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We currently (as of November 19) have 65 questions tagged "Clash of Clans" on the site, with an average question score of 0.2. Currently, these questions have generated a grand total of two answers that have received multiple up votes. This isn't a recipe for quality Q&A, which is what the site is designed to encourage.

Accordingly, I'd like to make questions about the particulars of specific games to be off-topic for this site. Maybe there are fora that can generate constructive discussion about "how do I change users in Sonic and Zelda Assassin: Grand Theft Unicorn Edition," but it doesn't seem to be working here.

The only two CoC answers with multiple up votes are pretty trivial answers themselves: one quotes the documentation for the game and the other indicates that there is no OS X version of the game. Good information, but if these are the best responses CoC questions generate, maybe that's a sign that the site is better off without CoC questions.

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  • 3
    Do we want to push them to games.stackexchange.com? That seems slightly cruel...
    – Ian C.
    Nov 19, 2014 at 15:39
  • I don't want to push them anywhere, but people are welcome to take their questions someplace where they are welcome.
    – Daniel Mod
    Nov 19, 2014 at 15:44
  • What about these ones and game centre which are uprooted an well viewed apple.stackexchange.com/questions/92852/…
    – mmmmmm
    Nov 19, 2014 at 18:05
  • Not sure off topic is the way! Where do we draw the line than? The recent flood was caused by CoC server problems, which will calm down soon. All questions were from honest users asking for help. On the other site, is there anything we can answer wrt CoC that would actually help?
    – Ruskes
    Nov 19, 2014 at 18:42
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    We draw the line at Clash of Clans. It's the first time in the site's history we've felt compelled to draw such a line. I think it's suitably extreme in its annoyance to do so now.
    – Ian C.
    Nov 20, 2014 at 2:37
  • More to the point, we're always drawing the line. The question is indeed "where to draw the line"
    – Daniel Mod
    Nov 21, 2014 at 21:20
  • To draw a solid line as opposite to a line in a sand one should establish a rule rather than call it CoC. The reason we get so many question is that OP are looking to us to get some answer that they do not get elsewhere. Due to high popularity of the CoC game we get a flood of simple questions to which we do not have a solution, since the problem is at the source. I do agree on establishing a rule/tool to handle this kind of situations. Example- on hold with just 2 votes ? if that is possible?
    – Ruskes
    Nov 22, 2014 at 5:14
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    1000% agree they should be off-topic. Push them to Arqade. That's what it's there for.
    – tubedogg
    Nov 22, 2014 at 7:04
  • @IanC. - Why do you think it is cruel to push them to Arqade? It is distinctly more humane than just putting on hold, closing and then deleting them :-)
    – Greenonline
    Feb 19, 2015 at 12:54
  • 4
    @Greenonline it's cruel to the Arqade people, not the person asking the question. :)
    – Ian C.
    Feb 19, 2015 at 17:10

6 Answers 6

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Yes. This makes sense to me. The answer to the vast majority of these questions has been: contact the developer.

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  • Accomplished: apple.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic
    – Daniel Mod
    Nov 24, 2014 at 0:31
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    @DanielLawson Not sure if the wording accomplishes the goal. "Questions about the particulars of specific games" seems to imply that "How do I get to level XYZ" is off-topic, but maybe not "bugs" (such as "I can't login to my 12th CoC account because it keeps crashing") or this. I would change it to "Questions about the particulars of specific games, such as game account or in-app purchase issues, should be directed to the game's developer." Also disagree with "manufacturers" in the current wording, but that's a definition quibble. :P
    – tubedogg
    Nov 24, 2014 at 5:06
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"questions about the particulars of specific games to be off-topic "

That hits the nail on the head for me.

CoC had a few days of irritation, due to server issues, but in the relatively short time I've been here, it's the only game that seems to crop up as a taggable one. The rest don't seem to generate questions here. So, blanket ban on games questions would almost seem to be 'CoC only' anyway.

Having typed that, I'm not sure whether I voted yes or no, but games just don't seem to fit AskDifferent's ethos anyway; there are a million sites better-suited.

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    I'm not in any way opposed to questions about games, by the way. It's just that those questions don't tend to produce very good answers here.
    – Daniel Mod
    Nov 21, 2014 at 21:14
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    They tend not to be very good questions, gigo ;-) tbh, banning them won't stop them happening, if something like the CoC server issue happens again. The downside of getting good Google results for SE is it's easy to find.
    – Tetsujin
    Nov 21, 2014 at 21:18
  • They have been terrible questions that have led to great answers. These aren't them.
    – Daniel Mod
    Nov 21, 2014 at 21:19
  • 'I dun gone & busted it' rarely gets good answers ;-)
    – Tetsujin
    Nov 21, 2014 at 21:20
  • AskDifferent should be about the OS, hardware, and software relationships to the OS and hardware of the Apple ecosystem only. Not crap like this. If someone is asking how to install, remove, or get a refund from their kid spending $$$ without their approval on a stupid F2P game, that's okay, because it's not about the game or service provider. Anything else == trash.
    – Benjamin R
    Nov 28, 2014 at 4:10
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I'm going to say we don't need to make COC off topic.

It seems odd to rule out one app because we already have all the tools we need to close low quality (and total crap) questions.

If someone can show me a question that needs to be closed as "off topic" if we were to implement this request, my suspicion is that it could also easily be closed as low quality, unclear, or duplicate.

If people don't document the exact build of COC and the iOS version, then that's good enough for me to close it as too broad and/or unclear.

I'd rather a few canonical answers get assembled and then we can dupe vague questions and/or close them with little to no additional effort. I don't see how adding a clause to the off-topic makes things better for anyone.

As things stand, we have this clause:

Questions about the particulars of specific games, such as game account or in-app purchase issues, should be directed to the game's developer.

What if we substituted running apps or Apple apps for games. Isn't this a big broad ban for no real benefit?

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  • The thing is, there are no canonical answers. Most of the questions revolve around "How do I use two (or more) accounts on the same device and not have it screw up like it just did?" There is no answer to that, because the developer explicitly does not support playing more than one game (account) on a single device, but they haven't managed to keep it from working (most of the time). With all the stunts they pull to keep you from even restarting your game, I wouldn't be surprised that they have something built-in to thwart multiple account use which in turn drives all these questions.
    – tubedogg
    Nov 26, 2014 at 23:04
  • Regarding your last question, I would say that account or in-app purchase issues should be directed to the developer of any app, not just games...but the questions we get are about CoC and some of its ilk (to a much lesser degree). I wouldn't be opposed to expanding the wording to include all apps for those particular issues.
    – tubedogg
    Nov 26, 2014 at 23:10
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    @tubedogg Wouldn't a canonical answer tell the asker explicitly where the developer site for support is for that specific app? Instead we are brushing all these questions aside and not even answering them IMO.
    – bmike Mod
    Nov 27, 2014 at 0:20
  • This strikes me as no different than Hackintosh questions. We chose to make them off-topic because they didn't produce helpful answers; we didn't like the effect the questions had on our community. If the questions led to good answers, we'd want them, but I don't see any evidence they do.
    – Daniel Mod
    Nov 27, 2014 at 1:24
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    Whilst I really don't like the general question quality of Clash of Clans questions, I support what is being said in this answer. I don't think Clash of Clans or other iOS game infrastructure should be off-topic as it is essentially Game Center. All that's required here is more proactive duplicate closures and possibly effort in a canonical question regarding the main problem that people are facing.
    – grg Mod
    Nov 27, 2014 at 18:37
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    Also, stating that Clash of Clans is off-topic without an actual closure reason has lead to some very poor closure reasons. I would prefer that iOS games and other apps remain on-topic, and poor questions closed with the standard closure reasons of unclear/broad/etc.
    – grg Mod
    Nov 27, 2014 at 18:38
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I'm adding this as another answer just to make one specific point/question/poll…

How many of the mods & high rep others here have ever actually played CoC? or had any of the issues we've seen described on the topic?

Or are we, between us, providing the best LMGTFY service to single-digit AD users that we possibly can, yet coming up far shorter than we would on a question about, say, Terminal & how to use sudo?

Personally, I wouldn't expect a 50k rep user on here to be a gamer; I'd expect them to have a deep knowledge of MacOS & iOS - that's how they got their rep in the first place.

I'm not casting us as old, crotchety & bah-humbug - I just think there may be a significant proportion who wouldn't give a rat's ass for gaming & would consider they have far better things to think about.

[Doesn't really need comments, though who am I to stop you;-) but just a straw poll by voting this up or down might give some indication as to degree of agreement with my point]

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  • I have to add this Q as an indication of the level of competence we face on the CoC issue - apple.stackexchange.com/questions/158683/…
    – Tetsujin
    Nov 29, 2014 at 23:11
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    Just FYI: I play Clash of Clans occasionally and can answer questions about the game, but I've never moved/transferred my game between devices, run two saves on the same device, or any other strange stuff like that—I play the game how Game Center intends, which means that I'm unable to canonically answer the main questions on this subject on the site.
    – grg Mod
    Dec 3, 2014 at 20:55
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IMHO, they should be migrated to SE Arqade. There are many CoC questions there, most of them platform agnostic. Unless there is a specific issue relating to Coc client on an Apple platform, iOS or OS X, (in which case maybe it should be on SE Ask Different) there sh9ould really be asked/migrated to Arqade.

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This questions either should go games.stackexchange or elsewhere. They are not about features of OS X, iOS or Game Center. They are about specific of game, mostly according to saving progress.

And on the side note I was off the think different for a while and I see we have pretty much low quality questions now. I might say we are flooded with them. Was it that it you have to get some points before asking a question before?

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  • You have always been able to ask questions with no reputation
    – mmmmmm
    Dec 26, 2014 at 13:25

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