I think you're just misunderstanding here. Perhaps you've forgotten the actual purpose of this sub-thread.
Let's pretend that this hypothetical chapter in the DMG on how to build your own campaign setting uses Greyhawk as an example (remember: we're not talking about a Greyhawk sourcebook here). What it should do is take each of the PC races and show how they are integrated into the campaign--even if this only requires no more than a simple "elves typically live in the forest, so they'll go here and goliaths typically live in the mountains so they'll go there."
(I have no idea how 5.5 is doing elf subraces, if they're doing them at all. But Greyhawk had grey, grugrach, valley, snow, and aquatic elves in addition to the standard high, wood, and drow elves, which can be a problem for some if this isn't addressed.)
What this hypothetical chapter should also do is talk about how these elves and goliaths live. What sort of society do they have? What sort of government? Do they get along with outsiders? Remember, this isn't a setting book; this is a chapter designed to teach DMs to how to make their own worlds, and therefore, these things are important. Even if these things can be reduced to a sentence or two, they're important: if you say "goliath communities nearly always have a ruler with absolute authority, tend to be wary of outsiders, are prone to xenophobia, and grow their food" it paints a much different picture than if you say "goliath communities nearly always are ruled by a council of the wise, tend to be wary of outsiders but welcoming of outsiders who earn their trust, and who hunt and gather their food."
Again: this is important for worldbuilding, the purpose of this chapter. There's a lot of overlap between DMing, worldbuilding, and writing, and learning what words to pick is important. And the sentences I wrote to describe an entire society? Short and to the point. Easily written by people who learn how to do it. Minimal chance that the writer is going to go delve too deeply into too much worldbuilding, like some people here have feared. Useful for players to build their character's backgrounds and personalities around.
So this chapter could, and should, have several examples of this. If it also acted as a primer for Greyhawk--which again, I say is a bad idea--then this would be a good instance to use all of the "new" (not in 1e) species in the examples, in addition to one or two of the standard ones. This way people who know Greyhawk from the past get the info they need as to where the new species go and people who are new to worldbuilding learn what to do. This is useful both for people who are creating their own setting and people who want to add additional species to Greyhawk.
So, since you literally just did the thing you think the chapter should do, why are you insisting that WotC cannot or will not do that? Why are Goliaths a problem, but dwarves aren't, if you can treat them literally the exact same way in the chapter?
Now, I will disagree with you, that teach someone how to worldbuild, they should make a paragraph each on what humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, gnomes, dragonborn, tiefling, Aasimar, Orcs, and Goliath culture, politics, and ecology are. You don't need to do that, to teach how to do that. You only need maybe three different examples. More than that, and you start moving into a setting book.
Again, you misunderstand. I'm didn't say that what goes into Greyhawk needs to meet my standards of coolness. I said that different people read sourcebooks for different reasons and have different needs.
And any writer who tries to make every single chapter match up to every different reason for every different need is never going to write anything of value. The target audience is not people who want to see how Greyhawk was changed for 5e. The writers should not consider them, because writing for those people will take away from who they are writing for.
Which is why I and some others have been saying it's a bad idea to use Greyhawk as the sample setting for this worldbuilding chapter. You are the one who keeps insisting it should be.
Because the reason you say it is bad, is because it will be forced to be a terrible teaching example because they will be required to bend the knee to the demands of people wanting a setting book, not a chapter on world-building.
If you want to argue that the Chapter in the DMG is going to be a naughty word setting book, I will agree with you. But it isn't guaranteed to be a bad chapter on how to world build, just because they used an existing setting. That is nonsensical. It would be like declaring that you can't teach someone how to make a new cake recipe unless you make one from scratch, because talking about how an existing recipe was made and why it works is impossible because baking pans have changed.
You are again misunderstanding. Or rather, you're confusing worldbuilding with actual play.
As it stands (I can't believe I have to repeat this), D&D spends most of its time talking about how evil orcs are. Their descriptions in the MM and VGM is evil. Changing their alignment to "usually chaotic evil" doesn't change any of this. It just means that the one lawful good orc you meet is "one of the good ones."
So if you (meaning WotC and worldbuilders) want orcs to be not always evil, that needs to be built into the world itself. If you say that the Orcish Empire of the Pomarj isn't chaotic evil, then you need to write it so that it's not chaotic evil, and that needs to be more than just noted in the alignment section; the Pomarj would have to actually reflect that. If you want the Pomarj to be evil but the tribes that live in this other part of Greyhawk aren't, then you need to write that as well.
That is still telling. "Show don't tell" is a writing phrase, telling authors not to info dump. You don't say "The woman was upset because her husband was dead" you show her being upset. Writing "The Orc Empire of Pomarj is good, and they have strong trade relations with the shield lands where their orcish paladins quest for the good of the common people" is still telling. You are telling me about the empire, the paladins, ect. SHOWING me that would be having character meet those orc paladins.
Yes, that is actual play instead of world-building, but like I said, ALL world building is telling. All of it. It is all information dumps and encyclopedia entries. None of it is showing.
Your point actually seems to be that it isn't good enough to say in the PHB that good orcs exist if the setting doesn't have a good tribe of orcs. That is a different problem than show don't tell. That's actually following through with what you are stating.
"Can" and "should" are two different things.
Why use Greyhawk as the sample setting to teach people how to worldbuild when you know that it's going to anger and confuse people? Why not just make a new setting from scratch?
Because making a new setting from scratch will also confuse and anger people. How dare they make a new setting instead of using their old settings! Why are they trying to force us grognards out of the game? People are declaring these things over the changes to how dragons look, making a whole new setting will still set those same people off.
And also, I think you keep forgetting this. It is an
anniversary edition. They are celebrating DnD's
History.
You can think that is stupid and pointless, but since they are going to upset people no matter what, the people who loved the game and have loved the game for most of therir lives, want to honor that game. And since the book is being published in a few months, I doubt the letters you have sent to their home office declaring their inevtiable failure have convinced them to suddenly change course and scrap everything they have done and announced.
