That Did You Know should really be an answer to What are those weird three-line blushy things on some anime/manga characters cheeks? ;)
I started on this endeavor of consolidating a master list of current and existing site policies privately some years ago and stopped prematurely (it was a monumental task). I recall Ero Sɘnnin also did the same things independently. I will probably not revisit them anymore, so I post them below for anyone who's interested (they're very disorganized though). Take them or leave them.
Anime & Manga StackExchange Meta
Continue from Should we ask answerers to give a reference?
E.g. Avatar, Samurai Jack, Dreamland (French "manga", read right-to-left?), OEL manga.
Where to draw the line?
- People tend to agree that manhwa and manhua should be on-topic.
- None of the above examples are catalogued by MAL (although they used to be).
- To the Japanese, there are only anime and manga — reason to be more permissive?
- Should have Japanese influence (Japan has historical dominance of East Asia, so manhwa and manhwa count). Otherwise, might as well call Cartoons and Comics SE. Aarthi's post is conflicting itself, e.g. whether on-topic shouldn't be based on what looks like manga, but rather the strength of Japanese influence (but this is subjective and not determinable). However, anime-inspired (read: influence :x:) Western shows should be disallowed. (What about cartoon/hollywood-inspired Japanese shows like Oblivion Island?) Since anime is outsourced so much these days, does it still matter?
- Some of the episodes in the second season of Avatar/TLoK are done by Japanese studio, but they're usually not considered anime, so the best indicator is probably if the original audio is in Japanese or not. (Aleksi Torhamo)
- My viewpoint: since anime and manga are loan words from Japan for terms that already exist in English, should restrict to that which are originally Japanese, unless if there is an e.g. all-English anime from Japan, then also restrict to from Japan (how to determine, though, because outsource; which parts of production are the deciding factors?). For the time being, could be lenient to manhwa and manhua. Other option is to expand to CJK countries.
ANN editors identify two technical definitions of anime, 1) by origin and 2) by style. They agree to "by origin" definition.
Both Wikipedia and Anime News Network apply the "per origin" definition.
Case in point: Melty Blood (LN-ish).
- OK if asking about plot (in particular, play order), but not mechanisms (Arqade).
Argument: Part of otaku culture. OK if there is a "main" anime/manga. Some say only OK if making comparisons to the anime/manga.
Note: VNs are welcome on Arqade (e.g. Analogue: A Hate Story).
Pro: Nearly computer-illiterate users wouldn't know how to ask this question at a site like Super User or Digital Signal Processing, and even if they gave the right answer (which anyone will tell you is AGTH/ITH, both of which are VN-specific) said user would likely not be able to follow the instructions. What problem does allowing occasional technology-related questions that are also anime-related cause, so long as they don't overwhelm the other questions?
Con: By extension, we would allow "I can't play Episode X of anime Y from group Z, help!" or "Why can't I play Visual Novel X?"
Refute: First one is illegal, moot. Both are not interesting (low votes and helpfulness). Too localized become close reason.
Generic techniques or software should be asked on Graphic Design or Video Production because that's where the experts are. The question must be focused tightly on the knowledge of how Japanese actually make anime, not on how they might. Acceptable: in the booklet of Hoshi no Koe, the first self-producted anime by Makoto Shinkai, software he used back in early 2000 are listed: Photoshop 5 (2D), Lightwave 6.5 (CGI), Commotion DV3, Adobe After Effects 4.0.
Yes, if tied/compared to anime/manga. (Not sure about light novels.)
Seijitsu's answer. In short, allow anime musicals, audio dramas based on manga/anime, and manga-based novels as on-topic.
Should we allow questions like "Where AnimExpo will be?" or "How many people went to Comiket 83?" No. Use meta or chat for that.
Yes, but only if you keep them scientific. (Note SE site used by 13 age and above, and site policy forbids pornographic materials.)
Grace: "A news outlet needs to be on top of their topic, they need to be proactive about their information before the masses even know they should ask about it. We're restricted on this front because we are a reactive service - we provide answers only in so far as people come in to our service. Which means that our ability to provide updates and news is only reflective of those who ask about it on our site. We don't have a motivation to seek out the latest and hottest out there because it's not in our mission to distribute this manner of information."
