11

As i observed Madara Uchiha used in many questions about Madara the first person. Like "stated that I had indeed transplanted" It is referred to Madara and not to himself (I guess he isn't Madara in "real life").

Should we allow the first person as character in questions or answers? It could get out of control once we get a Son-Goku a Vegeta, a Naruto etc.

4
  • 3
    It actually started as a joke, but people insisted I keep it up, so I rolled with it. I always include the actual name too ("When Kabuto revived me (Madara Uchiha)"), so that if in the offshot where I change my name, the post is still understandable. Just make sure the backwards compatibility is OK.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Commented Dec 18, 2012 at 15:44
  • Even acknowledging that Madara is a badass (not just in the story, but here, and even more so on StackOverflow), why make exceptions for one user? I thought SE is about content and not about users.
    – Masked Man
    Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 6:02
  • @Deidara-senpai This question isn't about making an exception for madara, but in the general "problem"
    – Tartori
    Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 9:59
  • @Tartori I wasn't referring to the question, but to the above comment, where Madara said that people encouraged him to keep using first person.
    – Masked Man
    Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 12:09

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
14

Another user started to refer to himself using the first person. He then changed it but — and I'm not speaking about the user, just taking it as an example — I think this might get out of hand in the long run, so I came to think that...

...we should forbid it.

2
  • Is it forbidden everywhere, or just in questions and answers? I don't see any reason to forbid it in chat. Comments are borderline IMO.
    – Logan M
    Commented Dec 19, 2012 at 21:48
  • 2
    @LoganM Chat is chat: the limits are much less strict there, so if someone wants to impersonate a Manga character or a rock, it's fine. :P Comments are still too related to the Main site, so I'd keep the first person out of there too.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Dec 19, 2012 at 21:52
6

TL;DR

No, it's not okay. I vote for forbidding it.

I originally started it as a joke. When I stopped, people urged me to continue, so I did.

Now that the site has gone public, I will cease to do it, because it serves as a bad example for our new users.

Things will get really out of hand really quick, when we'll have 10 Naruto's each asknig questions about themselves.

So from this point onwards, I will stop asking questions in first-person tone, and I expect others to do the same.

4
  • Wow, people urged you to continue and they downvoted me to stop! Seriously, what's wrong with people? Pick one thing or the other, and stay consistent.
    – Masked Man
    Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 6:08
  • 1
    @Deidara-senpai: Well, it was funny when we were small and private. But it will get out of hand when we go to public. Also, the reason for downvotes was because your question was very subjective.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 9:20
  • @MadaraUchiha If you're not writing in first person anymore and the community has decided to disallow it on top of that, you might want to/probably should go back and edit your older posts if you haven't already to keep them consistent with the new style and to avoid leaving "broken windows".
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Jan 15, 2013 at 3:45
  • @Anna will do. Thanks.
    – Madara's Ghost
    Commented Jan 15, 2013 at 9:28
3

As amusing as it is, it's just going to make posts more confusing for users. As I've stated on meta several times before, we should strive to make things less confusing, not more.

Furthermore, if any of these users ever changed their names then their answers in first-person would be complete and utter non-sense, and users would have considerable difficult following the post. The name change would also require us to go back and edit all posts to third-person instead of first-person, which is just a waste of time.

Due to the above reasons I think we should forbid using first-person in posts, and edit out any such instances where it is used.

2

The question is, whether it confuses readers. The name is written under the message, so I don't have a problem. However, if it gets out of control as you've written, we should forbid it, as new users may be confused.

1
  • That's exactly what I thought, it could confuse new members and once it got out of control, it'll be a huge amount of work to clean it up. I doubt that Madara is the only one that will be doing it.
    – Tartori
    Commented Dec 18, 2012 at 8:56
2

I think that as long as the answer/reference is correct, and the name of the poster is accurate (like in Madara-sama's case), there is nothing wrong with it, and it's fun to read.

I'd like to point this out once again: it only works if it's used in good answers/questions with correct data. As soon as a newly-registered Naruto will start stating that during his trainings with Jiraiya he was faking the inability to create Resengan Minato-style (i.e. easily, without preparation and with one hand), that answer/question/comment should be dealt with.

1
  • 2
    This is obvious, all answers with wrong content should be handled whether it's written in first or third person.
    – Tartori
    Commented Dec 18, 2012 at 11:58

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .