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Aug 30, 2012 at 18:37 comment added Sterno In much the same way, one might add, that any answer to a general question about a game on Arqade may have pulled its information from another source (such as the game's forums), but may be far more accessible and easy to find and use for someone than digging through a game's particular forums for the same question/answer.
Aug 30, 2012 at 18:35 comment added Sterno Agreed, I really don't see how speculation comes into it. The question doesn't ask for speculation... it asks what resources are available that detail upcoming patch notes. And us pretending like developer websites are the only (or even the best) places to get this info is wrong. As was pointed out, sometimes that information can be scattered over a dozen different posts on a developer's forums. Some games have fan sites that will gather and link this information, so while the main site is indeed "the source", it's not necessarily the best answer to say "go check the company's site".
Aug 27, 2012 at 18:13 comment added SevenSidedDie @koviko No, that's true, but nobody is saying that asking for directions to what developers are writing about their games is off-topic, but rather unanswerable "because it's speculative." It's plainly not speculative, and people now seem to be saying "no, it's a bad question because the asker asserted there must exist an alternative location which makes it Not A Real Question". It's entirely possible that it's off-topic, but that's not under debate. I suppose someone could post that as an explanation for why it should have been closed.
Aug 27, 2012 at 18:06 comment added KOVIKO @SevenSidedDie I'm starting to think the major communication issue here is what counts as constructive. Not every question belongs on StackExchange, and this question is an example of that.
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:54 comment added SevenSidedDie @fbueckert So the counterexamples I've indicated don't sway your understanding of reality at all? They demonstrate that "the developer's website" is not actually true in every case: A .plan file is not a "website" and could only be accessed by those-in-the-know, so someone checking the ID Games or Carmack's personal website wouldn't find it at the time; ditto with Notch's personal blog, which wasn't linked from "the developer [Mojang]'s website". How does that square with your assertion that these things don't exist? Again, what is wrong with asking "where does the developer post?"
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:49 comment added Frank I think these questions are inherently bad, for the same reasons as to why we don't allow speculation of the future of the industry. The only information we have comes straight from the developers. Anything else is speculation of the highest degree. Which is why when you ask, "Where can I find information about planned updates of game X?", the only answer is "The developer's website". Hence why the question is not constructive, because the answer is obvious.
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:38 comment added SevenSidedDie @fbueckert That's helpful for context. I still don't think it's an inherent problem with this kind of question, though, which is what everyone is saying here. Rather there's a problem with that answer: it doesn't say "No, sorry, your best source is the one you already know," it just kind of ignores the question's content without explaining why it's ignoring it. An answer that doesn't helpfully answer the actual question is usually considered bad, isn't it?
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:32 comment added Frank For more context: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/5909648#5909648. He is specifically rejecting the only authoritative source because it does not contain the information he is looking for.
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:24 comment added SevenSidedDie @fbueckert Note in my previous comment I quote the part of the question where it explicitly avoids making that assumption. Can we seek agreement on what words are written before debating them?
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:17 comment added Frank The edits on the question just fixed spelling mistakes. The question is still making the assumption that the developer's site is not the most authoritative source for what he's looking for. My viewpoint is, "It does not have what I'm looking for. Show me a site that tells me what I want to know.". Which, for current info is fine. But for future information, the only source is the developers. Anyone else is either just pulling the data FROM the developers, or making things up. Either way, the developer's site is the only and correct answer.
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:07 comment added SevenSidedDie @OrigamiRobot I just re-read the question and its edits… (Could you do the same just now so we're on the same page? Humour me?) … and it does have a crappy title that smells of that kind of assertion, I'll give you that. The post body doesn't though: it explicitly asks, "Is there a site that has…" This is why I'm confused by the strong opposition to the question. If it did follow that logic I'd be in 100% agreement, but it doesn't as far as I can tell.
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:04 comment added user9983 The original question followed the flawed logic of "What I am looking for is not on the developer's site. Therefore, there must be a better place."
Aug 27, 2012 at 17:00 comment added SevenSidedDie I get the feeling that those opposed are reading a different original question than I am.
Aug 27, 2012 at 16:58 comment added SevenSidedDie @fbueckert I still don't see a problem with the general form of the question as I put it in this answer. Again, there's no internet magic that forces developers to put the best information on the main site (whatever that is). Notch famously posted the most useful information on his personal blog, not on the Minecraft site—would asking "I can't find anything on minecraft.net about future plans, is there anywhere I can read about future plans?" be inappropriate? Why? Can you tell me what's wrong with asking "Is there somewhere that information X exists?"
Aug 27, 2012 at 16:53 comment added Frank And it still came from the lead developer. The problem with saying, "I can't find any information on planned updates from the developer's site, point me at another site" predicates the assumption that that other site has more accurate information than the developers themselves. Which is a false assumption if ever I heard one. Rejecting the single point of communication a company uses to announce it's plans is a good exercise in futility.
Aug 27, 2012 at 16:42 comment added SevenSidedDie @OrigamiRobot Because the location of the developer's site is not necessarily the answer to the actual question? There's no magical internet force that makes developers organise their online writing about plans (if they write about plans) in such a standardised fashion. The Carmack example is there for a reason—for years the only way to read the .plan file was to know that it existed and use the finger UNIX command to remotely access it.
Aug 27, 2012 at 16:40 comment added user9983 Might as well ask "Where is [developer]'s website?"
Aug 27, 2012 at 16:33 history edited SevenSidedDie CC BY-SA 3.0
added 13 characters in body; added 8 characters in body
Aug 27, 2012 at 16:27 history answered SevenSidedDie CC BY-SA 3.0