Timeline for Are one-sided answerable questions non-constructive?
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 9:30 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:43 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://scifi.stackexchange.com/ with https://scifi.stackexchange.com/
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| Jun 12, 2013 at 20:29 | comment | added | user11683 | Oops! I guess one would need a little more clever phrasing to actually develop a complete list from single-answer questions, but it is probably possible--though I think a violation of the principles behind good questions. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 20:23 | comment | added | user11683 | So would changing the question to something like "Excluding 1980s The Twilight Zone, what was the earliest SF TV anthology series with variable length episodes?" then make it OK? (Or would that then be "too localized"?) That seems screwy (even if one ignores the potential for repeating the question with a different exclusion and/or direction [earliest/most recent] to effectively develop a list). OTOH, community consensus does not have to make sense to me. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:58 | comment | added | user1027 | @PaulA.Clayton The asker likely doesn't know if there's a ton of examples. But it's in the FAQ because experience has shown this type of question doesn't work well in the SE framework. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:57 | comment | added | user11683 | Well, "earliest example" also assumes exhaustive knowledge. If some obscure Samoan author produced an earlier work, a wrong answer would probably be accepted. If the work is only available in a rare language and a hard copy in a remote-to-most-readers location, confirmation would be impractical. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:52 | comment | added | user11683 | How can an asker know beforehand that there are many examples or just a handful. (I suspected that there were 0--I admit I assumed Night Gallery was more horror than spec.fic.) If the question degenerates into a list question, it might be right to further constrain the question (temporarily closing it) or just close/lock it. The specific question got 1 answer with 2 examples and I suspect it will not draw a heap of single-example answers (only 62 views in a day). | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:51 | comment | added | user1027 | @Xantec Except the 'definitive' answer to this type of question is "yes" or "no" + some examples. There's an objectively complete and correct answer for the "earliest example" questions, which is something list questions lack. That's what makes list questions problematic; anyone can come up with a new example that others missed, and add it to the pile. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:45 | comment | added | Xantec | @Keen In practice, this question isn't different than the "what is the earliest example of X" questions that we have entertained. Both have the potential to generate "me too" answers, and if they do then a moderator can lock the question. The advantage that this question has is that once a positive answer is provided it is answered definitively, unlike the "earliest example" where it is possible that earlier examples can continue to be found. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:40 | comment | added | user11683 | This also does not address the general question of falsify/validate questions with one possible answer requiring exhaustive knowledge. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:39 | comment | added | user1027 | @PaulA.Clayton So what, in practice, is the difference between the two? How will your question not accumulate a bunch of "me, too" answers as people dredge up single examples and post them as new answers? | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:38 | comment | added | user11683 | Technically it is not a list question but an "are there any others" question. (E.g., I assume a question like "Did Tolkien write any other fantasies than LOTR and The Hobbit"--if not too "general reference"--would be acceptable. Is this wrong?) But I also thought short lists were allowed. How many SFF TV anthology series have there been? Of those only a small fraction (it seems/I guess) have variable length stories. | |
| Jun 12, 2013 at 15:28 | history | answered | user1027 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |