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Recently, there was a question asking what Starbound is and what platforms it is available for. I'll paste it below since it is currently closed and might end up deleted, and since the original user seems to want it deleted now anyway due to the downvotes.

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This is a terrible question. 20 seconds of Googling would get the user an answer. As you can see, I downvoted it, as did many others.

However, the question also received more than downvotes. It received 5 close votes. As the image shows, it's currently closed as "Too Broad". I may not like that question, but I don't see how it fits the "Too Broad" close criteria. I'm not sure how it fits any close criteria, which is why after spending about 5 minutes trying to think of a justification for closing it, I just answered it instead.

Rather than spam the comments of that question about whether or not it should really be closed, I thought I'd bring the topic here.

Should questions asking us to describe a game be closed, and if so, why?

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  • 10
    I'm not sure what, if any, close reason is appropriate - but it would seem to me that the answer the user is seeking is largely, if not entirely present in (one of) the tag(s) they used. So this certainly (at a minimum) calls for a downvote for lack of research effort. And if the answer can be contained in the description of a tag, can the question really be "too broad"? ... I wish to be clear that I don't feel these types of questions should be encouraged, but I don't feel any of the existing close options suit this situation, short of a custom off-topic derived from this meta. Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 13:39

2 Answers 2

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Should questions asking us to describe a game be closed, and if so, why?

No

In this case, the answer was easily found so beyond providing an answer the only other suitable action would be to down vote for lack of effort.

There may be cases in the future where you know a game by title, but cannot find any details about the game. Asking for a description of such a game would be appropriate for the site.

Minor Update

The OP clearly wants the question closed anyway, so no need to vote to re-open.

However, Robotnik raises a good point:

...it really isn't up to the OP whether the question is closed or not. They can vote, however ultimately questions and answers here are 'owned' by Stack Exchange - if we wanted to keep it around it is within our power to do so. The OP can request to be disassociated with it entirely, in which case they won't earn/lose rep on it. Its a bit moot in this case, I'm just pointing it out because people might get the wrong idea that requesting closure may not work if the community deems it worthwhile to keep.

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  • Although not asked in this meta question, the following link may relate to part of the source question: meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/8389/…
    – user101016
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 14:05
  • I feel that these questions don't really play to our expertise, and we should not encourage them in any sense. All we're doing is replacing what the developer has already said about their own game. While there currently isn't a good reason to close, I don't feel there's any value in keeping these questions, either.
    – Frank
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 14:16
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    I think the downvotes will be enough to discourage such questions. Look at the comments shortly after the question was asked (OP wanted to close the question himself, not sure what problems he/she encountered to actually carry this out). At the moment we have a case of a valid but low quality question being closed with an illogical reason.
    – user101016
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 14:21
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    I agree with this answer, just a small nitpick on the last point: it really isn't up to the OP whether the question is closed or not. They can vote, however ultimately questions and answers here are 'owned' by Stack Exchange - if we wanted to keep it around it is within our power to do so. The OP can request to be disassociated with it entirely, in which case they won't earn/lose rep on it. Its a bit moot in this case, I'm just pointing it out because people might get the wrong idea that requesting closure may not work if the community deems it worthwhile to keep.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 16:18
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    Its worth noting that the request for information about the game and platforms should be answered in the games tag wiki. Users wishing to answer these questions should simply upload to the tag wiki.
    – user106385
    Commented Oct 2, 2015 at 22:55
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It should be closed as off topic, because it is not one of the general topics, is not directly related to gaming (it is related to games and game sales, but not the act of playing games), and it is not a good fit for the Q&A format of the site:

To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …

  • every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”

Either the answers will be copy/pasted from other sites, or they will be the opinion of the poster, making it the opinion of the person who asked, which answer is correct.

As for posterity, the day that entering the complete name of the game into google (or other quality) search engine and not getting (at the very least) the Wikipedia page and someone on this site would actually know the game well enough to give a description is so far off that it is not worth worrying about. Throw in YouTube reviews, play throughs, professional reviews, product reviews (when you are buying the game), and you have a wealth of information. You can also check the Wayback Machine for the manufacturers site near the time of release to get the relevant information.

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    I agree that they should be closed, but your reasoning is rather suspect. I'm seeing no compelling argument, and the quoted section isn't actually helping your argument.
    – Frank
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 12:03
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    @Frank To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where every answer is equally valid I am not sure why it does not help. All answers would be equally valid. This is the problem with opinion based questions, there is no way of indicating which answer is correct or more correct then the others.
    – Trisped
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 18:13
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    In what manner is describing a game an opinion based question? I'm having trouble seeing that argument. There being more than one way to describe a game doesn't make it opinion based at all.
    – Frank
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 19:02
  • @Frank This is getting chatty, so we can continue in chat if you have additional comments. My point is that the information which will be provided in the answers will be one of the two items, the first usually found with an easy google search, the second is opinion ("It is a fun shooter with lots of guns and quests" which has opinions "fun" and 'lots" and facts from a search).
    – Trisped
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 19:43
  • Based on the chat discussion, I have to disagree with this reasoning, as it doesn't adequately explain itself, nor is based on any existing SE policies. It is essentially, "It's off-topic because I said so". Not that I wouldn't mind closing it, but the closure has to be based in reality.
    – Frank
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 22:12
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    I disagree. If anything you're arguing for "primarily opinion based", which would be a stretch at best. The information being asked for is objective in this specific case, and, even though said information can probably be found on the first Google result, that is an indication of no research effort, which is a reason to downvote a question, not close it.
    – Unionhawk Mod
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 22:21
  • For those who do not want to read the chat: My point is "It is not specifically included, and does not directly relate to gaming (not to be confused with "directly related to video games"), it is too close to the "Shopping advice and recommendations" denied topic (why else would you be asking for the description? Either you have the game and will play it, or you heard about the game and want to know if you should get it.), that it is opinion based or copy/pasted from top search results, and the question itself shows no research effort.”
    – Trisped
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 0:51
  • You're taking a very naive view of this. It's entirely possible someone is just trying to figure out what a game is before they do anything else. This is not a good question, but you can have bad questions which don't explicitly break any rules.
    – two bugs
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 19:46
  • @twobugs I have provided links which indicate that it is breaking site rules, so I do not understand why you think I am "taking a very naive view of this". Strict, yes, but not naive. If you have something to back up your assertion, please add it to the chat.
    – Trisped
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 21:02
  • Your stance has absolutely no backing. You're taking an extremely narrow view of our rules, and I don't know how else to tell you what we've tried to, over and over: Your reading of our rules is incorrect. You've provided nothing in the way of an actual argument, and you refuse to actually account for evidence to the contrary of your position.
    – Frank
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 22:53
  • @Tripsed As others have noted, your evidence does not carry the weight you seem to believe. You're saying that this question can only exist for one reason: shopping advice. This is, quite frankly, ridiculous. It's very easy to imagine someone who simply says "Hey, I've heard about this Terraria game, but I don't know what it is. I know, I'll ask a site that I didn't read the help page for!" - Maybe they'll buy it eventually, but they don't know. This is setting a very ridiculous precedent - that if the asker might make a purchase based off of a question, it's off topic.
    – two bugs
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 23:20
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    @Trisped I feel the need to point out that "shopping advice" questions are not off topic because they give advice about shopping. We don't have anything against the fundamental idea of helping people make decisions when shopping. When "shopping advice" is mentioned, it's meant to describe a certain category of questions that are problematic. Just because the answer to a question might help someone make a shopping decision does not mean it's a "shopping advice" question that should be closed.
    – Sterno
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 20:12
  • @Sterno The link you refer to is a meta post, and is there for the opinion of those who wrote answers. As such it is not the definitive reason for the rule. That said, my point was not that it might help someone make a shopping decision. My point was that they are probably trying to get around the no shopping advice question by asking another poor question.
    – Trisped
    Commented Oct 23, 2015 at 22:51

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