RE: suggestions and ideas to improve the rules page

Question

July 2017 edit

This is a brief summation of this thread, since I realised it's too long:

• The rules page is outdated and and a bit long (36 individual guidelines!). In addition, the culture/ moderating approach here has changed since it was last rewritten. It needs to be updated.

• As an experiment I made my own list of everything that is currently enforced and knocked it down to 22 guidelines by combining similar rules. I thought it was actually alright, so I've gone back and refined the list, so now it reflects exactly what we enforce at the moment -- at least, what I do.

• The list is here. Let me know what you think of it and if there's anything you think doesn't belong (we should probably know those things if that's the case). A list of the ways the list is different to the current rules page is in the links displayed below, basically it's more concise and should represent every reason we might take something down.

• Hopefully this helpful to something -- do what you like with it. Sorry if this was an awkward way to communicate these ideas; I'm trying distinct the changes since the last time the rules got a significant update. And I apologise if this looks like an attack or the current rules page -- time just hasn't been on its side I think.

---

(List of changes between current rules list and the one I wrote is linked here.)

Comments

An inquiry about not allowing in-game team questions: Does this include questions like "Is X or Y better for my team?" where they have a team of 5 Pokémon for an in-game playthrough ready but need help deciding on the last one? There are plenty of posts like this at the moment, but would they no longer be allowed if these changes go through?

---

Good question. Those posts are tricky because they could have an objective "best answer", but at the same time they blur the line of what is allowed which is obviously best avoided. I think that's a decision Pokemaster should make, but as for my particular stance, I would disallow those posts and encourage people to ask "Is x or y Pokemon more effective for z game's storyline?" instead, since you can get a very similar answer without looking like an in-game team post. I guess we could enforce this by extension of the part that says "special rules and variables don't make exceptions", but perhaps a better outline is necessary for these types of posts.

---

There should be a rule requiring people to read a question's title and description before answering it.

---

If people don't read the description and their answer is wrong for that reason, we can take it down on the grounds of it being incorrect. As a specific rule I'm not sure that it's necessary, but I agree it would be worth mentioning somewhere.

---

I just think less people will forget if it's explicitly stated as a rule.

---

Looks good to me.