7

Example here.

The question asks for official resources for guild recruitment.

While I would agree that asking for places in general is off-topic I would allow this question to stay open. Official places are not some kind of recommendation and guilds are a very important and major part of the game. In fact you can't beat the endgame content without one. It just doesn't work alone.

1
  • What about how players ask for official errata on the the table top stack exchange. That usually includes tweets/social postings made by officials within the community like game developers. Is that the kind of thing you mean?
    – zero298
    Apr 6, 2018 at 14:18

3 Answers 3

-1

I would vote to close this question. The close reason is: "Questions that ask for recommendations of games, servers, software, or hardware are off topic" which is exactly what this question is asking.

You can't ask something along the lines of "What are the services I can use for XXX", we simply don't allow it.

What you CAN ask is something along the lines to this question: How should I go about finding a guild in WoW?

This question doesn't ask for a list, but instead asks for (official or unofficial) ways to do what the previous question wanted.

Official places are not some kind of recommendation and guilds are a very important and major part of the game. In fact you can't beat the endgame content without one. It just doesn't work alone.

Asking for a list of official places is a recommendation. If I asked the question "What in the Steam Workshop allows me to add more dungeons in Skyrim?" that is off topic. Just because it uses an "official place", is still a recommendation. You can alter your question to "Is there a way to add additional dungeons to Skyrim?" and the answer may lead you to the Steam Workshop.

The fact that guilds (or anything that any question asks) is important to playing the game is irrelevant to the rules. No matter how important any aspect of a game is, should have no merit to the legitimacy of the question.

11
  • "If I asked the question "What in the Steam Workshop allows me to add more dungeons in Skyrim?" that is off topic." - Your example is about mods recommendation, which is absolutely not the topic of this discussion.
    – Mart10
    Apr 4, 2018 at 19:35
  • 1
    It's used as a comparison, to help you see why both questions are inherently the same. i.e. Asking for a list of something
    – FoxMcCloud
    Apr 4, 2018 at 19:38
  • As a side note, thanks for the link, somehow i couldn't find that question when searching, which prompted me to create the new one.
    – Mart10
    Apr 4, 2018 at 19:39
  • @Mart10 No problem, glad I could help.
    – FoxMcCloud
    Apr 4, 2018 at 19:41
  • 3
    Good point with the workshop. Rephrasing the question would indeed save a lot of headache. But if a "where" instead of "how" is all that matters as close reason there's something wrong with the rules (or application thereof). "Where is the official recruitment" is bad while "How can I get recruited" is ok, which is basically the same question. That's something I really don't want to live with. Yes, the 2nd one leads to a better answer as it encourages a more detailed answer, but does it render the first one useless?
    – dly
    Apr 4, 2018 at 20:14
  • 2
    @dly It's the epitome of the XY problem. Tell us the problem. Don't tell us how you want it solved.
    – Frank
    Apr 4, 2018 at 20:22
  • 1
    @dly Just because one is correct and one is wrong but they are essentially asking for the same thing, doesn't mean that we should allow both of them. The downvotes on my answer I believe show that people don't like the outcome of closing an off topic question just because they don't like the rule. Rephrasing the question makes the question on-topic because it's asking for something totally different. If the issue is the rule, address the rule like Frank said, but I'm addressing this question and I believe the question is off topic.
    – FoxMcCloud
    Apr 4, 2018 at 21:58
  • @FoxMcCloud if people don't like the rule we should maybe talk about that one instead. I didn't expect the answers to earn that much negative feedback...that's maybe a sign to act and look what the community wants?
    – dly
    Apr 5, 2018 at 6:16
  • @dly Popularity is always in opposition to quality. These questions are popular; we usually get several a week. Doesn't make them any more on-topic.
    – Frank
    Apr 5, 2018 at 11:33
  • 1
    @Frank what does popularity have to do with quality?
    – dly
    Apr 5, 2018 at 12:17
  • @dly Yeah I just don't know what to do about this, to be honest. We surely can't allow recommendations even from "official" sources, right? I not sure why there are downvotes with no explanation, so it's not really helpful because I have nothing to go on.
    – FoxMcCloud
    Apr 5, 2018 at 13:42
-2

First off, these questions are off-topic right now. Full stop. They completely meet the criteria for recommendations. So that's where I'm starting this from.

Why should official sources be on-topic? What makes them different from any other question asking us for resources? I'm not seeing any reason why we should be treating them differently, and I can't help but feel we're playing magic word syndrome here. Putting this in place would be super confusing; "Recommendations are off-topic, unless you're asking for official sources" How are we supposed to curate that, and what value are we bringing by allowing them?

Our links for recommendations go to QA is hard, let's go shopping!, and So, what actually is a game rec?. Setting aside the fact that we're not asking for a game, the same criteria is applied to any sort of resource. Note that we make no distinction or exception. Asking for resources, such as software, hardware, or games, that meets specific criteria is a recommendation, and off-topic.

6
  • 2
    "answerers aren't bound to comply with the "official" request" - the rest of your statement aside, this....does in NO way make the question off topic. There are ways to deal with bad answers.
    – user11502
    Apr 4, 2018 at 19:19
  • @Ash No, because the question is already off-topic, due to these and other reasons. It's up to others to prove it should be on-topic.
    – Frank
    Apr 4, 2018 at 20:00
  • 2
    @Frank I can't agree with your last line: Asking for something that meets specific criteria is a recommendation and off-topic? That means a question like this is off-topic: gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/329951/… , because weapons are being recommended? Aswell as this? gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/330460/… Because it is asking for a location to sell the fish...
    – Lyrion
    Apr 5, 2018 at 9:52
  • @Lyrion If you're going to take it literally, sure. It's specifically meant for things like off-site resources, software, hardware, that sort of thing. Please follow the links and read the whole of the post, not nitpick a single line.
    – Frank
    Apr 5, 2018 at 11:32
  • 4
    @Frank This is not nitpicking, you say we make no distinction or exception, asking for something that meets a specific criteria is a recommendation and off-topic. That is basically your whole paragraph. And i'm just saying that that view is wrong.
    – Lyrion
    Apr 5, 2018 at 12:00
  • 2
    Alright, that's fair. I can clarify that.
    – Frank
    Apr 5, 2018 at 12:10
-6

This answer is more of an argument for un-official but still widely supported ressources.

I'd say that this is on-topic as long as the requested ressources are either Official or widely approved by the community.

One example is for StarCraft 2, you have to mention Liquidpedia if you want to keep track of the tournaments and of the meta that keeps changing, which is not officially supported.

One other example is Curseforge for minecraft mods.

The point is to provide users of the site a quick pointer to ressources they can use to improve their gaming.

If the question produces bad answers, then downvote or flag the answer and move along.

1
  • 1
    No. We don't allow questions that ask us to point to recommendations. That is specifically off-topic. How would we ever determine what hits the line for widely approved or not? There's no way to judge the answers, at all.
    – Frank
    Apr 4, 2018 at 21:01

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .