Why can't Worldbuilding be combined with Science Fiction and Fantasy?

Question

SFF and Worldbuilding overlap, as addressed by this question's answer. One site is "can it be done" and the other is "how was it done".

While I recognize that there are differences between the two sites, I want to argue that combining them would do more help than harm.

Pros:

• Larger database
• More skilled or knowledgeable users in one place, meaning more answers; while not all expertise required in both situations is the same, there is a clear overlap in users, and both sites share the principle of "explain this"
• Questions never deviate greatly from science fiction or fantasy ideas in either site
• Tags would categorize "existing" and "theoretical" and sort the two sites information successfully into one site with similar information throughout

Cons:

• Some information would not merge well, such as historical questions and meta for worldbuilding; that is where tagging would come in handy.

Side note: if you downvote please leave constructive criticism in the comments to help improve this question. You don't have to agree but help would be awesome :)

Answer 1

To complete Rory Alsop's answer, I'd like to respond to your list of "pros".

Larger database vs. better database

Big is not necessary a good thing and division may allow for better work. The two sites have very different databases:

• WB has 8637 questions, SFF has 35,022
• WB has 1 unanswered question and SFF has 1805
• SFF has around two times the number of registered users WB has.

From this, we may want to talk about a inclusion instead of a fusion. What perk is there for SFF to get some more off-topic questions? How would WB be better within SFF?

Though the same people may have skills for the two, the skills are not the same

Interestingly, you quote that overlap question. SFF is way below SO and just a few points over ELU. Moreover, we can see in the answer that the overlap is diminishing. To me, this shows an overlap of interest, not of skills.

A lot of SE sites can be summed up as "explain this", and as members of WB often get interested in SF and Fantasy, they don't try to see the same thing at all. It would be like stating that mechanical engineers and truck drivers do the same job because "it's about motors" (this is a pretty bad comparison).

Now let's look at the tags

I think comparing WB's top tags and SFF's top tags is an immediate way of seeing those two sites are completely different.

• WB: science-based, reality-check, then different fields of science.
• SFF: story-identification then different fictional universes.

It is obvious from browsing the tags that the two sites are totally disjoint in the question asked.

Also, those SFF questions are waaaay too story based :-)

Answer 2

The linked question doesn't cover

"would this work in my world?" and the other is "how did this work in this world?"

What the accepted answer on it says is:

Scifi.SE focuses on existing works of Scientific Fiction and Fantasy, whereas Worldbuilding is to help people who are developing worlds of Fantasy/Fiction in various areas

These are very different topics, and the expertise required in one doesn't seem to be congruent with the other. I don't see why you think combining them would help in any way.