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Questions tagged [questions]

This tag is for general questions about questions. Answers should be applicable to the vast majority of questions. Do not use this tag for questions on a single question, use the [specific-question] tag instead.

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54 votes
44 answers
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Inactive Sandbox 2014-2017

This sandbox got a little full, so we've created some more. You should still link to this one as we will update it whenever a new one is created. Current Sandbox: Sandbox for proposed Questions ...
ArtOfCode's user avatar
  • 10.4k
38 votes
0 answers
2k views

How to write the perfect question

Writing good questions can be difficult. To help you, the community came up with ten yes or no questions that will guide you and help you prevent common errors. Follow the links for more information ...
T3 H40's user avatar
  • 1,438
37 votes
1 answer
7k views

Inactive Sandbox 2017-18

In order to make the Sandbox easier to use, a new Sandbox question will be posted when the old one becomes too full. This Sandbox has been retired. You can check here for the full list of past and ...
DaaaahWhoosh's user avatar
  • 20.1k
37 votes
5 answers
7k views

Inactive Sandbox 2019-2022

This version of the Sandbox is now Inactive. The next Sandbox is: Sandbox for proposed Questions Questions still active on January 1, 2023 will be automatically marked abandoned and closed.
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
33 votes
5 answers
887 views

Real Life cannot be an overriding limitation on any question unless specifically requested

I have finally found the perfect question to kick-start this discussion concerning what I believe is a growing undesirable behavior on Worldbuilding How can the Sea of Japan be drained? The OP wasn'...
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
29 votes
2 answers
2k views

What's wrong with "idea generation" questions?

We now have a dedicated "Idea Generation" close vote/flag reason!! What does it mean? What is the problem with "idea generation" questions?
Shokhet's user avatar
  • 2,841
24 votes
5 answers
7k views

Inactive Sandbox 2018

This sandbox is inactive. Please visit the next Sandbox for Proposed Questions In order to make the Sandbox easier to use, a new Sandbox question will be posted when the old one becomes too full. ...
Bellerophon's user avatar
  • 5,899
24 votes
0 answers
238 views

Congratulations, Worldbuilding!

Congratulations, Worldbuilders. Today we hit a total of 20,000 questions on the main site! Good job on this milestone, everyone, and keep those questions coming!
Gryphon's user avatar
  • 11k
19 votes
3 answers
344 views

Should we have weekly topic challenges?

A long time ago (four months) on a site far, far away (roughly two clicks), a great suggestion was made. Jon Ericson came up with the idea of weekly topic challenges. For those not willing to make the ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 102k
18 votes
17 answers
2k views

Catalog of Question Types

In an effort to start building consensus after asking: Enough is enough. NOBODY can obey rules that are only in someone's head, I'd like to start with what I hope will become a canonical catalog ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
18 votes
5 answers
174 views

Can a [hard-science] question be a duplicate of a non-[hard-science] question?

I bring before the assembly Exhibit A, A cure for the 'Kessler Syndrome'?, tagged science-based science-fiction hard-science as of revision 1. That question was closed as a duplicate of Dealing with ...
user's user avatar
  • 29k
16 votes
1 answer
508 views

Hypothetical situations and broad questions

I am seeing alot of questions that are very broad like in case of X what would happen, or if the world were made of X then how would life evolve? I think we need to be extra careful to ask more ...
Chad's user avatar
  • 1,318
15 votes
6 answers
733 views

When and how to challenge the back story?

I was in the middle of answering this newly asked question when it was deleted by the author. It had been up for 30 minutes. I can't read the OP's mind, but I suspect the question was closed because ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
15 votes
1 answer
179 views

What the scope of Worldbuilding is NOT about

... taking any question that isn't accepted elsewhere. This should be a reminder, or refresher. These days, there are many questions about trying to set objective and clear limits for the scope of ...
clem steredenn's user avatar
14 votes
5 answers
519 views

How many questions here are really about worldbuilding?

Some of the recent questions on Worldbuilding have been interesting, and not just content-wise. Lately, we've had quite a few questions that seem (at best) tangentially related to building a world, ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 102k
14 votes
6 answers
457 views

How to deal with "funny questions"?

I am in nit-picking mode today. While my question about Christmas on Mars got great reception and loads of positive votes, and personally I totally enjoyed answering both questions about dining ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
13 votes
5 answers
212 views

When to use in-universe point of view?

