Suggestion for a new FAQ procedure

[Bill Dunn]

Recently, a couple of new FAQ postings have inspired moderate firestorms on these boards, multiple contentious threads that end up being locked, and a few attempts by R&D to clarify what was meant by the FAQ entry (without those clarifications making it back into the FAQ itself). Whatever the etiquette or lack thereof of some posters on these topics, I think it's clear that some FAQ entries have raised a lot of follow-up questions or left other aspects of the game in ambiguity that could use resolution in a more formal way than a dev making a few clarifications in the threads (that will inevitably be locked and leaving it up to forum users to use the search function to try to find if they're aware of a clarification at all).

My suggestion is to post proposed FAQ entries in the Rules Questions forum so that people can raise follow-up questions and the developers can get feedback on whether or not the FAQ sufficiently answered the question at hand as well as provide missing rationales behind the answers themselves. Then after a week or two (or longer if particularly active), the FAQ entry can be finalized, adding any clarifications that came up in the comment period, and posted.

I don't want to raise the idea that the players are entitled to some kind of oversight over the devs and the FAQ process. What I want this to do is help the process generate more complete answers and keep clarifications from being lost or rendered hard to find for newcomers checking the FAQ lists.

[R2D2TS]

I am an a little unclear on what you you are looking for with your suggestion. People already post their FAQ requests here. Are you looking for some kind of FAQ sub-forum or some kind of a "sticky" post with relevant links to any of the FAQed questions that are currently ongoing? It is also hard to see what can be done with making things smoother without knowing how the design team handles things on their end. Then there could be the issue of an even heavier influx of people FAQing which would probably interfere with other current FAQ requests. Besides these issues I think it would be nice if there was a way for us to help smooth out the whole process.

[Bill Dunn]

In this case, it's not about the players posting what they want a FAQ for - it's the FAQ entry itself that the devs write. They'd be able to find out, directly from the board respondents, if the FAQ entry they are making successfully answers the outstanding question or introduces more. And we, as posters, would be able to let them know when further elaboration would make the entry more useful and complete.

[R2D2TS]

I see what you mean now. This is an interesting concept. I think the only thing you might have to worry about with this kind of setup is thread derailing, but that tends to happen anyways.

[Bill Dunn]

That's one reason I would advocate a fixed and relatively short period for the thread to be open for comments/questions/follow-up and then it can be shut down. If it has derailed by then, it simply gets closed down when the topic expires.

[Jamie Charlan]

Given the debacle of a certain recent FAQ, the half-backpedaling and partial disowning of it on certain issues within it by developers and the general firestorm which resulted across many threads, I'd be all for this.

But I also very strongly doubt it will occur.

[James Risner]

It just seems to me that a lot of people have emotional investment in how a rule works and in threads and especially in FAQ responses.