so this episode of "Good Doctor" has a Senator stating that a facial tic will destroy her career and I'm half-hoping the doctors don't cure her by the end but I know they'll do something because that's the show. </rant>

oof

wonderful now an inspiration porn anecdote with uplifting music behind it

oh how "wonderful" :/

All the D&D hostility lately is really starting to piss me off. let people like things.

@G.Moylan Thanks for saying that, Trish and I had a little disagreement on that yesterday.

@KorvinStarmast Yeah, I saw that go down

And Trish is one of my favorite Q&A ers here ...

I haven't said even half of this

Please no vulgarities

then edit it, don't delete my whole comment. What I said is still valid.

I can't edit other people's comments.

then maybe flag someone who can?

I don't think this is a bad conversation to have, but I am going to move this over to Dragons.

you're free to repeat it, minus the vulgarities

← 11 messages moved from TRPG General Chat

← 1 message moved from TRPG General Chat

Your mileage may vary in application of this factoid, but the word "piss" is in the King James Bible.

I think it's more that "piss off" is fairly unfriendly. I totally get the frustration, but that read poorly.

Yes, you can't really pick a single word and argue that since it's ok there, it should be ok here in a totally different sentence and context as well. (I would post examples you'd surely agree with, but this isn't a conversation about vulgarities, insults etc)

I also strongly think my original comment about D&D hostility belongs in main chat for people to see. I'm so tired of feeling crapped on for liking D&D

and the only place I feel like that is on this stack

I said in two directly sequential messages I'm not interested in continuing work of patching over D&D's pitfalls. I'm not telling anyone to not like it. But I also don't owe the game anything; I don't have to like it or pretend it's fine.

The game will be fine without me liking it or with me mentioning it's got a commonly acknowledged pitfall.

The way you phrased it about superior games or whatever was the tipping point

at any rate, I'm not mad at you. There are other people here that I feel are way more condescending

This was on the tail end where I'd spent half the entire conversation talking about how different games handle establishing player relationships.

and the mechanics and approaches they use to do so

Different games can do specific things better than other games. That's not a comment on them being better games, that's a comment on them doing the thing better.

which was fine. The part that upset me was the comment about "superior" games. It reminded me of all the crap I've seen on here the past couple days and it set me off. Again, my frustration isn't targeted at you.

I felt super subtweeted at, given it was right after that.

Nobody mentioned "superior" games.

I apologize, that wasn't the goal.

I forget your exact phrasing but it was adjacent

clearly enough to remind me of the issue

"this stuff" being character relationships

To me that just reads as dismissive of D&D. The tone comes off wrong for me. But that might just be me.

@doppelgreener Honestly, while I"m talking about my D&D experience, I didn't see this as a D&D conversation or that it had ventured into that.

@NautArch The second half delved entirely into D&D dynamics, which I wanted to avoid.

@G.Moylan I get what you mean and well. No love lost between myself and DnD and I'm therefore in a rather similar situation as Doppel is --- yet still I'd obviously prefer if no one in chat was feeling ostracized for their games of choice or whatever the sitch. Naturally there has to be room for critique and for people to express they don't play DnD, but there have to be reasonable bounds.

@doppelgreener I didn't notice that, but maybe because I"m on the inside?

@G.Moylan We have an entire game that dominates the hobby that keeps re-repeating the same mistakes that its peer games were solving twenty years and three major versions ago and is almost impossible to not talk about. I will spend ages tearing apart the flaws of games I love, but I said one thing about being fed up with D&D's flaws and got told to piss off and I'm not even surprised, just disappointed. If there's frustration with D&D there, I think it's commnuicated.

It is unfortunate that DnD does have such a large fraction of the market, it seems like any TRPG discussion will given enough time become a DnD discussion.

Lol, me and doppel said the same thing in different words essentially at the same time.

But even in this scope, I'm being fed up with the fact that D&D's latest major version went to a model which still keeps these relationship problems such that parties can dissolve into PVP without active work the game doesn't work to encourage.

At least in Fate, that's not a failure state. In Masks, the whole game is about your characters working through things. In Bubblegumshoe, the entire system is built around a premise that makes that unlikely to happen—but still has throwdowns if it comes to it, which have their own resolution to move things forward (and which everyone always wants to avoid).

@kviiri I think "unfortunate" is subjective, but it is a truism. But if we're all just talking about a potential table concern and how it's solved, then cutting out the viewpoint of those who play it seems unnecessary. A better tack would be to talk about what works well in other systems, not what doesn't work in D&D.

@doppelgreener Again, I wasn't directing my comments at you. I didn't tell you to piss off. I was complaining that anyone who tells me I'm having badwrongfun needs to piss off. Your comments upset me, whether you meant them to or not, but not beucase of what you said, it's what I was reminded of. Specifically, the sour attitudes I've been seeing around here lately.

Hell, that's how I improve my D&D experience.

@NautArch I disagree about the subjectiveness, but it's beside the point for this.

(I don't like monopolies or near-monopolies on creative outlets in general)

Mmm. I hear you that something I said uncorked an issue that's more directed at others, but I sure felt told to piss off in the moment. I was after all the only person that said anything remotely like what you'd brought up; I felt like words were put into my mouth about it.

@doppelgreener I apologize. that wasn't the aim.

Completely accepted

@doppelgreener These anti D&D issues have been much more frequent and up-front over the past couple of weeks. I think it's taking a toll on the D&D players here.

I feel like there's a lot of conversation along those lines I haven't seen.

(unless it's the stuff on meta, in which case I have seen)

It's been in main chat and on meta.

By Meta, do you mean this? rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11514/…

@kviiri No, and I've got other concerns about that Q&A that I've flagged. But moreso the discussions in the community check-in.

And the responses by some users after that in main and how D&D is talked about.

It's good to raise an issue if you believe there is one, but this is starting to move beyond that.

We had a kerfuffle where a user did not want to use an otherwise appropriate tag on their question because the tag description mentioned D&D as an example of a game that uses the system the tag describes.

Ah, righty roo.

To paraphrase, "I dont want that tag anywhere near my question since its description mentions d&d"

@G.Moylan Anyway, independent of how I feel about DnD itself, I don't want anyone to feel like chat is a hostile environment to them, and I'll personally try to maintain further vigilance to keep discussion concerning systems respectable to all involved.

@NautArch is one of them "is this [user notorious for stirring up trouble by Just Asking Questions]?" because damn that occurred to me, but i'm trusting it's going to occur to the mods too

@doppelgreener There's a lot of question marks in that question so I flagged it. Feel weird talking about my concerns publicly, though.

gotcha

@G.Moylan This won't of course mean a blanket ban on system criticism, but we can put in more effort in ensuring that people stay respectable and focus on actual issues instead of dunking on the system on completely unrelated things just because they don't like it.

@doppelgreener The conspiracy theorist in me that I try to keep locked up wants to believe its a sock puppet seeding anti-d&d sentiments, but I know that is highly improbable.

I have a to go very soon, @NautArch what's your take?

As an addendum, @G.Moylan remember that you too can always ping a room owner to move a discussion to HBD if it feels like too much for any reason.

room owners are slanty names, right?

Yup

k

@AncientSwordRage might be able to do that stuff too.

I think, cuz hes a network mod.

Yeah, mods are blue-with-diamond, and are SE-wide when it comes to chat

oh hi

yes I haz powaz

ferret powers

Regarding DnD hostility, /me takes off administrative hat I don't think people should ever feel like they're ganged on on this site, but I can at least share my side from where I come from and maybe it'll also help engage better with why people are doing this. (I think my days of peak hostile energy are way past)

In some sense, if someone's been hurt it should be ok to let them vent, but it should not be ok to let that hurt transfer onto others that is how things get toxic

So the group I used to play TRPGs with ("used to" both because COVID and because of diverging hobby tastes) started playing in the university with DnD 4e. I joined a friend's AW-campaign (reskinned to Shadowrun world) after the DnD 4e campaign died down. It was a transformative experience to me for a variety of reasons. I joined RPG.SE and chat, started reading on different systems, learning a ton of stuff from BESW and doppel and other wise people.

Anyway, some time, many one-shots and mini-campaigns later in other, diverse crowds, DnD 5e was out, the group was about to reconvene to start new campaigns in DnD 5e and I was despite everything enthusiastic to get into good old dungeoneering stuff again.

@ThomasMarkov did you need me to move anything?

@AncientSwordRage I was just verifying your ability.

So I got to play again with my "core" group, some people I consider to be among my closest friends. It was fun at first, and then I felt like... we started stalling. All the time. Our sessions often felt slow-paced, many things just didn't... work. And well, okay, I had been playing different games for a while, I suggested mechanics from them to help where DnD's had failed.

And time after time after time, the result was essentially "eh I dunno, I think the DM should just handle it better". It got super frustrating. (As a sidenote, I'm a programmer by trade and "Just be better" is a textbook caricature example of how projects shouldn't be managed)

@ThomasMarkov consider me verified

@ThomasMarkov Your voice is your passport

Oh, I forgot one bit, before 5e we also played a game in Savage Worlds (or Deadlands: Reloaded, which runs on SW engine). Now that's an engine I'm glad to say sucks, though it's improved a lot on later releases by what I understand.

@kviiri I was looking at Savage Worlds (you may have helped me with chargen for it), and while we never played I don't think it's something I"d like.

Anyway, I offered my group to run a few games of other systems, either to the whole group or a mix of volunteers, but it was almost always like talking to a brick wall. Zero interest in trying anything new most of the time, and it frustrated me. Games and mechanics I introduced to my friends were also scrutinized in a manner DnD wasn't, which I attribute to DnD being "the default option" and also relying heavily on GM fiat.

@kviiri that feels endemic of 5E

@kviiri I think a lot of it familiarity. I tried doing the same with my group and while we did a couple sessions of Iron Kingdoms and Paranoia, we were always right back to D&D. And very little interest to try something new.

It got worse when we got new players who came from MtG. They really had zero interest in learning another new system.

And then there was zero interest in learning a new system virtually.

In general, I noticed that DnD rules are in a sense above criticism --- because any criticism can always be escalated to "the DM is not doing their job right"

But I think people get comfortable. Change is hard.

@kviiri I disagree with that. We complain about the rules all the time :)

But a bad DM in D&D is really a problem - although I'd see the same in my Scum & Villainy try.

And it was the same in Iron Kingdoms (although that was the same DM i had issues with in 5e running that one, too.)

@NautArch Heh, okay, you have a point x) my group generally didn't, but I agree the sentiment is not very universal. I think it's more universal when talking about "holes" in the rules --- things other games have rules for while DnD doesn't.

@kviiri Definitely! But that's where we can focus on the good of those systems. We know D&D doesn't do things well, but focusing on that rather than on how other do it well is the problem.

Anyway, I was supposed to go ages ago (as I told @NautArch in another chat right before starting to write my life story :D), I don't really intend this to change anyone's mind but this is basically what you have to cope with when the games you like are overshadowed by The Default Option.

You'll get shot down a lot, you'll be looked at weirdly for trying to rock the boat, you're going to face a long, long uphill struggle to get people excited about games whose mechanics are antithetical to what they're used to.

And quite often, if you get far enough to actually play any of those systems you're excited about with these people... someone's going to try to play DnD in it anyway ;)

@kviiri I don't think anyone is stopping folks from talking about non-default. But when they ask the default lovers to not participate or focus in on what's wrong with the default rather than what's right with their choices, then that can cause strife.

We can talk about the systems we like. We shouldn't prevent others from enjoying what they enjoy - and we can even all learn new ways to use our systems.

@kviiri It's frustrating for me too, in no small part because many issues that come up are things other games have actually fixed. Other games at least put in effort to fix their own problems—D&D repeatedly declines to do so and instead recreates them, and in some part they're tied down to tradition but at this point they're just willingly choosing to recreate them. And meanwhile it continues to be a dominant game that fills almost the entire room it's in, and WotC does that intentionally.

@NautArch I mean in my own social circle, and presumably many other gaming groups. Not really our chat, because our chat has a rather good population of non-mainstream players

What I'm describing is not what happens in our chat, it's what happens when I talk to the people I play with.

@kviiri Right, but some of those things I'm saying are happening in our chat.

Or used to play.

@NautArch As a sort of epilogue, yeah, I think Savage World is a very specific-purpose game that has an annoying quality: it's relatively lightweight and setting-agnostic, giving many people the idea that it's a very generic RPG while the bulk of its mechanics concern relatively simulationist combat.

Crunchy crunchy.

The system heavily penalizes sub-optimal builds, going as far as to deprive them of most of their agency, as one of my fellow players found out after leaving Spirit as a dump stat. Spirit is the stat you use to even act after being hit, basically.

whats the proplem?

During the D&D 5e playtest—*a playtest soliciting feedback!*—I was incapable of actually critiquing the game in this chat without another member coming in and being extremely defensive, taking the position that everything was perfect by default and centralising any discussion I tried to have around their own insistence everything was fine until it became hostile.

mythcreants.com/blog/…

I went so far as to create a room dedicated to critique of D&D Next so that I could just go discuss it freely.

I can freely talk about ways to fix problems, but if it's just "there is this problem and it is a problem" or "this problem exists and I don't like that it exists", that gets peoples' heckles up. That doesn't happen with other games. I can talk about how Fate has problems and them existing is a problem and I don't like that it has those problems, and that just turns into good discussion with other fate players examining the problem!

I should add, there is legitimate concern that traffic related DnD is detrimental to the site's purpose as a Q&A platform for all RPGs (excluding certain highly polemic ones)

I mean, the extent of the traffic (vs other systems)

There are probably many causes to the high volume of traffic, some benign (sheer popularity, size of rules, lore), some not related to the game itself (DnD has a long tradition of rule debates and theory crafting) and some essentially WotC creating the problem for us (Attack action vs attack, or the ambiguities of action terminology, and similar commonly-misunderstood-rules)

Especially with the latter cause, I do understand the frustration. You'd probably have much more rep for answering all questions on Attack action vs attack in DnD 5e than you'd get for answering all questions on any indie RPG.

Does Stackoverflow deal with the behemoth that are the major programming languages? I'm guessing that we aren't the only stack that has a visible focus on the most common subset.

But that's a guess. I see the reflection of questions about D&D as a purely a reflection of their market share. More users = more questions at it's absolute simplest.

There is a difference between high-traffic tags and low-traffic tags, yes.

We can attempt to speculate on if poor writing is a major cause, or if it's just because so many people found the poor writing.

But that'll be pure speculation.

IIRC Board & Card games have a similar situation with MtG, and Arqade with minecraft, but I don't think to the same extent

And the path of the site's D&D prevalence mirrors that as well. When 5e came out, it began to show the 500lb gorilla that it was. It brought users in. Brought questions. They heavily marketed the new game and it shows.

@Someone_Evil Yeah, its not as bad, I have those tags ignored on those sites and theyre still usable.

@NautArch I just think that's an unfounded assumption

@kviiri I think it's got more support than the rules being written poorly.

I don't think it should be a surprise that the most popular RPG by far in both longevity and modern popularity has the vast lion's share of questions.

The largest user-base has the largest question count? That makes sense to me.

I don't have to like it, but it makes sense :)

@NautArch But I'm not claiming the poor writing is the cause. I'm saying it's likely to be a cause.

@kviiri Sure, and I can generally agree with that. But I have more belief in that user-base being the driving force behind question volume.

We're going to see more questions about using Adobe products than GIMP in the wild.

@NautArch Likewise, it's not the majority share that's a problem in itself, it's the extent on how dominant it is, coupled with some other unfortunate bits about RPG culture

@kviiri Sure, but it's domination here is a reflection of the domination of the marketplace.

@NautArch Even if it was just that it would be a problem.

And I'm not actually sure that's a 'stack issue.' It's just a reality.

We can't force people to ask questions about games they aren't playing (or don't have issues with.)

I don't think that's our role nor does it make sense for it to be.

We can create environments where other games and players are welcome, though.

And I very much see success in that.

No, but we could in theory construct a site that would not use these particular criteria for visibility, reputation and approximation of expertise.

And we can talk about using other systems as solutions in our D&D questions if we really want as a means to help spread the word of other systems.

@kviiri How would one stop a majority from asking questions and get a minority to ask more?

@NautArch I never said that.

None of the reasons why Stack awards reputation, how voting and decision-making works, what questions are visible and what questions are not, are some god-given natural laws.

@kviiri Sure, but that is how stack exchange works. We are working with how the stack works.

@NautArch Yes, that's how Stack Exchange works. And it's not working well at all for anything but DnD, and that's a problem.

And I am still not seeing a huge problem in that smaller systems aren't being asked about as much.

It is, unfortunately, a popularity contest.

Where the more popular will get more questions simply by sheer volume of users.

@NautArch I never said that was the problem.

My apologies - what is the problem?

It's worth noting that Q&As dealing with system agnostic issues consistently perform well above average score wise.

@NautArch That the vast over-representation of DnD traffic, combined with how the stack works, is making the site less viable for other systems excluding intervention from a core of veteran users who are increasingly weary of their roles as defending minor systems

The low question count for non-DnD systems is a partial source of the problem, not the problem itself.

