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Why is there a minimum character limit when editing an answer?
I tried to edit an incorrect answer but my edit was rejected because it had TOO FEW CHARACTERS!
This is silly.  If I'm fixing an equation from dy/dy to dy/dx, I shouldn't be forced to type nonsense just to satisfy your code.
Projectile Motion - Arrow

So don't type nonsense. Type something useful. Posts that are so close to absolute perfection that they can stand only tiny edits are exceedingly rare. Remember: every time you suggest an edit, someone else has to approve it - make sure you're making your edits substantial enough for them to bother with.
That said, once you gain 2K reputation points, you'll be able to make as many tiny edits as you care to. With a little bit of finesse, you'll even be able to make edits that don't change anything at all... Which is why we'd really like it if you got used to making more substantial edits now, so you don't fall into bad habits later: it's all too common to see users edit to fix one tiny error that bothers them, and leave ten others that they scanned too quickly to catch.

When you ask a question, it starts out on the top of the homepage. As other questions are asked or have activity in them, they are put at the top of the page and your question is bumped down. This phenomenon is seen in other places too, like forums.
In forums, people will reply with a message that says "bump" for the sole purpose of bumping the thread to the top. But of course, "bump" is not an answer and would not be allowed here. So instead, you could edit your question and change it only slightly, and the action of editing puts the question back at the top of the homepage.
I've admittedly been guilty of this myself. It's actually an effective method of stirring up more views and answers on your question. And since it is so effective, people will naturally gravitate towards doing this.
I would like to see a "bump" link which facilitates this action, since it's only natural to want to foster more growth of your question, especially if it slipped through the cracks or maybe happened to be posted at the exact same time as 20 other questions and ended up far down the front page from the very start. But instead, it appears that Stack Exchange is attempting to fight it by setting a minimum edit count.
Jeff or Joel, if you're reading this, I'd really like to see a blog post on why you are fighting the action of "bumping" a question! :)

isn't "bounty" the SO version of bumping? If you care enough to bump, don't you care enough to pay for an answer?

That's a good point! :)

Stack Exchange is not a forum. The inability of someone to return a question no one cares about to a position of prominence without either substantial edits or greater-than-usual remuneration is a feature of SE, not a problem.

A question that garners no attention says nothing about the quality of the question, only of the people who happen to see the question and their ability to answer it (or interest in the question). This is a huge issue at Stack Overflow, where you can get unlucky and post a question 59 seconds before the homepage cache operation, and many other questions are added in those 59 seconds, thus putting your question at the bottom of the homepage from the get-go. This is not at all an uncommon occurrence during mid-day hours with SO's great popularity.

(Conversely, you can game the system by refreshing a few times to discover the 60-second mark, then making sure to post your question just before the next 60 seconds rolls around, putting your question at the very top of the homepage for a full 60 seconds - which is a lot of views during the busy times of the day; I am of course still referring to Stack Overflow in all this, since GDSE is not (yet) popular enough for this to be an issue)


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Almost every question get's at least one up, even if they are bad
I'm not one of the big-regulars on this but lately it's come to my attention that almost every question on gamedev get's at least one up vote. But as I see it, some questions really don't deserve this upvote. A few examples:
V8 JavaScript Engine and Mac App Store
(single line question)
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6478818/java-using-strings-as-code
(got updvoted on gamedev, but doesn't belong here)
Bitmap & Object Collision Help
(code sample is useless, question too vague)
As you can see all these questions got +1. But why? Do people get points for upvoting other threads?
I've also looked at the scoring of questions on the first 5 pages, there was only one question in the negative. That's not quite what I'm used too on the SE network. Of course we don't have to bash everyone around, but maybe people could check in on the scoring of questions?

Why is it a problem that the first question is clear and concise?

It doesn't show any effort, the person doesn't show if he tried to find it somewhere, why it could be a problem including V8, etc... It's just shoot and run.  (on another note, isn't it funny I got one up :P)

+1 I share your impression

you can always vote them down ;) (again)

I agree with what you're saying, but we generally have more of a problem with not enough voting than too much:
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/vote-early-vote-often/
So on the scale of "things that harm a site" too much voting is fairly harmless.
That said, I suggest voting on these questions as you (or anyone else) deem appropriate to attain a balance. Remember that

question downvotes are now free, that is, they do not cost any reputation
you now get up to 40 votes per day, as long as you use 10 of those votes on questions

If you see questions that, per the tooltip on the question downvote icon:

This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful (click again to undo)

Don't hesitate to vote appropriately!

Hey Jeff, thanks for your insights, I didn't know downvotes are now free, I didn't feel like trashing my rep because other people misvoted, but now I can correct the ones that really bother me (I will not retroactively do so though). :)

But why? Do people get points for upvoting other threads?

Yes.

Electorate (gold): Voted on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions
  https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/badges?tab=general

Please note: "Questions" really means "questions" although some people think it means "posts".
The changes causing downvotes on questions not to result in reputation loss anymore was very recent and did not get broad attention.

Well, they don't get points for upvoting, they progress towards earning that badge. Badges don't come with reputation point bonuses, though.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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what is the exact meaning of a downvote/upvote?
I've had an idea to upvote an answer when it's right and I like it, and downvote it whenever the answer is wrong. about questions I had the idea to upvote whenever I think that question might be useful to me too and downvote in cases that question is not releated to gamedev or has a very low quality. but there in many cases i've got both upvotes or downvotes based on the only term whether people liked answer/question or not? it seems not professional to me and I think our attitude toward quesiton answering should be changed to somewhat better, i'm not saying to adopt my idea but to have a better reason than just feelings.

The canonical meaning of upvotes and downvotes is probably best delineated by the hover text for the up and down arrows.
Up votes for questions

This question shows research effort; it is useful and clear

Down votes for questions

This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful

For answers:

This answer is/is not useful.

The goal of voting is to help steer people on the site to do the right kind of behavior you think should be on the site by rewarding the user with points and by sorting their content to the top.   It's obviously loose and subjective, but the idea is that with a certain critical mass of users it evens itself out in the end.   Part of the idea is that the users on the site are hopefully "experts" who can just sort of look at a question and see whether it's good or bad.
As an aside, it is considered good form to leave a comment when you downvote (as otherwise the user doesn't know what they're doing wrong).

but there in many cases i've got both
  upvotes or downvotes based on the only
  term whether people liked
  answer/question or not?

How do you know that? It's not possible to say in general why you were upvoted or downvoted unless somebody tells you, so I think you might be overinterpreting some votes. Besides, even if that was the case, it's being done with the constraints of the system. That's part of the reason downvoting (for answers at least) costs, and why you can only downvote once.

it seems not professional to me and I
  think our attitude toward quesiton
  answering should be changed to
  somewhat better, i'm not saying to
  adopt my idea but to have a better
  reason than just feelings.

"Feelings" are not the best reason, but there are several good reasons that are relatively subjective. An answer may be poorly worded or other incomprehensible. It may have an explaination that is technically correct but suboptimal.
Avoiding subjectivity is basically impossible, so instead SE tries to amortize the negative impact of that subjectivity of the whole of its userbase on the assumption that the invested whole is more objective than the individual.

I'm saying they are based of a feeling since at least I can tel some of my answers were technically wrong at first revision but they got upvoted, then I myself saw something's wrong and fixed it.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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Plug for Area 51 proposal
I'd like to plug an Area 51 proposal that might be relevant for many game developers.  What's the best way for me to do that on Game Dev?  It seems odd to make that into a question somehow.  Even if I did form a question out of it, selecting an answer seems like a bit of a stretch.

Well one way would be to create a Community Promotion Ad

Thanks for your response.  I posted the promotion there.  Hopefully, it'll get some hits.


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Has the -1 rep for downvoting a question or answer gone?
I haven't noticed a loss in rep for doing that recently; also on Gaming.

gone for questions, but still there for answers. See blog post link Maik posted.

Yes its gone: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/

It's half -gone: Downvotes on *questions* no longer cost the casting user 1 reputation, so they are effectively “free”. Answers weren't mentioned as changing, so I presume they didn't (haven't tried it yet).

I've always thought the loss 1 is a good thing. So, people dont just go ahead and click the down button just because, s/he feels its not good at their first glance.

Perhaps people should work on writing questions that are good at first glance.

Not every people in this earth has born with English as their first language. Its pretty obvious to face some difficulties, to find the right word and pattern to express what they want to. A lot Japanese game developers can't even speak English well. Does it mean it will be awkward for them to participate in the conversation. And there is always a comment part, if you don't understand, simply raise an issue. I have seen a lot people doing that.

Outside of one user, I don't think we've seen a problem with otherwise good questions rejected because they contain poor grammar (although I admit I'm not the best person to judge that). On the other hand I think we have a problem with genuinely bad questions, mostly from native English writers, not getting downvoted enough.

For example http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/14444/game-sound-effects-availability is fine grammar, but the question is half duplicate and half non-question, and yet it's made it to +3, and your answer at +3. I downvoted your answer because it belongs split up and at the question Tetrad linked, and not because of any grammar problems.

I didn't read the blog. Its great! I agree its ok. But, sometimes I face this situation. Once I asked 64bit lib with 32bit OS compatibility. People just went on download voting, while commenting "I dont understand", but, after that few(not me) explained what I was talking about. Then those "dont understand" comments were deleted and question was upvoted again.

