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<feed xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom” xmlns:creativeCommons=”http://backend.userland.com/creativeCommonsRssModule” xmlns:re=”http://purl.org/atompub/rank/1.0”> <title type=”text”>Active questions tagged on-topic or close-reasons or vote-to-close or closing-questions or closed-questions or down-votes or reviews or too-broad or specific-answer or opinion-based or low-quality or moderation - Worldbuilding Meta Stack Exchange</title> <link rel=”self” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/feeds/tag?tagnames=on-topic+or+close-reasons+or+vote-to-close+or+closing-questions+or+closed-questions+or+down-votes+or+reviews+or+too-broad+or+specific-answer+or+opinion-based+or+low-quality+or+moderation” type=”application/atom+xml” > <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged?tagnames=on-topic+or+close-reasons+or+vote-to-close+or+closing-questions+or+closed-questions+or+down-votes+or+reviews+or+too-broad+or+specific-answer+or+opinion-based+or+low-quality+or+moderation&amp;sort=active” type=”text/html” /> <subtitle>most recent 30 from worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com</subtitle> <updated>2018-10-30T16:49:08Z</updated> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/feeds/tag?tagnames=on-topic+or+close-reasons+or+vote-to-close+or+closing-questions+or+closed-questions+or+down-votes+or+reviews+or+too-broad+or+specific-answer+or+opinion-based+or+low-quality+or+moderation</id> creativeCommons:licensehttp://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/rdf</creativeCommons:license> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6821</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>3</re:rank> <title type=”text”>How to lock my question and/or answers?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”support” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”answers” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”moderation” /> <author> <name>Pavel Janicek</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2071</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6821/how-to-lock-my-question-and-or-answers” /> <published>2018-10-24T05:18:29Z</published> <updated>2018-10-24T05:49:34Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;In my personal opinion, &lt;em&gt;most&lt;/em&gt; of my questions and answers attract &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt; of comments. Most of the time I am happy about it, sometimes it gives me frustration. Especially having the luck asking the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/114033/how-can-santa-keep-his-lists-when-the-gdpr-is-around&quot;&gt;most voted question on this site&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;First of all, I am really happy if someone corrects my English grammar and typos &lt;em&gt;without asking&lt;/em&gt;. I know the feeling, being Czech language Grammar Nazi myself.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thing is, that some comments are hard to understand on the internet. Was it a joke? Was it a sarcasm? Was it an insult? Even when there is new &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://meta.stackexchange.com/conduct&quot;&gt;be nice&lt;/a&gt;&quot; policy, it is hard to decode for me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I already asked &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6655/can-you-vote-to-protect-flag-a-question-for-protection&quot;&gt;how to protect own question&lt;/a&gt; which at least solved not having comments from new users. I thought thats all I can achieve with not having comments, but then I saw this on &lt;a href=&quot;https://money.stackexchange.com/&quot;&gt;Personal finance&lt;/a&gt; site:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5GMDj.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://i.stack.imgur.com/5GMDj.png&quot; alt=&quot;locked answer for comments&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I &lt;em&gt;know&lt;/em&gt; it is possible to lock (at least) the answer. Question is: &lt;strong&gt;How to trigger this locking?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6767</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>0</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Are &quot;explanations for magic&quot; something that belong on World Building SE? [duplicate]</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <author> <name>Lupino</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/55702</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6767/are-explanations-for-magic-something-that-belong-on-world-building-se” /> <published>2018-10-04T08:19:04Z</published> <updated>2018-10-16T04:34:50Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;div class=&quot;question-status question-originals-of-duplicate&quot;&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question already has an answer here:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/5991/magic-is-primarily-opinion-based-by-definition-so-what-does-a-pob-vtc-mean&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot;&gt;Magic is primarily opinion-based by definition, so what does a POB VTC mean?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;span class=&quot;question-originals-answer-count&quot;&gt; 2 answers &lt;/span&gt; &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I see more and more questions asking for help to explain how a specific magic could &quot;work&quot;. They are all opinion based, a kind of brainstorm exercise, and sound more like plot related questions than world building.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6756</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>9</re:rank> <title type=”text”>How has this answer not yet been shot down?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-answer” /> <author> <name>dot_Sp0T</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/2746</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6756/how-has-this-answer-not-yet-been-shot-down” /> <published>2018-10-03T06:49:10Z</published> <updated>2018-10-13T12:14:14Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;On a recent &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/126509/building-my-flat-earth-how-to-make-my-ice-walls-last-for-eternity&quot;&gt;question about reasoning the constant existence of ice-walls around a flat-earth&lt;/a&gt; there has been this one answer leading with upvotes:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;As there is not scientific basis for anything like a flat earth, any explanation will do.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#180;d go with: The Elephants, carrying your Earth-disc through space, fart magical freezing gases.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;sup&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/126546/2746&quot;&gt;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/126546/2746&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It reads like a comment with a bolted on &lt;em&gt;cheap-let&#39;s-go-for-the-giggles&lt;/em&gt; answer so it can escape &lt;code&gt;Not an Answer&lt;/code&gt;-Flags. And looking at it closely it really just seems to be a critique of the question, rather than a whole-hearted attempt of answering the given problem.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If it is meant as a serious answer, then to my understanding it is coasting close to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/behavior&quot;&gt;Be Nice Policy&lt;/a&gt;, especially the point about:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Be nice.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Whether you&#39;ve come to ask questions, or to generously share what you know, remember that we’re all here to learn, together. Be welcoming and patient, especially with those who may not know everything you do.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It doesn&#39;t even try to take the premise of the question seriously, but rather does down with it as something not worthy of receiving proper answers.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If it is not meant as a serious answer (which is how I understand it), then it clearly clashes with the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer&quot;&gt;Answering Guidelines&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Answer the question&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Read the question carefully. What, specifically, is the question asking for? Make sure your answer provides that – or a viable alternative. The answer can be “don’t do that”, but it should also include “try this instead”. Any answer that gets the asker going in the right direction is helpful, but do try to mention any limitations, assumptions or simplifications in your answer. Brevity is acceptable, but fuller explanations are better.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;..and especially:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Answer well-asked questions&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Not all questions can or should be answered here. Save yourself some frustration and avoid trying to answer questions which…&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…are unclear or lacking specific details that can uniquely identify the problem.&lt;br&gt; …solicit opinions rather than facts.&lt;br&gt; …have already been asked and answered many times before.&lt;br&gt; …require too much guidance for you to answer in full, or request answers to multiple questions.&lt;br&gt; …are not about worldbuilding as defined in the help center.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If the answerer wants to imply that the question is &lt;em&gt;bonkers&lt;/em&gt;, then why not VTC it instead of writing an unhelpful answer that mainly mocks the question and thus the querent?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Another point speaking against the question not being answerable would be the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/126550/2746&quot;&gt;very good and serious answer by Cort Ammon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If the answerer is not happy with the amount of detail given by the querent, as can be understood from the &lt;em&gt;first&lt;/em&gt; phrase of their answer, then they should instead comment on the question asking for clarification.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The comment history shows that &lt;a href=&quot;https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/83971/discussion-on-question-by-mr-j-building-my-flat-earth-how-to-make-my-ice-walls&quot;&gt;the answerer did not request any such clarification&lt;/a&gt; so we have to assume that at least the first part of their &#39;answer&#39; must indeed be an attempt to comment, using the answer button by &lt;em&gt;accident&lt;/em&gt;(?)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Answerer has 2k+ rep at the time of this, mine, post. And subtracting the 80ish rep they got from 8 upvotes and a downvote still is near the 2k rep mark - that means they have should have been on the site long enough to not simply drop plain provocations. Which is why I move this issue to the meta..&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6796</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>2</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Fast submarines - Closed question</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closed-questions” /> <author> <name>Separatrix</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/16295</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6796/fast-submarines-closed-question” /> <published>2018-10-12T10:42:09Z</published> <updated>2018-10-12T11:23:52Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/127214/fastest-underwater-speed-of-a-2-person-privately-built-submersible&quot;&gt;Fastest Underwater Speed of a 2 Person Privately Built Submersible?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The problem with this question is perhaps that it has a reality-check tag making people think they can easily answer it. In practice it&#39;s a candidate for a hard-science tag. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Movement resistance for a vessel of this type can be calculated, power required to move it at those speeds can also be calculated, as can the required energy density of the power system.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It is some fairly heavy duty naval engineering rather than a simple reality check, but it can be answered.