What makes the microfracture-on-a-spaceship question fit for worldbuilding?

Question

Question of concern: Microfracture in the ship's structure: good enough excuse to strand my characters?

Reading through the question, I noticed a great deal of "This is how I want my story to unfold." The question appears (to me) to be a plausibility check of the OP's plot and, more specifically, of the specific plot point that a rushed repair job left a damaged ship to be used for the story's mission.

However, the question's only answer at the time of this writing belongs to one of the highest reputation members on the site. So, maybe I'm missing some nuance that makes the question not about storybuilding. Or, as the answer's author notes in comments to his/her own answer, this question really is "into plot and character" and s/he jumped the gun on answering.

Community consensus on the matter?

Answer 1

For the record, I just voted to close the question. I voted TSB, but although applicable, I probably should have voted NAW.

Issue #1 One of the kinda regrettable consequences of a massively creative nature of this site is that we humans tend to answer questions we think are cool before judging them against our policies. I'm guilty of having done it. What's really unfortunate is (a) the practice breeds more questions that aren't on-topic and (b) it fills the site with non-worldbuilding questions.

Issue #2 I'm an advocate of the idea that worldbuilding (on-topic) is about rules and systems while storybuilding (off-topic) is about circumstances. This is what ultimately tilted the scales for me regarding the linked question: a rule of the world wasn't being discussed. Rather, the plausibility of a circumstance was being discussed.

Honestly, our help center is pretty clear about this:

• When asking questions keep in mind that the goal of the site is to help you build your world, not to tell your story.

• ...avoid asking subjective questions where ... you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if [X] happened?”.

That second bullet is, IMO, very important. It means reality-check questions (which, although not tagged as such, is what the linked question was asking for) must be/should be held to a higher standard of worldbuilding. In other words, they may be situational, but they must be about an actual rule or system of the world.

That's my 2¢

Answer 2

The difference between questions about stories and questions about worlds is not discrete. There is a continuum between them. Most of the time questions are in one extreme or the other of that range, but sometimes we get one like this. I don't inow if we can get a hard consensus on that one.

Now, phrased as it is, I think it's about a story. The OP wants microfractures to interfere with FTL travel. The mechanics for FTL are sci-fi'ed in the question, so it is completely up to the author whether the desired effect is true or not in their world. The question sounds more like "would this allow for suspension of disbelief" to me. I've left my VTC there.

Answer 3

While I concur with the two other answers, I will only note that, in comments, I am often (gently) reminded that "questions about the real world" are on topic. Fractures on a space ship comes down to materials science, engineering & physics. Separatrix offered a "real world" response.

I don't happen to agree with "questions about the real world are on topic", but it is an oft quoted maxim here. And that is probably the basic reason why such a question might be seen as fit for Worldbuilding.SE.

I think JBH et al. were correct in closing the question on grounds of narrative necessity. You want to strand your characters? Hey presto! Critical crack discovered in the Busman trusses!

Answer 4

Since I'm the answerer you refer to in your question I suppose I should make my reasoning clear. Where others apparently saw a story question, I saw an engineering question with a real world history.

A problem about microfractures in a stressed structure possibly leading to failure, with a mechanism for detection.

These are the factors I addressed. Microfractures are a reasonable source of failure, vibration is a reasonable way to detect them.

I referred the OP to story based rules when the comments went into why it wasn't detected in routine maintenance when this would be the normal way to find such a failure. Some aspects of the question were wrapped heavily in plot and character, but there was a reasonable engineering question to answer in there.