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The first sentence of the site FAQ says:

Science Fiction and Fantasy - Stack Exchange is for questions targeted towards science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts.

To me, that should include speculative science questions such as this one (from the soon-to-be-closed Astronomy site):

https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/775/metal-dilemma-only-very-few-civilizations-per-galaxy

So, if such questions are on-topic, shouldn't we also look through "speculative" tagged questions on the Astronomy site and ask for them to be migrated over?

P.S. Considering that most science fiction enthusiasts like astronomy, we could conceivably justify subsuming the entire site, or at least the best questions from it.

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  • I apologize for the close vote. It helps if I read the whole question.
    – Beofett
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 12:08

1 Answer 1

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As per our discussion on chat, I think that we should only migrate to those related to an existing work. This is the only example I could find there.

The FAQ currently lists:

This includes questions about:

  • Plot, character, or setting explanations
  • Historical or societal context of a work
  • Behind-the-scenes and fandom information
  • Story identification
  • Franchise/series reading or viewing order

The speculative science questions doesn't really fit into any of these categories, but it should be noted that these aren't meant to be an exclusionary set of categories.

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  • Those were only given as "examples", nowhere does it exclude other topics that are "targeted towards science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts".
    – Donald.McLean
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 4:34
  • Yep, I agree. As I noted, "these aren't meant to be an exclusionary set of categories." However we already exclude questions because they're speculative. Speculative science isn't different just because it's science instead of sci-fi/fantasy.
    – dlanod
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 4:42
  • Why should it be excluded though? I am a science fiction enthusiast and AS such an enthusiast, I think that such questions are not only interesting but also represent a means of examining the scientific accuracy of SF novels.
    – Donald.McLean
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 4:46
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    Referring to "a means of examining the scientific accuracy of SF novels", aren't the questions we're talking about not related to SF novels, hence the discussion on whether they're on-topic? If the speculative science question is related to a SF novel, I think they're 100% on-topic.
    – dlanod
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 4:49
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    However, it appears that you are saying that a question "Is X possible?" would be on topic if I related it to a specific work but off topic if I did not. What if I'm thinking of a specific work and just didn't put it in the question? What if I'm writing a story? I think we should allow all speculative science questions, especially astronomy.
    – Donald.McLean
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 4:52
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    @Donald.McLean SciFi.SE is for SFF fans, not writers. If you're writing a story, you're in the wrong place: there's Writers.SE for that. If you're just curious about random SF tropes, you need to narrow down the context to something that's on-topic here (i.e., specific SFF works), just like you'd do on any other SE site.
    – user366
    Commented Apr 27, 2012 at 20:20
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    I think that it is a bad idea to limit our topic selection to specific works that are already published. Also, it seems exceptionally unlikely that Writers.SE is going to consider a speculative science question to be on-topic. Furthermore, I think that it's insulting to categorize writers as anything but uber-fans.
    – Donald.McLean
    Commented Apr 29, 2012 at 15:20
  • @Donald.McLean Personally, I think it's insulting to refer to writers as mere uber-fans: writing is a craft that goes beyond fanfiction. But that's neither here nor there: the issue is that while some writers might enjoy the site, our site's expertise is not in writing, it's in SFF works, and people here consider themselves to be SFF enthusiasts, not necessarily anything else (like writers). See "Why Can’t You Have Just One Site?" for more info about why SE splits itself up this way.
    – user366
    Commented Apr 30, 2012 at 22:17

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