How about revisiting our policy about "is there any" questions being OK?

Question

Since 2012, SFF's policy on "Is there any...?" questions is that they are suitable for this site; see How should we handle "any" (list) questions?.

However, in some recent comments, meta posts and chat discussions, I've seen several users voice disagreement with this policy, and few (if not none) express support for it.

Should this policy be revised?

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_{By design, this question is awfully plain and not sourced. This is because I am personally of the opinion that the policy should be revoked, and will elaborate on why in an answer; I'm trying to keep the question as neutral as I can, so that the votes on it can reflect a "maybe we should revisit the policy" feeling, and not be interpreted as "keep it/trash it" votes. These will be reflected by the votes on answers.}

Answer 1

TL;DR: I disagree that all "is there any...?" questions are suitable for this site, and propose the following:

• Close "is there any work featuring XYZ" questions as recommendations or too broad;
• Leave open "What is the first work featuring X" questions (no change here);
• Leave open "Is there any" questions which are set in a specific universe;
• Only if the querent can make a very good point, either in comments or on Meta, that their question doesn't have the flaws described below, the question can be reopened.

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The reasoning behind the current policy is a bit flawed

The 2012 answer which serves as policy today reads:

Strictly speaking, the answer to an "are there any..." question is not a list, but a "yes" or a "no". To be a good answer, an answer of "yes" needs to be supported by an example or two, but that does not make it a list answer, nor the question a list question.

The above is true, but flawed. First, as a comment points out, this doesn't make sense as in SFF's case, a "no" answer cannot exist:

How could you possibly answer a question like this with an answer of "no"? Absence of evidence is nothing more than absence of evidence. As a result, some of these types of questions would be fundamentally unanswerable.

And indeed, go provide evidence that there is no work with such a plot/feature/twist. There is too much SFF material to browse through; ironically, you'd be back to a list answer of "works XYZ do not match".

Just because it's not a list or worded as a recommendation, doesn't make it a good fit for the site

Generally speaking, large lists and recommendations have no place on Stack Exchange sites. The fact that answers to "is there any" questions do not fall under that category doesn't magically make them on-topic. Communities have some leeway to determine what is suitable or not for their site; this is why SFF allows identification questions, when Movies.SE does not. Point being, there is no upper-policy dictating those should be left open.

It can be abused way too easily

Granted, rules can always be tweaked in some way, but compare:

• "Please suggest medieval fantasy books with knights fighting dinosaurs": vote to close

• "Is there any medieval fantasy book with knights fighting dinosaurs?": leave open

Of course there is more to close-voting a question than just its title, but doesn't the above just look weird? Any recommendation question can be made on-topic by wording it as a "is there any" question and letting people post their favorite works as answers.

Granted, it can similarly be bypassed by asking for the first appearance of XYZ. But at least rating which work was "the first" is pretty straightforward: sort by date. It also has some value as a genre evolution type of information.

On "is there any" questions, there's no restraining new one-liners answers, meaning you could have a thread of "title answers" going on for quite a time, depending on how tropey the thing is. That's not, in my opinion, the level of quality I want to see on Stack Exchange sites; this is more suitable for platforms like Reddit or Quora.

2020 SFF is not 2012 SFF

Simply put, some people may have voted on this policy with the 2012 state of SFF in mind, and think differently now. Some of the users who wanted this policy in 2012 may be gone. Some new users may disagree with it.

Voting periodically on whether to keep or change something is a good thing. It lets people express their opinion and possible desire for a change; no policy has to be set on stone forever. It's like saying electing a President in 1983 makes them President for life; it's broken.

Also, pretty much all "is there any" questions seem to generate close votes and policy-reminders in comments, sometimes by folks who disagree with said policy but want to abide by site rules (I'm one of them). For instance, check the lengthy comments, revisions and timelines of:

• What was the first story to offer a spaceship landing on an oceangoing vessel? (2020)
• Is there any zombie story where characters heard the term zombie apocalypse before the incident? (2016)
• What was the first monster motivated by the need to replace worn-out or damaged body parts? (2019)
• African superheroes created by African writers? (2018)
• most of the questions used as examples in the meta policy at stake (irony much?)

And many others; the goal isn't to have an exhaustive list, it's to show that people are torn; I say let's vote again, to see what the current batch of SFF users want for the site.

Some "is there any" questions are fine though

All the examples linked to above have in common that they are asking whether something exists among all the SFF material ever created by humanity. That's too broad for you. However, I see no problem with reasonable "is there any" questions set in a specific universe, or written by a specific author, etc, keyword here being specific. That narrows the question's scope and avoids it being open to the above clutter. In fact, the community already receives those pretty well:

• Are there any machine or AI civilizations in the Star Trek TV series?
• Is there any forbidden technology in the Star Wars universe?
• Are there any instances of space marines getting a prolonged life?
• Heinlein works where slide rule is used to calculate navigation in space

Answer 2

It's clobberin' time!

This question wouldn't exist, except for the crazy culture of sophistry that permeates curation on SE sites in general and makes it exasperating for people to interact with them.

Early in my own interaction with SE, I got a little exasperated with history-of SFF questions, and analogous questions on other SE sites. I was tempted many times to write a sarcastic meta question titled

When was the last time a superlative was used to mask a list question?

but thought better of it. It became clear to me that allowing "what was the first" and other superlative request questions was some sort of compromise worked out in the early history of SE and it worked, so I left it alone. Now there's a proposal that will upset that balance.

When it comes to fiction, there is never any way to identify the true first appearance of an idea. There are plenty of early SF publications for which no copies survive. Some story ideas are list in the mists of prehistory.

[digression]In fact, it's too easy to move the goalposts by wording questions to allow mythological or religious works when the focus should be on published fiction. Of course, citing mythological or religious influences on a particular author would be part of a complete answer). There is a Mythology SE that is withering for want of questions.[/digression]

A similar thing happens with vaguely worded story-identification questions. A lot of sites have banned identification questions altogether, but SFF still allows them, because the detective work is fun.

This means that for many questions, there is no objective single answer, no matter how they're worded. It's disingenuous to suggest there is one, and changing the wording isn't going to change that. The result is that we allow a list of approximations as answers.

This is a Good Thing. It's a big part of what makes SFF fun.

Nonetheless, superlative-request questions are list questions in disguise.

What does this mean? It's the entire list question policy that should be reviewed if any policy is to be reviewed at all.

I see nothing wrong with allowing questions along the lines of "What are some good (early) examples of X".

Curation doesn't need to be overthought. Recall how Stack Exchange works: The best questions and answers get voted up to the top. Bad answers get voted down. If a "list" question gets too many answers, it can be protected.