Do we have to ask if all these works are on-topic or not?

Question

I don't understand why we're asking these questions over and over again, when our guidelines seem to be broadly inclusive. Most of the time when these questions are asked, the answer is a very firm, "Yes".

These are from this month:

Is Friday the 13th on topic here?
Is the Nolanverse Batman on-topic on SFF:SE?
Is Super Mario Bros on topic here?
Is Zootopia on topic on SFF:SE?

And going (slightly) further back:

Is Clash of the Titans considered on topic for Science Fiction and Fantasy?
Is "Penguins of Madagascar" on-topic?
Is League of Legends on topic?
Are Andy Griffiths's bum/butt books on-topic?
Are questions about Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" considered on-topic?

Those are from this year alone.

Here are the 4 similar questions that received a "No" instead:

Would The Jungle Book be on-topic?
Is Charlotte's Web on-topic?
Is *Lord of the Flies* generally classified as SF?
Is Zoolander sci-fi?

For further reference, over 150 of all meta questions are about what's on-topic. This makes it incredibly difficult to get an easy or consistent answer. Of those, 1/4 have been asked in the last 6 months alone.

Many of the answers repeat the same ideas or concepts, in different words or number of words, usually varying only to tackle specific examples.

This confusion seems a bit contrary to our standing policy, specifically:

This is a rather inclusive policy. I think being inclusive will generate less friction (better have a few questions that purists can just snub, than cause bad feelings by closing borderline questions). This isn't to say you shouldn't vote to close if you feel that a borderline question is on the wrong side of the border, but please explain your reasoning when you cast your close vote.

Several of these questions are being asked in meta after questions about the works already exist and have been opened plenty long enough for users to close them, which would seem to indicate that they're already on-topic per policy.

So are these questions really helping us, or are we just rehashing the same ideas over and over again, because what we have now is getting lost or hard to find?

When our answers are spread out over many questions, and reception on individual answers varies, it can confuse our general community stance. (Why does one "Yes" get +2 and another +20?, for instance)

Should we rewrite our existing policy to make it more clear, without changing the meaning? Can we make it more visible so users can easily get their question answered in one definitive place?

The information is already here, how do we make it accessible?

Answer 1

In theory, asking questions to clarify our scope is a good thing. The more the community talks about what is and isn't on topic, the easier it is for the community to consistently vote to close or not close questions. Having some examples to work from helps understand how to apply those rules. In particular, known where to draw the line (James Bond? Jungle Book? Watership Down? etc.) should help apply those rules in a similar way as new topics arise.

In practice, your impression is largely correct that asking about every new work that someone happens to find borderline maybe-off-topic maybe-on-topic is not productive. The number of minutes spent arguing over Zoolander or Friday the 13th dwarfs the number of minutes spent actually reading the sum total of all questions on those works. And in all but one case, a pretty simple application of our existing inclusive policy ends up being the answer.

(I dispute the Jungle Book conclusion, since as far as I can tell, Mowgli literally talks to the jungle animals, which is clearly fantastical, but I have not seen it so I can't object too loudly.)

These are not cases where people are arguing over classes of work -- spy-fi, horror, anthropomorphic animals, etc. They are, to be brutally honest, cases where people just decide for themselves that they don't like the scope rules and try to end-run around them by coming to meta.

Again, in theory, that's what meta is for -- if we're going to change the rules, here's where we do it. In practice, though, people don't really want to change the rules overall, they just want to make the case that this time we should bend them a little. I think we'd all be better off if we just relaxed a bit and let people ask their questions.

_{except watership down.}

Answer 2

Did we need to ask the scope questions above? Yes.

Each of the questions listed has a legitimate reason for existing, typically because one or more high-reputation user has questioned the right for such a question to exist on the site. The place to settle these sorts of debates is Meta using the scope tag.

In the case of Zootopia, for example, the first couple of questions in this tag attracted close votes. After the Meta question was asked (and answered), the subsequent questions have attracted no close votes for being off-topic. It would seem that once a consensus was reached in Meta, those who were minded to close accepted that ruling and have turned their fire elsewhere.

Do we need to ask about everything? No

As a community we've already decided that certain works and properties are so heavily immersed in scifi and/or fantasy tropes that every question about them is on-topic. Asking about the new Star Trek series, for example, would be worthless.

Answer 3

Not all the questions you linked to here are from veteran users. Half the ones in your recent 4 aren't (and the other half are from @Valorum, who likes to keep the conversation going). Also quite a few (though perhaps not half) of the earlier and rejected ones are from non-high-rep users.

While it would be nice if relatively new users would come to Meta, dig into its search and try to look for established policy, it might be a bit of an ordeal if all you want to do is do the polite thing and ask if your proposed question would be on-topic. Not everyone on Meta necessarily knows what the established, accepted policy is. I have no problem with Meta-n00bs (which aren't necessarily site-n00bs) asking "is X on topic" - this is one of Meta's primary jobs.

Of course, some of those questions are people who do know better who want to push for an exception, or a rule change, or just want to debate minor nuances of genrehood. But for those that aren't, I see no issue.

Answer 4

There isn't a need to ask these questions, although the only harm in them is the amount of time and effort that they take up.

Users should be aware that in most cases we're generally welcoming of new works being presented to us, whether it's recent works or not. As can be evidenced by the list of meta questions linked in the question, most of the time the works in concern will be acceptable here.

This means there's not a strong reason to fear the new question being rejected or poorly received because of the work it's about. Fear or concern shouldn't be the motivator here.

If you think your question will take more effort to write up than one on the meta, then it makes sense to ask on meta first. Keep in mind, though, that you may have just added more work for yourself, asking two questions, instead of one!

Of course, if you want to ask just to annoy me, that's a legitimate reason, too.