Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH
You're not asking the right question.
You SHOULD be asking "How many teams did NOT read the rules?" Of those nearly 600 questions, I would hazard that at least 300 are questions that were clearly answered in the Manual, at the time they were asked. Stuff like "Can we use *motor that isn't on the list in the rules*?" and that sort of thing crops up every year.
Of the remaining 300, I would guess that half of those are "situationally dependent"; that is, it depends on the specific design or match happenings. Some may be requests for a design review, which Q&A does not do.
That leaves 150 that actually address issues with the rules. Either something isn't quite clear enough, or there is actually a conflict, or there is a real question about enforcement. For close to 2500 teams active, with close to 50,000 members and mentors at a reasonable estimate, 150 issues with the rules isn't bad.
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I think your 'RTFM' versus "situationally dependent" split is off, but you landed in about the right place. I have like 100 questions on my reader's digest. Some of them probably don't have to be there and vice versa, but overall 5 out of every 6 Q&As are pretty low-value to most teams. This is not meant as a slight against any Q&As I omitted--some are low-value because they've be so well advertised (e.g. inspired a Team Update), others are because the GDC avoided a direct answer, some are important but only to a very limited set of teams, some I probably just missed, etc.
I've attached the current digest and set up a
Google Doc for anyone who wants to go collaborative. I'll try to have it up-to-date and uploaded every Wednesday of a competition week. Note that this is currently organized in an attempt to maximize usefulness to me, rather than in any sort of logical or official order. (For instance, the section headings do not correspond to the Q&A's manual section, just to where it fits in my head.) I've corrected spelling a few places to facilitate easier searching.