@joe-wreschnig I answered the question 14 hours ago, and Tetrad linked 5 hours ago. I don't understand what you mean by "belongs split up".


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Rep. Loss for Downvoting spam
There was an answer to this question that was blaitent advertizing, and as many other people, I downvoted it and flagged it.
When this 'answer' is deleted will the rep from the downvotes be restored? Are we meant to downvote these answers?

Downvotes on questions no longer cost the casting user 1 reputation, so they are effectively “free”.

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/
Downvoting these answers is certainly a good idea to make sure they stay at the bottom until we (the moderators) get a chance to see the flag and delete the answer. Whether you downvote or not, make sure to flag it so that we are made aware of it.

I know, the question was about the answer that was downvoted. Is the rep restored when the moderator removes it?

Ah. In that case, I'm not certain but see this answer which indicates that the rep is restored when the answer is deleted (and the answer is written by a SO moderator).

Oki doki, thanks.

According to that answer, rep is restored upon the next rep-recalc, not when the answer is deleted.


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Duplicate answers
For example; a question that has a perfectly good answer that has been accepted, has lots of upvotes and generally covers everything.
For some insane reason, people think that by posting an answer and simply repeating what others have said is acceptable. But of course, for another insane reason people deem these answers good enough to be upvoted. Orly? Ya rly.
Of course posting a different answer to explore a different solution, why not, but when the idea is merely to say exactly what everyone else has, it just seems like reputation whoring to me. This annoys me so much, I often delete my own answers to questions because someone else answers the same damn thing.
And this is even worse when the question is a duplicate, and people post the same freaking answers as on the original question.
In a site that tends to aim for (and I quoth) pearls, not sand, I believe that duplicate answers should also be flagged, and burned.
I strive to comment on answers that I think need to be clarified or could benefit from extra info, not copy the answer and amend it.
So, I guess my questiorantn is whether we could do anything about this?

Vote them down and leave a comment why.  A common response is that the owner of the answer will delete it himself (assuming he doesn't think that his answer adds something more of value).  Either way it'll filter the dupes to the bottom of the list (assuming you're going by default sorting).

Yeah, that was a bit of a rant, I'll do that in the future.


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A lot of answers remain unselected

Possible Duplicate:
A good answer exists but is not accepted

A lot of questions in game dev have answers but they are not selected as an answer of the question. Can the situation be improved in anyway?

Only if the people select answers for them.

Accepting an answer isn't required; the community voting moves the "best" answers to the top naturally.
Accept is more of a social convention and a "hey, thanks man, this really helped me!" connection between the asker and answerer, than anything else.

So, 'not selecting answer' is not a problem, even if it is suitable?

@iamcreasy: No, it's not a "problem," per se. It's considered "good manners" to reciprocate someone's hard work, so we provided that feature. A lot of folks feel slighted when the original author fails to close that loop and offer that bit of gratitude -- so we built in an 'accept rate' to remind them: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/08/new-question-asker-features/

Hey why haven't you accepted this answer @iamcreasy :)

@tim-holt well there were some JS error with my browser on the time I tried to accept it. Nothing was working. Now, its back again.


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Can't retag a question though have sufficient rep point
I am trying to retag this question but it says I don't have enough privilege to do so. Retag question requires 500 rep point and mine is higher then that.
What could be the issue?

What exact message are you getting? Can you paste the text here or screenshot it?
Are you clicking the "retag" option and not "edit"?

oh, not that i noticed for retagging there is retag button. I was trying to do this with 'edit'. Why there are 2 different functionality, when in edit mode I am allowed to edit the tagging text box?

until you have 2000 rep, your edits have to be reviewed by other users.. but at 500 rep tag-only edits do not.


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Advertising free (as in freedom) projects on Game Development
What is the policy for advertising your free (as in "free software" not as in "freeware") own projects on Gave Development? Is that welcome?
If yes, are there any guidelines one should abide by?
The rationale behind my question is that:

For the game author it would be a great way to get feedback from fellow game programmers
For fellow game programmers, it would be a great way to have working example code to analyse / modify / build on
Although advertising a game is not technically a "question", the upvote/downvote feature on both the ad and the "answers" to it, would be a terrific tool for peer reviewing the project, helping developers new to the game industry to spot and prioritise possible issues.

PS: I notice the Community Promotion Ads question, but if I understood it right, that initiative focuses only on getting an ad banner "out there", rather than at collecting feedback on projects.

There is also a chat, if there is anything you want to talk about which isnt exactly a question, check it out. As long as its related to game progamming and you dont spam people there with pure advertising, great

If I understand you, you're meaning 'Can I put my game on here to be reviewed codewise and peer-checked?'
This really isn't the place. For one thing, it can be subjective (I don't like X because Y, though someone else might like X because of Z). Secondly, it's a lot of code slogging and is almost lazy; 'here's 10K lines of code, look through it and tell me what you think'.
There also isn't really a question. If you're meaning 'How could I improve this code', you'd provide a snippet, not a huge project.

You got me right, and I totally see your point (+1). On the other hand - as per the community promotion ads - it could be a specific tag which could not necessarily enforce the "objectivity rule". One would know what question tagged "project-notice" are, and would check them out only if interested... My thinking is that it would be useful to leverage the GD community expertise in this case too. Anyhow... my question is tagged "discussion" exactly because I am not 100% sure myself this would work as expected, so thank you for chipping in! :)

Tags are there to categorize questions, not to separate questions from non-questions. Community promotion ads are different because they don't mix with the questions - they are off to the side, where one would expect an ad, and they are obviously an ad and not a question.

Tags are also to be used to cover the content of the question.  Not the kind of question.  http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags/

I don't think this is an appropriate place or format for that kind of thing.
Now you can use your game/library as the source to an answer, for example if your library implements a particular feature and there's a relevant question you can use your project as an reference as long as you state your affiliation with said project.
As far as the Community Promotion Ads, whenever you hover over a banner it does provide a link to the answer in the question, where comments could be left.  It's not what you're looking for, but it's better than nothing.

Would you mind to articulate a bit more on why you don't think it's the "appropriate place"? Beside the "rule" I would be interested to understand the "thinking" behind the rule. :)

As our FAQ states, "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face." And as you said, "advertising a game is not technically a 'question'". There are other game development places (e.g. forums) which are open to hearing about your projects and giving feedback. And there is of course the entire public, if you release your project and advertise it (e.g. via the ads); you can always collect feedback on the project website or built-in to the project itself. This site, however, is focused on questions and answers.

@mac: This is a Q&A site, not an advertisement community. We're here to help others get their questions answered. Anything more than that is beyond the scope of this place.


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Famous games written in
Does anyone see a genuine reason for asking this type of question?
My first instinct is to say that people ask this question to try to argument better their choice of language, therefore the question is completely puerile.
It could be to try to see what certain languages are capable of, but in this case, the question is off-mark.
I would however find interesting questions about how certain games in C / Python / Java / Insertlanguagehere cleverly got around the limits of the language and the hardware at the time of release.
Basically I think this questions are completly directionless and hence don't add anything to the site.

I also think they're directionless, pointless and would prefer not to see them on the site. They definitely should be wiki questions at least, so I'm glad that's happened.
One of the issues I see with them is that the "famous" games tend to be the larger commercial titles, which tend to use a whole variety of technologies in their development toolchain and even in their released products... this kind of blurs the line between what it means to be "written in" one particular language. What "percentage" of the game needs to be written in that language to qualify? How do you deal with server and client components (EVE being the prime example here)? What about games that mix C, C++ and/or Objective-C?
Feels like way too much subjectivity there to really spawn anything but discussion and debate backed by very little factual information.

I couldn't agree more. After all a game becomes famous because it's a great game and not because of the language it was written in. The programming language is just a tool imo, and these questions are as pointless as asking: Famous games that used 3DS Max for assets or something along these lines.

My interpretation of the "Famous games written in" series is to further push forward the idea that you can make games in languages other than the "serious" game development languages de rigueur C and C++.  I kind of agree with the sentiment that we should encourage game developers to try more abstract languages because there's a lot to learn about more modern programming practices.
That being said the questions are directionless and the answers don't add much intrinsic value to the site.  At the very least they've been made community wikis so that rep isn't gained for them.

can they be molded or shaped through editing into better fits?

@Jeff, I don't really thunk so, at least not within the confines of the Q&A format. A more specific wording that falls within my frame of reference would be "show me some examples of what is possible with this environment", but I don't think that's really any better.

Thinking about it a little bit more, maybe something that would add more value to the site than just "list off some games" would be "What are the benefits of working in a language/environment like X".  That would hopefully encourage more thought out answers, but it still isn't an "answerable question".

@Tetrad♦ I agree, the "benefits" IMO would also be too subjective. I think concrete examples of how difficulties are overcome in a certain language/platfrom are interesting, but probably more confined to earlier console programming.


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What's the best way to add videos to questions?
Often, a video can be a great help to visualise a problem.
But on many questions, the person asking just links to someserver.sometld/somedir/somevideo.someEsotericFormat, which might not even be playable by other users (Let alone downloading huge files from untrustable sources).
Wouldn't the best way be to upload the video to a streaming website (e.g. youtube) and link to that?
Should advice like this be added to 'how to ask questions'?

While "best" is certainly subjective, I think we can agree that streaming is indeed better than having to download a tens- or hundreds-of-MBs file just to watch it.
Perhaps someone posting a video like that isn't aware of the ease of streaming video sites. Feel free to suggest to them, via a comment, that they upload the video to the streaming site of your choice. You might also gently indicate that you are much more inclined to watch a streaming video than to download a huge video file.


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Devkit Questions
There's been a couple of questions relating to devkits, and console development details.  Specifically, one asking What comes with a SDK, what language is used in an unreleased console, and alternatives to using a devkit.  As brought up in chat, many of these questions cannot be answered without breaking an NDA, and if you have the devkit already, there's better (and legally safer) places to ask questions other than gamedev.SE.
To quote Josh Petrie's comment from chat: "Most of the time I feel people ask because they want to "copy the pros" feeling that that is useful, but not understanding that professionals and hobbyists have wildly different needs. Or they want to "eventually port" their games." The in-chat discussion begins here.

Here's my full position on the subject:
I don't particular like dev-kit oriented questions, but I'm not entirely sure (especially thinking about it after the brief discussion in chat) that they're "bad" in the sense of "we should close them and disallow them." I'm more concerned that they tend to be (in my experience within other game development communities) symptomatic of a flawed thought process, one that is focused on mimicking the procedures and processes used by professional developers in at attempt to grow as a developer.
I think there is a legitimate opportunity for education there, so we should not necessarily close the question but hopefully, through comments or discussion in chat, find out why the poster is asking the question in the first place and then see if we can't direct them appropriately.


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Accept rate discussion in question
I have an accept rate of 20%.
Everytime I open a new question now, I get comments such as Oh, you should up your accept rate, and Oh, its funny you didn't accept any answers.
I think these comments are out of place and I flagged/removed a few of them.
Can people stop making these types of comments/mod delete them?  They're not constructive, waste space on the page, and are pointless.

I haven't read your questions before, but now that you've brought it up, I looked - and your accept rate is actually 0% - if you discount the one question you answered yourself. Maybe you need to think about why people are commenting? Are all the answers that bad?

That's besides the point. Meta-style comments shouldn't be on the question's page -- they take up space on the question's page.

I +1'd because it's a question that needs answering.

First, I'll answer the general question: Is it OK for people to comment on one's accept rate?
Yes, it is.
It is inappropriate for people to bring it up in an answer, but the "add comment" feature is for commenting. It is the only non-answer way to actually communicate with someone. And a person who doesn't accept answers needs to be communicated with. If not comments, how would you suggest informing someone about the accept feature if they don't know about it?
Now, I admit that people talking about accept rates does sound like someone trolling for rep. After all, accepted answers are not only worth +15 rep, that's +15 that doesn't get capped at 200. But in general, it is perfectly fine to mention someone's accept rate in a comment.
There are extenuating circumstances that can make it inappropriate. It is entirely possible that a person simply hasn't received many satisfactory answers. Perhaps they asked several questions that went unanswered, or the answers were unsatisfactory.
Now, on to the more specific question: Where do you personally stand on this? I know you didn't ask, but you did use yourself as a specific example. So you left the door open for this.
You've asked 8 questions. You have accepted 1 answer. Namely, your own. FYI: accepting an answer to your own question doesn't give you rep. That's not to say it's wrong; it's perfectly fine if you feel that your answer is the most correct.
Actually, let's look at this question that you answered yourself. It may be telling of a problem.
Your answer was specific to Win32, using Win32 functions and such. Yet your question never once mentioned Win32. To be fair, you did tag the question Windows, but there is a difference between "developing on Windows" and "directly using the Win32 API". For example, since this is a game development site, "developing on Windows" could easily mean that you use DirectInput.
So your question was incomplete. That is why you did not get appropriate answers.
A second question that received multiple answers was the one about keyboard combinations. The comment under your question asked for something very simple: clarification on your API of choice for input. You did not reply, nor did you provide this information.
Despite this, you received several very good answers, detailing how to go about doing exactly what you asked for. There is no reason you could not have marked one of those as an accepted answer.
Then, there is this question about DirectX versions. Quite frankly, that is not a question; that is a rant disguised as a question. It's about you not liking that Microsoft is trying to phase out a 10 year old OS by not allowing newer technologies and APIs to run on it.
I can tell this not just by the language you use to ask the "question" (for example, the pointless use of bold-face text for "if you're running Windows 7!"), but also by how you respond to answers that don't agree. AttackingHobo pointed you to the Steam Survey about DX10 availability, and your first response was to talk about the much smaller DX11 availability. Why? DX11 is only a minor change to the DX10 (in terms of the overall API. Most DX10 code can run as DX11 with at worst a couple of changes), so if you want to code to DX10, there's no real issue.
You did not find any of the answers acceptable, even though most of them made strong points. Granted, as your question was less a question and more a rant, it's hard to say what qualifies as "acceptable". Even so, the blame rests on you for posting a rant rather than a question.
Similarly, I find the tone of this question on having a W component to be... defensive. It sounds like a question that you ask when you think you're discovered something cleverer than most of the code you've seen. Look at those silly guys, carrying around 4D vectors, when I can make do with 3.
Since nobody agreed with this notion, nobody got the accept check. Indeed, Maik made a great point that torpedoes your idea entirely for any use of SSE or similar vector intrinsics. You would lose lots of efficiency by trying to do matrix multiplies your way.
Now, this is not mindless bashing of you. I could very well be wrong about any of the previously stated ideas about your questions. But it seems to me that some of your questions are looking for validation for ideas you already have, rather than actual unknowns that you want answers to. And thus, when you don't get that validation, because others have different opinions about things, you simply don't accept the answers.
Other questions of your seem poorly specified. As such, nobody posts an acceptable answer because you haven't asked the question very well.
Therefore yes, I would say that it is entirely appropriate for you to be called out on your accept history.

To play devil's advocate, you can also @-reply somebody in chat and that will put an entry in their notification area in the topbar -- so you can tell them about accept rate issues that way, too. But I do agree that's it's entirely fine and practical to point it out in comments.

@Josh: Note that this will only work if the person you want to talk to has been in that chat room sometime in the past.  But still, very good point!

If he doesn't accept this answer, he's hopeless.

https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/users/998/bobobobo
You have 8 questions, of which 6 have answers. 4 have multiple answers.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a slightly higher accept rate than 20% (what you have now) in this case.

The reason people are making the comments is that a low accept rate is indicative of a user  not fully participating in the Q&A format.  Accepting answers is important because 1) It gives the selected answer 15 rep, 2) It prevents the question from being bumped automatically by the Community bot to the front page, and 3) It shows people who get to the question via searching for it that a given answer has solved the person's question a little more so than voting alone would.
Some users have, in the past, forgotten about the "accept answer" functionality and community prodding has gotten results.
Obviously, with a small data set like the number of questions you've asked that percentage can be a bit skewed towards a small number.  If you feel like your questions haven't been answered (and therefore the "accept answer" would be disingenuous) , I would just ignore them.
If it gets into more of a back and forth flaming situation I'll remove the comments, but if it's just one comment here and there I don't think it's worth intervening.

They're not pointless and definately not out of place; people post them because they feel like your taking advantage of the system, and are warning that on that question you may not get many answers because of your accept rate.
A lot of people spend time researching and thinking to answer questions; if you don't take the time to accept any answers, people will just stop bothering.
If there are no answers that actually answer your question (looking at some of your questions, I believe this is not always the case) then if you find an answer by all means post it and accept it. Otherwise learn to ask answerable questions or explain yourself better.
The site is meant to help people, if you post questions so someone else can find the answer for you with no effort on your part, I think you've come to the wrong place.
If you still don't want this kind of comment, I guess that's ok, but I wouldn't expect your questions to be answered.
Looking at one of the questions you posted here, you answer yourself without accepting the answer. Not only that, but you should have been able to (and incidentally did) find the answer yourself with a bit of research.

While I agree with most of this post, I have to point out that for the question you linked, he answered it on the same day - and you can't accept your own answer until 48 hours have passed. (Which requires you to remember to checkmark it later). He may have just not gotten around to it yet, given that he did checkmark one of his other answers.

@Cyclops My bad!


text:
It's time for us to bring the CHAOS to Game Development
Game developers! I'm Abby, a member of the fabled CHAOS team at Stack Exchange. You might have seen me around if you hang out on Ask Different ever - I'm in charge of the CHAOS mayhem on that site. Things are going well over there so far, so it's time for me to add another site to my portfolio. I picked Game Development, and here I am!
I'm going to start with a disclaimer - I know little to nothing about the technical aspects of game development. I am a gamer, though, and I'm interested in all the processes and steps that have to take place between waking up one morning with a great idea for a game and having people stay up all night trying to beat your brainchild. (Awkward wording, but you get the picture.)
I'll be working on general promotion ideas as well as attempting to personally recruit new kickass users. The first step is for me to embark on a title-editing-and-cleanup campaign. I'll be checking in on the homepage in the mornings and the evenings and making sure the titles are nice English sentences with correct punctuation, so noobs who show up here aren't too threatened. <stage whisper>you guys can help with this if you want!</stage whisper> I apologize in advance if this clogs up the moderator queue. If it gets annoying, please let me know, and I'll get myself some temporary mod privileges for while I'm doing the editing.
Okay. I've talked long enough. Time to make this post into a question:
What promotion ideas do you have? What sorts of things would you like to see us do?

I see you've been brutishly introduced to our automated greeting remover. ♪

@GraceNote Aye. I am chastised.

Recruit John Carmack :p That'd get us a lot of people ^^. Also, maybe help Attacking Hobo with planning this competition? Booth at GDC?

@Noctrine tell me more about Attacking Hobo? (Email me if you like.)

AttackingHobo is a user here, he is pretty common in chat and we have a room dedicated to discussing the competition we'd like to run. http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/588/game-development-2-weekends-1-week-contest

@Noctrine aha! Thanks!

@Noctrine Whatever happened to that competition, anyway?

@Grace Hobo got really busy, and he is the primary organizer of it, he is looking to get moving with it again.

@Noctrine Great to hear! We're happy to be patient on Gaming, so just let us know when our part is time to shine. ♪

The obvious conference-related promotional stuff could be to sponsor advertising at the various game developers' conferences.
The big organization that covers this is http://www.gdconf.com/  There's a big one in San Francisco, and smaller ones in Austin, China, and Europe.

There are several indie game developer competitions going on, one way would be to sponsor them with prizes? This would be very beneficial for both parties as well.
Take Ludum Dare for example.

Ludum Dare is a friendly competition, and isn't really the sort of thing that would benefit from prizes.  There might be benefit from offering them hosting (they had to upgrade servers during the recent competition), but I've no idea if they'd accept such an offer.

Yes, that is also a good idea, but don't forget that there are other competitions going on in several places that would love to be supported with prices. Ludum Dare was just an example as stated.


text:
Do you need game testers? We can help
If you've got a game that's ready for testing (or will be within the next few weeks), we'd like to help you find some testers. We're going to try out our potential Developer/Tester matchup program in a very alpha, very version 0.1 way: matchin' people up by hand!
Basically, here's how this pilot program's going to work: if you need a beta tester for your latest project, leave an answer on this post. It should contain:

Some information about what sort of project you're working on
What platform it's for
What sort of audience you're developing for
What you look for in a tester
How many testers you'd ideally like to work with
Any other information you feel is relevant. (Remember, I'm no game dev! You tell me what information is useful.)

My excellent colleague Brett and I will find you some testers. A handful of folks on Gaming.SE have volunteered already, and my hunch is that when we have specific games to ask about, we'll get many more responses.

Questions like this one (and this one), are why we need an announcement tag...

This is awesome, and I might even have something ready soon-ish to be tested....

@thedaian Great! We're looking forward to testing out this idea, so please keep me posted.

I am working on my game but it will take another 1-1.5 month before its ready for beta testing! Hope this program will turn into a long term stable project. Kudos to CHAOS team! :)

Can this be used for pro development? The company I work for is always looking for one-off testers. That being said, NDA's would be required -- we can coordinate that on our side, I would think. Thoughts?

@A.A.Grapsas Personally, I don't see a problem with that usage case, but I will have to ask around. Stay tuned!

I'm surprised no one's posted yet.  I'll probably post about our game some time this week.

@Davy8, check out this meta post for the new, sorta-official way to sign up.

@A.A.Grapsas, you are welcome to sign up as a pro developer. We will simply put you in touch with testers, like we do with all the other developers, and you can handle the rest of the details.

@Abby awesome, I've passed along the information to the correct department within our company. Thanks!

@A.A.Grapsas cool! Just keep in mind that it's a very, very, very beta-y program right now. Make sure nobody thinks they can use us as their primary method of finding testers just yet :)

@Abby no worries :)


text:
Difference between official and non-official moderator
What's the difference between access to moderator tool(which requires 10000 rep point) and being an moderator(official moderator)?

A 10k user has access to a number of tools that really just assist with the utility of their normal privileges - access to close vote lists, access to deleted questions, overviews of general problem areas, and vision to the cookie-cutter flags like "not-an-answer". You can see a general overview of these privileges at this Meta Stack Overflow post.
A moderator with a diamond has all the privileges of all reputation levels (regardless of their own reputation), as well as a number of additional capabilities to assist on a much greater degree of management. These include that their close/delete votes are binding (one vote will always settle the action rather than requiring 5), they can lock and protect posts, and they can suspend problem users. You can read up a description of all of the diamond powers at this other Meta Stack Overflow post.

I've also noticed that I get notifications of edits that need approval (I don't recall seeing this before I hit 10k) and can act on those edits

Ah, yes, that is also one of the effects you get, though it falls in line with "assistance", as the approval of edits has been available as an earlier privilege and this is just letting you see them easier. I guess the post hasn't been updated with that particular tidbit yet. Good to point that out!

I'd say check out
https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/privileges
and
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/a-theory-of-moderation/
to compare and contrast.


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"Review this for me" questions
Sometimes we get questions that essentially amount to "review a product/project". Examples:

Google's ForPlay library, where does it fall down?
DarkGDK good or not?
What are the pro/cons of Unity3D as a choice to make games?
Unreal engine 3 vs Id tech 3 vs Unity

Are these good questions for the site? If so, under what conditions are they good questions?
There are two related categories of question I don't think should fall in this discussion:

Questions asking for "the best" or "a good" library for some task, e.g. Minimalistic JavaScript sprite manipulation libraries, What's the best Python 3D engine?, Good GUI for OpenGL. I think it is difficult to make a decision about these a priori. If the task is not common there may only be one or two such libraries which are difficult to find. Even some very broad questions like the OpenGL one have turned out well as CW.
Questions about best practices for some task, e.g. my own Good 2D Platformer Physics (which at the very least needs a better title), To scene graph or not to scene graph, Fixed time step vs Variable time step. I think these are less emotional, less temporal, and answers borne out of experience are more valuable, than questions about specific products.

Yes, they are good questions.  If someone has experience with the item in question, it is good for them to share their experience.
We're here to educate and facilitate learning and the exchange of information.  "RTFM" should only be a last resort.
-edit-
Another question that should NOT have been closed - this is very much answerable.
How does one develop a first person shooter with a one man team?

I'd originally closed that question because of flags, and because in the past similarly broad questions have been closed for the same reason.I asked about it in the chat, and Tetrad responded with his reasoning for not closing it, and I've re-opened it.

so long as they are truly game developer centric things, I can agree with this @noctrine -- we view gamedev as a more "holistic" site where all the skills and tools a game developer would reasonably use to build a real game are allowed.. of course we still have quality standards per the [faq] and [answer] and [ask]

If one of these questions were posted on, for example Stack Overflow, if would probably be moved to programmers.stackexchange.com instead. Since no equivalent to "programmers" exists for gamedev I'd say that these are valid questions.

Maybe this is just the StackOverflow in me talking, but anytime I see "comparison" or "best", I think "way too subjective."
Even the comparison questions are subjective, because they assume that every point will be made and/or given proper weight. As I understand it, the point of an SE site is to be able to provide a single, definitive, correct answer, not a bunch of answers that you take as an aggregate. Comparisons seem like polling.
I'm not saying that they wouldn't produce useful posts. But SE is not a forum, and these kinds of questions seem more conducive to that kind of atmosphere.


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Request: Relax a bit on moderation and don't be so eager to shut down questions
The moderation lately has been getting harsh.  It's too severe in my book, and is not conducive to creating a welcoming or even useful community environment.  New people should not be afraid to ask questions, even if they are "foolish" ones.  It makes us look mean, grumpy and a closed, "Go away n00b" type of community.
Imagine this place as a store.  Someone comes in and asks an obviously naive question.  Shutting them down is probably eliminating them as a customer.  It's also probably encouraging them to tell friends, "Don't go there - they are rude."
On the other hand, helping them out and giving them a positive, encouraging and helpful experience is almost guaranteed to turn them into a customer.
Case in point, How does one develop a first person shooter with a one man team?
That's a perfectly reasonable question.  There are legitimate answers to it.  I have one I'd post, but I can't because it got shut down.
Yes, the poster is probably naive.  But let's not send the first time posters away with a firm slap.  Let's guide them a bit and help them learn.  Let's get them moving forward rather than just slap them down.
The answer RE: One man team FPS games?  See early Counter Strike.  OK it was two developers, but one guy pretty much just did the voices, and another guy did all the coding & modeling.  Also, see Garry's Mod.  One author, FPS, over 1 million copies sold on Steam.

Additionally, some of us are more than happy to answer the beginner questions.  Some of us are much more suited to answering the hard core tech questions.  If a question isn't your style, it doesn't mean it's not someone else's style.

It's that term, "Nazi moderator" that comes to mind - we all know what it means.

No, actually, I don't know what it means. There's no defined protocol for murder-over-internet, so I guess you must be thinking of some other aspect of the word "Nazi".

...Godwin's law?!

Okay, let's not get too relaxed here :) this question is just begging to be closed...

Sigh... and here's Exhibit B...

I'm with @TimHolt on this, noobie users may need low rep users help  why does a mod even need to look at such questions? instead they often feel they have an obligation to shut down a question simply because of its "niavity" which for a user with 1 rep is brutal. Let the site be what it is to some extent and have mods step in when needed.