@kviiri Okay, I can work with that. When do we feel like we need to defend minor systems? I honestly don't think I"ve seen that need.

I've seen folks want to get others into them, but I don't think I've seen concerns where someone feels like they've been forced to defend using a smaller system.

I'm not talking about "defending" them in the sense of advocating in favor of using them. (I think it's not exactly the purpose of main site anyway, since we don't do recommendation questions)

I mean main site stuff, eg. non-DnD questions receiving upvoted DnD-answers

@kviiri when does that happen?

I smash delete on that stuff so fast

@kviiri I think that's an unrelated issue. Our moderation team and stackizens are usually really good about nipping those in the bud.

Maybe far in the past we weren't, but I don't see that as an issue now.

But that also comes down to our system tagging issues, too.

@kviiri find answers like this that are up and ill flag em NAA and we'll get them deleted lol

I'm just worried about the fact that these answers just seem to fly unless someone actively gets an effort against them

@kviiri That's an issue with every bad answer.

They all fly by until someone makes an effort.

@NautArch But there are bad answers that won't look like good answers to a lion's share of our site users

@kviiri I cant really relate to this, im not seeing that it is happening.

@ThomasMarkov Maybe I'm thinking too much in the past, and extrapolating too much to the future

If this is what we're hanging our hats on as the real problem, we need to quantify it given that I really haven't seen this currently.

And if there's anyone who is likely to see stuff like this, its me.

@kviiri There are bad answers on SO Java Qs that look like good answers to C# users. This isn't a unique problem

I think a lot of the concerns we have 'now' about the site are actually from a long time ago and aren't necessarily still around.

But folks haven't gotten used to or noticed/been willing to notice that things have changed.

@G.Moylan I'd say we're talking about a different scale of issue

And, to be honest, a lot of the things folks end up complaining about turn out to be projections on their own actions.

@kviiri Then swap Java for a far less-popular language.

@kviiri If we're going to say this is an issue, we really do need to show that it's an issue.

@G.Moylan The concept is the same.

When we've got two sets of trusted users saying different things, we need to get out of subjective.

@G.Moylan Programmers in general are >99% likely to understand that two programming languages aren't alike when pointed out.

@NautArch This has been my experience. I often see users talk about X problem, and then point to a meta conversation that predates me by years.

@kviiri and truly experienced gamers are likely to understand that stuff in one game doesn't mean much to another

@ThomasMarkov THey predate me as well.

@G.Moylan But our site doesn't run on "truly experienced gamers" (even to same extent Stack Overflow's programmers...)

We don't have entrance exams.

I'd posit that when you do see this issue crop up it's either: 1) people who don't understand the stack model; 2) people who are just trying to snipe what they think is easy rep and they're being lazy; or 3) inexperienced gamers who don't necessarily get that there's a difference

No, but we operate on the "expert" model because that's how the stack works.

...and #3 is a significant part of our user base, and their vote is just as much worth as your or mine.

sure, but that's where moderation and community curation comes in. We can't stop people from posting something but we sure can do something about it afterword

And having a community of active mods and active users helps manage all that.

Although maybe not mods, as they are supposed to be the exception handlers, not the every-day handlers.

But we've got a strong community of active users - many of whom are open to, play, and understand that there are more systems than D&D out there.

My experience is that when prompted that someone's using wrong edition or wrong system as the basis of their answer, it's a coin flip between whether they acquiesce or double down. (The end result is still the same due to current community moderation)

@NautArch Yes, we've got that community now, I don't deny that.

@kviiri That's a people problem not an RPG problem

@kviiri Well, a double down is an issue with users and moderation then. I think that would qualify as an exception if the normal stack processes of curation aren't successful.

But will we still have that community in n years, that's what worries me

And on the flip side, I've started seeing some answers to 5e come in with pathfinder experience and that rubs me very much the wrong way as well.

That's unexpected, I would've expected vice versa

@kviiri If they leave, it's their choice. We can't force them to stay. We've lost a LOT of very good users, and mods, over the years. We have gained a lot of very good users and mods.

The community is always going to be changing, and we have to be okay with that because we can't stop it.

What we can do is make it open and welcome for all. And honestly, the recent "D&D is too much" is making me as a D&D player feel unwelcome.

Where I don't think any actual actions D&D players are doing do the same.

