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Currently the Help reads as such:

Identify-This-X Questions

Identification questions are currently on-topic for this site. Please try to give as much detail as possible:

Where you watched the movie or TV show
When you watched the movie or TV show
Any idea of how old it was
Any idea of country of origin (if known)
Whether it was animated or not
Any distinctive detail

See this question to get a feel of what we expect from a well rounded Identify-This-* question.

Identify-This questions are of limited use to other users of the site, and are asking people to spend some time identifying the Movie or TV show, so it is the responsibility of the person asking the question to try to answer clarifications within a reasonable amount of time, certainly within a day or so.

Identify-This questions may be deleted if it is considered that they are unanswerable and the person asking is not answering clarification comments. Questions from unregistered users unanswered after 2 weeks are liable to be deleted. Questions lacking in research, i.e. if a question is easily answered from an Actor's name on IMDB or Wikipedia will be closed.

There are two "Identify" subheadings, and the first one seems to contradict the "currently on topic" disclaimer.

Also, it should be "these" questions, not "this", and there should be an "it" between Wikipedia and will be closed.

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  • Yeah, the english is not great - feel free to edit below and when we are happy, then I'll push it back to the help pages.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 18:12
  • There have been no edits for two days, so I took the content below and the changes I was suggesting for the 'off-topic' list from another question and updated the help. Please ping me if more edits happen.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Commented Jun 15, 2014 at 20:43

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Why don't I make this answer a community wiki and allow people to edit it until we're happy with it? .....

Movies & TV Stack Exchange is for Movie & TV enthusiasts and experts alike!

If your question generally covers …

  • Analysis of content or theme of all forms of Movies/TV
  • Identifying a Movie or TV series (see below for details)
  • Questions about a Movie/TV show's production.
  • The works of a director / an actor / a writer related to Movies/TV

Movies also includes Made-For-TV movies, Direct-to-DVD, Mini-Series and short films.

Please note that the following subjects are considered off-topic here:

  • Distribution
  • Movie/TV purchasing/viewing locations
  • The operation of playing a movie whether it be digital or physical format.
  • Unimportant trivia that does not add to the understanding or appreciation of the title.
  • TV news and current affairs
  • A title's release date or rumors about a specific title or series.
  • Opinions about or recommendations for a movie or TV show

Spoilers

Please note that spoilers are allowed here and may be out in the open. Read at your own risk.

The use of spoiler markup should be kept to a minimum, or not used at all if it is clear what Movie or TV Show is being discussed in the question. Use common sense and apply spoiler markup to cover only aspects of your post that you would think might be unexpected, such as references to other movies.

Spoiler tags will be deleted from questions as nearly every question reveals details about a movie or TV show.

While we encourage you to be aware of spoilers in our questions, we make every effort to remove spoilers from Question Titles which is one part of the site that does not have mark-up capabilities and is out in the open. Also, please refer to this meta post on how to keep specific tags from your view.

Identify-This-X Questions

Identification questions are currently on-topic for this site. Please try to give as much detail as possible:

  • Where you watched the movie or TV show
  • When you watched the movie or TV show
  • Any idea of how old it was
  • Any idea of country of origin (if known)
  • Whether it was animated or not
  • Any distinctive detail

See this question to get a feel of what we expect from a well rounded Identify-This-* question.

Identification questions are of limited use to other users of the site, and are asking people to spend some time identifying the Movie or TV show, so it is the responsibility of the person asking the question to try to answer clarifications within a reasonable amount of time, certainly within a day or so.

Identification questions may be deleted if it is considered that they are unanswerable and the person asking is not answering clarification comments. Questions from unregistered users unanswered after 2 weeks are liable to be deleted. Questions lacking in research, i.e. being easily answered from an actor's name on IMDB or Wikipedia, might get closed.

Please look around to see if your question has been asked before. It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question.

If your question is not specifically on-topic for Movies & TV Stack Exchange, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.

For more help, see "What types of questions should I avoid asking?"

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  • What is an "Identify-These question" though? Maybe "Identification question" would be the more appropriate term.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 18:21
  • @NapoleonWilson - Now that you state it that way it reads different to me. I was taking the original dash as a separator from the rest of the paragraph, not as a tag representation.
    – JohnP
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 18:22
  • @JohnP Oh, now I get it (and I guess that's what confused me in the initial question). But in this case the lack of spaces would have been a severe formatting problem in the first place.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 18:24
  • @NapoleonWilson - Fixed it. And I'm still not happy with the way the lack of research sentence reads, but it's closer.
    – JohnP
    Commented Jun 13, 2014 at 18:25
0

The two subheadings do not contradict each other. One is saying that a properly asked "Identify-this" question is on-topic. Another is saying that if you don't properly ask it by following the guidelines, it will be closed. There's no contradiction there, it's just a rule which you must follow to not have the question deleted.

One thing you're definitely missing is "Identify-This" is a type of question. In that regard, your request to change "this" to "these" is invalid. You're simply misunderstanding the usage of the word "this" in this case.

The one thing I do agree with is that the word "it" does, in fact, belong between "Wikipedia" and "will be closed" on the last line.

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  • 1
    "One thing you're definitely missing is "Identify-This" is a type of question. In that regard, your request to change "this" to "these" is invalid. You're simply misunderstanding the usage of the word "this" in this case." - As has already been successfully clarified to him in the comments of the other answer, though.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 11:42
  • Apparently not, because I still don't see it.
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 18:02

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