The Anatomically Correct Series has been a treasured Worldbuilding tradition for seven years. Some amazing questions and even more amazing answers have contributed to the series. But...
Back in 2020 a silly question about a character from Minecraft prompted me to write the following:
This is a place to help people build worlds, not indulge in whims. There are clear precedents in Meta that this forum is NOT for extending pre-existing or commercial worlds (which Minecraft clearly is). There are other forums for that purpose. I've noticed over the last 6 months a number of complaints that ACS is getting muddied by low-quality entries.
This prompted @L.Dutch to ask, "Should we narrow down the scope of the Anatomically Correct Series?"
Which led a number of us working with original poster TrEs-2b to create a set of enhanced rules that, we hoped, would return the ACS to the quality it once enjoyed. (It might not look like anyone but I created those rules, but there were discussions in answer and comments all over the place.)
Unfortunately, despite that effort, we have experienced an avalanche of terrible questions over the last two years . Everything from pure nonsense to stream-of-consciousness ideas that have been thrown out with less effort than is required to throw spaghetti on a wall. The ACS has become ridiculous, with an incredibly high closure rate.
Perhaps it's time we ended an era.
And it breaks my heart to recommend this. The ACS was pure worldbuilding! Taking a mythological creature as described by human hands and feared or loved in human hearts and asking the simple question, "how could this reflection of the human soul be realized?"
But a search of recent questions shows that, thanks to the voluminous and (and this is a very blunt personal opinion) massively low quality submissions by a small handful of users, it's right to consider this.
Question: Should we terminate the Anatomically Correct Series... while we still have fond memories of it?
The ACS page would be updated with a notice at the top of the page that NO NEW SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED.
The anatomically-correct tag will be updated to explain the termination and the fact that it can no longer be used.
If it's possible to close/protect a meta page, the ACS would have this done to it so that no one could edit it more.
We will actively close any question that suggests the goal is to realize an "anatomically correct" version of any mythological creature of any kind.
If accepted, a user's only option would be to ask for specific help developing a creature for their own fictional world. Period.
Upvote if you agree it's time to bring the ACS to an end.
Downvote if you disagree.
Comment if you seek clarification about the question.
Answer if you wish to add to the discussion, pro or con.
EDIT: It's worth noting that the meta post creating the ACS was necessary because questions about the evolutionary justification of human myths are intrinsically off-topic. Remember, the goal of this site (see the Help Center) is to help people create imaginary worlds. Their own imaginary worlds. Without the ACS Meta post to legitimize the presence of the questions, no "how could this human myth evolve?" style question can be asked and not closed.
This isn't the first time this has happened. This stack once embraced a Fortnightly Challenge. One of those challenges was concerning Santa Claus, which evolved into the current tradition of permissibly asking Santa-related questions during the Christmas season.
This question is asking if it's time to withdraw permission to break the rules, because all ACS questions are asking about something the poster didn't originally create in a world that isn't theirs.