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I have always felt that the "actual problems that you face" clause is generally a poor fit for SciFi and a few other SE sites.
I understand the reason for it, but I just feel that we're far enough from the topics of the sites where it originated that its value is diluted for us.
So I'd say that yes, "I'm curious" is sufficient justification for asking a ...
16
I would be happy with a policy that said it was askable when it's answerable. The only repeatable metric, for its answerability is its release date.
Otherwise anyone can say they have an answer, and that isn't verifiable.
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Several times in the past, an illegally-distributed copy of a movie turned out to be different than the final, theatrical release. The example that pops to my mind is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which had a nearly-complete-but-not-quite copy circulate around the torrenting circuits, downloaded (by some estimates) 4.5 million times before it was released to ...
10
Well, since no one else has offered a suggestion....
I suggest that our policy should be that in situations where the community has not been able to develop a clear consensus, we should err on the side of being welcoming to new users, and leave the questions open.
What determines a clear consensus, or lack thereof, is a bit harder to define. However, I ...
10
The only real "owner privilege" is acceptance (and unacceptance) of answer. Yes, that ability disappears if the question owner moves on. Nobody else has that power, and nobody else is going to be given it: see e.g. Moderators accepting answers on user's behalf after a certain time period and its many duplicates on main meta.
But that doesn't mean a ...
9
I believe these questions should be closed because they usually can't be answered and tend to encourage speculative answers. Arguably they're a special case of our existing "future works" policy. Both of the examples linked by the OP contain what I would consider speculative answers.
The exception would be questions that explicitly exclude the future in ...
9
I think there are a couple of ways to respond to this suggestion.
First, the most practical and immediately relevant: this is something you would have to take up with the Stack Exchange developers, and would likely need to be a code change, and would likely impact the entire Stack Exchange network. All to deal with a single, subjectively-assigned category ...
8
Yes, we should implement this.
The specific contents can be decided on in a separate question, but this would help. If nothing else, it would help establish guidelines for asking story ID questions.
Also, if tip boxes can be added to be shown by all tags, we could add one that instructs users to add story-identification if they have a story ID question, if ...
8
Per the Wikipedia entry:
Orphan Black is a Canadian science fiction television series […] starring Tatiana Maslany as several identical people who are revealed to be clones.
I haven't watched the show myself, but it sounds like it would be on-topic to me.
We already have a clones tag, so clones and clone-related media are certainly on-topic.
Otherwise, ...
8
In cases like these I usually just leave a comment with the correct information and a "You might want to edit your post" nudge. I personally do not feel comfortable editing someone else's question or answer to the point that the edits change the essence of the Q or A. Also, you could actually answer the question and include a correction of the wrong info ...
8
The question is now closed
How can this question about Inferno be asked on this site?
Anyone can ask any question they like on the site. The real question is why did no one flag or vote to close it as off topic when it was asked. The answer to that is probably no one thought about it too hard. The answerer has, however, commented the following:
Plus......
7
Sci-Fi May have this 'problem', but it's definitely not the only site that has it.
Arqade: Other than how to press buttons correctly, every other question on this site belongs in a GameFaq.
Anime/Manga: The same 'problem' we have here.
History: If we enacted this rule here, the only question would could ever ask is "where to find history?"
Movies & ...
7
You get this notification automatically when you've asked a question without accepting an answer.
If someone has answered your question correctly, in a way that solves the problem you had when you asked it, you're encouraged to accept it. However, this is not mandatory, and if nobody has answered your question to your satisfaction, there is no obligation to ...
7
This is a (well-)known bug, see my Meta Stack Exchange question Very hot network questions found. Staff is aware of it, but the priority is
Very low since it doesn't appear to affect actual functionality.
6
I would be a distinction between a work being available and a work being released.
A work being available just means you've seen/consumed it it; a leaked Star Wars movie, or an accidentally-released Harry Potter book.
A work being released means that the producer has decided to make it available in your region, as with Age of Ultron being released ...
6
This whole section of Stack Exchange, Science Fiction and Fantasy, is about works of fiction. That makes this site, among other things, a celebration of the hard work of many writers of fiction, along with the producers, directors, other crewmembers, and casts of the finished works. We depend on these people to create the content we love and on which this ...
6
I don't see a lot of questions, but I do notice that you phrase a lot of your questions as "what if" questions.
While I shy away from down-voting, the "what if" spin on a question forces it to be less constructive.
For example, your question regarding the result of a group-patronus cast in a sphere around a dementor. Your real question is regarding what ...
6
Book Popularity
The Harry Potter series of books have been accessed over a billion times (80-100M physical sales of each book + 200M digital sales and at least 50M illegal downloads).
By comparison, the Percy Jackson series appears to have sold less than 20M copies per novel.
That alone should explain the relative lack of interest.
Film Popularity
On ...
6
Accepting an answer means clicking the check mark button next to one of the answers to mark it as the "accepted" answer which "solved your problem". One purpose of this is to act as a signal that no further assistance is required, so answerers can focus on other questions. Another is to give a 15-point reputation bonus to the answerer that helped you the ...
5
If it's science fiction or fantasy, then it's on-topic here. Otherwise, it's off-topic. And if it's on-topic here, then it shouldn't be migrated or closed. The fact that a question may be on-topic somewhere else is irrelevant. (Indeed, another site that largely overlaps with this one is Movies and TV.)
On the Anime & Manga site, identification questions ...
5
I haven't watched it (yet! It's on my list, as I've heard it is pretty good), but my understanding is that human cloning is a central plot point throughout the series.
As such, I believe it is firmly considered on-topic here.
If Junior is on-topic, then this certainly should be.
5
That is a special text that the moderators add to questions that are generating useless 1 line answers. It is to encourage people to give thorough answers instead.
This is not something a regular user can add to their question.
5
It is.
This question has two separate issues, either of which would be sufficient for closure.
It's too broad. As noted in the question, there are innumerable possible technical explanations for artificial gravity, depending on the work. It's like "How do superheroes fly?" or "How does a sorcerer bind a demon?"
The way it is worded strongly suggests it is ...
4
Yes in effect these "owner privileges" are lost if the user simply up and vanishes. But then the user might not even use these privileges in the first place anyway. Lets look at each mentioned privilege:
Bounty: Anyone can award a bounty on any question provided they have the privilege and the question is eligible for a bounty so this isn't a &...
3
Also did you allow this question because the anime is related to Fantasy or Scifi?
Yes these questions are definitely within the scope of the site.
No we should not migrate all anime content to anime.stackexchange. If that we're the case it could be argued that it is equally fair to migrate all sci-fi and fantasy content of other sites to this one.
In ...
3
Note: All the numbers and ratios given in this answer were accurate when the answer was first made. Their inclusion here seems to have triggered some voting, though, so they’re probably all wrong by the time you're reading this.
If you define contentious not so much by total number of votes cast (up or down), but rather by the difference between the number ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
