Timeline for A low-intervention approach [rules-as-written]: back to tagging basics
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
40 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 18, 2019 at 21:57 | history | edited | CommunityBot | added [rules-as-written] to 26 questions - Shog9 (Id=1645) | |
| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:45 | history | edited | CommunityBot | replaced http://rpg.stackexchange.com/ with https://rpg.stackexchange.com/ | |
| Mar 16, 2017 at 15:45 | history | edited | CommunityBot | replaced http://meta.rpg.stackexchange.com/ with https://rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/ | |
| Mar 1, 2016 at 18:52 | comment | added | Premier Bromanov | Brilliant. Agree 100% | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 22:07 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | add epiphany: eliminating policing of answers eliminates need for tagging exactitude |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 22:03 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @KRyan Oh oh oh, I just had an epiphany of the kind that seems stupidly obvious in hindsight: if we're going to be less interventionist with the NAA flagging in the answers to RAW questions… then laser-fine precision in whether the tag applies or not isn't needed anymore! I can relax a bit, and not feel any pressure for the tagging to be utterly perfect, because the consequences of the tag being there or not are suddenly much, much lower. This should have been obvious when I was writing this meta Q, but it took your comment right there for me to see it. Thank you! | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 21:08 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @KRyan That is a very good point. There's the principle that question-askers can ask questions while being mistaken about their assumptions of what is relevant to the question. Of course… hm, experienced users are expected to prune irrelevant tags. But the “by the book”-ness is intended in the Q, which makes the question have the kind of about-ness that calls for a tag. Yeah, I think it's borderline, but I think you're right that it's leaning more towards having the tag than not, now that I consider your point. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 15:48 | comment | added | KRyan | @SevenSidedDie I’ve gone back and forth on that particular question, but ultimately I think leaving the tag would have been better. If you had left it, your comment could be an answer, or part of one, making it a teachable moment, which I think has value. And the accepted answer ended up being rather “by the books,” which suggests that, your comment and edit notwithstanding, it was answered as a RAW question and that answer was appreciated and accepted. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 2:09 | answer | added | Oblivious SageMod | timeline score: -5 | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 8:17 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @Mala That still doesn't make AL questions the exclusive domain of RAW experts, which is what tagging all rules questions about AL with [rules-as-written] would encourage. Rather, questions about how AL is run need to be tagged with [dnd-adventurers-league] so that it's the domain of AL experts, whether RAW-leaning or otherwise. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 8:17 | comment | added | Mala | I don't want to get into a debate and since it's hard for me resist wanting to answer ( :) ) when I will see your next statement, lets just leave it at that and leave my original link there and people can form their own opinion on how correct or incorrect your tag removal was. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 8:13 | comment | added | Mala | @SevenSidedDie Organized play in general needs to rely much more on written rules than private rounds, since they want to offer people a unified experience. While not the case 100% everywhere, this is the expectation. It's much less likely that an AL-DM overrides RAW (both from books or additional rules for Organized Play) than a DM in a round with friends that dislikes a certain rule. And well, if people hide tags, that is their choice. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 8:07 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @Mala RAW ≠ rules though, so just because the answer is about relevant rules doesn't mean it's about RAW specifically. In addition, people who know how AL works, but who are not fans of the rules-as-written approach to gaming exist (and AL itself is not heavily RAW, note!); they may legitimately have questions tagged [rules-as-written] set to be hidden. Adding the tag would result in a question they're quite capable of answering being hidden from them, incorrectly. Such interventions for precision and practical reasons are normal for other tags, and should be too for [rules-as-written]. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 8:04 | comment | added | Mala | @SevenSidedDie Still, the highest-voted answer is the link to the site where the rules are written down? And I disagree with your explanation; the subset of people interested in both [dnd-adventureres-league] and [rules-as-written] are most likely the best to answer this question. I don't even want to debate all this, it's just another example of a intuitive use of the tag that seems to make sense to me, to the original asker and other people, but is pushed against by moderation. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 6:34 | answer | added | mxyzplkMod | timeline score: 4 | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 6:20 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @Mala You can't do RAW vs. non-RAW answers to “what are the Adventurers League regulations regarding legal races and classes”. Nobody but AL officials get to interpret those (via RAW analysis or otherwise)—they just are. I'll grant that it looks superficially like a question that could take the [rules-as-written] tag, but it would be a significant misuse of the tag. To wit: there is no extra value gained by drawing it to the attention of RAW experts, which is the point of tagging, because it's not a question RAW experts have more than normal expertise about. | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 2:51 | answer | added | BESW | timeline score: 20 | |