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6769</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>11</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Questions about worlds with low maturity - What to do when a question cannot be answered right now?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”questions” /> <author> <name>Raditz_35</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/37861</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6769/questions-about-worlds-with-low-maturity-what-to-do-when-a-question-cannot-be” /> <published>2018-10-04T11:59:35Z</published> <updated>2018-10-10T12:12:07Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;EDIT: I&#39;ve added a 4th point that I want help with&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I have recently noticed a lot of questions that seem like quite chaotic approaches to world building. In my humble opinion, if your approach is extremely unstructured and you ask a question that cannot be answered at this point because the world you are constructing does not yet have the foundation for an answer to make sense, it is not a good fit. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Some worlds have a low maturity, but the questions ask about things that should really be answered later in the WB process.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A quick word about world &lt;em&gt;maturity&lt;/em&gt;: For me, it means both the world as well as the knowledge of the OP itself. If they want to build a world set in Ancient Greece and they have yet to do any research on that period, I think you can say that the maturity is very low no matter how detailed the world is - if the question encompasses aspects that can and should be researched. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since I&#39;m calling people&#39;s worlds chaotic, I don&#39;t want to link specific topics, but I&#39;m going to make up one example based on a real question asked recently. If you know the question, please keep it to yourself, benefit of the doubt. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;It&#39;s the year 4000. Humanity has settled on Mars. How do I distribute electricity amongst the citizens? &lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The issues here are that obviously the implications of the year 4000 are ignored. Human society, values and most likely biology (imo) will have changed by then. If they haven&#39;t, there needs to be some explaining. Also, the motivation for settling Mars is not trivial, I think it matters. You can come up with more things that seem to be unclear at this point and need to be answered first.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope this is enough of an example, please let me know if it is still unclear. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This issue comes in various shapes or forms. I&#39;ve seen questions about concepts the OP was unfamiliar with, the usage of historic time periods and settings the OP does not seem to know much about or has not put much thought into it and many things like that. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Many questions do get answered, but I rarely see a direct answer. In the best case, it&#39;s suggestions on how to build the world before asking this question, it may be an explanation as to why the concept makes little sense (currently), it could be a brief explanation of what the words the OP is using actually mean and in the worst case it&#39;s an answer filled with assumptions and guesses about the world that are impossible to make at this point. I don&#39;t think shutting down the OP with answers explaining them how they cannot do whatever is helpful and encouraging. I also don&#39;t see why such explanations need to be given via answers. There have been quite a few popular &quot;this is not how things work&quot; answers. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I think it all comes down to:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If the world is not mature enough for the question to be answered directly, what should be the prodecure?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My approach so far has been asking the user to give more details about the world. This can be successful, we all are sometimes unstructured when asking a question and the world might be in good shape, but recently it hasn&#39;t been. It has been frustrating when I see interesting questions in principal get boring answers explaining the basic concepts and encouragement by the community for the OP to leave the question as is instead of dealing with comments asking for clarification. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Something that I&#39;ve tried is explaining to the OP via comment that their world does not seem to be ready yet. The standard response I have gotten often is: &lt;em&gt;That&#39;s why I&#39;m asking. If I knew everything, there would be no need to ask&lt;/em&gt;. I think that if they had a structured approach, they might not even need to ask the question. I don&#39;t tell them that anymore because it might be interpreted as insulting - and it has been.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So my questions are: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Should you answer such a question? I personally think you shouldn&#39;t and instead ask for clarification via comment, but that does not seem to be the opinion of everyone. There will always be grey areas, but often the answer explains that the problem is quite complex and that&#39;s it. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How do you communicate to the OP that they should do some world building before asking this question effectively?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;What about close/down votes? Are such questions &quot;too broad&quot; or &quot;unclear&quot; in principal? Does a down vote apply if not the question but the world is of low quality? &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This seems to be a broad topic that might not be answered or even easily discussed in one answer. I really do appreciate the answers given, but perhaps I need to start with something a bit more answerable. Any suggestions (perhaps via comments) on how to divide the topic into handable chunks without losing the sight on the whole issue are welcome. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This has been written in somewhat of a hurry. Please point out any issues with this question. I myself might be chaotic ironically. &lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6768</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>2</re:rank> <title type=”text”>&quot;I don&#39;t have a clue about X, but I&#39;m using it in half-written story. Please explain!!&quot;</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <author> <name>RonJohn</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8068</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6768/i-dont-have-a-clue-about-x-but-im-using-it-in-half-written-story-please-exp” /> <published>2018-10-04T10:51:09Z</published> <updated>2018-10-06T08:28:56Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;Example: &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/126703/travelling-the-multiverse-by-accident&quot;&gt;Travelling the multiverse by accident?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The original question:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;As you&#39;ve probably guessed, I have no idea about how multiverses and parallel universes, or space-time travel, etc work. But, they are pretty much a driving plot point in my WIP. Is it possible to accidentally travel from one universe to another, without having been trying to access it? (not sure if that made much sense, lmk if unclear and I will try my best to clarify) How does science/math explain alternate universes?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since we don&#39;t even know if alternate universes really exist, how can &quot;&lt;em&gt;Is it possible to accidentally travel from one universe to another&lt;/em&gt;&quot; be anything other than purely speculative fictional opinion? And &quot;&lt;em&gt;How does science/math explain alternate universes?&lt;/em&gt;&quot; is so broad it requires dozens of PhD theses.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Should such questions be instant candidates for closure?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6730</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>4</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Why were two mods required to close this question?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”support” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”vote-to-close” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”moderators” /> <author> <name>Dubukay</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/43163</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6730/why-were-two-mods-required-to-close-this-question” /> <published>2018-09-26T00:09:38Z</published> <updated>2018-09-26T13:49:41Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117465/how-could-a-real-world-doomsday-cult-go-about-causing-the-apocalypse&quot;&gt;This question&lt;/a&gt; is currently closed by Aify, Cadence, L.Dutch, Trish, and James (thank you for keeping the site clean). However, I&#39;m confused because both L.Dutch and James are diamond moderators, and I&#39;d always thought that the stereotypical &quot;modhammer&quot; meant that every mod had the ability to close each question on their own. Is this not the case? If not, when do mods modhammer questions open and closed?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6697</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>8</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Is it appropriate to close a question as a duplicate of a newer question?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closing-questions” /> <author> <name>Frostfyre</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/6986</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6697/is-it-appropriate-to-close-a-question-as-a-duplicate-of-a-newer-question” /> <published>2018-09-11T12:47:05Z</published> <updated>2018-09-24T12:58:32Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;When I opened the close review queue, I was presented with &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/89443/view-the-past-by-reflection&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt; on viewing the past. Since I didn&#39;t recall seeing the question before, I checked the date and saw it was a year old. The is-a-duplicate comment was from today, so I checked the date on the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/124190/6986&quot;&gt;proposed duplicate&lt;/a&gt;: 6 days ago, 13 months later.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While it could be argued one question is a duplicate of the other, should the older question be the duplicate?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6712</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>-3</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Why are my illustrations being removed from my question?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”moderation” /> <author> <name>Muze</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/27786</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6712/why-are-my-illustrations-being-removed-from-my-question” /> <published>2018-09-17T19:37:28Z</published> <updated>2018-09-19T17:37:41Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;Twice someone has removed illustrations from my question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/125171/best-places-to-be-on-earth-when-an-all-out-nuclear-war-breaks-out&quot;&gt;Best places to be on Earth when an all out nuclear war breaks out?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I thought the gifs did a good job illustrating what I vision. They reflect my question how I see it. Should I be able to keep the gifs in my question for dramatic effect if I want it? even if they are not an actual nuclear explosion?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Will I get in trouble if I put them back?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5466</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>-5</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Is it possible &amp; sensible to have a limits for putting questions on hold?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closing-questions” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5466/is-it-possible-sensible-to-have-a-limits-for-putting-questions-on-hold” /> <published>2017-10-13T23:27:58Z</published> <updated>2018-09-12T11:19:42Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;Today I reviewed a re-open request for a question that was posted in 2015 and put on hold a year later in 2016. My question doesn&#39;t come from the reopen request, but from the hold placed a year after the question had been asked and answered by a fair number of people.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Only a few days ago I user and I were discussing the point of voting to close a question a week after the fact when the question and its answers had enjoyed thousands of views, hundreds of votes, and an answer selected. It seemed to me petty to put a question on hold over a mere technicality after it had been voted (from a certain point of view) relevant by the public.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Therefore, I wonder:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A. Can we/Should we put a &quot;statute of limitations&quot; on questions such that they cannot be closed after the statute has expired? Putting a question on hold a year after it was posted is, frankly, absurd. It simply highlights what appears to be the inefficiency of reviewers (no offense intended).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;B. Can we/Should we put a modifier on the number of close votes needed to close a question based on the aggragate votes it&#39;s received (both positive and negative). For example, for every +50 aggragate votes, one additional close vote is required to close it (thus putting the burden on reviewers to act in a timely fashion if there really is an issue that makes the question worth closing). Similarly, for every -10 aggragate votes (remember, the sum of all votes, answers + question) one less vote is required to close the question.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Note that I&#39;m strongly in favor of the statute of limitations. Honestly, if reviewers can&#39;t close a question in even a week&#39;s time, we&#39;re simply not doing our jobs.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m moderately in favor of the vote count modification as it&#39;s intended purpose is to give &quot;the people&quot; some power over the voting process. To whit… closing highly popular questions simply makes reviewers look petty, so it should require a larger concensus.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6654</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>10</re:rank> <title type=”text”>How should we deal with inherently open-ended fishing-for-ideas questions?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6654/how-should-we-deal-with-inherently-open-ended-fishing-for-ideas-questions” /> <published>2018-08-31T07:07:57Z</published> <updated>2018-09-10T12:28:29Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;We&#39;ve had a number of questions lately that, in my opinion, skirt the rules. They&#39;re not specific (per the new Help Center, THANKS! for that BTW).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Examples are:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/123625/anti-psychic-countermeasures&quot;&gt;Anti-Psychic Countermeasures&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/123598/what-would-a-medieval-war-against-an-air-borne-race-look-like&quot;&gt;What would a medieval war against an air-borne race look like?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/123586/how-would-you-explain-the-process-of-reverie-in-elves&quot;&gt;How would you explain the process of reverie in elves?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/123459/how-would-i-gain-energy-from-a-rotating-planet&quot;&gt;How would I gain energy from a rotating planet?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These are just a few. Generally, this isn&#39;t a big problem because when you work through the question proper there&#39;s enough data to not quite be so open-ended, but generally speaking, they&#39;re all open-ended fishing-for-ideas questions. Some are much worse than others.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In some cases, the questions appear very much to be &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4868/how-to-deal-with-i-have-a-high-concept-please-do-my-work-for-me-questions&quot;&gt;high concept&lt;/a&gt; questions. In other cases, the question is fundamentally unanswerable without something: be it more data or changes in what the author is asking for.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;emsp;What should be our default policy concerning open-ended fishing-for-ideas questions?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note that one of the biggest problems with these questions is that they&#39;re almost always primarily opinion-based, both from the SE point of view and our own.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6676</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>5</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Should a good question be mark a duplicate to another question that is closed?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”support” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”exact-duplicates” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”moderation” /> <author> <name>Muze</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/27786</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6676/should-a-good-question-be-mark-a-duplicate-to-another-question-that-is-closed” /> <published>2018-09-05T17:31:45Z</published> <updated>2018-09-06T21:31:05Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;Should this question which is clear and well received and be marked as duplicate to a poorly received closed question?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/124190/could-a-mirror-could-be-put-in-deep-space-to-see-ouselves-in-the-past&quot;&gt;Could a mirror could be put in deep space to see ouselves in the past?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4868</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>37</re:rank> <title type=”text”>How to deal with &quot;Please develop my High Concept&quot; questions?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <author> <name>MichaelK</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/12297</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4868/how-to-deal-with-please-develop-my-high-concept-questions” /> <published>2017-05-03T09:59:55Z</published> <updated>2018-09-05T14:48:36Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;Hello Community… I have a &lt;strong&gt;great&lt;/strong&gt; idea for my Worldbuilding. Assume Earth and history as we know it, but in my world, Hitler died from whooping cough as a baby. What is my world like after this change? Ok, thanks, bye. Yours truly, /E. X. Ample&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At least once per week there is this kind of question: the author has come up with a &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-concept&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;High Concept&lt;/a&gt;. But then they have not gone anywhere with it. They have not even &lt;strong&gt;started&lt;/strong&gt; authoring their world or (as is seemingly often the case) their story. Instead they ask here on Worldbuilding about what happens as a consequence of their High Concept. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Two obvious problems with this kind of question: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Too broad&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Opinion based&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…and even if we could just slam-dunk close the questions on that alone, I feel this could be handled better. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now I truly believe that &lt;strong&gt;those that ask in this manner are not actually lazy&lt;/strong&gt; and just expect us to do their work for them. Instead I imagine that for the most part they — in their eagerness and joy over having come up with this interesting concept — simply forget that it probably has a &lt;strong&gt;lot&lt;/strong&gt; bigger consequences than they could imagine, and that there are many possible variations where it may take them. They have — innocently — missed those bits, and they do not actually want us to be the authors of their world/story.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Nevertheless: &lt;strong&gt;in practice they have just asked us to do their work as an author for them&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We then need to inform them of this fact, but at the same time not kill their joy of wanting to write, using the concept. My problem is how to decline their request without quenching their enthusiasm for their authorship. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hence my questions: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;How can we guide them in cases like this, especially without coming off as rude or unhelpful? &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;How should we express ourselves to them so that they are not put down or discouraged? &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;How can we encourage them to start tugging on the great conspicuous loose thread that is their High Concept and see what unravels? &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6647</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>5</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Question closed as dupe when it isn’t</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <author> <name>JakeGould</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/3366</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6647/question-closed-as-dupe-when-it-isn-t” /> <published>2018-08-29T15:41:55Z</published> <updated>2018-08-29T18:00:41Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;I just recently asked the following question:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/123389/in-a-world-without-humans-or-any-caretakers-would-domestic-house-pets-simply-reg&quot;&gt;In a world without humans—or any caretakers—would domestic house pets simply regress into being feral or die?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Which has been closed as a duplicate of this other question:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117574/which-livestock-could-survive-without-humans&quot;&gt;Which livestock could survive without humans?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My question is clearly about domesticated &lt;em&gt;pets&lt;/em&gt; and not about farm animals and livestock. Two completely different populations of animals.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/23519/kingledion&quot;&gt;kingledion&lt;/a&gt; states &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/123389/in-a-world-without-humans-or-any-caretakers-would-domestic-house-pets-simply-reg/123397?noredirect=1#comment381546_123389&quot;&gt;in the comments&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;“@JakeGould Looks good on edit. I don&#39;t see this as a duplicate any more.”&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yet… Boom! Question closed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I believe the question was unfairly closed by &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/26246/srm&quot;&gt;SRM&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/220/mike-scott&quot;&gt;Mike Scott&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/12297/michaelk&quot;&gt;MichaelK&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/21222/renan&quot;&gt;Renan&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/32987/cam&quot;&gt;CaM&lt;/a&gt; so I am requesting the question be re-opened. &lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6621</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>19</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Can a [hard-science] question be a duplicate of a non-[hard-science] question?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closing-questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”exact-duplicates” /> <author> <name>α CVn</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/29</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6621/can-a-hard-science-question-be-a-duplicate-of-a-non-hard-science-question” /> <published>2018-08-26T11:16:04Z</published> <updated>2018-08-28T18:52:31Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;I bring before the assembly Exhibit A, &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/123016/29&quot;&gt;A cure for the &#39;Kessler Syndrome&#39;?