Assistance to fight off a silicon-based lifeform was asked from an in-universe point of view, and another user added a comment to the question that suggested making the in-universe approach "the ...
Damian Yerrick's user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
341 views

How to approach worldbuilding ideas about gender and sexuality?

Recently I had a porn dream, which I wanted to put into a story. And then suddenly, instead enjoying porn/erotica aspects of the idea, I got myself into worldbuilding mode and asked a question about ...
Pavel Janicek's user avatar
13 votes
16 answers
4k views

Sandbox for proposed Questions

The Sandbox works best if you sort posts by "active" (click here to do so). Welcome to the Sandbox! This "Sandbox" is a place where Worldbuilding.SE users can get feedback on ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
12 votes
3 answers
435 views

About children and sex

It may be just me, but sometimes a question pops out describing a world that somehow justifies mixing kids and sex in the... "wrong order". While I think that people should be free to write about ...
Mermaker's user avatar
  • 9,104
12 votes
5 answers
185 views

Can we encourage people to put more research into questions?

There are many examples of questions that are perfectly valid and on-topic (in my opinion), but show very little research effort. I feel like some users are posting whatever comes to their mind on ...
ArtificialSoul's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
139 views

Any weird old tips for "clickbait" titles?

I was reading a response on the meta here about how "clickbait" titles are annoying to that user (sorry about this one's title, friend). I find that nonstandard titles are better at getting eyes on a ...
JGaines's user avatar
  • 1,027
11 votes
3 answers
175 views

Do questions HAVE to be for some greater cause?

I love this stack. I've just recently gotten into it and have been absolutely enthralled with the deep discussions and thought provoking responses that I've witnessed in my short time here. That ...
wposeyjr's user avatar
  • 1,200
11 votes
4 answers
104 views

How can we get new users to answer old questions?

Hear me out on this. It's not what you'd expect. On Worldbuilding, we have an extremely low amount of Unanswered Questions, typically hovering around zero.1 The longest I've ever seen a question stay ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
  • 102k
11 votes
4 answers
321 views

Should we narrow down the scope of the Anatomically Correct Series?

Quoting from JBH's comment on a recent Anatomically Correct Series (ACS) question This is a place to help people build worlds, not indulge in whims. There are clear precedents in Meta that this ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
  • 293k
11 votes
2 answers
102 views

Follow-up questions on question

I keep running into a lot of neat questions that really get me thinking about some of the stories I'm creating and I've run into a bit a conundrum. I don't want to steal credit for those who had the ...
Anoplexian's user avatar
  • 4,581
11 votes
2 answers
433 views

Dealing with sense of scale in space

One issue I've seen come up a few times deals with a sense of scale in space. People's instincts on what can and cannot be done are often off by not just an order of magnitude, but an order of ...
Cort Ammon's user avatar
  • 132k
11 votes
3 answers
129 views

Where are the questions on magic?

As of writing this, we have 330 questions. 113 of these are tagged science-based. Only 23 are tagged magic. Additionally, almost every question that isn't explicitly tagged either, could be seen as ...
overactor's user avatar
  • 5,575
10 votes
3 answers
213 views

What's the preferred reaction to "bonus points for..." addendums?

I did a quick search and we ususally see someone try to sneak questions past the basic "one question" rule by using a "bonus points for..." clause a couple of times a month. It felt like I was ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
10 votes
5 answers
867 views

Lessons in writing Questions

There are other posts on offering advice for writing questions, such as this list of suggestions. This post is different: it will give detailed lessons worked out on complete texts, showing before ...
JDługosz's user avatar
  • 69.6k
10 votes
4 answers
236 views

Questions about worlds with low maturity - What to do when a question cannot be answered right now?

EDIT: I've added a 4th point that I want help with 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 ...
Raditz_35's user avatar
  • 4,459
10 votes
1 answer
81 views

Worlds in development with deep background

A person building a world may have put in a lot of work, written a lot of background, and then become stuck with a particular problem that depends heavily on that background. If a problem is such ...
Monty Wild's user avatar
  • 63.8k
10 votes
3 answers
144 views

How to approach "the same as our world but with change X" questions?

I've noticed a lot of worlds described as our world, but with one change, like "our world, only gold is replaced with lead," or "like our world, only there's mutants that can see the future." The ...
Cort Ammon's user avatar
  • 132k
10 votes
3 answers
183 views

The difference between helpful editing and vandalism

In relation to How to play recorded music without electronics?. Over the course of time I have encountered questions where people other than the OP edited the question in an effort to resolve issues ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 128k
10 votes
3 answers
186 views

Should workarounds be suggested when the question implies an impossibilty?

