Today I caught myself almost entering a downvoting spree.
Not because I was enraged, hungry or somehow ill tempered, but because some of the questions that I read were a bit... hard on my mind. I'm not posting examples for now, I'm not sure if they are needed.
It's not my intention to point any fingers, so to speak.
Well, to the issue.
From time to time, I walk around WorldBuilding reading what people are doing and casting an eventual comment about the content. I'm more of a lurker, so to speak.
Today, on my usual stroll around World Building, I found some... less than cohesive questions, asking information about worlds that... just don't work in the context the author wants it to work without some heavy hand waving.
I noticed that this sometimes happens because someone wants to build not a World, but a Story, and is asking about story elements without considering the worldbuilding elements per se. Those questions normally use "Consider that assumption X is true" or something similar. That's mostly ok, but... sometimes the "X" is something that makes the world, as proposed, be impossible or nonviable. I see that, if the author goes that way, his end result would be something that doesn't really helps the suspension of disbelief regarding his works.
I'm not talking about fantasy-based, crazy worlds that are, by design, weird, like Discworld ou Synnibar. I'm talking about worlds that are "Like Earth but with this critical thing different".
My first impulse when I see a world with such a impossible setting (let's say, a question that assumes that human evolution would be the same in a world with radically different parameters) is to comment the perceived problem pointing what I noticed that was a bit off. If the author keeps pushing his view as correct, and keeps asking for handwaving, I tend to just downvote and disengage.
I'm not sure if that is the correct way to go, tho.
Note that "impossible settings" are only a problem when the proposed world has realistic overtones - science-based, evolution-based, hard-science questions... things like that. Questions tagged with fantasy obviously are not in scope here.
How much... world cohesion should we expect from questions?