I think this is a general problem with the Stack Exchange site methodology. There are many means of communication: voting, flagging, commenting, even chat. But what each one means is very ill-defined.
What does a downvote mean? To a newbie, it means, "Someone here didn't like me." To another person, it means, "This question is not helpful." To another, it means, "This question does not fulfill my criteria of being 'good'."
One good aspect of forums is that there's exactly one means of communication: replying to a post. And it's very obvious what that means, since they have to say it.
One thing that would help is forcing users to write a comment in order to downvote. Or to select an already written comment that effectively adds 1 to its total.
On a site like Stack Overflow, it's really very simple, because questions there are almost always narrow, focused, etc. You have a programming problem. You go to SO to get a solution. You can look at all of the questions and see answers to them. You can see what questions others ask, so you might ask one in a similar fashion.
People go to SO if they have a problem. But people don't see GDSE that way. They want to think of it in terms of a forum. You'll get people who just decided one day to "make a game", so they see a game development site and start posting. They don't want Q&A they want to talk. They want interaction. They want dialog.
If we're going to be a Q&A site for game developers, we have to stop those questions. They have to be shut down and closed. We have to be focused on real, answerable questions.
It's fairly easy to build a community around a forum. Communities are about communication, and forums do that very well. For dedicated Q&A sites, this is far more difficult. Communication, by the very design of the site, is restricted and rigid. How people communicate is muddled and non-intuitive.
If your question gets closed, you don't get an answer, period. Your question hasn't gone away; the site simply said, "NO!" and left you in the cold. Maybe you get a couple of comments linking to tutorials or other off-site information, but that's about it.
Allow me to put it another way. There is a difference between Q&A, and getting help. A lot of beginners want help, and the failure of them to get it here will drive them elsewhere, for both "help" and actual Q&A.

That does not answer the OPs point regarding GDSE being a "Go away n00b" community. I agree that there is a difference between Q/A and help but those who come looking for help, if they feel they were treated well, will come back when they have a real Question that can be answered. I think we need a better process to guide those "help" questions to chat, or gamedev.net or another forum.

+1. There's a difference between forum topic "Plz help me make game!!1" and Q&A post "How can I do A with B to achieveC?"

There are websites for people who want to participate in dialog about a game.

+1 & All you have to do to find out what a downvote means is hover over the icon, and a little tooltip appears to tell you. If, as a reasonably new user, you can't figure out to do that, then frankly I don't care if you misunderstand the feature.

If people coming to GDSE really want more of a community than a Q&A then we probably should advertise the chat system more prominently. E.g. for each closed question we could post a comment referring to the chat. I never used it so far, so I don't know how much activity there is. But it should be ideal to get quick tips for the broader questions.

It's not about how many people are happy to answer beginner questions. It's that too many bad questions drag the entire site down, reduce the S:N ratio, scare away other professional developers, and thereby make the site no different than gamedev.net.
It's not just that I don't want to answer an endless steam of bad beginner questions. It's important to me that you don't answer bad beginner question on this site either. If you want to help beginning game developers, there are no shortage of places on the Internet for that already.
There are good beginner questions. I'll vote those up. There are bad beginner questions. I'll vote those down. There are bad beginner non-questions. I'll close those. That doesn't make me a nazi. It doesn't even mean I don't like the person! It means I understand the notions of target audience and scope.
(Incidentally, there is massive irony in users with 101 rep or a couple of questions/answers telling me I should participate by answering bad/nonquestions rather than voting. Tim isn't guilty of this, but there are usually several in each "please be 'nicer'" thread.)

I have noticed a lot of questions being voted closed recently. But I've also voted to close a lot of those myself -- even questions that I would answer on another forum. My rationale is that this is not a forum, so questions that don't fit the direct Q&A format don't (generally, community wiki ones being an exception) belong.
I try not to be vindictive about it -- I don't think I down vote the question unless its particularly egregious. But the way I see it, if we let open-ended questions live just because the site is new and we're trying to bolster membership, we set a precedent we may have a hard time undoing.
Additionally, it makes the process of dealing with duplicate questions more cumbersome. When a question is clear and directed, a duplicate is usually obvious and can serve as a marker to the real question and answers. An open-ended, poor question is harder to isolate duplicates for. This leads to either questions with overlapping answers, spreading out the information (a thing we close questions as duplicates to help avoid) or it leads to questions being closed but the duplicates only touching on the kind of information the asker really wanted.
In this particular domain, it tends to be the case that beginner-type questions tend to be the most open-ended and inappropriate for the Q&A style format. You must, perforce, know something about a field to ask well-targeted questions usually and in game development it can be even more of an issue. I don't think the close votes and moderation are necessarily a sign that we don't want beginners(*) here, but rather a reality of that intersection.
I think the best course of action is to vote to close (or flag, or whatever is appropriate) and explain yourself in a comment. This can encourage the asker to reformulate their question (possibly thinking about it in more detail and coming up with a better question in the process) and also teaches them about how this site and its community operate.
(*) which is not to say that more expert-level questions would be undesired!

In case that we want more good questions from beginners what we still could extend a bit is putting emphasis on improving bad questions or resubmitting them in an acceptable format. Giving more hints to the newbie and asking him to improve or resubmit in an improved form while closing the old, unsuitable question. This would probably increase the number of good question but would also mean a bit of extra work for those who close...

Just out of curiosity, what do you think is the reason for the perceived relatively low part of expert questions? They do not have question and know all the answers? They do not trust there are enough experts here? ..

The case is that most of the times the users do not explain themselves, and OPs do not have a way to reformulate their question before it gets actually closed.

Part of the problem is that there is a small, very active group of people who actually do embody the "go away n00b" mindset simply because they are starved for good, "expert" questions.
This is made even more severe by the dogpiling of negative votes.  A good example of this is the question How can I implement gravity?.  If you don't have enough rep to see it, that particular question has 4 downvotes (most likely people who think the question is too simple and easy to look up) and 4 upvotes (people who think it's a reasonable question, and potentially who think that the downvotes were not warranted).  Sure, it's a decidedly easy question, but 4 downvotes?  And no comment as to why?  Two "Not a real question" close votes?
Sometimes I feel like it might be better to intervene early with the frame of reference of a moderator than let the question get dogpiled by the community.  I usually don't, though.
Like I said in chat, I fully expected that example question you gave to go negative early, even though there are potentially good answers to give, particularly if you take it from the less-naively-worded "how can I be effective at making a game with very limited resources".  Granted, the op could've better explained what their goals were.  For example, getting something up and running quickly would be the assumed purpose of the question, but if their goal was to start at the bottom and work their way up the technology chain, giving them examples of middleware to use wouldn't be very helpful.

I know the sting of negative votes with no comments - this question got two of them :)

@Tim Holt - although I didn't vote either way on the question, I will note that votes on meta -questions aren't really the same as votes on regular main-site question (despite the crappy tooltip). Usually a downvote on meta doesn't mean the question is bad, just that the person disagrees. Unless a question directly has a set of YES/NO answers below, there's really no other way of indicating agreement/disagreement. Well, okay, there's also comments, but aside from that... :) Voting is a bit more concise than seeing 50 comments, anyway.

I think that "How can I implement gravity?" is kind of a semi good question in a way that it is a bit too broad and depends on the context. A puzzle solver surely doesn't need the same physics as a planetary movement simulation. I wish the questioner would have given more context. You see it in the answers, they are quite different and none of them is really excellent. I think that splitting that question into two or three to cover the relevant topics better would have helped the viewers of GDSE and asking for more context would have helped the questioner in getting the information he wanted.

Couldn't agree more with this suggestion. As a relative newcomer to this site, the tone of some of the moderation has been a bit of a turnoff lately.
I completely understand the need to cull out bad information in order to keep the site useful, and there needs to be room for constructive criticism and keeping new/naive users aware of the rules, but some of the comments that I've seen have ventured pretty close to personal attacks/hostility. The "what to do with new users" thing seems to be a problem common to all the Stack Exchange sites, but from what I have seen, the others tend to handle it a little more tactfully. And in fact most users here do the same, but unfortunately it only takes a bit of negativity to noticeably affect the tone of the site.
It's disappointing to me because there's a ton of really useful knowledge here, and I've recommended it to a few friends, but usually with the caveat of 'be careful what you post because some people can kinda be dicks'.

You're right that some comments have been too personal or hostile, at times. But (as far as I can tell), it's usually due to a feedback loop - the OP gets a (neutral) comment about their question being unsuitable, then the OP gets defensive and unpleasant, then the replies get more unpleasant, and it builds to a flame war. While I agree that the long-timers here should show more restraint :) , I also have to say that it usually starts with some poster refusing to admit any possibility that they might be wrong...

True, and I'm not sure if there is much that can be done about overly defensive OPs. I like Nicol Bolas's suggestion of requiring a comment for a downvote, though even if more downvoters made an effort to explain their reasoning, it would go a long way in teaching the rules to new users without provoking resentment. I have also seen a few cases where someone posted a bad question/answer and got piled on in the comments. Many of them don't seem to bother coming back to respond...

In theory everything here should evolve around posting and answering good questions. So the key question is alway how to improve bad questions. At some point you can not anymore because you don't know what the original poster wanted and he is not making visible effort to improve his question. Then you have to dismiss this question and however polite you do it, people will never like it. I think that a bit of frustration is unavoidable. But on the other hand criticism must always stay constructive - that's absolutely true.

