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Is Worldbuilding fit for Q&A?
There is one simple answer to this question: No. No, it does not fit into the current concept of Q&A. The topic of Worldbuilding is fundamentally different to probably all other possible community-sites, except Philosophy which faces similar problems. I concur and admit to all hardliners, that there is no way.
You can see this if you follow the StackExchange sites on those topics and have a look into their Meta. Also have a look at the number of closed questions in the main queue. And if you are willing, have a look at the comments of those questions and pay attention to the notion of "How can a question in philosophy be closed because of 'too broad' or 'opinion-based' ???" -- Or "How can a question in Worldbuilding be closed because of 'out-of-scope/not-worldbuilding' or 'opinion-based' ???
In other words: Worldbuilding:SE suffers from this Q&A-corset since the beginning.
There is a fundamental misconception I like to address here. Because if "we" (the Codidact community) cannot find an agreement on this, we can stop trying to build a Worldbuilding community at once here and now. Because the hardliner's view is right: Worldbuilding does not fit Q&A (in its current form).
The misconception stems from the differences of the following views on Worldbuilding:
- The Art of Worldbuilding
- The Rules of Worldbuilding within a Q&A site or forum
"The Art" comprises everything about WB. It does not restrict anything. It fosters creativity. It wants to have collaboration. It is entertaining. There can be no judgement about opinions, because every piece of content is existing purely out of the fantasy of an author's mind. There are creative heads who want to create their world, but maybe lack understanding in certain fields like physics, biology, sociology, maths, quantum-mechanics etc. They maybe just need a little nudge, another idea from a like-minded fantasy creative brain that bring them further. There are those who take joy out of joining in creating a world or providing feedback that one author alone would have never been able to come up with.
I want to emphasize at this point: The proposal for Worldbuilding is a proposal for "The Art of Worldbuilding".
I also want to stress: Users only have "The Art" in mind and therefore they come and post things "The Rules" do not allow.
"The Rules" are actually what is detrimental to "The Art". It is in stark contrast to everything "The Art" stands for. The hardliners who impose the higher goals of formulating and allowing only "proper" questions which bring a certain "value" in their answers are in fact destroying all the creative potential a topic like Worldbuilding (or Philsophy) inherently has.
So the real question here is not asking "Is Worldbuilding fit for Q&A", because it is not.
The real question is the other way round: "Is Q&A fit for Worldbuilding"
- Rephrased: Is the Q&A-system on Codidact fit for supporting the needs of those who want to follow "The Art of Worldbuilding".
- Is Codidact ready to deal with "The Art of Worldbuilding"?
There is actually only one answer to this: Yes. Codidact as a system and idea of a community is ready to.
Because the vision statement offers a flexible way of handling things:
- There is no one-size-fits-all Q&A system
- It offers specialized functionality, tailored to the needs of the community
- It puts people first, not the A, not the Q&A - the community of like-minded people.
- There are lots of ways to deal with the special needs of a community and even more could be found via "Meta" discussions later on.
The further question is: Can Codidact be held accountable for offering those things to a community of "The Art of Worldbuilding".
And the far more impactful question is: Is the Codidact community (all the members therein) able to support this and provide the space for it?
If the answer is not "Yes", if there is no readiness to adapt the system to the needs, but instead further trying to squeeze the needs into the system, then there is no need and no way for "The Art of Worldbuilding" to exist (here). In this case the hardliners have won. In this case nobody here needs to deal with "The Art". "The Rules" take precedence.
But think about it: The system of "The Rules prevail" is already existing over at SE.... We do not need a second one. With that I think we all agree.
I think we also agree that constantly questioning "Is it appropriate for Q&A" or to justify each and everytime "why Worldbuilding is different and cannot be treated as all the other sites" is exhausting and takes all energy out of the idea building. And I really would like to have an agreement early than have a discussion about it each and every time something "special" for Worldbuilding comes up (which would also pave the way for Philosophy for example). There certainly will be some rules to guide the content. But there will also far more possibilities to allow more content than now can be imagined. Alone the feature to have sub-categories is so powerful for that.
The final question therefore is:
Is the Codidact community willing/able to provide an alternative to the "Rules System" so the "The Art" can have a space to thrive?
1 answer
Existing communities that are different from standard Q&A
There are already several Codidact communities that cater to art and have different rules than might be expected in a question and answer site.
Code Golf
The Code Golf community supports posting and solving coding challenges, and has a Q&A category for questions about how to write challenges, and how to solve them.
There is also a Sandbox category, where challenge designers can post their draft challenges and get feedback and discussion about what could be improved and how different programming languages might be affected, so that by the time the challenge is posted in the Challenges category, it is already well tested and likely to be interesting to solve.
Writing
In addition to the structured Q&A category, there is also a Challenges category where questions are invitations to write something on a topic, giving the kind of open ended flexibility that looks like just what Worldbuilding could benefit from.
Photography & Video
In addition to a category called "Contests, Critique", which is in some sense similar to the Challenges categories of Writing, and of Code Golf, there is also a category called "Gear Recommendations", supporting questions that would likely be considered too subjective in a Q&A category.
Cooking
Cooking has a Challenges category, and a Recipes category, in addition to its Q&A category. This gives several very different ways of interacting in a single community. Recipes are just single posts, with no answers. Q&A supports specific questions seeking an answer, and Challenges is for more open ended invitations to be creative, again very relevant to a Worldbuilding community.
Worldbuilding will be what its community decides
There is already plenty of flexibility, in both the system and the communities of people here. As a body of questions, answers, and new types of posts gradually builds up, the Worldbuilding community will evolve into whatever it's going to be, quite possibly introducing even more flexibility along the way.
I get the impression from your post that you already recognise this, but that you still have an expectation of conflict. You don't need to. I don't see any enemies here.
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