&lt;/a&gt;, tagged &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/science-based&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;science-based&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;science-based&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/science-fiction&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;science-fiction&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;science-fiction&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/hard-science&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;hard-science&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;hard-science&lt;/a&gt; as of revision 1.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That question was closed as a duplicate of &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/58587/29&quot;&gt;Dealing with space debris and Kessler Syndrome&lt;/a&gt;, tagged &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/science-based&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;science-based&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;science-based&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/near-future&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;near-future&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;near-future&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/kessler-syndrome&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;kessler-syndrome&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;kessler-syndrome&lt;/a&gt; as of today.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The user who closed &lt;em&gt;A cure for the &#39;Kessler Syndrome&#39;?&lt;/em&gt; (gold tag badge holder) also referenced &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/83543/29&quot;&gt;How to efficiently deorbit space junk&lt;/a&gt;, tagged &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/reality-check&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;reality-check&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;reality-check&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/space&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;space&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;space&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/orbital-mechanics&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;orbital-mechanics&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;orbital-mechanics&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/space-constructs&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;space-constructs&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;space-constructs&lt;/a&gt; and itself closed as a duplicate of &lt;em&gt;Dealing with space debris and Kessler Syndrome&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Generally speaking, question X is a duplicate of question Y if, and only if, any valid answer to question Y is an equally valid answer to question X. Typically, question Y should also exist on the site before question X is posted, but exceptions sometimes exist.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Compare &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2004/29&quot;&gt;Does [hard-science] imply [science-based] imply [reality-check]?&lt;/a&gt; as well as &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/106/29&quot;&gt;Should our default position be that answers should be science-/logic-based, rather than magic-based?&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2211/29&quot;&gt;A hard-science ultimatum&lt;/a&gt;, along with the hard science notice:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;This question asks for hard science.&lt;/strong&gt; All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/tags/hard-science/info&quot;&gt;the tag description&lt;/a&gt; for more information.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ignoring for a second that &lt;em&gt;A cure for the &#39;Kessler Syndrome&#39;?&lt;/em&gt; probably should be retagged with &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/kessler-syndrome&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;kessler-syndrome&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;kessler-syndrome&lt;/a&gt; and possibly other tags to aid discovery via categorization by tags, my question is simply:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Given that hard-science questions place specific requirements on answers that neither science-based nor reality-check questions do, can a question tagged hard-science ever validly be a duplicate of a non-hard-science question?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6557</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>35</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Are the &quot;spoon&quot; questions on-topic? And should they be?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <author> <name>Ilmari Karonen</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/170</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6557/are-the-spoon-questions-on-topic-and-should-they-be” /> <published>2018-08-14T20:45:27Z</published> <updated>2018-08-24T21:02:47Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m not currently a particularly active user on Worldbuilding, although I&#39;ve contributed a bunch of answer back when the site was new. I do, however, regularly visit several other sites on the Stack Exchange network and I tend to keep an eye on the Hot Network Questions sidebar for interesting questions to read and possibly answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Recently, I&#39;ve noticed a bunch of Hot Network Questions asked by &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/users/54015/notatyrant&quot;&gt;a new user on this site&lt;/a&gt;. They seem to have the recipe for HNQ down pat: their questions are funny and entertainingly written, with intriguing &quot;clickbait&quot; titles that attract curious readers, and they link together (yes, with actual hyperlinks) into something resembling a collaborative story. They prompt the reader for creative answers with multiple open-ended sub-questions and, being set in a vaguely specified fantasy world, their possible answers are only limited by the answerers&#39; creativity.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And it seems to be working. In the six days this user has been active, they&#39;ve asked five questions, gotten at least four of those onto Hot Network Questions, and earned two gold badges.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What I&#39;m wondering is &lt;strong&gt;what, if anything, do these questions have to do with worldbuilding?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Looking at the specific questions, it seems to me that they&#39;re not really asking about building a fictional world. In fact, most of them don&#39;t even really seem to be &quot;questions&quot;, as the term is generally used here on Stack Exchange, but more like open-ended lateral thinking puzzles:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/120828/my-carrier-pigeons-have-been-replaced-by-spoons-how-can-i-send-messages&quot;&gt;My carrier pigeons have been replaced by spoons: how can I send messages?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;This question, currently with 120 upvotes and 7 downvotes, starts with an intriguing title and a silly premise. Underneath that, though, the actual question amounts to &quot;how to send messages without carrier pigeons?&quot;, which, when you think about it, is about as broad as a question can be. Especially since magic is allowed. It currently has &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/120868&quot;&gt;an accepted answer&lt;/a&gt; (with a score of +95 / -1 votes) that says:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&quot;Your pidgeons are spoons on the outside but they&#39;re still pidgeons on the inside, only very confused. Get another alchemist (surely you don&#39;t only have one) and have them transmute pideon nests into soup bowls. Their instinct will catch up to their new body and they&#39;ll develop a strong desire to fall into their own bowl.&quot;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I think that just about says everything that needs to be said about the question.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/120845/is-a-network-of-spoon-launching-trebuchets-realistic&quot;&gt;Is a network of spoon-launching trebuchets realistic?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;This follow-up to the previous question seems to have failed to make it to the HNQ list, maybe because it wasn&#39;t quite funny enough. Its main problem (besides the fact that &quot;a network of spoon-launching trebuchets&quot; and &quot;realistic&quot; don&#39;t really make sense together) is that it contains a multitude of sub-questions, some of which (like &quot;&lt;em&gt;Is a trebuchet accurate enough?&lt;/em&gt;&quot;) are pretty vague (accurate enough for &lt;em&gt;what&lt;/em&gt;?). Still, it&#39;s IMO one of the, um, least bad ones of the bunch.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/121316/what-can-i-do-to-make-my-sons-snowman-survive-using-medieval-technology&quot;&gt;What can I do to make my son&amp;#39;s snowman survive, using medieval technology?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;This is actually a rather nice question… it&#39;s just not really a &lt;em&gt;worldbuilding&lt;/em&gt; question. It&#39;s just asking about historical techniques for keeping things frozen, and would (with some rephrasing to get rid of the silliness) fit just fine on, say, &lt;a href=&quot;https://history.stackexchange.com&quot;&gt;History&lt;/a&gt;. Where, in fact, &lt;a href=&quot;https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/15258/how-did-people-have-access-to-ice-in-warm-areas-before-the-industrial-revolution&quot;&gt;basically the same question&lt;/a&gt; has already been asked back in 2014.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/121447/how-effective-is-a-spoon-to-mutilate-my-former-alchemist&quot;&gt;How effective is a spoon to mutilate my former alchemist?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Just like the title says, this question is asking about the effectiveness of spoons as torture devices. Technically, that would be a valid question, if there was a Stack Exchange site on torture. Which there fortunately isn&#39;t. It&#39;s still not a worldbuilding question, not even with the off-hand allusions to alchemy and magic (which just make it that much broader).&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/121474/is-a-pig-mounted-cavalry-possible&quot;&gt;Is a pig-mounted cavalry possible?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;This is the only one I would personally consider at least marginally on-topic, insofar as the feasibility of using pigs as cavalry mounts in a fictional world is a valid and answerable one. Sure, it&#39;s framed with the same silly meta-story as the others, but at the core there is, IMO, a valid worldbuilding question here.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;However, so far only two of these questions appear to have been flagged for closing, and in &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/review/close/51203&quot;&gt;both&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/review/close/51367&quot;&gt;cases&lt;/a&gt; the review concluded 3 to 1 in favor of keeping the question open. So it seems that the Worldbuilding community, or at least the part of the community that frequents the close vote review queue, considers these questions on-topic here.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If so, my question is &lt;strong&gt;why?&lt;/strong&gt; What makes questions like these relevant for this site and desirable to have here? And is this really the direction this community wants the site to take?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;(Yes, I realize that &quot;they&#39;re fun and popular&quot; is a valid answer. What I&#39;m wondering is whether they&#39;re fun and popular &lt;em&gt;worldbuilding&lt;/em&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6507</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>11</re:rank> <title type=”text”>How curious is too curious?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”asking-questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”etiquette” /> <author> <name>Ash</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40408</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6507/how-curious-is-too-curious” /> <published>2018-08-08T14:05:08Z</published> <updated>2018-08-22T18:50:59Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;The fallout from &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/120571/40408&quot;&gt;Worse than zombies, part 1&lt;/a&gt;, has reminded me that I keep meaning to ask to what extent one can ask question about things they are curious about rather than issue they &lt;em&gt;need&lt;/em&gt; answers to. As I&#39;m writing this I&#39;ve asked 44 questions on the main, of which only 15 are actually about anything that resembles a project I need help with, there&#39;s about 10 about projects that were finish before I asked them, some are on the site because I thought the processes around them might be useful to others, the rest because I was curious about some aspect of the issue. The other 20 questions are only on the Stack because they occurred to me as random thoughts at some point and I posted them to see what people had to say.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So my question is should I, and by extension other users, be using this site &lt;em&gt;only&lt;/em&gt; for help with [worldbuilding] story aspects that we are having issues with or does curiosity have a place in this community?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6161</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>27</re:rank> <title type=”text”>A proposal to finalize the &quot;are real world questions on-topic&quot; debate</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <author> <name>James</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/189</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6161/a-proposal-to-finalize-the-are-real-world-questions-on-topic-debate” /> <published>2018-05-17T14:20:55Z</published> <updated>2018-08-22T05:56:35Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you would like to discuss this or explain disagreements, or want clarification please feel free to &lt;a href=&quot;https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/77822/real-world-questions-on-of-topic-discussion&quot;&gt;join this chatroom.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The moderators&lt;/strong&gt; have discussed the recent re-invigoration of the on or off topic debate regarding real world phenomenon. We have looked at a large number of questions that appeared on meta (list at the bottom of this post) over the last couple years and reviewed questions on main that have driven the conversation to crop up again and again.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To baseline: &lt;strong&gt;The Worldbuilding site description&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for writers, artists and others using science, geography and culture to construct imaginary worlds and settings. It&#39;s built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&amp;amp;A sites. With your help, we&#39;re working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about worldbuilding.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If the community is in agreement with the following post, we will mark it on meta and update the tour/help pages with the relevant information…good reading to you all.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;Our conclusion, and we would like the community’s feedback, is that questions regarding real world stuff are on-topic.&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Reasoning:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Understanding how the real world works is the best and frankly only option we have for comparison to what we are trying to create. &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Understanding the real world allows us to make alterations to reality in creating an imaginary world&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We have many questions about history, culture, physics, chemistry and other topics that are asking for a &lt;strong&gt;comparison or background information from reality&lt;/strong&gt; for aid in developing our imaginary worlds. This is acceptable and has always been on topic even if it has been &lt;em&gt;often&lt;/em&gt; debated.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&quot;But wait! Shouldn’t we tell people to post orbital mechanics questions on Physics, or Astronomy?!&quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Well… Maybe, but it should be noted in most cases the &lt;strong&gt;author chooses the site&lt;/strong&gt; where they would like to post the question, this means they &lt;strong&gt;intentionally chose&lt;/strong&gt; Worldbuilding over another site and that should be respected.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Caveat:&lt;/strong&gt; Members are certainly welcome to suggest via comment that a post may get better answers on one of the other sites in the network. There is nothing wrong with the suggestion and its always possible someone didn&#39;t know. That said, &lt;strong&gt;being on-topic on another site does not make a question off-topic for Worldbuilding.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Worldbuilding as a whole is very very (etc) broad. In an &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2304/189&quot;&gt;old meta post&lt;/a&gt; a network user commented that: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;To a zeroth-order approximation, &lt;em&gt;everything&lt;/em&gt; goes on World Building.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And this makes sense. The universe is big &lt;sup&gt;(&lt;a href=&quot;https://xkcd.com/285/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;citation needed&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/sup&gt; and discussing it requires a bit of everything which is what makes Worldbuilding so unique. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;With all that said we still have to have expectations and standards, it can&#39;t just be a free for all.&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Considerations when asking a question relating to the real world:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Provide context. Giving other users context around why you are asking the question allows them to better understand why you are asking and what kind of answer you want.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Attempt to do your own research. If a quick google search will answer your question it may not be worth posting a question on the site. Generally, querents are expected to demonstrate what has been tried and why it was not sufficient or did not work. This too helps people answering understand what you are trying to accomplish as well as your level of knowledge on the topic.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Define your requirements and by what you will judge answers.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Questions that fail to adequately meet these requirements may be placed on hold even if they are not, &quot;off-topic.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Considerations when answering questions related to the real world:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Don&#39;t pre-judge a user&#39;s knowledge base. Not everyone on World Building has the same level of knowledge on every topic we discuss. Just because you may consider a particular question &lt;em&gt;simple&lt;/em&gt; does not mean that another user will understand. As an example James once asked &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/37077/are-there-logical-gaps-in-the-periodic-table-in-which-you-could-insert-a-new-mys&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;. Prior to comments being deleted several users were annoyed that a &lt;em&gt;high rep&lt;/em&gt; user asked such a basic question, it assumed a level of knowledge that James did not have.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Don&#39;t answer questions that are not fully formed/adequately explained. We often see users, even experienced/high reputation users answering questions that are not fully formed. Take the time to comment and don&#39;t feel bad about putting questions on hold/or flagging to be put on hold. This helps discourage bad questions and teaches users how to ask better questions. Mods are not immune either, we make mistakes like anyone else and we are not exempt from being flagged.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Don&#39;t use close-votes as &lt;em&gt;super down-votes.&lt;/em&gt; Closures and down votes don&#39;t always go together.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;References:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3911/resolving-the-real-world-problem&quot;&gt;Resolving the &amp;quot;real world&amp;quot; problem?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3872/is-a-real-world-question-off-topic&quot;&gt;Is a &amp;quot;real world&amp;quot; question off topic?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3840/how-do-we-feel-about-questions-where-the-answer-is-it-exists-in-the-real-world&quot;&gt;How do we feel about questions where the answer is &amp;quot;it exists in the real world?&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5602/is-worldbuildingse-suitable-for-writers-whose-works-are-more-or-less-realistic&quot;&gt;Is WorldbuildingSE suitable for writers whose works are, more or less, realistic?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/651/is-the-international-waters-question-on-topic&quot;&gt;Is the &amp;quot;international waters&amp;quot; question on-topic?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2293/should-the-help-center-be-updated-to-specifically-list-real-world-history-questi&quot;&gt;Should the help center be updated to specifically list real world history questions as off topic?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3840/how-do-we-feel-about-questions-where-the-answer-is-it-exists-in-the-real-world&quot;&gt;How do we feel about questions where the answer is &amp;quot;it exists in the real world?&amp;quot;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/search?page=1&amp;amp;tab=Relevance&amp;amp;q=is%3Aquestion%20real%20world&quot;&gt;More reading if you&#39;re into that&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6532</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>-11</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Why is there zero moderator accountability on this stack?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”deleted-answer” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”moderation” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”deleted-questions” /> <author> <name>user49466</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/49466</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6532/why-is-there-zero-moderator-accountability-on-this-stack” /> <published>2018-08-12T18:30:38Z</published> <updated>2018-08-12T22:02:59Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;So, I&#39;ve been participating in the stack for a few months now. And I say the following to emphasize that I understand what it can mean to run a space for online discourse, and that these circles are fraught with all sorts of challenges. Over the last few years, I participated in multiple forums, moderated a few, and adminned others. Most recently, I was asked to join a mod team, where the community started at about 2-3k and grew to roughly 15 thousand members by the time I decided to move on.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And of all the places I&#39;ve visited, or participated in, this stack has been probably the most inhospitable and unaccountable online environment I&#39;ve seen so far. Which is saying something. It&#39;s nearly impenetrable for new users, and the &#39;guidance&#39; to help them navigate the space is insufficient, at best, and actively antagonistic at worst.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Most places have some kind of process for addressing those issues. This community appears to have no such mechanism, the CoC simply had a link to a generic contact queue, which does not explain what to expect, or how any of that works.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I can&#39;t imagine the volume of users who come here, post once or twice, and never come back. I&#39;m sure that&#39;s perfectly acceptable to some folks, but it shouldn&#39;t be the baseline for any healthy community.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After the last experience I had, where a mod not only deleted an answer I provided, for purely punitive reasons, but went on to delete comments critical of their behavior, it seemed like the time to post about this, because unaccountability, and disgruntled people continually leaving, is how this sort of thing keeps occurring, and will keep occurring.