anything about WoW, specifically theory crafting

AH, that's true

everything you just said is true

Oak

I came because the wisdom of the crowd is worth a lot.

Oak

And it helped me in many topics

tzenes

But John Skeet is the reason SO is so sucessful

Oak

20:29

I could easily manage without skeet.

tzenes

well, not him in particular

but people like him

Oak

... I'm not sure... I got many answers from users who weren't even 10k users.

C. Ross

we like having our hard questions answered quickly and well

tzenes

If you need to know if some arcane call in some obscure library is reentrant, you need the expert

you don't need the wisdom of the crowd

Oak

You missed my point RE wisdom of the crowd

tzenes

20:30

The crowd has no clue

I actually making a counter pointOak

I'm saying that this site is for expert answers

Oak

What I meant it, once you get a shit load of users interesting in gaming, one of them is bound to know the answer to your question. At least, that's how it worked for me in SO.

Oak

Nobody knows everything about everything, not even Skeet. But the crowd knows far more than any single person.

tzenes

No, it wasn't the mass number of users that found your answer, it was the 1 or 2 guys who know everything about that library

those are the guys you want

and there aren't a tone of them

Oak

Yes, but those are just regular guys. Sometimes I was one of these guys

Oak

Even though I don't have high rep on SO, sometimes I was the expert

McKay

20:32

TZenes may know a lot about StarCraft, but he doesn't get the accepted answer on all of those questions. It's sometimes the really low point guys who get the answers.

Arda Xi

codinghorror.com/blog/2008/09/…

C. Ross

I'm not sure expert vs wisdom of the crowds is the question

tzenes

@McKay I'm actually not a good example

Oak

Maybe we're deviating a bit from the topic here, though. We both want to draw the experts, right? I'm just saying that almost everyone who play video games is ALREADY an expert

tzenes

since I'm not that expert

Oak

20:33

... in something.

tzenes

@Oak I'm not sure that's true

Oak

(me neither :) )

Oak

but I feel it is, I really do.

tzenes

I was an expert in Death Knight theory crafting

I"m not anymore

I used to be "that guy." But I stopped caring so much about that

Oak

Look,

Oak

20:34

let's say I played a game X

Oak

And I was stuck on boss Y, and spent a great deal there

Oak

Maybe after fighting with him so long I can now be said to be an expert about boss Y in game X

Oak

That's something tiny and narrow,

tzenes

I don't think that makes you an expert

Oak

But I could answer questions regarding that boss.

tzenes

20:35

experience is not the qualification for expertise

Oak

I think it makes me an expert about boss Y in game X, and I think I'm a user that could be beneficial to the site. Potentially

tzenes

maybe, unless your personal experience led you to the wrong conclusion

Arda Xi

in gaming, other than actually having made the game, experience equals expertise

Oak

(let's assume I learned a great deal about Y and managed to beat him cleverly)

tzenes

What if your experience against a boss in megaman was you could dash away and out run him

but if you actually look at the numbers its not really possible

you just happened to have enough of a headstart beause of some other part of your strategy

so the question comes: "Can you out race this boss using the dash"

and your answer is: of course

meanwhile, some guy somewhere has timed his speed

and that of the dash

and teh cooldown on the dash

and he has a formula that definitively says NO

but why would he come to this website? Its just a bunch of game recommendations

he's on the website where thats the level of expertise they care about

so, no, experience does not equal expertise

Some people treat gaming like a science

some people actually know what the theorhetical dps cap is on a frost death knight

and what weapons you have to equip to get it

Arda Xi

20:39

that's a really tiny percentage though, compared to actual gamers

maybe for MMOs, but not for most other games

tzenes

And when the questions comes across: do I get weapon x or weapon y, the KNOW the answer

IT IS A SMALL PERCENTAGE. That's my point

Arda Xi

there's much more games than experts

Oak

Corner cases. My point is that someone can be an expert about a very narrow subject, but if we get thousand of such users we suddenly get a place where you can get answers, quickly, about many games. I truly believe this is exactly what made SO so successful, and that's the kind of place I would like gaming.SE to become.

