I want to ask in the context of the now-infamous gerrymandering question, which got removed because it did not do enough worldbuilding. It's not my question, and I have zero interest in seeing it put back on Worldbuilding.SE. I just want to understand the limitations, so that fewer of my questions get closed.
Summarising the question like this:
- What sort of proportional election system could have local representatives but prevent gerrymandering?
I am giving up trying to voice my own understanding of the reasons, since that always gets me bogged down in details and I'm always wrong anyway. Instead, teach me by example. Which of the following questions (if any) would be on-topic for Worldbuilding.SE?
- What sort of proportional election system could have local representatives but prevent gerrymandering? The country is populated by apes with the exact same intelligence and habits as humans.
- This is adding "Worldbuilding context" in the most literal and irrelevant form. The question is exactly the same, but now it's an ape country instead of an (implicit) human country.
- I have a country of intelligent apes who want to be locally represented but hate gerrymandering. What sort of proportional election system could they use?
- Variant on the above, turning the constraints on the question into constraints on the species; forcibly making them relevant.
- Could a country with local representatives but no gerrymandering exist?
- Same question, but asked with more speculation, and including a reality-check element of whether "society" would tolerate this system, therefore having it cover more than just politics.
- What are the weaknesses of a hypothetical political system with local representatives, each from a district, with each representative carrying a vote proportionate to how many people voted for them?
- The most upvoted answer to the original gerrymandering question, asked in a reality-check form.
- What sort of tank could my fictional country, situated in the desert and at war a nation across a river, use for their military?
- I consider this an equivalent of the gerrymandering question but applied to engineering: it asks for A (tank/election system), which can be hypothetical or already existant, for purpose B (attacking over a river/have local representatives), under restrictions C (works in desert/no gerrymandering).
- My goal is a fairer country where every citizen feels they are represented; how can I build a system to facilitate that?
- Broadening the question and contextualising it with the author's purpose instead of with worldbuilding fluff.
Many of these hypothetical questions would be closed for other reasons like being too broad, I get that. I do not intend to ask questions like these. I just need to know, for future reference, which ones of these - if any - qualify as worldbuilding.