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Source: https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/a/3378/976

Pureferret proposed the idea: add 'off-topic' category for 'News, and current events'?

Example questions:

This is basically the set of questins that legitimately would have been closed as "too localized" (in time) before that reason was removed.

Right now we have to close them as "opinion-based" as a kludge.

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  • I am fine with the idea, but I think we need to be somewhat careful with the wording.
    – Kevin
    Feb 15, 2014 at 3:26

2 Answers 2

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I'll start off with the following suggestion, though I'm not sure it's as inclusive or exclusive as we want. Suggestions for improvement are, of course, encouraged.

Questions asking for news or rumors about future works are off-topic as they invite guesses and speculation, and may become invalid if and when the work is released.

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    You should probably expand this with reasoning WHY they should be offtopic to convince people to support this better? Thx
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Feb 15, 2014 at 5:00
  • @DVK Added a bit more. Still open to suggestions
    – Kevin
    Feb 15, 2014 at 21:00
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    I'd suggest dropping "and will become invalid if and when the work is released" altogether, or at least changing the "will" to "may" - a guess may turn out to be correct, after all. My other objections to these questions are: (1) if the work is never released an answer can only ever be a guess, or (2) if the work is released the question is of interest for only a limited period of time. A third objection is that they steer this site in the direction of a news/gossip/rumours site rather than a Q&A site, but I'm not sure about a wording for that (if it's even needed).
    – user8719
    Feb 16, 2014 at 14:55
  • Thanks Kevin. You've just guaranteed that we can't ask anything about any work where the author isn't 50 years dead. I'm not carving answers into stone tablets, if something needs to be updated in the future it's possible... it doesn't even require my account or permission. We shouldn't reflexively be closing questions just because they don't conform to someone's ideas that have never made it into a meta post let alone site rule. Look at your objections a moment: you're upset that the question might never have an answer... how is anyone supposed to know this if they don't ask?
    – John O
    Feb 17, 2014 at 22:02
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    @JohnO this is still just a suggestion for wording. If you have a constructive suggestion as to how this should be worded to avoid some case, let's have it.
    – Kevin
    Feb 17, 2014 at 22:49
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I don't think we should. There haven't been a ton of questions along these lines, which ought to be a prerequisite for devoting one of our 3 custom off-topic reason to the issue.

2 points make a line, not a trend.

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    Agreed we only have two recent posts, but I have seen more than two in the past.
    – AncientSwordRage Mod
    Feb 15, 2014 at 17:06
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    Yes, there have been much more in the past. Certainly more than are covered by one of the existing off-topic reasons: scientific solutions without reference to a specific work. If there aren't enough of this kind of question, then there aren't enough of that kind of question either, yet a reason exists for that. So why not for this?
    – user8719
    Feb 15, 2014 at 19:53
  • So we can get more links to these past questions added to the OP.
    – user1027
    Feb 17, 2014 at 18:19

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