Oak

That's my point about the wisdom of the crowd. It's true that having a great Skeet-like expert which likes to study in-depth many games is great, but we don't NEED those Skeets to become a place where questions can be expertly answered.

tzenes

and they're the guys we need

The crowd will come

Arda Xi

20:40

but we can only use them on the games they have expertise in, so it's kinda a moot point

tzenes

to get the crowd we need the Skeets

would you rather go to a site where you know people like Jon Skeet are, or a site that has 500 million users

Arda Xi

but skeet can mostly only answer questions about C#, and SO is about coding in general

tzenes

because there is a programming group on facebook.com

Oak

500 million users. No question about it. I don't need Skeet.

Arda Xi

would you rather have a site where you can ask questions about 10 games or 10 million?

tzenes

20:41

Then why didn't you ask your question on facebook?

Noctrine

Slang makes this discussion parse horribly in my head.

tzenes

The 10 million will come when they know where the experts are

Why do you think ElitistJerks is so big?

the WoW forums are bigger

Arda Xi

because it's dedicated to one game

tzenes

but where would you go to get a serious answer?

I'm comparing two things that are dedicated to one game

Arda Xi

I know

I'm comparing EJ to our site still

tzenes

20:42

More users on the WoW forums, but go try to find out the top dps of a frost dk there

I think we can be bigger than EJ

Arda Xi

not in that way

tzenes

I think we can be EJ for lots of games

Arda Xi

if you only want the experts

we can only be EJ for a limited amount of games

tzenes

We want experts, we will get normal people

I don't think that's true

Arda Xi

of course we want experts, but we won't get enough

McKay

20:43

Why can we only be EJ for a limited amount of games?

Arda Xi

which is why I'd prefer a lot of normal people to a lot of experts

tzenes

We want as many as we can get

Arda Xi

because people at EJ are all focused on one game

Oak

@tzenes it's easy, all you need is one user aware of the EJ website to frequent the WoW forums, and he can point the one asking a question to the right place to look. Remember, the SE platform is not intended for discussion or research, only for final answers.

tzenes

the normal people will follow the experts

Arda Xi

20:44

the experts only knows the facts about their game

normal people know facts about lots of games

tzenes

@Arda you assume experts aren't also normal people

Arda Xi

as an example, every expert adds 10 points to one game, while a normal person can add 1 point to 10 games

tzenes

@Oak we can become a link factor if you'd prefer, then. But then why here? why not google? They have a ranking algorithm too (not exposed, but there is one)

Arda Xi

yes, I do, someone who spends their time making spreadsheets at what the DPS is for a certain mob won't spend a lot of time on other games

tzenes

I think you have the ratio wrong @Arda

Arda Xi

20:45

it was an example

tzenes

I did

I think there are things normal people will never be able to answer

Oak

@tzenes Google can't answer many things...

Arda Xi

I don't know what we're arguing about anyway, we can't really decide our audience

Oak

Neither specific questions not game recommendations

tzenes

But we can decide on the people we want to attract

Arda Xi

20:46

not really

tzenes

you mean we can't decide on our desires?

C. Ross

:70946 Explain?

tzenes

yeah, you're going to have to be clearer there

Arda Xi

normal people will come here anyway

unless you want to put a big banner on the homepage saying: "EXPERTS ONLY"

tzenes

Probably more if they know the experts are here

Arda Xi

20:48

that's just a critical mass problem

tzenes

actually I think the banner would get more people too

Noctrine

Because everyone will come professing to be experts.

