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Well, I originally put down an iron fist but I figure let's open a meta discussion anyway.

Incident: Looking for a 22-26" LCD TV for gaming on consoles and PC [closed]

Our previous thread on the subject was primarily focused on direct interface elements primarily within the PC end of things. We didn't really cover things like TVs, VCRs, switchers (or whatever those nifty things that you can plug all of your consoles into and just press a button to switch between them), and the like. We also addressed it primarily as a general case for troubleshooting and the like, which means we skipped the subject of specific equipment recommendations.

What should our stance be? Myself, I'm thinking that it may be going too far into the general hardware appliance end of the scale and away from gaming - a good TV for gaming is also good for a lot of other things. Except maybe those switchers, but I still wouldn't consider it if it was naught but a shopping recommendation on such. What does everyone think?

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  • I can see questions about: "how do I get my wii to work with this tv," or possibly "what should I do when my xbox red rings," but a hardware recommendation? I think that's just as bad as a game-rec, and we all know how I feel about those.
    – tzenes
    Commented Aug 31, 2010 at 16:08
  • @tzenes Both of those are support questions, which I think are fine. We already agreed that support for gaming hardware is on-topic (and don't we have RRoD questions already?)
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Aug 31, 2010 at 16:10
  • @Grace I believe we agree on this issue
    – tzenes
    Commented Aug 31, 2010 at 17:20
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    FYI: Shopping recommendations are off-topic on SU
    – Ivo Flipse
    Commented Aug 31, 2010 at 21:14
  • What about questions which ask about what product meets a certain specification, as opposed to "what is the best product?". e.g. "what monitor(s) will support the exotic features A, B and C while supporting X?"
    – Oak Mod
    Commented Aug 31, 2010 at 21:37
  • @Oak I'm not sure the logic in letting people with exotic features get answers while people with more general ones don't, if anything the exotic are easier to find. I really think neither should be allowed here.
    – tzenes
    Commented Sep 1, 2010 at 4:44

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As you've posted above, Grace, support for gaming specific hardware is probably ok, as it is localized enough that there will be a definitive or clear set of answers that pertain to a gaming specific peripheral.

This feels too open ended to ask for a suggestion, though. It's a game-rec question turned into hardware-rec. A more appropriate and focused hardware-rec question might be "Does X game for the Wii require a Wii Motion Plus Wiimote?" There's going to be questions that are inevitably not askable no matter how far into the gray area they fall, but that's just going to be the case.

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The problem with hardware is that each game can have it's own question, so this could potentially results numerous near duplicate questions (and answers).

Furthermore, we're a site about gaming, questions about screens are not about gaming. If the question would be:

"How will I know if a TV will be able to play Killzone 3's 3D?"

than the question is about the game and I would allow it.

Another problem I have with many of these questions, is that we should teach people how to catch a fish rather than to point him to the best fishing rod. You want to teach these users something, so that the next time they have a similar problem, they know what to do rather than having to ask a follow-up question.

I would great to have a detailed Best-Buy-Guide blog post for several hardware topics, whilst keeping the questions themselves off our frontpage.

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