muttering about good subjective/bad subjective

2:05 PM

@NautArch, you around?

@Sardathrion I is!

@Sardathrion I definitely hear your frustration about supporting subjective answers, but as someone who has in the past posted unsupported answers I'm finding that adding support makes my answers better. I may not be able to answer every question, but now when I do, I can support it with my experience.

It moves it from i'm generating an idea, to "I've thought of something and I've actually tried it and here's how it went."

Sardathrion

@NautArch So, raw thoughts, not filters: anecdotal evidence is not evidence. It's garbage. Not even good garbage at that. We are all good at creating things, so I can create a dozen "fake" of games I have played to back whatever crazy shit I claim. Mostly, I have around three (nearly four, fu** I am old) decades of experience in doing RPG. I do think we are not arguing about the same thing

NautArch

@Sardathrion What do you think we're arguing about (before I go into your other statements)?

Sardathrion

@NautArch Also, I like my ideas to be judged outside of "cool story bro" framework.

David Coffron

@Sardathrion At risk of intruding in a conversation without full context, you should read this article on why we accept anecdotal evidence in some stacks. We don't have a scientific or legal standard of evidence on RPG.SE, as experts can often provide great support through their extensive experience. If an expert reports some experience that sufficient other users disagree happens on a wide scale, they can downvote.

Yuuki

2:12 PM

> We are all good at creating things [citation needed]

Sardathrion

@NautArch ☺ The crux I suppose is anecdotal evidence is garbage. However, I am not sure that's what you mean by "backing it up".

NautArch

@Sardathrion There definitely is a concern that people 'make up' stories to support their ideas, but I've got trust that folks are mor willing to be honest than not.

David Coffron

@DavidCoffron It's still fallacious from a logical or scientific lens (ad populum or something similar), but the community has agreed that those answers are helpful to our user base.

Yuuki

I, for one, suck at creating things.

NautArch

@Sardathrion Before we really get into it, did you read the Metas?

Sardathrion

2:13 PM

@Yuuki 89% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Yuuki

@Sardathrion The spot seems like a really good place for mathematics research then.

BESW

← 15 messages moved from RPG General Chat

Sardathrion

@BESW Oh sorry. did not mean to offend.

BESW

← 1 message moved from RPG General Chat

David Coffron

@Sardathrion You are fine, we are just trying to keep that conversation separate so it doesn't clog up this chat

NautArch

2:15 PM

@BESW That's not the nicest title for that room :(

BESW

If you don't mean to offend, and don't want to sound like you're just yelling for the sake of yelling, then don't call stack policies shit and garbage.

NautArch

LOUD NOISES

David Coffron

@NautArch <sub> quiet noises </sub>

Oh that doesn't work...

NautArch

haha

BESW

← 4 messages moved from RPG General Chat

NautArch

2:17 PM

but seriously, @Sardathrion. Please start with the metas if you haven't already. It's a great place to get the basic info on the current 'why'. We can discuss here or you can post a new answer to the meta for everyone to respond to.

Sardathrion

Okay, lemme state this: I am frustrated at perceiving to be required to provide anecdotal evidence which I consider garbage. Clearly, I am not 100% certain that this is being asked of me. Mostly, take all I say with a grain of salt -- English is my third language.

BESW

We are going to be kind and assume good faith here, or we are not going to have this conversation at all.

David Coffron

@Sardathrion Then don't provide anecdotal evidence. Provide quality analysis.

BESW

Sard, you need to start from the assumption that there's a reason people think this works or nobody's gonna bother listening to you shout about how it's obvious nonsense.

Sardathrion

I come from a science background where anecdotal evidence is not worth anything. Maybe I do not get what is being asked of me and my answers.

BESW

2:19 PM

Policies can be changed, but you gotta reason for it.

NautArch

@Sardathrion I may be at fault for agreeing that it's anecdotal evidence i'm looking for. But that's why I originally just linked to this meta. It's a good starting point for the discussion.

Right now, you made an assumption which I, unfortunately, supported and that fed back into your viewpoint. Let's start fresh after you've read the discussions on this so that you understand where I'm trying to come from.

Sardathrion

Lemme read it in more details.

BESW

Excellent, then as a scientist you'll know it's important to read the existing work on a concept.

11

Q: What questions are “subjective” and what does “Good Subjective, Bad Subjective” mean to the community

So today I was informed that I had an answer, to “Pathfinder RPG in Forgotten Realms 3.5 setting?” that was not “licit” because I have not done the exact specific thing asked in the question (run Forgotten Realms in Pathfinder). I have run other D&D 3.5 settings in other systems (not Pathfinder)...

