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Worse than zombies, part 1 examined one of two implications of the phrase "it could be worse; there could be zombies." It garnered a lot of attention, a slew of good answers and got closed in about 13 hours flat. Given it's closure and the speed with which it happened is it appropriate to even ask the second half of the question given that it is probably going to be open to the same general issues?

Part 2 would test the second implication; "If there are zombies the situation is as bad as it can get. Except by adding more zombies of course." in the same context as part 1.

Do note that that was the reception after Sandboxing the question for some time.

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  • I mean, is it relevant to building your world? If the first part was closed for being off-topic, is the second part more on topic? I think that whether or not you post it will depend almost entirely on what part 2 is and I’d be reluctant to make any arguments for/against without knowing that. – Dubukay Aug 28 at 0:26
  • I'm sorry but what is part 2? It's pretty hard to judge if a question is appropriate if that question is unknown. In addition to the other comment: How is it relevant to building your world? I believe you can ask basically anything here if you sell it in a clever way – Raditz_35 Aug 28 at 11:10
  • @Raditz_35 So sorry I thought that would be obvious but that was when I was typing this up in a hurry and half asleep, I have edited accordingly. – Ash Aug 28 at 11:14
  • How is 2 different from 1? If a situation is not made worse by adding zombies, it shouldn't be made worse by adding 2 zombies. Do you want to know about a situation that could be made worse by 1 zombie but get better with 2 zombies? I don't quite follow. In that case, you need to define how zombies interact. If that is true, it might stand a bigger chance actually. I would perhaps first really work on the question – Raditz_35 Aug 28 at 11:15
  • @Raditz_35 Part 1 says there are no situations that can't be made worse by the introduction of zombies. Part 2 says there's nothing that can make a situation with zombies appreciably worse. That's two very different criteria. – Ash Aug 28 at 11:22
  • So it's the same question but more vague? You want to know about situations that get kind of worse but no more than some unspecified thing? Maybe my English is not good enough to understand what you want though. I still think you should formulate the question first before asking if it would be a good fit. But as I said, it's all about selling it. Describe how it is relevant for building a world and you are ready to go - and nobody can check if you are lying or not. – Raditz_35 Aug 28 at 11:36
  • @Raditz_35 Clearly something is getting lost here, maybe it's my POV that's at fault, to me they are diametrically opposed questions but that's clearly not coming through. – Ash Aug 28 at 15:36
  • In my experience, if I'm too stupid to understand something, I'm not alone. Do you mean you want to ask if you can add anything else to a situation with zombies that makes it worse? That's a trivial matter, zombies are strictly worse at basically everything than regular people - so add an hostile human with a gun. If that interpretation is correct, the question might be downvoted heavily. As you can see, i think it is important to know the exact question to detetmine if it is a good fit – Raditz_35 Aug 28 at 16:07
  • Surely part 2 would take it a step further, the situations so bad that zombies would actually make things better – Separatrix Sep 4 at 9:52
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The premise behind asking the first question appears to be a matter of philosophy. If we step away from the philosophical discussion for a moment, I note that each assumption has, at best, a situational solution. This implies these issues are the concern of a plot or story, rather than the world in which they occur.

As far as whether you should ask the second question: Use your best judgment. If you know before posting the question will be closed, either post it first in the Sandbox to see if the community can bring it into scope or don't ask it at all. Asking a question you know will be closed feels, to me, unethical: It looks like you're trying to reap reputation without caring for the health of the site.

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  • Fair enough, this is slightly complicated by the fact, that I probably should have mentioned, that I did sandbox Part 1 pretty extensively. – Ash Aug 27 at 12:46

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