Policy on questions about which genre or subgenre a given work is in?

Question

Back in 2011, in a long discussion which I still haven't read through fully to see whether it's up to date, it was decided that genre-classification questions were off-topic. Do we want to revisit or revise this policy?

What should our policy be today on genre-classification questions?

Note that there are two different types of such questions:

1. Questions of the form "Does X count as science fiction?" Current practice is to migrate these to meta, under the argument that they're exactly equivalent to "Is X on-topic for this site?"

2. Questions about subgenre, e.g. "Does X count as hard sci-fi?" or "Does X (clearly SFF) count as sci-fi or fantasy?" This recent example was again considered on-topic on meta and off-topic on the main site, but it was more controversial. In a comment on the now-deleted main-site incarnation, Jason Baker said:

   Why, in Aslan's name, should this question be on meta? It has nothing to do with site policy, either directly or indirectly, and its answer will have no bearing on how the site is run. Leave it here.

Such disagreement and controversy is my main reason for asking this question.

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EDIT: I'm tagging this featured now in the hopes of getting enough votes on the answers to get a proper community consensus. The motivation for this was the question How well does Inception fit into the Sci-Fi Genre?. Initially it was asked on the main site; I migrated it to meta since the (sort of) consensus at the moment appears to be that genre questions belong on meta (even though I personally don't agree with this), and it was promptly closed on meta as being "not about SFF.SE" (which is fair enough, IMO). I'm reopening it now since it's been edited to ask Why is Inception on-topic on SFF:SE?, but the issue remains of what should have happened to it if it had remained as a question of "Is Inception sci-fi?" Surely we, of all SE communities, should be able to provide a good answer to this question, whether on main or on meta.

Answer 1

Since rand decided not to.

"Is X science fiction/fantasy" should be off-topic on the main site

As pointed out in the question, these are essentially "Can I ask about X?" which is part of why meta exists in the first place. So to meta they go.

The problem I have with allowing these on the main site, and why I ultimately deleted my answer to a recent example (10k+ users only, sorry), is that in all but a small handful of cases, the answer depends entirely on one's definition of "science fiction" or "fantasy".

Even in some cases that seem quite unambiguous, there's room for debate. You can make the case that Star Wars and Doctor Who - despite both dealing with space travel, aliens, and advanced technology, and despite both being heavily marketed as science fiction and being taken as science fiction by most mainstream audiences - are actually works of fantasy.

They're interesting questions, but a bad fit for our format.

Answer 2

IMHO, most of the sub-genre classification should be off-topic, because they are impossible to answer objectively in non-trivial way.

• If the answer is based on a specific source (IMDB/Amazon/Wiki/Bookstore X classification), it's both trivia (who cares what that specific source says), subjective (we don't know their methodology of bucketing), and too broad/too narrow (if you restrict to 1-2 specific sources, how do you justify using those sources only? If not, there are too many sources to check).

  However, this has one particular counter-example listed below that should be an exception - when the specific source is the creator themselves.

• If the answer is based on some "common" definitions, it's subjective one TWO counts at once: first, those definitions are somewhat arbitrary/subjective themselves (why are Star Trek tachyon beams space opera but some other work's equally scientific thingy is hard SciFi?); and second because a large - and IMHO a majority - number of works aren't easily classifyable into seemingly objective clearcut subgenre "definitions". Are elves on a spaceship SciFi or fantasy? Or for more obvious counterargument, remember Arthur Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

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HOWEVER, there's one clear exception (there may be more).

Questions of the form "Did the creator bucket their own work X into genre Y" are both objective, answerable, AND interesting (and thus should be ontopic).

Answer 3

They could be on topic, but we have to be on the lookout for opinions.

Genre classification, even in very broad strokes, should be on topic. Also, they should be perfectly answerable. However, we should be careful not to let to turn it into a discussion about the genres themselves.

To ask if a certain work is considered hard sf, should be perfectly answerable by pointing to reputable sources classifying it as such, for instance.

But it should not be a starting point for a discussion about what constitutes hard sf, or that if sf is not hard, it's not sf, or ..., or ... In other words, primarily opinion based.

So yes, but.

Answer 4

Asking about subgenre classification of SF/F works should be on-topic.

If a work is indisputably SF/F, it should be perfectly fine to ask a question about what kind of SF/F it is. This is not a meta question, since the work is definitely on-topic. And it clearly falls within the area of expertise of our userbase here, namely SF/F experts.

Examples of questions currently considered off-topic which would be allowed under this new rule:

• Would Michael Crichton be considered “hard” sci-fi?
• Could the “Magician's Nephew,” by C. S. Lewis be considered science fiction?
• Are the Pern-novels by Anne McCaffrey and the Erna-novels by Celia S. Friedman SF or Fantasy?

Upvote if you agree; downvote if you disagree.

Answer 5

I see a more simple (but probably more controversial) way to look at this...

In the SE format, why does it matter what sub-genre is?

• If a user wants to determine if a work is on-topic for the site, then they should ask on Meta.
• If the work is deemed on-topic, they then can post questions on Main.
• Answers to these questions could be considered "Primarily Opinion Based" or even "Too Broad" as there could be elements of multiple sub-genres in a given work. Comments would likely devolve into quibbles over who feels what should and should not be considered part of certain sub-genre.

Ultimately, these types of questions would be better suited for forum discussion, which is not what SE is about.

Also, I do understand that this does matter to users here, otherwise this would not have opposing views to begin with. I am not trying to undermine anyone else's opinion.