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In a recent discussion @Nosajimiki pointed out that the tag could be improved to help users. Currently the tag's summary reads:

For questions asking about the conditions which are required for the development of life as we know it.

and the wiki reads:

For questions asking about the conditions which are required for the development of life as we know it.

I can't help but agree that the above statements could be improved. @Nosajimiki specifically pointed out that the tag, which currently limits users to "life as we know it" could be improved by requiring the OP to specify the life in question.

How can we improve this tag for future users?

A summary of any positive-voted proposals will be provided here

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3 Answers 3

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In addition to removing the "as we know it" specification, I think it makes since to change "development" to "survival" since this tag is often used to ask if a world can be lived in by foreign life forms.

I think there are 2 key points to hit on. First is where the life is coming from. Did it evolve on the world, is it human colonists, is it biologically engineered to live here, etc. Then the other big detail to consider is what kind of life forms are we talking about. Answering the question, "Can humans survive on Mars?" is very different than "Can bacteria survive on Mars?" or "Can can ghosts survive on Mars". Obviously that last one will have more to do with internal consistency than following the rules of any known form of life, but it's still a valid use of the tag I think.

I also really like LDutch's idea for adding a default assumption, but find "life as we know it" to still be too open to interpretation.

So my suggestion is to change the tag to read:

For questions asking about the conditions which are required for the survival of life. Be sure to specify what kind of lifeforms you are asking about and where they came from. Lacking any specification, it will be assumed the question is asking if any form of life could naturally evolve on your world.

NOTE: I significantly edited my original answer, here's how and why

JBH's answer made some very valid criticisms of my original post.

My use of the word "sustainability" was better than "development", but still not ideal because it has so many possible implied meanings. So, I've amending my original suggestion from "sustainability" to "survival". I think we can all agree on what survival of life means without too much cultural or cognitive bias.

JBH and Elemtilas also did a good job of pointing out an issue with my original answer seeming like it pointed to hard at normal biology. My original answer asked about the complexity of a lifeforms even though some life forms may fall completely outside of this spectrum; so, I've changed it from asking about the complexity of a lifeform to what kind of lifeform.

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  • $\begingroup$ I like this definition a lot. Habitability doesn't really have anything to do with origin, evolution or development of life on a world. Sustainability is the key: are life forms able to exist, live, and perhaps even thrive on this world? I would recommend against adding any assumptions for two reasons. First, ideally, the querent needs to tell us what kind of life they're asking about. Second, adding that assumption negates your indication to "specify your lifeform's origin"! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Jul 31 at 6:28
  • $\begingroup$ @elemtilas It should not just be about the quality of the questions asked, it should also be about creating a good user experience that makes people want to use this platform. If you approach this from a UI/UX perspective, it's almost always better for an input to have a default value than to throw an error for a missing one. The more opportunities you create for a question to need to be closed, the more frustrating the stack becomes to use. The important part of improving tags is not eliminating default assumptions, but making sure we are all using the same, citable. default assumptions. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Jul 31 at 14:13
  • $\begingroup$ Agreed! Good user experience (on the querent side of things) can be much improved if they've got a good handle on the expectations. I also agree about having a default value: here, in WB at least, the "default value" is always and exactly whatever the OP writes in their question. As a respondent, this default value leads to a bad user experience. Certainly for those of us who like to answer questions, but ultimately for the one asking the question. Often, they feel like we're grouchy or unwelcoming, when all we really want is sufficient understanding of the querent's world so we can (cont) $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 0:08
  • $\begingroup$ (cont) actually write! Leaving something like the nature of a world's lifeforms blank means that I've got to go chase down details that the OP left out, I've got to consider whether the question needs to be closed for its own safety, I've got to consider other more experienced users answering the question before it's sufficiently written, and lastly I end up in here answering the inevitable "why was this question closed" discussion! So yes! There should be a default value --- and it falls to the querent to tell us what it is! Otherwise, we tend to limit ourselves to "the real world" and (cont) $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 0:12
  • $\begingroup$ (cont) "real science" for our answers. Creativity and fantasy are shunted to the side in favour of an increased realism. In this case, I honestly think you improved the tag perfectly. You improved the description of the tag and you placed the burden of setting the world's parameters where it should be, on the querent! That I appreciate! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 0:14
  • $\begingroup$ @elemtilas I think the issue is not the default assumption, its that I pigeon holed what kind of life should be specified by saying complexity instead of type. A default assumption in no way prevents a person from going off of a non-default specification, it just gets us all on the same page about how to handle questions where one person might perceive enough information to answer, and another perceives it as not enough. See my revised answer. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 1 at 14:27
  • $\begingroup$ I wouldn't have changed sustainability to survivability. But neither would I strongly argue against the change. Humans could "survive" on Mars, but not in a "sustainable" manner and the planet is definitely not "habitable". Humans can also "survive" on Earth, and there are places where this survival is neither sustainable nor exactly habitable. The issue here is that all of these words have a broad semantic range. I'd suggest that since the tag refers to habitability, which elicits images of a planet that requires little to no modification to the sophont environment, (cont) $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 14:56
  • $\begingroup$ (cont) sustainability was the better choice. I'm not sure what you mean by "cultural and cognitive bias", but mere survivability implies rather more modifications to the environment and / or more restrictions of freedom of movement within the ecosphere. Appreciate the change of complexity to kind! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 14:58
  • $\begingroup$ @elemtilas The issue with sustainable that JBH pointed out is the implied indefiniteness of it. Life on Earth is not sustainable given current human activities but it is survivable in its current state. We say that Earth is habitable now, but will be uninhabitable in the future. Likewise, a space colony is habitable even though it is an artificial environment that takes a lot of work to make life possible. Depending on how the OP defines the kind of lifeform will impact if modificating the environment is a consideration of habitability or not. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 1 at 15:18
  • $\begingroup$ I concur: sustainability does imply some length of indefiniteness. As does habitability! We can argue the effects of human activity, but short of utterly obliterating the entire planet, Earth won't be going uninhabitable any time soon. I also agree that it falls to the OP to define the conditions of the question! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 2 at 23:35
  • $\begingroup$ @elemtilas Habitable does not only apply to worlds. Spacecrafts, submarines, and arctic research labs are all habitable (or have habitable sections). These environments are only survivable for a short while without outside intervention. I say survival because it simply means you have what you need to not be killed by your environment, and that covers every use case of the word, not just as it applies to entire planets or ecosystems. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 5 at 16:12
  • $\begingroup$ No disagreement from me on that point. This is why I liked how you originally worded your modification of the tag! Even so, whether we're talking about a planet or a spacecraft, the conditions of habitability still have to be sustainable. You can "survive", for a brief moment, on the Moon; you can "survive" in a damaged spacecraft or an escape pod. The question habitability, though, becomes moot. The Moon and the damaged spacecraft lack the sustainability that might otherwise make them habitable. The escape pod is not designed to be habitable in anything like a long term situation. $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 6 at 4:59
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I would like to address the issue of "what does 'habitable' mean?"

I believe the OP should make no assumptions about the extent of a habitable (or sustainable, if you wish) something (world, island, asteroid belt swimming in oxygen...). Therefore I propose the following additional conditions.

No implied dependency on science If the user wishes a science-based answer, one of the , , or must also be applied. If none of those three are applied then habitability based on humanity's understanding of science is not obligatory.

The scope of habitability must be defined Are we talking about the habitability of a planet or the habitability of a tent? Of an Apollo-style command capsule or a tree ship? About atmosphere or water? One might think it's obvious that the OP should do this, but I've seen too many who either really haven't thought their question through or who intentionally leave things vague thinking it will give them a greater selection of options to choose from.

The nature of the habitability must be defined I'm not sure I'm a fan of "sustainability." It's being used in the context of "to sustain life" (vs. "sustainable renewable energy," which isn't quite the same thing). But what's needed to sustain an individual is quite different from what's needed to sustain a civilization. A medieval European society is sustained, among other things, with philosophy and religion (without them the society wouldn't be what it is). Thus, I favor "habitability." But even that has some problems. I believe the original intent was "questions asking what's needed for X to inhabit Y" and not "habitation" in the context of one's house. But must we be restrictive? If we expect the OP to explain what they mean by "habitability," the issue is resolved.

Therefore, I propose something like...

Questions using this tag are expected to clearly explain the following:

  • The specific and limited scope of habitability. Are you asking about the fertility of the soil or the life support of a ship, etc.?

  • The nature of habitability. Are you asking about the household living conditions of your creatures or the viability of colonizing an alien biome, etc.?

Finally, this tag makes no assumptions about whether or not you are expecting a dependency on science. If you specifically wish such a dependency, you must include one of the , or tags. Please read the tag wikis for those tags carefully.

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    $\begingroup$ Great minds think synchronously! I've got treeships in my own World! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 0:20
  • $\begingroup$ I don't really see how habitability questions can be anything less than science-based. How can you know if X is inhabitable by Y unless you delve into the inter-relationship between the biology of X and the properties of Y? Can you give some example(s) of why someone might be asking about habitability and specifically not want an answer based at least somewhat in science? $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 1 at 13:35
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    $\begingroup$ Nevermind, I just thought of a few examples where known science would not apply at all, and the question could exist entirely in an internal consistency context. $\endgroup$
    – Nosajimiki
    Commented Aug 1 at 14:04
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For questions asking about the conditions which are required for the development and/or support of life. Which kind of life needs to be supported shall be specified in the question itself. Lacking any specification, it will be assumed the question is asking about life as we know it.

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  • $\begingroup$ Verbiage is good, except for the assumption tacked on to the end,. The assumption defeats the purpose, as we are trying to get querents to formulate higher quality questions that don't require a broad variety of respondent assumptions to come into play. If the querent wants "life as we know it", then that's what they should ask about! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Jul 31 at 6:23
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    $\begingroup$ @elemtilas you know better than me that not all users care about reading the wiki of the tags they are using, and that not all users care about answering only well asked questions. $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch Mod
    Commented Jul 31 at 7:00
  • $\begingroup$ You're not wrong people's attitudes towards those things. Nevertheless, those of us who do care enough to work on these things should provide the best tag descriptions and wikis possible! Surely someone out there will read and actually follow the advice! $\endgroup$
    – elemtilas
    Commented Aug 1 at 0:18

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