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If you haven't been on Arquade the last 11 days, there are at least 8 questions asking about various aspects of Supply Lines in Fallout 4. Many of them, while not low quality, are pretty binary, and most answers contain much of the same information.

It seems like we could fairly easily create a new question that asks something as broad as, "Explain supply lines" with a community wiki answer that aggregates all the information we've gathered and either link the new question on old ones, or close old ones as duplicates, probably based on quality of the question. I'd just do it, but I'm not going to do all the work if it'll just get closed as a dupe. I feel such a question could only serve the community as a whole, but I have concerns that such an answer would be treading close to wiki territory, hence this meta post.

Are aggregate questions for a single mechanic allowed, and if so, are they even a good idea?

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  • related: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/10588/…
    – Dallium
    Commented Nov 22, 2015 at 18:04
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    Your search shows up 4 questions and 6 answers, not 8 questions. Use is:q or is:a in the search field to search for only questions or only answers respectively :)
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Nov 22, 2015 at 22:38
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    @Robotnik 5 of the 6 answers are to questions that don't explicitly mention supply lines, but are in fact about supply lines. The 6th is an answer to on of the 4 questions.
    – Dallium
    Commented Nov 22, 2015 at 22:44
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    The last time we tried this, people got upset. It is really best to let questions come in as they are asked and not force some sort of heavy handed organization on them.
    – au revoir
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 13:52
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    I think this is a great idea, as users seem to be asking the same thing just with different language, and then they get upset when their questions are closed. A more definitive answer would at least make it clearer to them because all the possible information has been provided. It'd probably lead to less duplicate questions being opened as the community wiki would be found more often.
    – Neon1024
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 14:23
  • Although you would have to include lots of keywords, as people ask about 'Workshop', 'Sharing resources', 'Supply lines' and 'Where are stored buildings?' Hard to have a title which will index with Google well enough for all those.
    – Neon1024
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 14:25
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    @JasonBerkan that meta doesn't come across to me as particularly upset, so I'm assuming there was some comment clean up. The salient points in there to me are the first pro (all the information is there in one place) far outweighs (at least to me) all the cons. I don't agree with the first answer, but apparently over 20 people did in '13. And the second answer's suggestion to make it a community wiki was already my plan.
    – Dallium
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 17:13
  • @DavidYell you make an excellent point about keywords. Half these questions have 'use supply lines' as the answer, rather than the question. An aggregate would only be useful to people who already know supply lines exist.
    – Dallium
    Commented Nov 23, 2015 at 17:16
  • Related: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/11074/…
    – user101016
    Commented Nov 24, 2015 at 14:02

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I've been involved in a number of those supply line questions and answers, at least in comments if nothing else.

It seems to me like we're doing okay directing people to the pertinent information, but of course it would be better if they found the information on their initial search rather than creating a new question.

So, this sounds like a good idea at face value, but I'm concerned about existing valid questions being closed.

Perhaps if the wiki answer included links to the existing questions that answer that aspect of things (with summaries, of course), and then filled in the gaps? That way the original questions and answers would still be useful, and could still collect votes.

Really though, this seems like something that would belong on a wiki. The community might be better served by some enterprising member (cough you cough) writing a nice article at fallout.wikia that we can just link to in answers here to the questions that are submitted organically.

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  • Questions can be merged together, too, in order to save good answers.
    – user106385
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 4:10
  • I'll also point out the latest Steam library question that made us close another one for duplication also. Your concern about valid questions being closed is moot as even if closed (for being a dup) they are not deleted. Merging can happen but different worded questions make it easier to find the information.
    – Jonathan Drapeau
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 13:14
  • @Timelord64 I'm not familiar with merging questions, and I didn't see an article on it in the help center. How does that work?
    – DCShannon
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 17:29
  • @JonathanDrapeau I'm sorry, how is that Steam question related to this discussion? I suppose you make a good point that they wouldn't be deleted, but it still seems a bit off closing an older, valid question as a duplicate of a new one. Do we have any precedent for that?
    – DCShannon
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 17:31
  • The age of the question is not the most important factor to decide which to close as a dupe, and yes we've done it before. The one with the best question and answers win over the age factor. If they are both equally good question with good different answers, then age can be used as the deciding factor.
    – Jonathan Drapeau
    Commented Nov 25, 2015 at 18:26

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