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What is the process for lodging complaints about moderator behavior, and how is that process resolved?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6516</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>-8</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Opinions about the new Technobabble tag</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-tag” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6516/opinions-about-the-new-technobabble-tag” /> <published>2018-08-09T21:33:14Z</published> <updated>2018-08-12T10:37:26Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;A recent question introduced the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/technobabble&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;technobabble&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;technobabble&lt;/a&gt; tag. &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/tags/technobabble/info&quot;&gt;Click here to read its wiki&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I like this tag. I think it reflects the highly creative nature of the site and balances the fact that far too often we favor the science-half of &quot;science fiction.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We consider &quot;how to name my X&quot; questions &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6130/catalog-of-question-types/6259#6259&quot;&gt;off-topic&lt;/a&gt; and I completely agree with that. However, I can see a difference in that technobabble (whether a word or a full explanation) is specifically trying to reflect a definable concept.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;This is reality, and…&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;This is what I want to do with reality…&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So, I&#39;m looking for community concensus. Do we keep the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/technobabble&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;technobabble&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;technobabble&lt;/a&gt; tag, or do we burn it and group technobabble as off-topic with &quot;how to name my X&quot; questions (or is there an alternative)?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ll post the two basic yes/no answers for folks to vote on.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6436</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>9</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Idea Refinement: Clarification and Examples of VTC Reasons for New Users</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”new-users” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6436/idea-refinement-clarification-and-examples-of-vtc-reasons-for-new-users” /> <published>2018-07-19T16:47:09Z</published> <updated>2018-07-24T18:36:59Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6388/avoiding-worldbuilding-se-culture-shock?noredirect=1#comment19712_6388&quot;&gt;Welcome to Worldbuilding.SE!&lt;/a&gt; page for new users is up and running. My next goal: An introduction to VTC reasons for new users. Why?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/closed-questions&quot;&gt;the help center page&lt;/a&gt; isn&#39;t all that clear. It could be just me, but the page (and linked pages) seem to be a bit of a forest for new users.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Because at least one of the VTC reasons, primarily opinion-based, is not defined the way Stack Exchange defines it at all. This is a consistent problem here because we have no control over how that VTC reason (or any VTC reason) is presented when you click the &quot;close&quot; link. Yuck. I suspect, therefore, that this is the best we can come up with.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What are the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;eight&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; VTC reasons (1/2a/2b/2c/2d/3/4/5) and their current definitions?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Duplicate of…&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question has been asked before and already has an answer.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Off-topic because…&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question does not appear to be about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help&quot;&gt;help center&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Off-Topic: This question does not appear to be about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help&quot;&gt;help center&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Off-Topic: You are asking questions about a story set in a world instead of about building a world. For more information, see &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/3300/2113&quot;&gt;Why is my question &quot;Too Story Based&quot; and how do I get it opened?&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Off-Topic: This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Off-Topic: Other (add a comment explaining what is wrong) &lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unclear what you&#39;re asking&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it&#39;s currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you&#39;re asking. See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask&quot;&gt;How to Ask&lt;/a&gt; page for help clarifying this question.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Too broad&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer. Avoid asking multiple distinct questions at once. See the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-ask&quot;&gt;How to Ask&lt;/a&gt; page for help clarifying this question.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Primarily opinion-based&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Many good questions generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, but answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The Rules…&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;We&#39;re looking for a clear, (ideally) one-paragraph description followed by both a good example and a bad example question along with links to the relevant Meta posts on the subjects.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If someone has posted a proposal that&#39;s basically what you believe but you want to discuss alterations, that&#39;s a conversation for comments under that answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you really disagree with a post, then propose your own answer for that topic.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;The highest voted answer for each VTC reason will be accepted in a final meta post that will cross-link to the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6388/avoiding-worldbuilding-se-culture-shock?noredirect=1#comment19712_6388&quot;&gt;Welcome to Worldbuilding.SE!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#39;d like this to go 7-10 days with a roll-up to a usable new-user reference on or about the end of the month. Thanks!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6410</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>-2</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Request for Clarification: Real World Questions Requirement of Context</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6410/request-for-clarification-real-world-questions-requirement-of-context” /> <published>2018-07-13T04:51:42Z</published> <updated>2018-07-15T05:39:02Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;This was originally an &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6161/a-proposal-to-finalize-the-are-real-world-questions-on-topic-debate/6402#6402&quot;&gt;answer to the real-world questions discussion&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Consider the example of &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117891/would-a-diamond-layering-on-a-tool-be-more-efficient-than-iron-or-steel&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;L.Dutch said in a comment to the referenced question, &quot;I am missing the worldbuilding element in your question, it sounds like a hobby bob question, and as such better suited for the dedicated SE. Can you clarify the worldbuilding problem you are asking us to solve?&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The question was subsequently closed as off-topic:not about worldbuilding.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When I asked why and pointed to the real-world question discussion, Secespitus directed me to the following bullet point.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Provide context. Giving other users context around why you are asking the question allows them to better understand why you are asking and what kind of answer you want.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;emsp;I&#39;m requesting clarification of what &quot;context&quot; refers to in the above statement.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Position #1&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;emsp;&quot;Context&quot; refers to justification that the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;questioner&#39;s&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; purpose or intent is specifically worldbuilding.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;From my perspective (and as an example of my beliefs), this problem is solved trivially by including the phrase, &quot;I&#39;m writing a story…&quot; in the question. What does it matter if rationalization is provided? It&#39;s a superficial restriction that adds nothing to the question. It&#39;s only purpose is to give people a reason to close the question.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Position #2&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;emsp;&quot;Context&quot; is information or background supporting the &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;question&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and improving the opportunity to answer it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This makes more sense to me because it&#39;s about the question, not the intent or purpose of the questioner. This asks for technology levels, weather patterns, orbital circumstances, information that actually improves the question.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Concerning this issue there have been several comments:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&quot;I&#39;m writing a story&quot; is too shallow. What are you trying to achieve with &quot;X&quot; in your story? Why is it necessary to have it faster/more efficient? What&#39;s your goal in asking this question specifically here? The goal of this specific guideline is to know what the OP is trying to achieve to know what direction we need to go with answers and what the problems are that the OP encountered. Adding &quot;For a story&quot; is insufficient for this and does not help at all to understand the underlying problems of the question. &lt;strong&gt;Secespitus&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Yes, we must expect OPs to rationalize asking real world questions; otherwise, this site becomes a kitchen sink for any question. &lt;strong&gt;Aify&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Please consider that questions serve as a reference for other questions. They get found on google and if it&#39;s not clear what this is all about, all hell breaks lose. I wouldn&#39;t trust on this being called &quot;worldbuilding&quot; to communicate to everyone what the purpose is. I think this is a complex topic that should be dealt with in an extra thread. There are such cases and such cases, there are arguments for both sides, and this is a common issue, it would be nice to have this as a reference. &lt;strong&gt;Raditz_35&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;JBH&#39;s Perspective&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;emsp;(A) hard drive space is cheap, (B) My time isn&#39;t being wasted (why does anyone think their time is?), (C) Creating an environment of exclusivity is Stack Overflow&#39;s #1 problem. The culture over there is &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;wretched&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; and I&#39;m very much hoping it doesn&#39;t infect us here.