I partially agree with the suggestion - I don't think moderators are being 'too harsh' because as Nicolas pointed out this is not a discussion website. The SO/SE family has always been a place to participate in very focused questions/answers; and hostility to 'zero-self-research' is a very common theme across these websites - and rightfully so, it is not our job to replicate the internet/Google. However, the question that the Tim pointed out is something that is quite difficult to research yourself: people just don't write literature about that kind of stuff.
I think these discussions were one reason the 'community wiki' feature was implemented: "I have some ideas - can anyone add to them?" That might be the answer: spend more time determining if the question should be closed or if it should be wikied - ideally that question should have one answer that is perfected by the community as a whole. It seems that 'questions where answers shouldn't earn rep' are being incorrectly classified as 'close this'.
One thing I have seen is 'trigger-happy' moderation; I have contested closed questions on a few occasions: mostly because the question looked (at first glance) identical to another question - often the devil is in the details. These questions are especially important on a website like GDSE because game developers are usually solving the same problem; however each one has their own weird borderline case to tackle. Before a question is closed as a duplicate I really think more effort (that is, beyond gleaming over the title) should be made in order to determine if it really is an 'exact duplicate'.

The "community wiki instead of close" mindset has fallen out of favor with SE moderation as a whole recently.  If it's valuable enough to be on the site, with few exceptions, then it's valuable enough for the asker/answerers to gain reputation from them.  CW isn't a way to allow poor questions to continue to exist.  Some mods will say that the reputation part of it doesn't really fit with the decision making process anymore.  http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/

@Tetrad I could see why - I really didn't get the point of CW until I saw this suggestion.

This place is not a store, and those people are not customers.
There is absolutely no reason to pander to those who cannot be bothered to read the help material or study existing questions before posting. By doing so you will only encourage more of such behaviour and, before you know it, this will be a den of detritus worthwhile to no-one.
It sounds to me like you think Stack Exchange sites are help forums or discussion boards; they are not.


text:
User-Experience tag
I recently saw the tags to this question, and I believe that 'experience' is an incorrect tag.
I think we need a 'user-experience' tag for this type of question as it is both game-design and user-experience related.

If you get 12 more rep you'll be able to do it yourself.  http://meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/faq#reputation

Went ahead and made the change.


text:
Auto-deleting "offensive" comments is bullshit
In particular, I alluded to the Mike Acton presentation titled 'typical C++ bullshit'.
This is the actual title of the presentation. It is known among game industry professionals by this title. If you Google things like "C++ bullshit" it is near the top of the results.
Is it possible to disable the auto-deleter, so we can talk like adults using terms adults use to describe, well, bullshit?

Perhaps a quick summary is in order, what exactly does this auto-deletion do?

@eBusiness: If a comment uses certain "profane" words - "bullshit" among them, I don't know what others - flagging it as offensive deletes it with no moderator intervention.

Well, sometimes ideas and implementations are beyond bad. I personally find the term bullshit perfect in such cases and I think its even ridiculous to discuss it. Political correctness is much worse and harmful imo.
Another great examples are C++ compilers and linkers these days. 95% of the compiling- and linking time at my job is useless, because actually I didn't change all that stuff, but it is being recompiled and linked anyway. Mike has another great presentation about that called Linkers suck. You could call it just nonsense or legacy or what not, but it really is bullshit.
I don't know whether he is mature or not, and I don't care. I think he does a great job naming bad things in the industry. I understand Mike's words as a completely understandable anger and the desire to change such stuff and to wake up people. And of course referencing his work in comments is absolutely no need to auto-delete them, thats just ridiculous.
Needless to say, and I don't think that was Joe's point, that nobody should insult anybody here.

I don't see the use of that term to be "talking like adults." Indeed, its use in the title of a presentation is indicative of childishness, as far as I'm concerned. The kind of "Ohh, I can insult my opposition with dirty words now!" kind of thinking. The kind that closes people's minds (I've never seen the presentation until now, and thanks to the title, I never will) rather than invites them to learn something.
Basically, the title says, "I'm smarter than you, I know what's right, and if you don't agree, then your position is @#%$." If that's the only way you have to make your arguments, then I don't see a problem with that argument not being made.
Do us game developers really feel the need to be immature about their immaturity? I know that's a sadly common thing among our games, that most M-rated games are actually quite childish and not mature at all. But we don't have to be that way.

The post seems more to suggest: "I'm smarter than an anti-cuss bot", which is probably correct.

I'm not sure what opposition you think Mike is insulting, and I'm not sure why you see "bullshit" as a dirty word rather than a valid categorization of some class of claims or behavior (in this case, particular design claims and compiler behavior); Harry Frankfurt's writing in this area is illuminating.

While I can see both sides of this argument, the "adult" in me says that, as an adult, I should be respectful of those around me; which in this case means not using profanity on a public forum accessible to people of all ages, cultures, and tolerances around the world.  I also do not find the use of profanity, no matter the intentions, to be professional or mature in any way; in fact, my opinion of a person who resorts to that level of communication in a public forum is quite the opposite.


text:
Typo in the site FAQ
There are two typos in moderator-maintained part of the site FAQ:

A note on programming-related questions: general programming questions more likely belong on StackOverflow instead of here. (…)

The name of the site is missing a space, and the link is broken (the URL is stackoverflow).

Good catch! I also edited a bit for aesthetics. I really like the note about programming questions:

A note on programming-related questions: general programming questions more likely belong on Stack Overflow instead of here. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself …

Would a professional game developer give me a better/different/more specific answer to this question than other programmers?

Which is an excellent way to explain the difference!


text:
Could we add a google+1 button?
I noticed there was a facebook, a twitter, even a linkedln button to share a link towards a question, but there is no Google's +1 button. Admittedly, Google+ is quite young and could know the future of, say, Google Buzz, but many, many people in the programming businesses already have an account there. Couldn't we add this ?

http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/97406/any-plans-supporting-google-for-link-sharing-in-the-near-future

Didn't see it, sorry. You can close the question.

+1 is not the same as share-on-Google+, so this question as stated is different. Currently, there is a share button but no +1 button.

As noted in the linked answer, Google+ does not support simple link sharing and we cannot support them until they do.

Well, let's hope they'll support it ! Thank you very much for taking the time to answer.


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Let's have a presence at GDC Online in October
GDC Online is in Austin, Texas from October 10th-13th. Would you guys like GDSE to have some kind of presence there? We could do this in one of a few ways:

Sponsoring a community member to attend the conference
Setting up a booth at the con
Sponsoring the con in some way - tote bag inserts, for example
Organizing a meetup at a venue near the convention
Something else awesome that you come up with

We have the budget to combine some of these options, but not all. So! What do you folks think would be most beneficial to our community in terms of getting the word out about how awesome we are?
(Note: this would be in addition to, not instead of, also having an awesome presence at the main GDC in San Francisco in March.)

I'm sure you've seen this page: http://www.jointhegamenetwork.com/event/online/generalsponsor.html
I do think tote bag inserts would be a bare minimum.  There are some other interesting sponsorship opportunities, like paying for the exhibitor mixer.

You went to GDC 2011, right? Could you shoot me an email? I'd love to chat with you about your experience with our sponsorship and stuff.


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Are you an IGDA member?
I am looking into partnering with IGDA in some undetermined way. It remains to be seen how they can help GDSE (and vice versa), but in exploring the options, I've come across a fairly important set of questions:

Are you (yes, you, personally, GDSE user) an IGDA member?
What do you get out of your membership?
If you aren't a member, why not? Is it the cash, or do you not have interest in joining?

Please enumerate every thought you've ever had about IGDA below. (Or, just leave some notes.)

I was one of NJ's chapter coordinators for 2 years and have been a member for years. I'm friends with people on the board of the IGDA and coordinators throughout the US. The IGDA has, in the past, provided a good way for non-developers to interact with a tiny quantity of professional developers.
I have found, however, that official "get togethers" and knowledge exchanges tend to have significantly more students, indies, and wanna-be's than professional developers. As I run a professional only group, I have to say, none of us want to be constantly asked the same questions over and over again.
What we want is an environment of professionals talking to other professionals. That's really hard to do. Game development is like writing, everyone thinks they can do it/wants to do it.
It might seem exclusionary, but I've started a professional game programming get together in NYC. How do you find out where our location is? Well, a member has to invite you. How do you get invited? You need to know a member. Members currently are senior and above game engineers each with at least four shipped titles. Yeah, that's exclusion; but, we have more fun than we do at IGDA events and talk waaaay more shop.
In conclusion, the IGDA (and even, to a good extent, GDSE) is awesome for indies, students, and whatnot; but, for professionals, we really want a more focused environment.
Hope that helps!

I'm not a member.
I haven't joined because I am unaware of any significant benefit that I'd get. None of the stuff on http://www.igda.org/join sounds useful.

Generally I don't see that IGDA actually does much of use.

I have been a member in the past.  I think I let my membership expire since I wasn't really getting anything out of it.
The local chapter here occasionally organizes meetings.  Things like Q&A with lawyers on startups and Christmas parties.  I've gone to a few parties.  Not the meetings as much anymore since they've been taken over by students and not a small group of professionals.
As far as IGDA proper, I haven't really used any of their services.  They've released whitepapers on Quality of Life in the industry that I've perused through.  I think I got a free subscription to Game Developer magazine out of it.  But that's about it.

