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The FAQ has boilerplate advice about questions and the area 51 questions are starting to get closed. I'm not really sure what to ask anymore.

I think this is the first site of this type, the most similar as of yet appears to be the RPG and board game site, but at least those sites cover game rules which can be a difficult subject with the depth and complexity of law.

I don't actually run into show stopping problems whilst reading a science fiction novel. It's not like, "Hey I'm on page 56 an I don't know how to get to page 57." (Unless it is a choose your own adventure). Hey, maybe that's what I'll ask next.

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2 Answers 2

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“Trivia” questions, that is, questions about a specific science-fiction work/series/universe, are consensually on-topic. Even googlable questions are appropriate.

The question has to be answerable in order to be consensually on-topic, which excludes speculation.

Most of the rest is in still debate.

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    Unfortunately, the SE moderators have deemed "trivia" questions off-topic (look through meta and they have more than once said that the site is not "Trivial Pursuit" and other such comments). They've also excluded anything that you can get easily from sites like Wikipedia and IMDB (i.e. many "googlable questions") - given that the set of Wikipedia editors and the set of sci-fi enthusiasts presumably overlaps a lot, that makes things hard.
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 21, 2011 at 0:42
  • Also unfortunately, an answer from someone like @Gilles ought to carry much weight (from the 1k+ rep). But the answers don't match the moderators, so really we need the moderators to answer this, not anyone else.
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 21, 2011 at 0:45
  • @Tony: This site is too new for reputation here to carry much weight (a lot of it is from questions that might yet get closed). At the moment there are no moderators other than Stack Exchange staff, who supposedly “don’t run Science Fiction - Stack Exchange. The community does.”. I get the impression that Google questions and Wikipedia questions are welcome: where did you read otherwise?
    – user56
    Jan 21, 2011 at 0:54
  • ISTM that people with a lot of rep already (like yourself) are exactly the right people to have weight, because you've demonstrated commitment (and expertise) right from the start. I am perhaps biased since I agree with nearly everything I've seen from high-rep users ;)
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 21, 2011 at 1:16
  • For examples, see meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/137/… (also comments from Rebecca in another answer) and meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/133/…
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 21, 2011 at 1:20
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I think that questions of the form "Is there a novel/movie which has this interesting/unique characteristic?" should be allowed.

As an example:

The answer of these questions can be a list or not (there may be only one answer) but even if the answer is a list I don't think that is something bad. As long as the characteristic of the work that is being asked is unique and interesting (something that its up to the community to decide), I think these questions add true value, and even partially correct answer to the question (for example in this one) can be helpful and insightful.

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  • These are all lists of indeterminate lengths, so I'm pretty certain that they would all be closed.
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 21, 2011 at 20:45
  • @Tony Meyer I think many question with multiple answers can become a list of indeterminate length, not only on this site but on any other. If I ask "How to solve X?" there maybe many methods on solving X, would you say all those questions should also be closed?
    – aaecheve
    Jan 21, 2011 at 21:40
  • @MatthewMartin I dont's see the problem, of course if I am asking a question is because I am interested in the answer, isn't this the case with every question anyone would ask?
    – aaecheve
    Jan 21, 2011 at 21:48
  • there many be many ways to solve a problem (i.e. answers), but each answer contains a single method. What is a good answer to your example questions? Is it one that gives a single example? Is it one that gives as many examples as possible? Should there be one answer per example, with as many answers as possible?
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 21, 2011 at 23:57

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