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Welcome to the staging ground for new communities! Each proposal has a description in the "Descriptions" category and a body of questions and answers in "Incubator Q&A". You can ask questions (and get answers, we hope!) right away, and start new proposals.

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Comments on Allowed types of questions for Worldbuilding

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Allowed types of questions for Worldbuilding

+0
−3

I like the proposal text and have actually very little to add. Should be a solid starting ground.

One concern I have is the general thing with "malformed questions".

I strongly advocate for not having a strict policy of "ask your question correctly or it gets closed". I would like to emphasize to focus on the "intent" of a question and ask back if there is something unclear. Also of course, creative questions, brainstorming etc. are welcomed (maybe with some focus recommendations like in Creative Challenges).

Thus, either such questions are handled directly inside the input queue or there should definitely be a sandbox for it.

Also see my posting on Proposals:Meta "Can I ask Worldbuilding questions here?", where I have laid out that thought in more detail (especially in the answer to that question).

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Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

Downvotes absolute DO mean something! (4 comments)
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+3
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When a question is open, people can post answers. If the question is not clear, and then gets adjusted during several rounds of discussion while people are answering, it's awfully hard to sort out what happened. You end up with a question asking how to do X with answers about doing Y and Z, about the relative merits of X, Y, and Z, and suggesting that X is the solution to your problem.

Closing a question while it's unclear and reopening it when the question has been clarified reduces the effort people spend on writing answers that are not, in the end, wanted. The value of a Q&A platform such as Codidact is that you see the question and its answers, as opposed to a forum where you see the original question, several threads discussing and tweaking it, and finally an answer to the revised question 200 comments down if you bothered to read that far.

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Closing as protection (4 comments)
Closing as protection
Antares‭ wrote 3 months ago · edited 3 months ago

I see your point and can understand the benefit of closing. Thank you for the feedback!

On the other hand I also know the "psychological" side of closing and the effects on users who do not understand "what has happened" now. They abandon their question once it got closed without proper message that closing is nothing "bad". Also closed questions would need to be promoted into a special queue or something so that more experienced users can react on those.

My point is: "Closing" does not imply "protected + you will get help" automatically. It implies "Go away, we shut you(r question) down, it is not worthy to be considered further, it is done".

I take your feedback as recommendation to put focus on the sandbox idea instead of a "not closing" approach?

Monica Cellio‭ wrote 3 months ago

The close notice does provide guidance. Maybe it needs to provide more or better guidance -- suggestions welcome (on Meta). For example:

This question cannot be answered in its current form, because critical information is missing.

This post contains multiple questions or has many possible indistinguishable correct answers or requires extraordinary long answers.

All close notices end with:

This question was closed; new answers can no longer be added. Users with the reopen privilege may vote to reopen this question if it has been improved or closed incorrectly.

Antares‭ wrote 3 months ago

Thanks for inviting feedback on the close messages. I will make a post on Meta about this. Or is there an existing one where I should post rather?

Monica Cellio‭ wrote 3 months ago

I don't know of one. A new Meta post is good, thanks.