When is non-game-specific still on-topic?

Question

The FAQ states:

If your question generally covers things such as…Game-specific hardware and utilities…then you are in the right place to ask your question!"

But it does not clearly define non-game-specific hardware and utilities as off-topic.

For applications that are non-game-specific such as fraps and teamspeak, their prevalent use by gamers might make them useful questions, but are they actually on-topic when the questions are about the GUI, API, or general application usage? Where do we draw the line on what aspects of these applications are still on-topic?

If we support TeamSpeak general usage and beyond, then why aren't we fielding Ventrillo, Mumble, Skype, C3, etc. questions of the same? Is it based on some sort of popularity contest? How do we know what applications are okay here and which aren't?

Answer 1

Let's lay out some fundamental premises and my basic argument:

1. Off topic does not necessarily imply bad. Some of the things we've marked as explicitly "off topic" make a question bad, though. (Piracy, Catalogs, etc) Bad questions should be closed, deleted, and forgotten.
2. When a question is good, but potentially off-topic, the dividing line shouldn't be the program in question or the specific aspect in question, but the expertise requested.
3. If a question could be answered differently depending on the type of expert asked, we should attempt to engage the asker, as it is fundamentally their problem. If it is up to us to decide, I suggest that we err on the side of not migrating things that are overlapping between sites.
4. Migration is not punitive; the motivation is helping the asker get the answer they're seeking. Let's treat it as a helpful process rather than a "GTFO" process.

I tend to think of it like this:

You have a problem, and a cell phone with two numbers in it. One number gets you your IT/hacker buddy, and the other gets you your pro gamer/hacker buddy.

Which number do you dial to get help?

If you think the IT guy is just not going to have a clue - then the question probably belongs on Arqade and wouldn't fit as well elsewhere. Likewise, if the gamer guy is probably not going to have a clue, it probably belongs elsewhere and not here.

There are some questions that probably either of them could answer. "My video card's drivers are broke!" or "I'm trying to get Linux running on my PS3" (well, back when that was a thing...). Even "How do I get my game server to auto-restart when it hangs?" In that case, you might get different answers from different sites, but you'd probably get an answer from Arqade.

I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't migrate the overlap. If it's software where gamers are going to use it, and there are likely to be game-related issues related to it, then it's almost certainly better here than elsewhere. (Sometime ask me about restarting game servers that hang... no amount of bash-fu helped, but that's a long story)

The asker picked this site, so chances are decent that they wanted a "pro gamer/hacker" answer. If it seems like maybe they don't want that, asking if they'd like to ask the IT guys instead is valid. I think migrating them over there is often a decision that they should be involved in, and reduces the friction during a migration.

The absolute worst-case scenario is that we can't answer the question and it sits unanswered and unloved. That's sad, but it's not unheard of, and it's not the end of the world.

Assuming these questions are otherwise valid, here are some short examples, where I chose Excel to be the software in question:

I'm making a spreadsheet for Fallout 3, but I can't get my formulas to work right in Excel

This is tangentially about Fallout 3, but they're asking for Excel expertise. Not really something we can help with; let's work on migrating it.

I'm using Bob's Excel Calculator for Eve Online and I can't get the frobozz column to populate with valid values

This is kind of an overlap - someone who plays Eve may have expertise in using Bob's Excel Calculator for Eve Online and could help. However, I'd be tempted to ask them if they'd like to migrate it on the odds that they'd get a better answer from someone with more spreadsheet expertise.

Is it possible to win the "Space Sim" hidden in Excel 97?

Here we're talking specifically about a game embedded in an otherwise non-gaming related app. Probably not going to get a lot of expert advice from spreadsheet experts on this one.

Answer 2

I think the big thing is that FRAPs and TeamSpeak are aimed at gamers, and used almost exclusively by them. You could just use Steam for the Software section, but I don't think many people actually do.

I think they should be on-topic. Ventrillo, Mumble, and C3 are basically like TeamSpeak and primarily used by gamers. While they wouldn't have to be used for gaming, they're pretty gaming-specific. They would be on-topic on SuperUser as well, but so is Steam. We also already have tags for mumble and skype. Popularity doesn't determine whether or not something's on-topic, but it does influence the number of questions asked, which is why you don't see more of them, I guess. I think most aspects of these programs should be allowed to be asked here.

For more general programs like Skype, recordMyDesktop, or Camtasia, it would be silly to try to support every question about the program, because there are a lot of programs that can be used for gaming. Even things that relate to something that relates to gaming like "How can I export my Skype chat logs from my clan?" seems too unrelated to be on-topic here. For general-use programs, I would suggest that we require that it be directly related to games. Both of our current skype questions are also tagged with another game, which I think is best. It would be fine if they can just directly relate to general gaming though.

One thing to consider though is that SuperUser supports general use questions, so when asking a question, you would want to consider which demographic would be able to answer it better.