"I think that our system is very inefficient for this kind of distribution. It would be wiser for us to leave the distribution of news to other sites, and keep our strength at Q&A knowledge." So off-topic.
Jeff's opinion: http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/76024
Being good at story identification is definitely a benchmark at how attractive a discussion site about SF is. If the questions offend you, put story-identification (or whatever we end up using) in your ignored tags list. And if the question is really terrible (“I read a book and it maybe had a green cover”, it can be closed, on merits, not because of its nature.
On Arqade, no (except if have screenshot).
In a case such as this, where the use of a certain language quirk is a central part of a character's personality and/or their backstory, it should be on-topic here.
Questions about Japanese itself (e.g. "Translate this") should be considered off-topic, but questions which are in some way connected to the plot (e.g. "What is character X implying by saying ") are fine so long as they can't be answered by merely a translation but also require some understanding of the plot.
Sound symbols off-topic. Ask on Japanese.SE.
What is filler/canon? "Things in are decidedly not canon, as created by the original author or production company."
Trigun, which started as an incomplete manga where the anime filled in some of the story gaps.
In Naruto's case, the author has acknowledged that anime filler in Naruto is non-canon (as seen numerous times by when the anime does something that the manga contradicts later).
The One Punch Man re-draw has new scenes added to existing material and new side stories that weren't in the original web-comic, however all the changes were ok'd/written by the original Author and simply enhance the series as a whole.
A question of this nature could be asked at most once per series.
"Filler content" is a slightly ambiguous term. For instance, many manga have extra chapters that get animated but aren't related to the plot of the story. It's not clear whether or not these should count as filler. I'd suggest that these sorts of questions are better phrased as comparisons between the anime and the source material, e.g. "Which Naruto episodes are not based on content from the manga?" As far as I know filler content is almost never added for anime-original series, so this doesn't seem terribly restrictive.
The answer is usually easily searchable. Most series have their dedicated wikis, where this information is available complete with color-coding. As a result, asking this question in itself, constitutes poor research and as per SE rule/etiquette, would be closed.
In many cases, episodes cannot be separated easily into "canon" and "filler". Several canon episodes have some amount of filler in between. It would be impossible to give a perfectly correct answer, because it would involve, "from 4:30 to 8:00 in episode 487, the main characters just fool around, which is not in the manga, and hence filler."
Main or meta? C++ booklist is on main (unlocked and updated only once in a while), but SE discourages poll type question. But attracts many users in the short run, so post on main and close as OT but for historical purposes? Quality will degrade in the long run if not closed.
"Too Simple" is something which has been discussed on Stack Exchange before, and was implemented on other sites with a General Reference close reason. It was considered a failure though, since all it results in is users drawing arbitrary lines in the sand for when a question is "too simple", and what sites are considered general reference.
Furthermore, a tool already exists for questions which are too simple, it's called a downvote.
Need to draw a line somewhere, but no consensus exactly where. It's not good to ban all such questions because it might be answerable sometimes, which requires great expertise.
No.
No. That's what downvotes are for. But EL&U has General Reference as a close reason.
Choose most popular as primary. Synonimize others (but they don't show up in search).
Consistency, English is official language at SE, and most new comers to anime only know English names.
Use the conventions of the culture that the name is from, but respect the intent of the original work. So if an English name is used in a Japanese series, then use the English/Anglicized name, as the creators of the series intended for the name to be represented in that way.
Accept both and use English ordering as the primary tag. See 35, same reasoning.
Spoiler can be in title, but avoid as much as possible. Most important is the title is good. Basically common sense and if you think spoiler, edit it with spoiler tag.
That's how it should be. Spoiler markup - which hides information - is by-design a reader-hostile feature! It should be used sparingly, and avoided whenever possible.
The last thing you want to do is encourage new users to start spoiler-marking every last detail of their posts on the off-chance that someone doesn't know them yet. This is supposed to be a community of experts and those seeking expert knowledge - don't hide your light under a bushel.
