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Some questions (What is a frame trap, and what is a string?, What's "shine"?) ask blatantly what a community-defined term is, which is most of the time found on an unofficial wiki for that game. It's not really possible to give everyone an unofficial source for information, so a seemingly endless stream of questions can form, creating an unofficial wiki out of every question with the game's tag.

Take another question, like this: How do I perform the infinite Ice Climber grab?

The game's community calls this a wobble, but the question is referring to it without saying the community name, because the OP hasn't heard someone say the name, but seen it happen. These type of questions are no doubtedly acceptable, but if the question asked how to do the wobbles, many people wouldn't understand what the question was asking about.

Is there a better way to go about asking a question that referrs to an unofficial term? If so, how? Am I just being an idiot?

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    I don't really get the problem, we have the [terminology] tag to deal with gaming terms including community-specific ones. As for asking about mechanics using community-specific terms, people can and already do - the body of the question should be used to clarify this anyway and you'll find the better asked questions do this already. The problem comes when this context isn't provided - If no one knows what the question is asking then it'll be put on hold as 'unclear' until the OP or someone else clarifies it. But that holds true for all questions, not just ones with community terms.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Dec 26, 2015 at 13:36
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    @Robotnik if you post that as an answer I'll accept it- something I forgot to add was people are asking what these terms mean when there are wikis that have the definition, but I am not sure if that counts as a reliable source. I guess I feel weird about seeing community-defined terms being defined in an official context (Stack Exchange). I think that people simply do not trust unofficial wikis and would like to see the terms defined in a more reliable place... it really is reassuring to be told this is okay
    – Cilan
    Dec 26, 2015 at 17:10

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We have the tag to deal with gaming terms, including community-specific ones. Remember, Arqade is run by the community, and answers that describe a community gaming term will be voted on according to the popular definition(s) of the terms. After all, it takes many people using a term to define what it means

As for asking about game mechanics using community-specific terms, people can and already do this - the body of the question should be used to clarify what the mechanic is anyway (and you'll find the better asked questions do this already).

The problem comes when this context isn't provided - If no one knows what the question is asking then it'll be put on hold as 'unclear' until the OP or someone else clarifies it. But that holds true for all questions, not just ones with community terms.

So yes, it's perfectly acceptable to use community defined terms or to ask what a community term means.

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