| Feb 26, 2016 at 0:44 | comment | added | Mala | rpg.stackexchange.com/q/76189/2896 ..sigh. The tag was used because the asker wanted a by the book answer. Seems like the tag was used in a way that was intuitive and meaningful and just makes sense. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 23:52 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @AceCalhoon It doesn't condemn the tag, no. It does mean there are issues attached to it. I think I've identified the issue: that it's being used as a meta tag, but should be used as a normal tag. As for system-agnostic: if settling the non-meta-ness of [rules-as-written] works out, then maybe [system-agnostic] will be reexamined with that precedent. Dragging multiple similar things together into one discussion tends to be way less effective than dealing with immediate problems in a focused way, then apply the precedent outwards to similar things. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 23:48 | comment | added | AceCalhoon | @SevenSidedDie You should probably lead with them, in general. As a bit of an outsider, my read is this: You have two "pet" tags from two fractious sub-communities who often (inadvertently) step on each others' toes. You have a mod team that consistently has a "let it ride" attitude towards one of the tags, and is going to great lengths to rein in the other. That's going to cause conspiracy theories. Also -- "they got upset when we tried to remove it" does indicate community issues, but doesn't particularly condemn a tag. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:54 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @AceCalhoon There have been frequently fights over the tag's application on specific questions. I could dig some of those up if necessary. Then there's the nuclear explosion that occurred when a mod asked if there were any problems with how the tag was being used. That one is pretty indicative of massive community issues around the tag. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:51 | comment | added | AceCalhoon | @SevenSidedDie I may have missed something. Could you cite a blowup? I mean, other than the blow-up in reaction to action against RAW. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:46 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @AceCalhoon Yeah, I generally disagree (neither wax nor I were mods then) that it should be used the way described in that post and its wiki. However, I do agree with the part after “No”: “… or if so, I don't care”. I don't actually not care, but it's not setting the site on fire at regular intervals so it's not super important to tackle. (I think we've grown past [system-agnostic] even being useful for that job, since game-tag-less questions get asked all the time now without uproar or bad answers.) [rules-as-written] has that pragmatic difference, in that it is regularly causing blowups. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:43 | comment | added | AceCalhoon | @SevenSidedDie I'm definitely happy to see S-A organically seeing less use though! | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:42 | comment | added | AceCalhoon | @SevenSidedDie Here's a more recent mod posting to the same effect (see the bit with the exclamation and question marks). The tag wiki also has it: "You want solutions to the question that are not directly tied to a game's mechanics," and was written relatively recently by a mod. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:35 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @AceCalhoon If I had had my way that use would be recognised as making it a meta tag, but I didn't. :) I wouldn't stand by that answer from the dawn of the site anymore (should I delete it? this link is way more recent and reflects lessons learned), and I do think that if [system-agnostic] has a use, it's also healthier to be reflecting question content than being used as a meta tag. The only saving grace [system-agnostic] has is not being used much anymore nor causing users to spontaneously combust. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 22:28 | comment | added | AceCalhoon | Out of curiosity... The Rules-As-Written tag seems like a mirror for System-Agnostic, which I railed against quite a lot back in the day. Back then you (and the other mods) used a lot of the things you are now calling problematic as a defense for that tag (e.g. tags dictating answerer behavior). What has changed since then, and/or how does the RAW tag differ from SA? | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 20:09 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | response to objections |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 20:02 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | response to objections |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 19:30 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | tea leaves |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 17:45 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | @IlmariKaronen Yes, often it's implicit and woven through the question what game is being talked about. Even so, normal tagging procedure is that they label what is firmly present in the post body/title, nothing else. We kind of have to make an exception to that bright line with games though because the overhead (comments, closes, tags in titles, etc.) of requiring every last question to say explicitly what game they mean in the body/title would be really damaging to the site's operation and quality. It's a limited compromise that, for whatever reasons, works for game tags. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 13:44 | comment | added | nvoigt | +1. I have a slight deja vu. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 13:23 | comment | added | Ilmari Karonen | +1. As for your footnotes, I could even argue that game/system tags aren't, or at least shouldn't be, really exceptional here. It's just that usually it's pretty obvious when reading a system-specific question which system it's about, even if the name of the system isn't explicitly stated outside the tags. In the relatively rare cases where that isn't the case (e.g. version specific D&D questions using names and terms found in multiple versions), the questions should be clarified to specify the game they apply to in the question body. | |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 3:22 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | [rules-as-written] is not for every question that is “about rules”! ; link to tag wiki |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 1:44 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 241 characters in body |
| Feb 25, 2016 at 1:26 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackRPG/status/702665936189390848 | ||
| Feb 24, 2016 at 23:50 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie Mod | There are a lot of places in the post that naturally suggest linking to something (examples I mention, related metas, etc.) that I do intend to chase down and edit in when real life relents slightly. Anyone wanting to make some of these words into their obvious link target is welcome to in the meantime! My apologies that I ran out of time to do it in the first place; I felt posting the text itself sans links was worthwhile in the meantime. | |
| Feb 24, 2016 at 23:06 | comment | added | BESW | Related, possibly very important context: Is the Only-Tag Test for meta-tag-ness broken here?; Are our implicit-information tagging practices becoming a problem?. | |
| Feb 24, 2016 at 22:53 | history | edited | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 | added 16 characters in body |
| Feb 24, 2016 at 22:47 | history | asked | SevenSidedDieMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |