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I was improving a question that asks about specific types of player groups in "No Man's Sky". It occurred to me that this sort of question might be considered .

Checking the tag description, it says this, emphasis mine.

Questions about the history of games, conventions, customs, traditions and gaming terms, and how they have developed over time.

I personally consider physical gaming groups to fall under "customs" and "traditions", but that's just me. I am unsure if this is something that would be echoed across the site.

Does talking about specific game groups constitute ?

Since it was suggested that I was deliberately stretching a tag to fit my own agenda, and in the interests of transparency, I want to confirm that it is in my interests to promote the gaming-history tag; I personally both like the tag and view it as one of great potential, within our community. It is also a tag that often attracts bad or outright off-topic questions, so I would like to see more "acceptable" questions using this tag.

Regardless, I still view the topic of gaming groups a part of gaming history; especially if asked if a type of one has ever existed.

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    You say you "want to see more acceptable questions using this tag", but it doesn't appear that anyone is foaming at the mouth to ask good gaming-history questions. I'm not sure where your motives are anyway, or why this really matters...
    – nightsurfer
    Jul 9, 2021 at 12:18
  • @Kaizerwolf I like gaming history. To say 'noone is foaming at the mouth to ask good questions', what exactly are you using as a comparison? Scrolling through the first page of gaming history I see a lot of 10+ and 30+ questions.. it's just that it seems like every second question is closed.
    – user228576
    Jul 10, 2021 at 0:01
  • I'm looking at the timeline of the gaming-history tag. There's barely one question per month, hence, no one is really coming here to ask gaming-history questions
    – nightsurfer
    Jul 10, 2021 at 20:29

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Given the positive feedback, thus far, I am going to post an answer to attract further feedback.

I believe that talking about specific game groups, such as the existence of particular gaming groups in a game, constitutes game history.

My reasoning comes from three definitions. Firstly, we have the tag description for .

Questions about the history of games, conventions, customs, traditions and gaming terms, and how they have developed over time.

Secondly, we have the definition of "customs", when relating to culture (as opposed to governmental organisation).

custom noun /ˈkʌstəmz/ : an accepted way of behaving or of doing things in a society or a community

- "custom" @ Oxford Learner's Dictionaries

Thirdly, we have the definition of "traditions".

tradition noun /trəˈdɪʃn/ : a belief, custom or way of doing something that has existed for a long time among a particular group of people; a set of these beliefs or customs

- "tradition" @ Oxford Learner's Dictionaries

I see a gaming group as a group of people that have agreed on a set of behaviours to form their own community within a game. This might be a guild in a particular online space game that dedicates themselves to helping other players that get stuck due to mechanics specific to that particular game. This might also be all types of guilds that play a any sort of online role-playing game with the purpose of achieving a set of generic goals, such as being the first to complete new content on that server.

They set traditions in how they do things, whether specific to the type of game, or the type of group. Typically this revolves around the type of group; for example, many online games have roleplaying groups that create traditions around the act of roleplaying. Some, like roleplaying, have been around for ages. Some traditions may form due to a particular environment, and may be a lot newer.

Given that gaming groups create customs and traditions, I believe they fall under the scope of .

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    Feels like you're stretching these things to fit it to what you want for no particular reason. You pulled the words 'customs' and 'traditions' from the tag description and matched up some words, that's not how definitions work. Gaming History as a tag and its description is general to gaming as a whole spectrum and its history. There's no reason the tag for no-mans-sky can't have a question like that about groups of people that play, given it's scoped as the one you're referencing is. RP groups for a game can have customs/traditions, that doesn't make them historical or significant.
    – n_plum
    Jul 8, 2021 at 19:52
  • @n_plum I detest your implications of my motives, but re-reading through it I can see how I might have misread it. I read it as "[history of games], [conventions],[etc.]" where it might be "history of [games],[conventions],[etc.]"
    – user228576
    Jul 9, 2021 at 2:55
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    I'm not really sure what you read as me maliciously implying about your motives, all I said was this feels like a stretch for no reason. Regardless, if you look at the majority of accepted questions in that tag, most are in regards to 'history of (games and their conventions, etc).
    – n_plum
    Jul 9, 2021 at 13:01
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    Let's all chill a bit. =) I think I agree that this tag is meant for all games in general, not just particular games, but I don't see why it can't be used for both. World history, involves history as a whole and history in specific places at specific times. If someone classified the american revolution as history, we wouldn't tell him "History is meant for all countries and times as a whole, not just america and 1776. However we wouldn't do the opposite either.
    – Millard
    Jul 9, 2021 at 13:40
  • I get the analogy, but it's not the same thing. World History -> Specific part of world history | Gaming history -> a game's groups -> that group's custom's and traditions -> the relation to the game's history -> Gaming history | My original point is still that Gaming History's description is general to gaming as a whole its history. Ex: gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/362854/… or gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/318584/… It's 'gaming' history, not 'game' history
    – n_plum
    Jul 9, 2021 at 14:51
  • but isn't game history by default part of gaming history? I do get your point though. (please use the @username if you reply, for some reason I didn't get notified.)
    – Millard
    Jul 9, 2021 at 15:10
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    As I also said before, there's no reason questions about a specific game's groups/history/conventions etc, cannot just exist under the game's tag. But the gaming history tag as a whole doesn't need to be suddenly flooded with questions about each game's individual history. And as Kaizerwolf said above "it doesn't appear that anyone is foaming at the mouth to ask good gaming-history questions"
    – n_plum
    Jul 9, 2021 at 15:55
  • This is getting a bit to much, I was just asking because I wasn't sure, myself. @n_plum, I accept you didn't intend to offend, so there's no problem. Could you post an answer so I can accept it and close the question?
    – user228576
    Jul 10, 2021 at 14:17

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