Questions tagged [asking-questions]
For Meta questions asking for advice about asking questions on the main site.
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The Rules and the Worldbuilding Resources Tag
Background
A recent question asked about designing the biological sexes of alien creatures. Not surprising in our world today, the OP's original question used the word "gender," even going ...
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Advice: How to ask for a review of your idea
Periodically we see questions of the following form:
After reading the back story and my description of my worldbuilding idea, what do you think?
I'm going to call this question type a Review My ...
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How far can we push the term worldbuilding?
I don’t know how much discussion has been on a topic like this already, but allow me to explain.
The term "world-building" was first used in the Edinburgh Review in December 1820 and ...
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Is it ok to ask questions that don't have specific worldbuilding use?
Let's say that I was reading some article, and it inspired me to ask a question. However, this question isn't for any particular thing I'm making, it's just a question. In all other aspects, the ...
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How to make a "Fishing for Ideas" question fit on Worldbuilding Main
Being the most creative and imaginative Stack in the Stack Exchange library has a handful of disadvantages. Stack Exchange's basic behavior is to expect a single objective and answerable question that ...
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Advice concerning questions asking HOW to implement a technological procedure or device
Though not terribly common, there are occasionally questions where the querent asks either how to implement technology or whether or not their suggested implementation is viable, practical, feasible, ...
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Messed Up a Question
I confused two ideas when asking a question, and I want to edit it to reflect what I actually meant. But two people already answered and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that. Can I? I'd hate to spam ...
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Minimum necessary context for answering questions and interlinked questions on Worldbuilding SE
Something I've noticed recently on Worldbuilding SE is an increase in the number of interlinked questions that require reading the parent question in order to get complete context for answering the ...
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What am I doing wrong in this question?
I posted this question about cool-looking yet ineffective weaponry, and am confused as to why I have down votes. There are no close votes, and I'm 90% sure I'm following all the guidelines. It isn't ...
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When should I repost a question with modification versus editing an existing one?
I now realize that I've asked the wrong question here and was about to edit it to ask what languages I could combine to get the desired effect, but that's a pretty different question than how to make ...
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How do we get a cool popup when a question is asked?
I just visited SciFi.SE to post a "can anyone remember this book?" question when the most amazing popup appeared!
I want a cool popup like this! A popup with some concise, succinct, and ...
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My world is heavily religious. Why is it so hard to have a good question?
So at first, let's talk about backgrounds of my world:
God
In my world, God is not omnipotent. God gave up his omnipotency in spite of creating the truth values (Falsity and Truth).
He is still in ...
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"Am I asking too many questions?" Is it okay to ask more than you answer?
Context: in the Writer's Group subreddit, there's the rule that you have to critique, not just submit drafts/stories to be critiqued, which makes me think what I'm doing right now is very wrong.
If ...
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Exactly what makes my question too broad?
I recently asked the following question: How can I break down the task of designing alien commodities and items?
Very frustratingly, it currently has 34 close votes for being too broad. (It will very ...
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How can I make this question answerable?
This question: A large planet composed of all natural elements is created. What happens?
How can I make this question answerable?
Basically, I just wanted to know what would happen if dozens of ...
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Why Was This Question So Well-Received?
Contrary to most questions on here asking "Why was this question closed?" or "Why did I get downvotes?", today I'm actually concerned with the opposite.
Why was the following question so well-...
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People Keep Asking Science Questions
I've noticed that a lot of people are asking science questions without giving any kind of worldbuilding context. I have been guilty of this in the past.
It can be tempting to post a question that you ...
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Can we discuss a single character issues here?
How is this question about world-building and not story-building / story writing?
Can I hide one of my siamese twins heads in public?
It is tagged with creature-design, but it is clearly about ...
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I'm not understanding what is acceptable and not acceptable here
There was one question that I saw yesterday which I thought was very interesting, but I didn't think had a single definitive answer, If I travelled back in time to invest in X company to make a ...
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What Am I Doing Wrong?
I have asked a dozen questions now and have received negative feedback on most of them, with each question having at least one vote to close, and others getting down votes. I am especially frustrated ...
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Is a question asking for a method to generate ideas generally considered "too broad"?
Last thursday I asked a question here on WB SE:
How to come up with thoughtful positive & negative effect combos for magic items?
and it was put on hold/closed because it was considered "too ...
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Cultural Worldbuilding: How to avoid closure?
I'm hoping to encourage more questions about cultural world building, but cultural world building suffers greatly from being too broad, primarily opinion-based, and too story-based.
One recent ...
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How best to deal with "what are you expecting?" questions
From time to time I run across a question like this one1 where it appears the OP hasn't taken the time to think about what kind of answer he/she is looking for.
It's not uncommon for these questions ...
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What do we do with these messy questions?
Pertaining to On a tidally locked planet, would time be quantized?.
I think we can mostly agree that this question is super messy. I personally love the premise, but I wish there wasn't a giant wall ...
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Are geology, oceanography and metheorology planetary questions better suited for Earth Sciences Exchange?
I realized I could as geologist answer some of your questions about planets, but i am wondering if you would find better answers at ES exchange when they are not fantasy worlds as bloody oceans and so ...
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Why can't I put my own questions on hold - or have it happen automatically
Some questions are easy to formulate and can stand as they are.
Some are complicated. They tend to attract a mix of comments asking for clarification together with hasty answers that haven't been ...
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If I asked a question yesterday, but edited it today would it reappear with the new questions?
If I ask a question that gets closed for some reasons (lets say the question is too broad) and edit it to be more specific, would it remain as a question from a day ago, or would people see the ...
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Phrasing questions such that answers can be objectively voted upon
A Bit of Background
While reviewing Q&As at GraphicDesign.se for some insight I read this post about logo reviews. That post (which is trying to deal with the balance between subjective and ...
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Nitpicking - Good or bad?
Sometimes a question is asked and there are answers in the spirit of the question.
Usually there are also nitpickers in the comments who try to find every possible loophole. To close all the ...
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A good format for followup questions
As an example I'll use one of my own questions but there is no need to read more than its title to understand my question here.
My question was Greenhouse Planet Terraforming - Will a balloon jacket ...
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Is the World building forum less effective than using individual forums related to your question?
IE, if I wanted calculate a twin moon orbit for a fantasy world that revolves around binary stars, would it be easier to just ask the physics stack exchange instead of the world building stack ...
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How curious is too curious?
The fallout from Worse than zombies, part 1, has reminded me that I keep meaning to ask to what extent one can ask question about things they are curious about rather than issue they need answers to. ...
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Welcome to Worldbuilding.SE!
Thanks for joining Worldbuilding.SE! We look forward to stepping foot on your world and enjoying another world of wonder and excitement!
Our site is a wonderful place for creative and imaginative ...
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Catalog of Question Types
In an effort to start building consensus after asking: Enough is enough. NOBODY can obey rules that are only in someone's head, I'd like to start with what I hope will become a canonical catalog ...
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Is a question in a title only sufficient, or does it need to be reiterated in the body?
I was just looking at FrostFyre's comment against this question and it occurred to me that it's already articulated in a manner in which I would've written it.
I don't see any reason why the title ...
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Should speculative biology questions be asked on Worldbuilding or Biology stack exchange?
I've been wondering where the appropriate place to put questions related to speculative evolution should go. There is a very popular "evolution" tag, and nearly all questions found there are about ...
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About "Is this possible?" questions
Sometimes there are questions where someone asks
Is this thing that I just described possible/plausible/credible?
For example: No hunger cry from birth, is it plausible?
The big problem for ...
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How to handle successive versions of the same question with more specific or different context?
This question is due to this question on Worldbuilding, but concerns a problem that I think might be encountered often.
I've searched through a few relevant threads, including
On editing questions ...
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Rage quit, frustration as a factor in question removal
I've asked a couple of questions that have a number of answers that are useful but seem to miss the main point, even those that have been added after extensive editing aimed at clarification of the ...
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Where should a line be drawn on divergent evolution type questions?
I am trying to improve my question asking ability after my last question wasn't very well received. Also I think that this would be a relevant guide to point to when it comes to some of the ...
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How to ask a question about realistic names for different occupations/societal statuses?
Which name could a servant have? James, of course.
Which name could a farmer have? A middle-classman? An aristocrat? A bum? An old-fashioned snob? A spoiled daughter of a rich father?
Now let's move ...
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Lessons in writing Questions
There are other posts on offering advice for writing questions, such as this list of suggestions. This post is different: it will give detailed lessons worked out on complete texts, showing before ...
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How to make men relevant in a world where magic is gender specific to women?
I have a question that might be considered broad. The setting is one where only women can use magic. All females can access it through some training, some being stronger than others. It takes the form ...
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I need help editing this question about a hypothetical matriarchal society
I had asked this before and it was closed, so I would like some feedback on how I can narrow it down. In this worldbuilding scenario, pregnancy would be an active rather than passive process. A woman ...
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Can I resubmit a question that was closed by moderators?
I asked a question a few weeks back that was closed for being too broad. I have restructured the question to make it more specific. Can I resubmit it or would it be closed again for being a duplicate?
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Developing a concept throughout multiple questions
My method of developing a concept to a working piece of plotdevice technology
___________________________________________________
Original concept
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/
(repeat untill there are little ...
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Should I flag "Best way to ..." questions involving magic as "opinion based"?
"How to do something" questions are typical for most practical discussions. They are perfectly fine, until:
OP can actually do this and check if that does solve his/her problem
OP can see how many ...
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Two different cases involving a similar premise, should they be merged?
OK, now that I've posted the actual questions, I've deleted all the meta explanation.
Was it correct to split this question into two seperate questions for 1 and 2?
World where everyone can know ...
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Checklist for the perfect post - Idea refinement
The post is now created, using the top 10 questions as of the 25th of may '16. But you can still feel free to add your helpful questions for interested users (make sure to use the template below).
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How do I create open ended questions with subjective answers?
I wanted to ask an open ended question whose answer will be entirely subjective. But I think the question and answer would be beneficial to the site. This is technically something that should be ...
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