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Considering the new Documentation feature over on SO, I think it would actually be a huge benefit to have our own repository of guides, tips, and even walkthroughs, which could be compiled easily enough from existing answer posts. It seems to me like a natural extension of that, and exactly the kind of game Documentation that would be available in Arqade.

I personally would want to contribute a lot to it. I've often made personal notes and guides after being unable to find any online.

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Yes, we should have a "Documentation" feature on this stack exchange.

I don't think it is very productive to say "let's wait on stackoverflow's version to mature", because the purpose of that functionality is going to constantly adapt to the needs of the programming community. It's never going to magically fit for this site just by watching it work on another site. At whatever point we choose to adopt the feature... there is going to be a great deal of adaption.

The general concept at a high level fits with this site's purpose. The point of this site is to act as a repository of knowledge for gaming. Creating full step-by-step articles would make the content more relevant and of a higher quality than purely supporting a Q&A format. Remember that the point of the "Documentation" feature isn't a replacement for the Q&A format, so both will co-exist.

It would be great to see this feature trialled on Arqade. Perhaps starting off with one of the popular tags (i.e. Minecraft?) and limiting the contributions to a select (and dedicated) few. I feel that regular visitors to this site will be happy to make meaningful contributions to some form of the "Documentation" feature.

In relation to existing game wikis (for which there will be some overlap in content) - the main problem with such sites is that they don't necessarily have the right tools to make improvements. Arqade users will have access to review queues, flag articles for improvement and a bunch of other tools to push the quality levels up.

Furthermore, having such features will help draw in experts of a game. For now, such experts have little reason to hang around on this site waiting on questions they may be able to answer. Giving such users the ability to document their experience without waiting on questions to answer would be a great way of sharing knowledge.

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    It would be a great way of sharing knowledge, and also bringing more of the experts you mentioned to our site. If they want more detailed game guides and can't find any, coming here to get them will surely prove to them this is a worthwhile community for them to join.
    – Tim
    Commented Nov 21, 2016 at 15:07
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    While I agree that it would be nice to have, sadly it's not up to us to decide.
    – fredley
    Commented Nov 22, 2016 at 10:04
  • I'm interested in what we would be appropriate for the Docs. Say for example - I'm a fighting game guy. Soul Calibur V is my main game. I know that game very well down to the frames. Would we put just lore or could we put frame data?
    – bmarkham
    Commented Nov 24, 2016 at 8:53
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    I agree tho. Fighting games aren't really much posted here and I only answered one about fighting game (Marvel vs Capom 2). I would be nice to contribute to this site when there aren't a whole load of question being asked to my 'expertise'
    – bmarkham
    Commented Nov 24, 2016 at 8:54
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    diep.io documentation would be nice.
    – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963
    Commented Mar 14, 2017 at 11:42
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This is something I've asked SO devs before. Short answer: No. Currently Documentation is still a product that's maturing. It has been designed specifically for Stack Overflow. There are, as far as I know, no plans to expand its usage beyond Stack Overflow in the short to medium term.

However, I do think that it would be an interesting addition to the site. Game wikis are almost universally terrible, and there is a real opportunity to do much, much better with a documentation-like system attached to Arqade. So one day, maybe?

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  • I can't exactly disagree with what the powers above have said, but I'm a bit... "offended"? (definitely not the right word)... by the thought that game wikis are "universally terrible". Many, many answers on Arqade cite game wikias and the answers are of pretty high quality.
    – Vemonus
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 14:25
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    @Vemonus I agree. However, there are still some (like Lords of the Fallen's Wikia) that are incorrect or missing tons and tons of data. I agree that sometime in the future, a feature like that could be pretty useful for Arqade. Establish pages for games, have respected users from the community who are experts in their chosen games curate pages and the like.. it would be a large undertaking, but it could work
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 19:11
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    I honestly would love an avenue for longer-form content like Guides. Maybe not a full 'wikia' style but enough to be like "Here's everything I've learned about Game X" or "Here's how to do [competitive strategy #117] and what counters it" Even the personal blog for 30k'ers would be good.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 23:07
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    If game wikis are generally bad, why would a similar concept on Arqade fare any better? Game wikis are generally maintained by a very small minority of players, even though they're generally free to modify if you have an account on that wiki - people by and large just don't bother to contribute to them. I don't see why doing it here would turn out differently in the long run.
    – JonK
    Commented Nov 21, 2016 at 0:02
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    I just don't want unresponsive, ad-ridden, referral heavy, copy/pastes that don't actually provide any real knowledge, because that's what most game wikis are.
    – zero298
    Commented Nov 22, 2016 at 2:44
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    @JonK The difference here is that this community and the way it is set up IS different than other sites. SE is dedicated to quality content, in a way that other sites can't be, because they aren't engineered to be, nor do they attract like-minded experts.
    – Tim
    Commented Nov 22, 2016 at 3:15
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    @Tim The number of like-minded experts is still comparatively small when compared to the number of people that consume the content that those experts are creating. I can't see Arqade producing a better general-purpose guide/FAQ/wiki for a big game like Skyrim than the existing non-SE wikis.
    – JonK
    Commented Nov 22, 2016 at 11:01
  • @JonK Big games obviously already have great wikis. I don't see any need for us to duplicate existing content. We're talking about games which don't have existing content, and there are a lot of them. They may not be big like Skyrim but they do exist and people, including Arqade users, play them.
    – Tim
    Commented Nov 22, 2016 at 16:08
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Unfortunately, No.

