To be honest there's not too much generic stuff we can really state to give some guidelines when asking considering the broadness of topics asked about it. That said, considering the nature of our site there are probably a few wording choices that can be tailored to fit a bit better.
- The "welcome modal" for new askers (seen with the default text in screenshot 1), everything between the title and "Before you post..."
As far as I can tell here we don't really need to add anything as this is an extremely generic and basic set of guidelines.
That said, point 3 isn't really appropriate here, it only really applies to [*-identification] questions and even then the "any research" of point 2 already covers it.
Point 1 also currently reads "Summarize the problem". We don't usually face problems, per se, here but people do have questions. Just changing the last word from problem to question should be more appropriate.
See the below proposed new look:
Click image to enlarge.
It could be worth adding some points from the "Ask about" and/or "Don't ask about" sections from the Tour in here but that might be too much information in this small dialog.
Actually from thinking a bit further on this it might be good to add in a quick link to the Tour here, something like:
If you're new to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and you haven't done so already, you may want to check out the Tour for some quick information on how the site works and what is, and isn't, on topic here!
- The full contents of the "Draft your question" sidebar
This is a big one and where we're going to want to put some important information, the very least being a link to the story identification guide. I'm not sure exactly what to include here but I'm going to throw a few ideas out and see what people think. Here is a proposed text where I've mainly used it to include some helpful links of some common problems we face:
The community is here to help you with questions about science fiction or fantasy. Provide details and share research with your question.
If you are trying to identify a story you may want to check out our helpful guide on what to include.
If your question is about a story that isn't science fictional or fantastical you may want to check out these sites instead:
Movies & TV if your question is about works from the screen.
Literature if your question is about written works.
Arqade if your question is about game play elements of a video game.
Anime & Manga if your question is about an anime or manga.
Click image to enlarge.
It might even be worth linking to the other sites' tour, help or ask pages instead in the above list.
- The text in the tag popover, between "Tags help the right people..." and the bullet points.
This is a really helpful tooltip but I wish it popped up the first time a new user entered the tag field else it is likely to just be ignored altogether.
That said we can alter it slightly and I actually quite like what they've done with it on Anime & Manga so I'm just going to steal their extra section and add it in. However, I'm only going to add in story-identification on the second line because I feel others might lead to some off topic questions or tag misuses. I'm also not 100% sure if "concept" is the right word for those tags.
Again though the actual tags used in these examples is open to change, I just included some of the most popular ones.
Type the name of the science fictional or fantastical work your question is about (Example: star-wars).
For questions not specific to any one work, use concept tags to describe your question (Example: story-identification).
Click image to enlarge.
I wondered about including a link to a discussion on tag hierarchies in there but it's not always the most easy thing to understand. However, we do get a lot of posts that need these fixing so it might be worth adding.
- The placeholder text in the title field (text only).
I don't think we need any changes here.
- The warning text shown in the "Review your question" sidebar, regex-based
Unfortunately, the regex is applied on tags individually and as such this limits its usefulness to us. That said I can think of the following uses for it:
story-identification ^story-identification$ - Add a link to the story id guide, similar message to what is included in the "Draft your question" sidebar.
science-fiction-genre fantasy-genre ^(science-fiction|fantasy)-genre$ - The genre tags are misused a lot, add a message along the lines of:
You've included the {genre} tag, note that it should not be used to classify works into the genre but about the genre itself. Please make sure you are using the tag appropriately.
novel short-stories movie tv video-games anime manga fan-fiction etc. ^(novel|short-stories|movie|tv|video-games|anime|manga|fan-fiction)$ - Maybe add guidance in here for how media tags work, when to use them etc.
You've included the {tag} media tag. Media tags should be used alongside the work tag to disambiguate between different media the work tag covers. If the work tag is only used for one media please remove the {tag} tag.
Then also include a link to the specific story id guide if the tag has one.
novel short-stories movie tv ^(novel|short-stories|movie|tv)$
You've included the {tag} tag, if you're trying to identify a {tag} please also use the [story-identification] tag and you may want to check out our guide on what to include.
video-games ^video-games$
You've included the [video-games] tag, if you're trying to identify a video game please also use the [story-identification] tag and you may want to check out our guide on what to include.
fan-fiction ^fan-fiction$
You've included the [fan-fiction] tag, if you're trying to identify a work of fan fiction please also use the [story-identification] tag and you may want to check out our guide on what to include.
anime mange ^(anime|manga)$
You've included the {tag} tag, if you're trying to identify a/an {tag} please also use the [story-identification] tag and you may want to check out our guide on what to include.
comics ^comics$
You've included the [comics] tag, if you're trying to identify a comic please also use the [story-identification] tag and you may want to check out our guide on what to include.
- Tag-related error messages, regex-based
The only real use for tag-related error messages, which I assume blocks someone from posting, would be to stop blacklisted tags being used.