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Frankly, we should either be all-in or all-out. Every loophole provided to deny people asking real-world questions will be used to negate the Moderator&#39;s choice to make real-world questions on-topic. If we&#39;re going to allow the &quot;context&quot; loophole&quot; (which I&#39;m seeing more frequently in comments over the last two days) we might as well make real-world questions off-topic.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Frankly, my problem isn&#39;t that they are or aren&#39;t on-topic, my problem is &lt;em&gt;consistency.&lt;/em&gt; This (and all other rules) should be simple and straightforward. There are too many compromises that only make life miserable for new OPs.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I&#39;d like to reiterate that. I&#39;m infinitely more concerned about the culture of this site and its willingness to be welcoming and helpful to new users as they learn how to write good questions than I am trying to protect what seems to me to be an effort to preserve the &quot;purity&quot; of the site. Honestly, who cares how many questions there are? Or whether or not some or many are low quality? Like I said, disk space is cheap and if you&#39;re offended by a question, move on to the next one (and I&#39;d like proof that the outside world would perceive us as a dumping ground of low quality information if we let people in and simply answer their questions). Do we actually think people will stop visiting this site because we&#39;re willing to answer more questions? or are willing to help people learn to ask better questions? How odd....&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6405</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>3</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Why is everyone suddenly so strongly against homework questions?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <author> <name>bendl</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/39583</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6405/why-is-everyone-suddenly-so-strongly-against-homework-questions” /> <published>2018-07-12T13:22:55Z</published> <updated>2018-07-14T18:47:04Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6161/a-proposal-to-finalize-the-are-real-world-questions-on-topic-debate&quot;&gt;This meta question&lt;/a&gt; has sparked a flurry of responses saying we need to get tough on homework questions being asked under the guise of worldbuilding. This argument has come up several times in the &#39;are real world questions on topic&#39; debate, and it&#39;s confused me the whole time.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It seems to me that this is attempting to solve a problem which doesn&#39;t exist. I&#39;ve been moderately active for about a year at this point and I&#39;ve never once seen a question that made me think someone was trying to circumvent the &quot;no homework&quot; policy of other sites. Worse, I can see anyone who doesn&#39;t agree with the no real-world questions using the homework policy to close questions they see as &quot;too real world.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The whole concept seems too implausible to me. I can&#39;t imagine someone getting stuck on a physics problem, asking on Physics.se, getting rejected and having their next thought be Worldbuilding of all things.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Have I simply missed some glaring examples? Is this actually a problem, or are people simply worried that it has the potential to become one?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6400</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>1</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Should we direct users whose question will be closed to the Factory Floor?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closed-questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”chat” /> <author> <name>bendl</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/39583</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6400/should-we-direct-users-whose-question-will-be-closed-to-the-factory-floor” /> <published>2018-07-11T11:43:10Z</published> <updated>2018-07-11T11:50:58Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;We get users here who really just want help writing their story, but don&#39;t understand how our site works. There are countless examples. While such questions don&#39;t belong on our site, I&#39;d still like to make sure the users get help. Should we redirect users who post questions that are too story based or too broad to The &lt;a href=&quot;https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/17213/the-factory-floor&quot;&gt;Factory Floor&lt;/a&gt; in the hope that they can work out their problem there?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6353</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>2</re:rank> <title type=”text”>How and why is my question too broad?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”too-broad” /> <author> <name>Karan Desai</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/25625</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6353/how-and-why-is-my-question-too-broad” /> <published>2018-07-05T03:27:50Z</published> <updated>2018-07-10T04:19:18Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;I asked &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/117154/when-super-mario-catches-pokemon-and-the-yoshi-dinosaur-is-none-other-than-char&quot;&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; question yesterday which was marked as too broad. One of the comment from @JBH stated this reason:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&quot;How to build a world&quot; questions are occasionally asked here. If the question is very specific they&#39;re left open. If the question is very broad they&#39;re closed. I&#39;m afraid there are a thousand ways to do this, which is why classes in creative writing exist.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I strongly feel that my question is misunderstood. My question in no way is asking about all thousand permutation and possibilities of creating a new world by combining various gaming worlds. I am &lt;strong&gt;specifically&lt;/strong&gt; asking about the possible roadmap, setting and starting direction in building my intended world, especially when cross-over worlds and ideas are overwhelmingly huge&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That&#39;s why I also used &quot;Worldbuilding-Process&quot; tag which clearly scopes my question. The &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/tags/worldbuilding-process/info&quot;&gt;description&lt;/a&gt; in the tag states:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;World building is a complex process that ranges from the enormity of the universe to the complex web of life in a particular location. Some created worlds are a &lt;strong&gt;minimum of information&lt;/strong&gt;, while others are rich in their depth and detail. Both methods, creating what you need and creating everything, are world building and &lt;strong&gt;equally valid/useful&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Whatever drives you to create a world, maybe you &lt;strong&gt;need a setting&lt;/strong&gt; for a book, a table top campaign, a movie, or perhaps a video game, World Building SE &lt;strong&gt;welcomes you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Before asking that question, I had also read the &lt;strong&gt;guide to worldbuilding&lt;/strong&gt; which is described in that same tag description.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;The first question to ask is what kind of world do I want to create? &lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That I already have described in my question. I wanted to create a new world based on already pre-existing worlds.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Approaches to World Building - The top down method and the bottom up method.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I was/am confused in picking &lt;strong&gt;the approach&lt;/strong&gt;, and that led me to ask this &lt;strong&gt;specific&lt;/strong&gt; (not broad) single question. What approach can I take, &lt;em&gt;How to sort and arrange the world properly&lt;/em&gt; I also received several helpful and great answers as well.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Where do I go from here? Jump in head first…or damn the torpedoes!&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Unless you are starting from scratch for the sole purpose of creating a world odds are you have a story in mind. &lt;strong&gt;This is the best place&lt;/strong&gt; to start because it helps define the world you want in some basic ways.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I also referred Help Center &gt; Asking &gt; &lt;em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic&quot;&gt;What topics I can ask about here&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;, which quotes this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a site for developers, designers, writers and artists &lt;strong&gt;to get help creating imaginary worlds&lt;/strong&gt;. This includes geography, culture and creatures for the world. Questions on this site should be &lt;strong&gt;about building settings&lt;/strong&gt; (for which I asked question about how to build one) and the reasons around why they are the way they are&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Lastly, a minor point about the comment quoted in the question &quot;&lt;em&gt;..which is why classes in creative writing exist.&lt;/em&gt;&quot; - I hope this was in no way intended as a provoke though it sounds little like that.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If the questions asking about getting started with a particular setting, approach or direction of starting with world building are Off topic on this site, then I seriously have misunderstood something - or either my question is wrongly put on hold.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I request anyone to clarify on this please.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6340</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>2</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Was this resource question closed because of the word &quot;best?&quot;</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6340/was-this-resource-question-closed-because-of-the-word-best” /> <published>2018-07-03T00:01:40Z</published> <updated>2018-07-04T21:11:21Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;I found this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/116904/the-best-tool-for-drawing-on-google-maps&quot;&gt;The best tool for drawing on (Google) Maps&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s been closed as POB. Was that because of the OP&#39;s use of the word &quot;best?&quot; &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I thought software recommendations were allowed so long as they &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic&quot;&gt;directly relate to worldbuilding&lt;/a&gt; and it would seem that something that could annotate Google for an alternative history would be on-topic.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6074</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>22</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Enough is enough. NOBODY can obey rules that are only in someone&#39;s head [duplicate]</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closing-questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”help-center” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6074/enough-is-enough-nobody-can-obey-rules-that-are-only-in-someones-head” /> <published>2018-05-03T00:27:11Z</published> <updated>2018-07-03T02:04:40Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;div class=&quot;question-status question-originals-of-duplicate&quot;&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question already has an answer here:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/3872/is-a-real-world-question-off-topic&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot;&gt;Is a &amp;ldquo;real world&amp;rdquo; question off topic?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;span class=&quot;question-originals-answer-count&quot;&gt; 5 answers &lt;/span&gt; &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Relating to &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/111173/how-much-energy-in-a-planet-of-antimatter&quot;&gt;this question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since when can a question be closed for poor quality? The two respondants to my challenge to justify the closure said that it&#39;s just a physics question (which we answer &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;all the time.