Documentation was discontinued back in 2017 and the service shut down, thus any chance of porting it over here died with it.

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    It's a real shame, as it's something that would have fit the gaming model pretty well, and - in my opinion - Documentation's features were a lot better than the likes of Wikias and other online services.
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Nov 27, 2019 at 3:32
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While I do enjoy toying with the idea, I personally do not think this would be a necessary or super useful feature for Arqade. I feel that it would be drastically underused compared to the Documentation feature on Stack Overflow, for one. We have many less users than Stack Overflow that would be able (and probably even less that are willing!) to contribute to such an effort.

There are plenty of valuable and well-written guides out on the Internet and, being a primarily Q&A site, we just direct users towards them or quote and cite them. We don't need to reinvent the wheel and write our own.

If you want to give general tips, then write your own Q&A! I've done it a few times and I've seen plenty of others that have been very helpful. :-)

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  • Hmm, is there a particular existing site you'd recommend? Coverage for the (admittedly obscure) games I'm always trying to find is spotty at best or non-existent at worst. It's all over the place, literally, and very hit or miss. There's no one site that has both good guides, well-informed users, and a wide coverage of games. Pick any two, basically. It's something I think we'd have all three of here. Anyway, thanks for the answer. Mostly I would want to write complete walkthroughs for more obscure games, which I guess proves your point about low demand and low supply.
    – Tim
    Commented Nov 15, 2016 at 23:10
  • @Tim yes, but that's my point, we point to places that have good guides or useful/relevant info, usually quoting and citing as well. Different sites have different specialties. A site with good info on Pokémon Go may not help with Dishonored, for example. We're already a repository of sorts that collects info from guides and other places. We don't need to rewrite the info ourselves.
    – Vemonus
    Commented Nov 15, 2016 at 23:14
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    @Tim many games already have official wikis that include walkthroughs, guides and tips. Terraria and XCOM, although relatively small communities compared to CSGO and League of Legends, have a dedicated fan base that maintain their wikis.
    – Banh Mi Dac Biet
    Commented Nov 15, 2016 at 23:39
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    Indeed, many games have wikis just like many programming languages have existing documentation. Saying that many exist is not an effective argument that more aren't needed. More need to be created and they are being created. I see no reason that Arqade can't be a part of that process, especially for older games that have never had a decent guide. But if there's no support for it, then so be it.
    – Tim
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 3:17
  • It's simply not necessary. Stack Overflow is a much larger resource and I'd venture to say it's the first place people go when they have programming questions, thus it makes sense to aggregate documentation there. As painful as it may be, Arqade is not going to be the first place people come with gaming questions, thus it's not worth the effort of maintaining such a repository. The information we'd come up with would be incomplete, at best.
    – Vemonus
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 3:31
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    @Tim - Don't write it off so quickly. It's contentious sure, but the question is as +3/-4 and this answer at +1/-2. Give other members time to weigh in. (And note that even if Arqade showed overwhelming support for it, it's still up to SE if they want/have time to implement it here, I doubt very much that it's just a 'switch' they can toggle on)
    – Robotnik Mod
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 6:05
  • Yes, as @Robotnik says, my answer is not indicative of what everyone else thinks, it's just what I think. I somewhat alluded to it in my answer, but I see value in your suggestion, as well. Documentation here would need to be worked a bit differently (but arqade has always operated differently from other SE sites, so no problem there). I'm mainly worried about the lack of manpower on our end combined with the lack of demand for such a feature, since I believe the Q&A format works just fine for us.
    – Vemonus
    Commented Nov 16, 2016 at 6:28
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A great way to show it would be useful and used is to start a third-party site edited by Arqadians and show what it could look like if it was officially supported by SE. Don't wait for somebody to cut a red band for you − go to chat, gather forces and compile the knowledge! And then show us what you got (on meta). I'm sure it will get a tag if it's worth its salt.

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