The title is awful but I couldn't come up with a better one, feel free to edit What I'm wondering about is this: when presented with question such as this, this or this, where the answer is most ...
mechalynx's user avatar
  • 5,853
10 votes
1 answer
174 views

How do I create open ended questions with subjective answers?

I wanted to ask an open ended question whose answer will be entirely subjective. But I think the question and answer would be beneficial to the site. This is technically something that should be ...
Jim2B's user avatar
  • 28.8k
10 votes
2 answers
153 views

Does a world in a given question need cohesion?

Today I caught myself almost entering a downvoting spree. Not because I was enraged, hungry or somehow ill tempered, but because some of the questions that I read were a bit... hard on my mind. I'm ...
Mermaker's user avatar
  • 9,104
9 votes
6 answers
198 views

Please help review our oft-answered questions [closed]

The Community user, which neither slumbers nor sleeps, alerts moderators to questions that are attracting lots of answers. Sometimes this is just fine, even healthy, of course. Other times it can ...
8 votes
5 answers
305 views

How to deal with questions that are clearly not meant seriously?

Yesterday there was a question by someone implying the real earth is flat and how a round world would keep all the water on it. It has been heavily edited since. The original question was: Water on ...
ArtificialSoul's user avatar
8 votes
3 answers
311 views

What about my question makes it "not about worldbuilding"?

So far, my question Is there a credible way a shapeshifter could gain/lose body mass when changing forms? has received eight upvotes, one downvote, and two close votes (both as "This question does not ...
user's user avatar
  • 29k
8 votes
3 answers
95 views

What are the qualities of a great question?

After providing an answer to this recent site-favorite question, I got to wondering about what makes some questions so much more popular than others. As of this writing, we have 14 questions with at ...
Frostfyre's user avatar
  • 25.2k
8 votes
3 answers
209 views

What happens if a poster's assumptions invalidate their answer when clarifications are made later

I am aware of On editing questions and invalidating answers but this is different. In my thread Would low-grade levitation be of any use? I gave basic rules. As time went by I received a flood of ...
chasly - supports Monica's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
66 views

What makes a good "what would be the impact of X?" questions?

I see a lot of questions along the lines of "what would be the impact if X happened?" These seem to me to be skirting the edge of on-topic, even for our blessédly open-minded Worldbuilding site. So ...
user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
215 views

Challenging Questions' Premises

This is something I've seen cropping up quite a bit lately, and has made me pause and think. Sometimes questions are based on faulty or questionable premises, one such question would be this one, ...
Xandar The Zenon's user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
140 views

Should questions be as specific or as abstract as possible?

Because of Ash's question "How curious is too curious?" and the old "Is Worldbuilding a What-If Site?" discussion I came to think about how I present my questions and if my questions could appear to ...
ArtificialSoul's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
139 views

Reality Checking on questions not tagged "reality-check" | or ask questions differently?

In respect to the question here on Meta: Does adding context hurt questions? I was checking out that discussion because I think my most recent question (and, I feel like a lot of my questions) is ...
DoubleDouble's user avatar
  • 7,418
7 votes
2 answers
118 views

Can I ask questions based on a specific creature of my world?

I know that questions that are based on "Actions of individual characters, rather than elements of the world they inhabit" are off topic, but if I had created a specific creature, would it not count ...
Aify's user avatar
  • 19k
7 votes
3 answers
113 views

Do we want "effects" questions?

There is a type of question on this site, that asks something like "given these parameters, what would be the effect on society?" A recent example of this type of question was one Monty Wild asked. In ...
DonyorM's user avatar
  • 7,547
7 votes
3 answers
98 views

How to ask a good "Could X be built in Y:th century" question?

(I feel this is a topic for a meta question. I hope You agree.) A common type of WB question is the "Could device X be built in time/culture Y" reality checks. While those questions are certainly ...
Guran's user avatar
  • 5,361
7 votes
2 answers
50 views

What should our requirements on various "recommend me something" questions be?

See also Do we want resource recommendation questions?, Are software recommendation questions on topic? and to a lesser extent When are software-recommendation questions on topic?. As pointed out ...
user's user avatar
  • 29k
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