5

Sometimes series (of books, movies, comics, etc.) can be very long or having some obscure numbering, crossovers, prequels, authors and so on ... but in the end, the order of publication will always be the most suggested.

So, is this really relevant to have this type of questions ? Is the tag "suggested-order" really necessary ?

1
  • Done! But I'm not sure about "numbering". I'm talking about Star Wars episodes numbers, for example (like the first one is number 4). I you find a better word to express this idea, please, do not hesitate to modify my post, I'd be thankful :)
    – Professeur Dronte
    Jul 3, 2018 at 0:43

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
19

Yes they are relevant

Highly viewed and voted

These questions are by far among the top questions and answers for votes and views. They bring a lot of traffic to the site so even if the answers "are always the same" (more on this later) the amount of traffic they bring in outweighs any downside in terms of what the answers content is. @Rand mentions more on this here.

The answers aren't always "publication order"

Yes this is by far the most common suggestion along with in universe chronological order but that doesn't mean that's the only answer. Taking the top 5 questions in the tag by votes:

The people want them

This was asked about initially and consensus was that these questions are fine. There was then a question on what tag to use for all different media and no one raised any concerns over whether or not these were on topic. Lastly, this was brought up back in 2015 and I would say that the answer there still holds true of today though I would likely be a bit more lenient on closing them as opinion based than that answer appears to suggest. To quote the conclusion:

To paraphrase a much better writer than I: objective and subjective have not changed since yesterday, nor are they one thing among and another among other tags.

If a question is asking for some objective criteria, as in my first example, then that sounds like a fine question to me; if they aren't, then they should be closed as appropriate.

Legend

  • Publication order: The order in which the works were published.
  • Chronological order: The order in which the works take place in universe.
  • Top answer: The top answer by votes on the question; not necessarily the accepted answer.
6
  • The Asimov one (bullet point #2) is chronological order, but not chronological order of publication as the question suggests these always are.
    – doppelgreener
    Jul 2, 2018 at 12:54
  • 4
    @doppelgreener Aye, I refer to "chronological order of publication" as just "publication order" in my answer and "chronological order" meaning "the in universe chronological order".
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jul 2, 2018 at 12:56
  • Gotcha. :) I mention this just because the 2nd point seemed to me to be written as a concession to the question, but now I realise I misread that into it. Cool beans. (You have my +1 on this anyway)
    – doppelgreener
    Jul 2, 2018 at 12:57
  • @doppelgreener Edited to add a small "legend" so this is a bit clearer anyway.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jul 2, 2018 at 13:01
  • 1
    I always prefer chronological order, and sometimes it isn't easy to figure that out. I've only asked two questions on this site and one of them is a reading order question.
    – Donald.McLean
    Jul 2, 2018 at 14:15
  • Note also that some suggested orders recommend omitting works entirely, and in some cases (shameless plug) this is both recommended by one or more of the creators and actually necessary for the storyline to make logical sense (e.g. because canon A diverged from canon B, and everyone agrees that A is better/more official/more important than B or vice-versa).
    – Kevin
    Jul 4, 2018 at 1:58

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .