12

On meta we have a tag to denote frequently asked questions, it is the moderator only bright red tag known as . This tag provides us the opportunity to group together our agreed community consensuses, allowing us easy access to reference them and an easy way to point new users trying to learn how we work to the many hours of discussion that resulted in us working that way in the first place.

Here is some past reading for some background on where this post is coming from:

Currently, the FAQ tag is underused, containing only nine questions. These are nine very good questions and provide a very good basis to some of the more obvious questions, even though a couple of them are edge cases.

The FAQ tag is linked to directly from the help page, and while the help page is very good, it doesn't detail how or why we do many of the things we do. I once wrote how perplexing it was trying to work out how Arqade works, shortly after starting. I know I'm not alone in these thoughts because many other new users have experienced the same issues.

The purpose of this post is to form community consensus on what exactly should be included and should be approached as follows:

  • Upvote the question if you think grouping all of our community agreed policies should be tagged together to make them easier to find.

  • Downvote the question if you don't think grouping all of our community agreed policies should be tagged together.

  • Post answers detailing the questions on meta you think should be included under this tag, whether that tag be or or a new tag altogether. Detail in your answer why you think the question/answer linked is worthy of inclusion so everybody else can understand.

  • Vote on the answers to agree or disagree that you think that question should be officially backed and enforced as site policy.

3
  • Do we have a hard limit of answer score (total up - total down) makes community consensus enough so that mods can start faq'ing?
    – Robotnik Mod
    Oct 23, 2013 at 8:25
  • I think a deadline/time limit is probably a better way of doing it - probably a week from now, to give everybody a fair chance to see the post and contribute - then probably everything with a positive overall score depending on the number of proposals put forward
    – kalina
    Oct 23, 2013 at 8:32
  • Sounds good (15 chars)
    – Robotnik Mod
    Oct 23, 2013 at 8:45

33 Answers 33

23

A Close Vote is not a Super-Downvote. Please don't use it as one

This question and answers further detail downvoting, closing, question protecting and flagging.

1
19

Please, please, please, don't edit out spam links

This question details how to deal with spam posts on the site.

1
  • 3
    This is especially pertinent after the new recent functionality which hides spam links once they're deleted by the system as a result of spam flags
    – kalina
    Oct 22, 2013 at 17:14
15

What is an audiovisual artifact?

This question and answers detail what is required for to be acceptable.

14

When does a question "support piracy and pirated games"?

This question and answers detail what the community considers to support piracy.

11

Are trivial questions allowed on the site?

This question and accepted answer reflect the community's opinion on trivial questions.

11

When is a game publicly available?

This question and answers reflect the community's opinion on when a game in development is no longer considered off-topic.

11

What do we do with questions about games that can no longer be played?

This question and answers detail how we handle games that are no longer available.

10

Let's be nice to each other

Details the ideal sentiment of the site and the community we're trying to build.

9

Please don't misuse the voting system

This question details voting practices and the answers contain more information and a great guide on voting.

0
8

Should lore questions as an entire category be banned?

This question and associated answers detail the community's opinion on lore questions and concludes that lore questions are on topic on Arqade.

8

How do we handle duplicate answers?

This question and answers detail the policy on duplicate answers, which is to delete exact duplicates.

8

Edit wars are bad. Don't encourage or participate in them

Useful for people who are just coming into the edit rep threshold.

1
  • 2
    Useful for everyone. No matter how much rep you have, you can always edit your own posts.
    – au revoir
    Oct 22, 2013 at 22:04
7

When is non-game-specific still on-topic?

This question and answers reflect the community's opinion on questions about non-game-specific programs.

7

Should we reopen questions being closed for 'unreleased game' after the game is released?

This question and answers go into detail about question parking and reopening unreleased questions.

7

Is "mod rec" really an umbrella category that we want to use? Or is it confusing the situation?

Reflects community consensus regarding questions that are "mod recommendations", AKA "mod rec" (questions where mods are mentioned as possible or preferable solutions by the OP)

Quoting excerpts from the current top-voted answer by agent86:

On our site, these questions take a form where a mod is generally a solution to a problem. Judge questions by the problem being posed instead of the presupposed answer.

Recommending solutions from a large number of possibilities is the core of a wide swath of questions.

1
  • 2
    This is an important FAQ, but the title isn't terribly clear. Oct 22, 2013 at 19:35
4

Should I approve suggested edits that I don't know if they are true?

This question and associated answer detail approving suggested edits without prior knowledge or researching the amendment to ensure it is correct.

3

What's our procedure for asking about not-quite-legal games?

Reflects community consensus regarding questions about games in a legal gray area - e.g. fan-made ROM patches

3

Outdated Answers Due to Patches

This question & associated answer show how to retroactively deal with questions that may be outdated or obsolete.

2
3

About the violence inherent in Stack Exchange: freedom of speech

This post reflects the policy on editing and moderating content on the site.

2
  • 3
    It's a valuable meta post, but I feel like the joke nature of the question and title hurt it.
    – Sterno
    Nov 13, 2013 at 17:38
  • I agree, it would need... something doing to it, before being added to the FAQ
    – kalina
    Nov 13, 2013 at 17:40
2

Are questions about patch notes too localized?

This question and answers detail "patch note" questions and conclude that questions should be about a part of game not about recent changes to that part of the game.

2

Non-gaming gaming console questions -- allowed?

This question and answers conclude that all console questions are on topic whether or not they are about gaming.

2

What's the official stance on hacked/modded consoles?

Reflects community consensus regarding questions about hacked/modded consoles

2

Please fill in the alt text for images on this site

This question deals with accessibility of the site, specifically with filling in image alternate text so screen readers can give a meaningful description of the image. There are still plenty of images posted every day with 'Enter image description here'.

We should be proactively enforcing this, instead of retroactively editing them later.

3
  • 2
    HOW EVERYTHING OUT
    – Niro
    Oct 23, 2013 at 11:10
  • God. Remember the sequel?
    – Robotnik Mod
    Oct 23, 2013 at 11:18
  • 1
    HOW EVERYTHING OUT 2: THE HOWENING Nov 8, 2013 at 19:25
2

Similar to questions about unreleased games, unreleased consoles are also off-topic.

1

Could someone explain this joke to me?

This question and answer go into detail about gaming memes and jokes. This post determines that questions should only be asked about You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. and as such, these types of questions are off topic.

1

What should be done with questions asking for game recommendations?

Now we know what should be done - get rid of them! It essentially says this in the FAQ but a bit of reiteration never hurts.

0

Is it bad practice to upvote to help out?

This question and answers detail why upvoting to help out is a bad practice.

1
0

Should answers on questions that ask for spoiler information be put in spoiler markup or not?

This question reflects community consensus on which answers (or answer parts) should be put in spoiler markup or not. It would help guide users on the usage of spoiler markup on answers, and would help avoid edit wars about an answer's spoiler markup.

-1

What's bad in helping a person who bought legal version of a game move their save files from cracked copy?

This question and answer deal with why we don't support blatant piracy, (in any way, shape or form).

-1

How should I write tag wikis?

This question details the (soon to be?) community agreed tag wiki format which should be used when creating or editing tag wikis.

You must log in to answer this question.

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