G. Moylan

the entire concept of learning how to run and play RPGs is anecdotal. Explaining how a strategy does or doesn't work well at someone's table is equally valuable information as the rules for a given game. RPGs are by definition a social experience, and to blow off those experiences as unqualified is to blow off a key part of how these games work

BESW

17

Q: How do we ask and answer subjective questions?

On RPG.SE, we deal with a fair number of questions that don't have a strict, objectively correct answer. Some game rules questions do, but we also have a good number of questions about how to run a game, how to play a game, which game meets certain criteria, how to handle issues within gaming gr...

discussion faq on-topic subjective-questions

33

Q: What are the citation expectations of answers on RPG Stack Exchange?

As a Stack Exchange site, answers on RPG.SE are expected to be cited and backed up, but what the expectations are exactly can be hard to find. What are the citation expectations of answers on here? What are the expectations for Objective answers? What are the expectations for Subjective answer...

support faq answers citations

G. Moylan

2:22 PM

there is no hard science to how to run or play an RPG. There are the rules of the game, sure, but the rules don't explain how to navigate social conflict. Only our experiences can help others with that

NautArch

Good Subjective, Bad Subjective

Robert Cartaino on September 29, 2010

Stack Exchange is about questions with objective, factual answers. We’ve been crystal clear about this for as long as I can remember, even back to the earliest, pre-beta days of Stack Overflow. It’s right there in the standard Stack Exchange FAQ:

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Thus, questions that are not answerable — discussions, debates, opinions — should be closed as subjective. It seems simple enough: Fact good; opinion and discussion bad. But why? …

@Sardathrion Sorry to toss a lot of links at you, but the four links above encompass a lot of discussion and debate that's been around this.

BESW

We've got multiple faq posts on the subject specific to Role-playing Games, in addition to the Stack-wide policy discussions about how to provide quality solutions for problems that can't be quantified.

If you've got insights to add to the ongoing conversation I'd love to hear them.

The Stack is far from perfect and should always be open to refining and redefining its content and context.

Sardathrion

☺ Clearly, I assume good faith from all of you. I've been around too long not to. I think my reaction spurred from the "anecdotal evidence" bit. Lemme edit my answer to see if I get what is being asked of me.

BESW

@Sardathrion Here's the template I use:

in RPG General Chat, Jan 4 at 6:00, by BESW

"I've done this" is minimal. "I've done this in [system] because I wanted to create [change] and in practice it had [effect]" is much better. Since you're unfamiliar with the asker's situation, the more information you can provide about YOUR experience the more the asker can tell if your solution is a good fit to their situation.

Now I'm going to sleep.

room topic changed to muttering about good subjective/bad subjective: (no tags)

Sardathrion

2:37 PM

8

A: Handling a player (unintentionally) stealing the spotlight

The best way I ever dealt with this is by enlisting the player's help. Explain the problem to them and ask them how they (and yourself) could work how to alleviate the perceived problem. Why perceived problem? Do the other players mind? If not, you are trying to solve an imaginary problem. Did y...

Does this read better?

@BESW Righto, I do like your template. Mind if I steal it?

BESW

Go for it.

Sardathrion

☺ thank you.

OOPS… Have to rush.

BESW

And another rhetorical thing I've found is more effective than it really ought to be in terms of getting tone across: I try not to use "you" unless I mean specifically the individual who asked the question. Almost every time I use "you" in a general sense, I can re-phrase the sentence to say "I" and it's a tighter, more accurate sentence that conveys my experiential learning without presuming anything about my readership.

eg: "In nearly all cases, unless you ask you are rarely told and trying to fix a problem that only identify as a problem will result in animosity."

Sardathrion

In a nut shell, I think I got triggered by the "anecdotal evidence" bit as I have to deal with that idiocy way way way too often.

"You", I tend to use "one" which I find more netural.

BESW

Can become: "In nearly all cases, unless I ask my friends directly they rarely tell me..."

That's a good thing to know about yourself.

Goodnight.

NautArch

2:42 PM

@Sardathrion My apologies for doing that, although unfortunately I think it still applies as an acceptable way to back up an answer.

for us here on the stack (definitely not for hard science!)

Sardathrion

Goodnight. And, as usual, thank you for your help. Much appreciated.

Be seeing you.

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muttering about good subjective/bad s…