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;) which isn&#39;t listed as off-topic in the Help Center. The ONLY rules I know of for justifying closure are those in the Tour and Help Center.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am completely in favor of modifying the Tour and Help Center to reflect tighter and clearer rules and expectations. I&#39;ve brought various issues up myself a number of times over the months I&#39;ve been participating, but it never leads to an actual change. I&#39;ve learned a great deal from the discussions, but &lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;nothing ever changes.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But without that change, the only rules we have are the rules listed in Tour and Help Center. Period.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;d tolerate using Meta posts if (a) there actually were meta posts that clearly and specifically explained the new rules, (b) those posts had any kind of visible consensus (like a well-upvoted post with supporting upvoted commentary as answers), and (c) those posts were regularly used to guide participants. The only example of this I&#39;m comfortable with at this time is the new, updated expectations for the &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2797/anatomically-correct-series&quot;&gt;Anatomically Correct&lt;/a&gt; series.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;However, it is nevertheless unfair and unrealistic to expect newcomers to abide by rules that are only in the heads of other participants or hidden somewhere in meta.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Which is a long way of saying, you can&#39;t close a question simply because it&#39;s a physics question because there is NOTHING in the Tour or the Help Center that says it can&#39;t be!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Either we need to figure out how to change the Tour and Help Center to reflect narrower rules or we need to live with the fact that those rules are what we have to work with.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Our closure process is too much of a moving target! Frankly, despite SE&#39;s basic custom of not requiring VTCers to leave justification for their closure &amp;mdash; and since we cannot trust VTCers to use the pre-defined justification according to the established rules &amp;mdash; then if you&#39;re unwilling to leave a comment explaining EXACTLY where in the Tour or Help Center your justification comes from, then you should be downvoting and moving on. &lt;em&gt;Not voting to close the question.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And to prove my point, the linked question was closed as off-topic because it&#39;s not &quot;about worldbuilding, within the scope defined in the help center.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Show me where in the Help Center you found justification to close this question. You used the excuse. Prove it.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Postscript: The downvote button&#39;s rollover states:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question does not show any research effort; it is unclear or not useful.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;…and downvoting is all it deserved. It violated no off-topic rule listed in the Tour or the Help Center.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Post-postscript. I found &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4043/why-is-worldbuilding-stack-exchange-so-good-at-answering-questions/4046#4046&quot;&gt;this wonderful analysis by moderator Michael Kj&#246;rling&lt;/a&gt; that I would like people to consider as they answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;hr&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;EDIT:&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;emsp; Please note that James closed this question both because it&#39;s a duplicate, but also because the conversation has matured and needed to shift to the new &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6161/a-proposal-to-finalize-the-are-real-world-questions-on-topic-debate&quot;&gt;moderator-driven perspective&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5991</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>10</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Magic is primarily opinion-based by definition, so what does a POB VTC mean?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”specific-question” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”vote-to-close” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”opinion-based” /> <author> <name>JBH</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/40609</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5991/magic-is-primarily-opinion-based-by-definition-so-what-does-a-pob-vtc-mean” /> <published>2018-04-12T23:06:41Z</published> <updated>2018-06-30T08:31:49Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;Considering the closure of &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/109369/is-magical-rapid-premature-aging-painful&quot;&gt;Is magical rapid premature aging painful?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And relating to &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5455/how-can-questions-be-closed-as-being-primarily-opinion-based-on-worldbuilding&quot;&gt;this meta question&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3337/what-exactly-is-opinion-based-and-why-do-we-shun-it&quot;&gt;this meta question&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Magic is Primarily Opinion-Based (POB) by definition. Without some idea of how to deal with questions tagged &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/magic&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;magic&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;magic&lt;/a&gt; we might as well remove every tag with the word &quot;magic&quot; in it and refuse all questions with magic as a basis.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;HDE 226868 commented in the first linked meta question:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;It&#39;s fine to have questions that are a bit subjective or opinionated … … but answers to those questions must be supported in some way - they can&#39;t just be pure opinions.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Further, Monica Cellio said in the second linked meta question:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Because even though there are often multiple correct answers to a question, we do want to be able to evaluate the correctness of answers.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Which suggests that the POB VTC should only be applied if the voter feels it&#39;s impossible to answer the question without some way of evauluating the quality of the answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The referenced question was asking about human aging and pain. I believe it fails the POB test because answers can cite actual physiological issues/facts/concepts to support their answers.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;However, there are &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/magic&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;magic&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;magic&lt;/a&gt; questions where only logic could support an answer. As a secondary to my actual question (happening next): is logic enough to &quot;support&quot; an answer?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt; Because I believe magic is POB &lt;em&gt;by definition&lt;/em&gt; and yet wholly appropriate for this site, am I wrong to assume that a POB VTC for &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/magic&quot; class=&quot;post-tag&quot; title=&quot;show questions tagged &amp;#39;magic&amp;#39;&quot; rel=&quot;tag&quot;&gt;magic&lt;/a&gt; can only apply to whether I believe no answer can possibly be supported by facts or logic?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5609</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>1</re:rank> <title type=”text”>Why are questions with multiple answers off-topic?</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”on-topic” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”close-reasons” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”closing-questions” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”scope” /> <author> <name>ghosts_in_the_code</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/5147</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5609/why-are-questions-with-multiple-answers-off-topic” /> <published>2017-11-18T14:18:11Z</published> <updated>2018-06-30T08:31:33Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;m basically asking about questions which do have short, objective answers, but it may be subjective to determine which is the best answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Like suppose mankind now has xyz technology, which industry is going to benefit the most out of it? Or why would three eyes evolve in a species? Or what is the best use of abc spells?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If enough details are provided, it will be possible to separate good answers and bad ones, however, there may not be a singular best answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Consequently the better and/or more creative answers will get upvoted.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that this is off-topic because it violates SE&#39;s single answer requirement. But sites like code golf do violate this principle to some extent, where multiple answers are accepted.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve seen some interesting questions get closed simply because there is no objective way of validating a single answer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Could someone let me know why sticking to policy and keeping big-list questions off-topic is better?&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> <entry> <id>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/q/6320</id> <re:rank scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com”>1</re:rank> <title type=”text”>If a question can be answered objectively, but has multiple equally valid solutions, is it primarily opinion based? [duplicate]</title> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”discussion” /> <category scheme=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/tags” term=”opinion-based” /> <author> <name>Ben</name> <uri>https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/users/42528</uri> </author> <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6320/if-a-question-can-be-answered-objectively-but-has-multiple-equally-valid-soluti” /> <published>2018-06-30T07:34:30Z</published> <updated>2018-06-30T07:34:30Z</updated> <summary type=”html”>

&lt;div class=&quot;question-status question-originals-of-duplicate&quot;&gt; &lt;p&gt;This question already has an answer here:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;/questions/5609/why-are-questions-with-multiple-answers-off-topic&quot; dir=&quot;ltr&quot;&gt;Why are questions with multiple answers off-topic?&lt;/a&gt; &lt;span class=&quot;question-originals-answer-count&quot;&gt; 2 answers &lt;/span&gt; &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A question may ask for a way of achieving or explaining something (e.g. A particular set of conditions on a planet, a physical structure, a course of action).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Solutions to the question are based on what would work in reality (or reality with some adjusted parameters). They are objectively valid or invalid, in that they either could our couldn&#39;t achieve the desired effect. They ideally should draw on the relevant field of science.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;However the effect can be achieved in multiple ways, and the question gives no criteria to rank valid answers. Is it therefore primarily opinion based? (or does that depend on how many possible valid answers there are?)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This question was inspired by this question: &lt;a href=&quot;https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/116649/reasons-why-a-mind-reader-would-not-disclose-their-abilities/116691#116691&quot;&gt;Reasons why a Mind Reader would not disclose their abilities&lt;/a&gt; , which I feel fits the criteria I have described.&lt;/p&gt;

</summary> </entry> </feed> ***