An air of exclusion makes people want it more

Arda Xi

so you're saying we just need higher standards

C. Ross

or come to read, even if they don't post

Arda Xi

I don't really see how we can accomplish it though

how do you make the experts come here

C. Ross

20:50

have questions they want to answer

Arda Xi

besides, we are all experts on some things, some not as much as others

as Joel puts it regarding so:

tzenes

I think that experts are attracted to expert questions

C. Ross

have other experts like you three

Arda Xi

"And it is true that we are all, as developers, hopelessly incompetent. The goal of a site like Stack Overflow is to somehow share the correct knowledge wherever it may be as it is scattered throughout the universe, and to cause that to be voted up and to be spread amongst us. There's this big universe of dumb programmers, and I'm one of them, and we all have a little bit of knowledge."

C. Ross

and give them praise/rep for their participation

tzenes

20:51

we need more expert level questions and not game-rec where any one with an opinion puts one in

Arda Xi

"We all have these little tiny pieces of information and if we can just contribute a little bit, that information gets amplified, and maybe a thousand other dumb developers will benefit from my one little piece of good information."

true, we need less game rec questions

tzenes

@ArdaXi on a high level I think that's true, but its getting to that point that's the issue

Arda Xi

but we've said that since the private beta

tzenes

well I think as long as there are still game-rec questions there will always be more

Arda Xi

nobody has ever been able to come up with a plan to get rid of game-rec

tzenes

20:52

if we had 2 or 3, I wouldn't say this is an issue

Noctrine

Blacklist :)

tzenes

but we have 7%

its the 4th most popular tag

Arda Xi

without discouraging people en-masse

tzenes

I think its simple. We say this site does not exist for game recommendations, it exists for serious question and answer

we leave 1 or 2 questions (maybe the procedural one)

and axe the rest

and once in a blue moon, we let another one in, if its really interesting enough

C. Ross

:71023 I second

tzenes

20:54

or, if that's not a solid enough rule, if a game-rec does not gain more than 25 upvotes in the first week, it gets deleted

but either way, we need to clean house

Arda Xi

we need firm, fool-proof rules

C. Ross

speaking of that ...

2

Q: Other versions of minesweeper?

So my loves to play minesweeper and I know I have seen other versions of minesweeper that have more to it or use shapes other than just squares. But I can't seem to find them. Does anyone know where I can find them? I would prefer it to be free, but it doesn't have to be. Games that run on windo...

game-rec

Arda Xi

laws if you will

tzenes

top 10 tag is unacceptable.

I wish Cross, but I used all mine today

Arda Xi

so that there can be no discussion of whether a question is to be allowed or not

C. Ross

20:55

there will always be discussion

tzenes

Well, less discussion

clear cut rules will cut down on it.

Arda Xi

exactly

tzenes

I'd perfer the rule that says: none. But I will compromise to the rule that says 25 upvotes in 5 days

or 7, as weekends are slow

Arda Xi

I don't think that'll work, it's not what the vote system is for

people can game the system to keep their question in

tzenes

I know its not the design, but I need some way of saying, this game-rec just isn't interesting enough

Arda Xi

20:57

the rules have to be based on the question, not the way it's received

tzenes

I think any system can be gamed, which is why I want: NO

C. Ross

If it gets 5 delete votes doesn't that say it's not interesting enough?

tzenes

Let's say your set of rules makes the question more specific

Arda Xi

why don't we just say no game-rec

tzenes

well now you've increased the number of questions

Arda Xi

20:57

all we need is a set of rules that make a question game-rec

tzenes

I've been saying no game-rec for a long time

I want deleting game-rec to be the norm

and keepign it to be the exception

Arda Xi

we can't just bulk-delete 100 questions though..

well, we can

tzenes

Half of them are closed

I'd delete those, so game-rec seems less the norm

Arda Xi

58 aren't closed

tzenes

ok, delete the 41 that are

Meeting with the boss man

got to run

Arda Xi

21:00

we'll need a mod in here first anyway

:71097 good luck :)

tzenes

Well Oak strongly disagrees and Grace and Juan want to compromise more

and thanks

Arda Xi

we'll have to have a discussion with at least one of them in here I guess

ping @JuanManuel

tzenes

boss is running late

Maybe start a meta question: Make game-rec less the norm

suggestion deleting the closed ones?

looking for more suggestions?