"Man, I'm really sick of hearing about all this non-D&D content" is just not a sentiment I hear

The fact that the stack appreciates DnD rule minuteae more than any non-DnD system I've played does make me feel unwelcome and unappreciated.

@kviiri How does that make you feel unwelcome?

I think that's a representation of either: 1) D&D needing more rules mitigation because of the rules tangle it already is; and 2) more people playing D&D

@NautArch Sure, but as the community keeps changing, I just can't see current standards of community moderation being a working long-term solution.

@kviiri You don't think you can trust the community to maintain the open stance we have now?

I mean, at this point, if anything non-D&D questions get a benefit of the doubt for an upvote from many of us just to help bring those to the forefront.

@NautArch I've argued with a user on chat for a fairly long while who was in favor of letting the votes decide the best answer without system curation ,so not

(that was also going to be my answer to why I feel unwelcome by now)

I really haven't seen any community action that I would consider harmful to smaller RPG users.

@kviiri IDK, I think that's slippery sloping it

@kviiri YOu can always highlight a single user, but that's not a reasonable argument.

If we're talking about trends, which I think we are, then a single point is not a trend.

It doesn't change the fact that you aren't feeling welcome, though.

But maybe we can figure out more reasons why that are solvable. I don't think we can fix what others do unless we want to start talking policies - and I'm pretty sure we don't :)

@NautArch It's certainly not enough to establish a trend, but coupled with the fact that most of our traffic is still DnD-based, it's enough for me to establish doubt on the trend of our non-mainstream friendliness

@kviiri I think you are conflating D&D prevalence to unfriendliness.

If the just mere volume of D&D is what is the cause, then I don't think there is a solution.

But being preferentially focused on D&D doesn't mean that we are unfriendly to nonD&D.

I think the stack is very clear that it accepts all RPGs within its scope. IT just so happens that D&D has the most players and has the most questions by comparison because the rules are a bit of a mess to begin with. We also get a high volume of D&D Qs that are clearly better suited for a forum, so the volume seems higher than it actually is. (though it is still quite high)

I think it does, not inherently but thanks to how Stack manages it all.

Then that's still not something we can solve

Yeah, let's say I was not particularly hopeful for a solution in the first place

I was airing my resentment at how online visibility, especially in naive updoot-downdoot -based platforms works.

I'm just glad we have tagging setup the way we do. It at least makes everything somewhat searchable

True

I posted a Call of Cthulhu Q yesterday and I'm ust glad I was able to quickly verify that it hadn't been asked before

(I'm surprised that it hadn't, honestly, but oh well)

@NautArch To clarify, I still feel welcome in chat, but on main site, I feel I don't really have much business anymore.

Chat is also feeling a bit tedious at times, it feels weird to discuss matters of a community I'm increasingly detaching myself from

Anyway, thanks to both @G.Moylan and @NautArch for being respectable despite me venting a bit

and @ThomasMarkov

So I used the answer I proposed here on a mainsite question and it is now the highest scoring answer in the wish tag.

@kviiri :)

@ThomasMarkov the crusade begins

@kviiri Ugh... that happens on SO. Someone asks a question for a particular language or framework and gets answers from other languages or frameworks. Which is a nice find for a lot of people that have the luxury of using those... but really sucks when you have the same problem and same constraints. Just a lot of noise that is basically "yes I know the other language works better for this."

@GcL I always would've assumed SO was more resilient against this

But apparently it's a real issue there, then?

@kviiri SO is so stinking big that moderators can't keep up, and they often don't

So many ways to skin a cat. So many answer are essentially, "in Ruby we do it this way" which doesn't effing help if I'm locked into using R for this contract.

and people are quick to take advice, copy/paste, etc. but not leave votes behind

@G.Moylan I remember them having a triage queue when I was active there, and that was years ago...

It would be an absolute nightmare if the tags were removed or completely ignored. "How do I copy shortcuts or symlinks" has a couple of answers per operating system let alone programming language.

@G.Moylan I see those in code reviews sometimes. "This was copied from SO wasn't it?" Which is fine. I really like it when they leave the link in a comment or commit message. "Found this solution (link) seems to work."

Yeah I've done it a couple times. I'd wager you'd be hard-pressed to find a developer who hasn't done that at least once

Once a week? Once a month? I'm probably around the twice a week mark. Of course, I also shamelessly copy from the canned quests I get as humble bundles.