I am currently an IGDA member, I got a year membership for organising a site for Global Game Jam.
I honestly don't get too much out of the membership, but this is mostly because I haven't put much effort into exploring all that the IGDA offers.  There is a ton of benefit to being an IGDA member, though.  Much of it relating to discounts for gamedev tools and discounts for trips to gamedev conferences.

As for every thought I ever had about IGDA?  Well, that could take a while...
So here's some notes: They're great for knowing what's going on in the world of game development, they help organise tons of events, it's more of a large group of subgroups (or, there's lots of individual subgroups within the main IGDA group.  Most people working in the professional gamedev industry have membership via their studios.  They're kind of sort of the closest thing to a workers union, without some of the downsides.
These are all just things off the top of my head, and I'm sure there's some people with more knowledge about the IGDA here, so post about it if you know about it!

I am not a member. Like Kylotan, I don't see that they do anything I believe would be worth subsidizing with my money. As I wrote in an article a while ago concerning QoL:

In the end, I simply see a dearth of evidence sustaining the notion
  that the IGDA can act as a force-multiplier for the individual actions
  and opinions of its constituents. That’s not something I want my time,
  my money or (most importantly) my name associated with.

I'm not a member.  I was at one point through no choice of my own: they offer "studio partnerships" where a studio can get a membership for every employee at a bulk price.  I believe there are many members who do not even realize that they are members because of this.
I don't see myself becoming a member.  It seems more geared toward providing value for non-professionals than for professionals.  They have not done a good job as an organization of communicating to professionals why they would be well-served to be a member.
For the record, I hear that some of the local chapters are quite well run and do go out of their way to provide useful services for professionals.  The organization as a whole, though, does not seem to be very useful.

Member and longtime volunteer for the IGDA Finland Chapter. Larger companies host seminars a few times a year, large and small games are presented at the monthly meetings. Paid membership is not required to participate, but logs of attendees are kept with an associated mailing list to encourage repeated activity. Despite the fact the focus of the association is stateside, and the politics of the organisation are distant to Europe, the clublike mentality to join forces and share knowledge is used to good effect.

Used to be a member
Joined because that way we got cheaper tickets to GDC
Remained a member while I got game developer magazine through IGDA
Quit after this benefit was removed, as I had moved to a less-game development job and didn't see any other benefits give me any reason to stay
Never attended the local chapter meetings because they were always at an inconvenient time for me

I have been a student member of the Albany, NY Chapter and the Washington, DC Chapter and I am planning on attending the Baltimore, MD Chapter events if they ever have one at a convenient time. Chapter to chapter it can be very different as far as whom participates, events organized, and opportunities/resources provided. (ex. some chapters charge non-members a fee for attending events, some chapters have more professional developers in regular attendance while others have more indie developers, varying levels of knowledge/skill, etc...)
People have mentioned the benefits of admission discounts and there is also a group healthcare program I believe.
Ultimately I am a member so that I am not barred from attending IGDA events, I feel that it is mostly a good source of networking possibilities, as well as a good way to stay connected with the development community. Membership a year, imo, isn't to expensive, I do enjoy getting the occasional random piece of snail mail, and the eNewsletter. I think if you are part of an active chapter it can be worth it, but it would be great to get the magazine again.

I am a current member, plan on staying in when renewal comes up.
My main use is as a participant in the group health plan.
I've read some really good discussions on IGDA regarding quality of life and sane production methods.
However in general I find the SE forums are more expert, whereas IGDA forums have a lot more newbie posts (from what I have seen in my limited forum browsing to date)


text:
Do you participate in Global Game Jam events?
[This is a companion question to the one I asked yesterday about IGDA membership.]
IGDA runs an annual Global Game Jam in locations all over the world. Have you ever participated in one? Would you consider participating in the upcoming Jam next January? Also, have you ever gone to (or would you ever go to) a game jam that's run by someone else? Who, why, where, when, etc?
Gimme all your thoughts about game jams, folks! I feel that they could be a great fit for our model - bunches of people making games and looking for answers to their problems and questions in as close to real time as possible. Seems like GDSE could be an invaluable tool to game jam participants. But, IANAGD, so it's up to you guys to let me know whether or not I'm onto something here...

this does seem like a particularly good CHAOS fit, that is -- find new, appropriate, interested audiences for the site.

I'm a professional game developer with a wide range of experience (triple-A first person shooters to casual facebook games).
I LOVE game jams. In fact, I've written all sorts of articles about why game jams are great for game companies. I've participated in the Global Game Jam, in Ludum Dare, and in the Philly Game Jam with teams and individually.
I also teach graduate game engine architecture courses. One of the things I constantly advise my students to do is participate in jams. If I had to hire a developer out of college (rare), having finished projects is crucial -- jams are an easy way to develop a good portfolio.
So, weekend at FogCreek offices writing games ;) ? I could dig that.

I make games for a living, but like the idea of game jams and weekend compos. I have mentor'd at a few similar student events, and last week took part in my first Ludum Dare (gratiuitous plug). It was a great experience and very enjoyable. In particular I enjoyed getting out of the grind of a >1 year project into something that went from blank page to balanced game in 48 hours.
Ludum Dare is different to GGJ in that your entry must be a solo effort, but recently they've added a Jam competition that runs in paralell, which allows teams.

probably what makes sense here is to figure out who is interested and subsidize their attendance, and provide free swag.

Ludum Dare is a remote event, you can do it in your living room. Therefore there's no attendance to subsidize as such. However there's no restriction on meeting up and working alonsgside other competitors. http://cambridgeindies.com/ is one group that does this. Maybe gamedev.se could sponsor some group facilities somewhere?

I am from Bangladesh and really there is no game development industry here. But, I love to play games, and may be I am the very few people in our country who is working on a PC title(Indie of course).
Here its hard to find / convince someone to work with me for a full length game. But, recently I am gathering some developers(2d & 3d artist & musician) who really want to make games, just because they love & want to do it. Projected deadline of, my game's first public release is on the end of this year.
If I can meet the deadline or make a satisfying progress, I might want see myself participating next year's IGDA in Thailand(I think, this will be the closet from our country.). But, really don't know any details about it. Does it really worth it? If is, then how so?

That's part of what I'm aiming to find out with this meta post. I hope we get a good range of answers!

I've participated in Ludum Dare in the past, and hosted a local Global Game Jam site in January. I'm also somewhat familiar with some of the other Jams held around the world, though most of them are either local to a city, or month long events.  I am once again hoping to host or participate (or both) for the upcoming Global Game Jam (last year I was sick, and mostly just watched other people make games).
Overall, I think Jams are great for student and hobbiest developers, and they can be quite good for professional developers as well.  The former get to experience the full process of making a game, while the latter can learn a new tech, experiment with a new idea, or in some cases, focus on something they want to make instead of Movie Licensed Game #47.

No -- never been, probably would never go, and for the same reason as Tetrad, mostly. The development I do in my own time, outside of work, tends to be non-game-development related. I doubt I'd ever participate as a contestant or contributor, but I am not necessarily opposed to volunteering to help out with community-oriented competitions or contests in some other capacity, depending.

No, because I make games at work and generally don't go out of my way to participate in them when I could be doing other things.


text:
The tag and-engine should be andengine, as it is on SO
I recently created a question with the tag and-engine. This should not have a hyphen (there is no space, or hyphen in AndEngine) and should be andengine, as it is on SO.

I went ahead and made this change.


text:
Is there a shorthand version for posting links to other questions in a comment?
I read the comment formatting help and there are several shorthand links available to refer to pages within the SE network.
Quite often I post links to related questions in a comment and this turns out to be rather ugly. See the comments on this question as an example.
Is there a shorthand version to link to a specific question within the same site? Eg. something like [#15256] to insert a link to the question with the given ID? It would be nice if the system would replace that shorthand link with the title of the question and an actual link to it :)
Or maybe the pasted URLs could be parsed and replaced with the actual Title of the question?
Is such a thing already in place? I was under the impression that something like this was already implemented at some point.

I didn't know that shorthand existed, so that's awesome.

You can use [Link Text]
(Actual Link) to format links in comments.

Yes I know. But it would be nice to have a shortcut for questions within the site.

You can remove the text from the URL at least. So a link to this question, instead of:
http://meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/575/is-there-a-shorthand-version-for-posting-links-to-other-questions-in-a-comment
would be:
http://meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/575/
Doesn't make it much prettier, but you can use the saved space to make a title for the link.

You can also cut that 'questions' down to a 'q'. The 'share' link will provide you with such a URL. Here's a link to this question with my referral code snipped off the end to demonstrate it still works: http://meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/q/575. A link to this answer: http://meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/964


text:
User name not a link in comment
This question was migrated from stackoverflow: XNA: Texture2D.GetData runtime error
Bjørn Moholt's name on his comment doesn't have a link.

This is currently by design - if the user doesn't have an account on the site when the comment is migrated, it'll be disassociated permanently.
Fortunately, this is not the case for questions and answers.


text:
Little inbox notification number is slightly off its alignment
Almost the exact problem as in this question... but backwards! I'm seeing the number slightly above the line - again, in Chrome, on Windows.