Arda Xi

I still think we need clear-cut rules

just say: if a question has all of these characteristics, we don't want it

but yeah, they need to be much less prevalent if anything, not just closed but deleted too

the whole problem is that they reached critical mass

tzenes

I don't know where he is

We are supposed to meet at 2

its 2:10 now

Kevin Y

21:10

So, are we basically going to try to limit the number of game-recs?

tzenes

I'd prefer if that number was < 3, but I'll take what I can get

here is the issue with making rules based on the question. As long as the question remains a list style question, either the rules make things more specific, in which case we end up with more game-rec questions, or the rules make things less specific in which case we end up with a more general question which really helps noone and is little more than a ranking of video games

Arda Xi

I don't think I get you

Why would prohibiting certain questions according to a list of characteristics make us end up with more game-rec?

tzenes

well let's say your criteria is: there has to be only 1 other game which fits the description

which is about as specific as humanly possible

I guess no games would be more specific, but let's ignore that for the moment

so essentially your criteria allows for 1 game-rec per game

let's go the other direction

let's say there should be many games or the criteria is bad

well now you're promoting less helpful questions, as you run into the problem of too many games

So you want a medium level of specificity

antony.trupe

any questions waiting on more close votes?

tzenes

Rules tend toward polarizing specificity

thus are less desirable

is there a way to search for questions with atleast 3 close votes?

Kevin Y

21:19

I don't think so.

Just closed / open.

What exactly can you do with "moderation tools"?

Arda Xi

:71180 See statistics mostly

Kevin Y

Ahh.

Arda Xi

like the questions with most close votes :)

2

Q: Other versions of minesweeper?

So my loves to play minesweeper and I know I have seen other versions of minesweeper that have more to it or use shapes other than just squares. But I can't seem to find them. Does anyone know where I can find them? I would prefer it to be free, but it doesn't have to be. Games that run on windo...

game-rec

has 4

and gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/3882/… has three

3

Q: Games for someone who loved Godfather: Blackhand Edition

My husband is not a huge gamer, but he loved Godfather: Blackhand Edition for the Wii. He's deleted his save game, started over, and beat the game at least four times since we've bought it and he's finally gotten bored with it. I can't think of another game of mine he's played more - I did try ...

game-rec wii third-person-shooter

tzenes

:71180 you can see it with mod tools

Kevin Y

2k rep! celebrates

Arda Xi

21:25

heh, you'll get bored with it once you cross 2k1 rep :)

Kevin Y

So what was this whole discussion about experts?

We want more experts on the site?

Arda Xi

we want to attract experts by cutting down on gamerec, basically

Kevin Y

I see.

Oak

@tzenes @Arda I saw you were looking for any mod earlier... but remember we don't make decisions, the community does.

Oak

There have been many questions on meta regarding [game-rec] and similar question

Oak

21:37

Sadly, we have no consensus.

Kevin Y

While I also want to cut down on game-rec, I don't think experts would be discouraged from our site by them.

Arda Xi

well, the way our site looks right now game-rec makes up a big part of the questions

Oak

Though in my opinion, lack of consensus means that a close/delete rampage is not warranted...

Arda Xi

which does discourage experts

Oak

Maybe we need a meta question like: "do [game-rec] discourage you personally?"

Oak

21:40

They definitely do not discourage me, though I might be in the minority

Kevin Y

We should also try to actually get the word out about our site.

Didn't we attempt to notify big review sites when we came out of private beta?

Oak

It can give us a feeling about it, because @Arda I do not believe it discourages experts

Oak

And 7% is a significant percentage but it's still a pretty small minority.