The fix will be in the next build


text:
Do the badge requirements make sense given the size of the community?
Obviously gamedev will continue to grow; stackoverflow wasn't built in a day, for instance.
But it does seem fairly obvious that there are a heck of a lot more "developers" out there than there are "game developers". And so it seems pretty absurd when you look at some of the requirements for badges on gamedev, and how in many instances, no-one (or very few people) have managed to earn them in the 2(?) years this site's been online.
These may make sense for stackoverflow, where there are nigh on 600k users and 2 million questions, and it's thus pretty easy to, for example, "edit 500 crappy posts". But not so much here, where there are about 8k users and 4k questions.
I expect I'll get a lot of flak for this, but before you say anything, I only ever play hardcore mode :) So I'll understand if some people think "making things easier" would suck.
I guess also it may not be doable at this stage, considering that would make devalue what others have earned up till now. But perhaps something to consider for future sites coming out of Area51.

http://stackexchange.com/sites#gamedev "created 1 year, 1 month ago"

@Jeff ah thank you -- my mistake! But presumably it was in beta for at least 3 months before that?

no, that is the date from inception

I'd also like to see it - but don't hold your breath. :)

For better or for worse, badges mean the same thing in the nooks and
  crannies of SO and on the smaller SE sites as they do in highly
  popular central core of SO. Arguments can be made for certain special
  cases, but I don't think scaling all badges by size of user base would
  be an effective way to even things out.

Also see Shouldn't the badge requirements scale?


text:
What to do with abandoned questions?
There are some questions that keep getting bumped by the Community-bot although they seem to be abandoned by the original poster (example).
How to deal with these? What happens to questions that are asked by somebody who then never comes back (because he found an answer elswhere)? Will the bot bump them to infinity or will he "give up" when the question remains unanswered?

So the short answer is: 5k+ rep users can vote to close questions.

Just because the OP isn't around any longer (and thus will never accept an answer) doesn't mean the question should be closed though (even though this specific example should have been).

A few random, relatively highly viewed UNANSWERED questions will be bumped every hour.
For our definition of unanswered, see here:
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/09/ok-now-define-answered/
If you think any of the answers are decent, the thing to do is upvote them -- or of course edit, comment, flag for removal, provide your own answer, etcetera.

Ok, so questions that aren't closed/deleted by admins and don't have an accepted answer will get bumped. There's no "bump-limit" to a question?

has nothing to do with accepted answer; did you read the blog entry?

The problem with this specific question is that there's no possible good answer and it should've been closed...

@Jeff: I read the blog entry, but my comment was poorly worded, sorry. I meant accepted in the sense described in the blog. I was just wondering if the bot will bump a question forever as long as it remains "unanswered".

@joe sure, close it as "too localized" -- that's a valid outcome as well.

Well, I did last time it came up - but now it didn't show up as "close (1)" and I couldn't close it again. How long are votes-to-close valid?

@joe it depends; we changed some stuff about that in July: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/97556/close-votes-expire-too-soon-for-low-traffic-tags/97581#97581 you can always flag for mod attention.

@Jeff: It would be nice if, when it comes back up, I could re-vote to close. http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/14551/ for example could probably garner enough close votes if enough >5k rep people saw it at the same time, but now the votes have expired and people who have already voted cannot revote.


text:
Asking opinions about the architecture you have designed?
Is it ok to ask for opinions and corrections on the very specific architecture you've designed for a game, posting class diagrams and other detailed information?
I was thinking that perhaps questions that are too specific may not be very useful for the community.
If that is so, what other sites do you suggest for that?

https://codereview.stackexchange.com/ is close, but the FAQ says no "Higher-level architecture and design of software systems." But they do allow "Best practices and design pattern usage in your code."
So no architecture questions, but you could post specific sections of code for review - and might get refactoring or architectural suggestions in return. :)

I'll defer to the faq.

avoid asking subjective questions where …

there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
we are being asked an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”

But what about "I've used this design pattern here and here, and this class does that and that. Is it a smart approach?". The problem to be solved here is that I have little experience and want to avoid doing silly mistakes.

Well from my POV you want to make those mistakes since that's how you learn.  From the stackexchange POV, if you aren't "solving a problem" then it isn't the right place for it.  Trying to avoid future problems isn't solving a problem.


text:
Why are the "edit" and "retag" links missing from this post?
I saw this question - Collision detection problem - earlier and wanted to edit it, but the edit link was missing:

I thought that perhaps it was because the question was too new. However, on coming back I see that the links are still missing and that another < 2K reputation user has edited the post.
Other recent question - How to create a "flying" game - for example, do have the links.
Why are the "edit" and "retag" links missing?

It has pending edits but you don't have enough rep to see them. I'll approve.

Thanks - it's odd not seeing these things. Having significantly higher rep on other sites is clearly spoiling me.


text:
Are legal questions allowed here?
Despite this legal questions having been discussed, at least one user keeps commenting on legal questions saying they are off-topic.
Have we decided that these questions are definitively on or off topic, and what should be done about continual comments on this matter?

Note that you can flag comments also - it's the icon just below the "upvote comment" button. Doesn't mean the moderators will agree with your flag, but it's an option. :)

@Lohoris, The comment you recently brought up in http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/4868/legality-of-using-names-in-a-game is nearly a year old.

Oh, I didn't notice the date.

I also agree with Joe in the fact that the question you're reffering to inherently has nothing to do with games at all, just basic law.

please don't create meta topics singling out specific users; we are happy to discuss the issue without unnecessarily dragging personal stuff into it.

@Jeff: I don't see how the question is different than http://meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/283/proper-solution-for-legal-questions now.

Joe: it may look so after Jeff's edit. Of course my point was people supposedly spreading the rumor they were OT when they actually were IT.

@Lohoris it is not always as clear as you make it sound whether it might be off-topic or not. I wonder, what makes you so sure that legal questions are by design on-topic? I didn't read the recent discussions that way. However, people have different point of views, c'est la vie. Still, discussions and arguments can perfectly remain civil and respectful. I'm sure you appreciate that too.

@Maik: they are in-topic because there are 42 of them, and only 3 have a negative vote. This means the community has de facto decided they are IT.

@Lohoris, why didn't you bring that argument in the ongoing discussion linked above? That would have been a proper way of discussing it. Though personally, I don't think that's a strong argument. However, throw it into the discussion there and see what people think.

I don't think there is anything wrong with this behavior -- I don't even see it being as prevalent as you make it sound. You can look through Wreschnig's activity and public reputation history and it looks like he's participated in one legal question in the recent past -- and for what it's worth, I completely agree with his comment there (particular the second part about there being several related or duplicate questions already). He's also provided some of the higher-quality answers to legal questions. It doesn't appear to me that he's taking a categorically negative stand on the domain at all; rather he's participating in the community in exactly the way it's designed to be participated in.
I think the consensus from our meta thread is that legal questions aren't off-topic as a general rule, but that does not preclude individual questions from being off-topic or bad. For example, I think the first question I linked to is off-topic because the question boils down to "how closely can I copy X without being in trouble," and X just happens to be a game in this scenario, but could easily be just about anything else. There's not a lot to the question that specifically ties it to game development that the existing general questions on the subject won't cover.

Nothing?  He's free to vote and comment as he sees fit.
Edit for more:
As long as he's not being disruptive, that is.  Flame wars are going to get deleted.
Also, somewhat related: Not the Place for Legal Questions

This is not about the voting, this is about going around saying it is OT when it is not.

He even copy-pasted a generic "it's OT" comment at least once.


text:
Can I get a question deleted?
I posted a question a while back that was closed as an exact duplicate, which is probably fair enough. My bad.
The problem is that I tried to delete the question at the time, and I couldn't because an answer already existed.
It's not very important but people are still down-voting this question even though it's closed and I even asked for it to be closed, and I can no longer do anything about it.
So my question is, is there any way I can get this question deleted?

IMAO the Stack Exchange sites are very good to get information, but their "scoring" system is so flawed it is completely pointless to give any kind of shit about it. Just forget it and simply use the site to ask questions when you need to, or to answer them when you feel to, completely ignoring any kind of point.

@Lohoris, that sounds a bit contradictory - SO sites have very good information, but the scoring system is seriously flawed... Since it's the scoring (voting) system that generates the good information, it can't be that bad. :) Sure, there are flaws - but in general, over the long-term, people's scores have some correlation to how much good information they provide. I agree it's not worth worrying about, however.

Can I delete my post on SO? - "No"
I can't delete my Question - "works as intended".
Sorry, but SE is designed to preserve things, and they intentionally made it hard to delete Questions that have Answers (see the links for their reasoning). You can ask a moderator to delete it, but it's not guaranteed.
I sympathize, since I've had the same problem. Also (and you didn't hear this from me :) it is still technically possible to turn a post Community Wiki without a mod - eight edits makes a post CW. Edits have to be five minutes apart or they are merged though. It's a lot of work, but if things ever get bad enough, it's an option... :)

However, I just upvoted your question - the +5 upvote will make up for 2.5 downvotes. :) I agree once a Question is closed, it's not nice to downvote.

And another exact duplicate that will be closed and downvoted. Woe is me. I will also add that the reason that duplicates are closed are to not have information spread around all over the place. If the answer is relevant to my duplicate, it should be relevant to the original question, in which case it should be merged. It seems really quite stupid to have this as the intended workings.

If you mean this question, no - the links I posted are on meta.stackoverflow. Cross-site duplicates aren't closed for duplication.

Also - and this is something everyone should know :) - votes on meta.gamedev don't affect your rep either way. Only votes on the main site. (Note this is different from meta.stackoverflow).

Exact duplicates can be merged. And then the remaining stub can be deleted.