Oak

It's just a noisy minority :)

Arda Xi

true, but game-rec keeps popping up every day

Oak

21:42

Actually I think their percentage in the site is definitely going down

Oak

Used to be the 2nd most popular tag, if I recall correctly

Oak

And I recall it being more than 7%, which it is now

Oak

... might be wrong, though.

tzenes

22:23

@Oak I think Starcraft2 had a lot to do with that

but if you look at the 3 more popular tags, two of them are generic: PC and 360

So the only topic that's actually more popular than game-rec is starcraft, a highly anticipated release which just came out. By comparison there is no reason recommendations are experiencing a burst

tzenes

22:37

Actually now that I think it through, maybe deleting these questions is sending the wrong message. Perhaps seeing so many recommendations closed discourages them. Its hard to say without concrete evidence.

FallenAngelEyes

23:23

Good evening all

0

Q: Is the acid revolver the best gun in Borderlands?

I seem to always end up with an acid revolver in the end. Who needs snipers when anything gets a sniper scope. In my opinion, non-snipers shouldn't get as good a scope as sniper rifles. It kinda ruins the point of them when they don't do more damage and don't have best scope either.

borderlands

Voted to close as per the comment I left on the question, thoughts?

Arda Xi

That's what I thought, it's another 'best X' question

FallenAngelEyes

It's not even specific enough to be that helpful to someone who plays the game. A corrosive revolver on Brick, for example, would probably be pretty "meh."

tzenes

I think he's trying to justify an argument of imbalance

FallenAngelEyes

could be

But this still isn't really the place for it. The only real responses we can give are "Well, it depends."

lotsa discussion about experts in backscroll

Arda Xi

this is the first question I've seen so far for which it's actually "impossible to objectively answer this question; questions of this type are too open ended and usually lead to confrontation and argument."

out of the dozens of questions that were closed for SnA

FallenAngelEyes

23:33

haha yeah

Arda Xi

hmm, DF is a great game, but when going from ASCII to a graphical tileset, I finally understand what the icons mean

FallenAngelEyes

Anyway, my .02, I was under the impression, from a discussion in meta, that our intention with the site wasn't to become elitist to a point of exclusion.

Hehe, I used that as well when I played, just don't tell the hardcore Nethackers :P

How do I link to a certain answer or comment thread in a question?

Arda Xi

I dunno, there is something hardcore about ascii, but there is also something to understanding the screen and readable text

comment I don't know

FallenAngelEyes

ah, here, link

6

A: Re-evaluating our site - what is the scope of an "acceptable" list, if it exists?

Disclaimer: I am the author of one of the listed examples, but I am not here to talk about my question. It is fine with me if it is closed if the community decides so. In this answer I only present my general opinion about acceptable questions at gaming. A site like this can only be successful i...

Arda Xi

but every question has- right

FallenAngelEyes

23:35

Comment exchange there

Mine are near the bottom

Arda Xi

well, yeah, but we still want experts, you can't have experts in poll questions

game-rec are basically poll questions

(as Grace put it in that very thread)

FallenAngelEyes

Yes, I realize that, but excluding that entirely, I still thought that part of the point of the site was not to be elitist jerks (not the site in particular, but that kind of community)

Like I said, whether we intend it or not, a community is going to form and already has. We're not going to have a lot of direct control over what type of people are going to join.

We can try, sure, but shoehorning too hard can definitely have the opposite effect of what you're intending.

I think part of what we're deciding here with the [game-rec] discussion, whether intentional or not, is the level of exclusion we're looking at for the site. And with that, we have to think about what a healthy level of exclusion would be in the beta stage, considering the site's fate is still up in the air.

alexanderpas

23:57

((is it wrong to ask a perfectly valid question, just to promote a game))

FallenAngelEyes

62

Q: How can I tell if a corpse is safe to eat?

I am playing a human wizard, and I just killed a monster, leaving a corpse on the ground. How do I tell whether it is safe to eat this corpse? I leave the monster unspecified because I am interested in "how can I figure out whether this is edible," rather than whether any particular monster is e...

roguelikes nethack

On a random note, that made me lol

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