Questions tagged [discussion]

The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.

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Worldbuilding Site Design Updates: March 15

Thank you for all of your feedback and patience while we made design updates. Below are a list of updates and planned updates. Logo Based on the community's discussion, we've made some adjustments ...
Kurtis Beavers's user avatar
42 votes
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A note about us from the real world

Since we're a purely online community (well, I assume there aren't some of us who do meet in the real world), I thought it would be nice to share a piece of information I learned today concerning our ...
Frostfyre's user avatar
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39 votes
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How to write the perfect question

Writing good questions can be difficult. To help you, the community came up with ten yes or no questions that will guide you and help you prevent common errors. Follow the links for more information ...
T3 H40's user avatar
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29 votes
0 answers
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Announcement: AI generated content banned on Worldbuilding

Community discussion has been taking place on WB Meta concerning our position on AI generated content: Should we ban posts using ChatGPT or similar software? Because of the outcome of the discussion ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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27 votes
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Welcome to new moderators Michael and James!

Due to increasing needs and request for handling the load on Worldbuilding, we've been requested to get new moderators into the site. However, as it's not really been that long since your last ...
Grace Note's user avatar
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25 votes
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Congratulations, Worldbuilding!

Congratulations, Worldbuilders. Today we hit a total of 20,000 questions on the main site! Good job on this milestone, everyone, and keep those questions coming!
Gryphon's user avatar
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25 votes
0 answers
449 views

PSA: Please use those flags!

While it's still as true as ever that flags and close votes are not super downvotes (or even super delete votes; standard policy for moderators in response to "please delete this" flags is to decline),...
user's user avatar
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23 votes
0 answers
217 views

Published works based on questions/answers from Worldbuilding.SE

Has anyone published a game, story, or picture that's partially based on questions and/or answers from Worldbuilding.SE? The definition of publish is very loose -- it can include stories published on ...
user avatar
19 votes
0 answers
323 views

Case Study Series

As discussed in chat and based on Tim B's recent post , I'd like us to have a series of case studies, where various users of the site post their five top-rated questions (or any five questions of ...
DaaaahWhoosh's user avatar
18 votes
0 answers
224 views

The Sandbox will need extra attention

Today I discovered what I can only describe as the juvenile nonsense surrounding Monica Cellio's dismissal as a moderator. I've spent hours wading through it and almost coming to tears over it. No ...
JBH's user avatar
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17 votes
0 answers
220 views

Public Service Announcement: Don't edit out links from spam posts

Twice in a row today: posts flagged as spam, with no spammy content in them because someone edited out their links. Please, don't! Flag spam as spam and let the moderators handle it. I understand ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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17 votes
0 answers
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Call to Sandbox Duty

The sandbox questions donā€™t do any good if the proposed questions donā€™t get any feedback. Iā€™ve referred people to this sandbox, and the idea is to get better posts. For that to work we need to ...
JDługosz's user avatar
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16 votes
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Risk Factor Definition: Too Story Based

We're going to look at merging the "Too Individual" and "Too plot based" close reasons into "Too Story Based". Keeping in mind the discussions from Risk Factor definition:...
Tim B's user avatar
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14 votes
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2018: a year in moderation

It's New Year's Day in Stack Exchange land... A distinguishing characteristic of these sites is how they are moderated: We designed the Stack Exchange network engine to be mostly self-regulating, in ...
Shog9's user avatar
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13 votes
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We need more editors

How am I supposed to earn the badge for approving edits if the only people making edits are those whose edits donā€™t need approval?! :-) Ok... more seriously: I think more users in our community ...
SRM's user avatar
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13 votes
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So, about the swag

We've been asked by the moderators of Worldbuilding to investigate the current status of official Worldbuilding SE swag, given that the site has a design. We've gone to check with the design team - ...
Grace Note's user avatar
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13 votes
0 answers
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Worldbuilding SE is participating in Winter Bash 2015

Or, as they say, bring on the hats. We participated in the annual Stack Exchange Winter Bash 2014. Because everybody loves hats, we have decided to so again this year. Winter Bash 2015 will run from ...
user's user avatar
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13 votes
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237 views

So let's talk about burning the fantasy-based tag

But first... required reading, a question asked two days into private beta. We have come a long way since then and I think that we need to have a serious talk about what fantasy-based really means. ...
Mourdos's user avatar
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12 votes
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Call for action: realistic map wiki

I have noticed that quite often we get questions along the line of "I am creating my world, I have come up with a map, does it make sense?" You can find a list here These questions do rarely ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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12 votes
0 answers
378 views

Topic challenge: alien geometry

I propose an alien-geometry topic challenge. Its often hard to tweak the mathematics of a world (for example, you can't really make 2+2=5 in a reasonable way), but one way you can is by tweaking the ...
Christopher King's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
145 views

2016 Community Moderator Election

The 2016 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks,...
12 votes
1 answer
121 views

Should we rename [spaceflight] to [space-travel]?

While looking at my own answer to Space flight vs space ships?, and specifically the bullet list at the top, Spaceflight is about the process Spaceships is about the technology ...I was ...
user's user avatar
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11 votes
0 answers
291 views

Chat is back! The Factory Floor is once again open for business

Stack Exchange has historically distinguished itself from forums by following a very matter-of-fact philosophy: questions, answers, comments, and no chit-chat. While this helps folks get answers to ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
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11 votes
0 answers
261 views

Worldbuilding Podcast #01 - The Pilot (No Pressure)

The Worldbuilding podcast The Factory Floor has released its first episode, available now for all your nerd needs and subsequent complaints. Episode 1 has James as host, and sees our esteemed cast ...
James's user avatar
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11 votes
0 answers
122 views

Ontology of Question Types

With regards to the current discussions about "idea generation" and "what if" questions, I've written an ontology, or categorization of answer types. (Those with programming experience will ...
Green's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
206 views

Giving away upvote: is it doing any good?

I have seen that some users here are quite liberal in dispensing upvotes. I am generally not in favor of such liberality, but also not against it. Personally I give upvotes when I see something ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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10 votes
0 answers
124 views

My [neural-network] suggests to burninate this tag

While looking for tags appropriate for my new question I came across neural-network tag. Currently, it only have a single question (closed as off-topic) and no description. On said question, it doesn'...
val - disappointed in SE's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
160 views

Why migrate a question to a stack on which it is even more off-topic than it already was?

I asked this question some hours ago, a question which turns out to be more complex and have more implications built into than is useful, so it was closed, that's fine by me. But then it was migrated, ...
Ash's user avatar
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10 votes
0 answers
125 views

Proposed addition to "Anatomically Correct" to establish Q quality expectations for the series

With TrEs-2b's blessing, I propose the following be added to his Meta question, Anatomically Correct Series, for the purpose of helping OPs understand the minimum requirements for and expectations of ...
JBH's user avatar
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10 votes
0 answers
183 views

Please Don't answer and/or upvote ā€œbadā€ questions (yet)

Exhibit 1 12th vs 21st century archers in a battle to death, who would survive? This is blatently off topic and anyone with some experience here would recognise that WB is not for random fiction what-...
JDługosz's user avatar
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10 votes
0 answers
83 views

Popping balloons (Burnination request)

I propose that we Burninate the balloon-whales tag. As of the current posting, there is 1 question using that tag. I think balloon-whales is too specific a tag for WB. A combination of flight + ...
Aify's user avatar
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10 votes
0 answers
97 views

Should we merge 'water vessel design' and 'shipbuilding'?

The phrase 'water-vessel-design' (water-vessel-design) is really wordy; something like 'ship-design' would be a little better. However, we do have the tag shipbuilding (shipbuilding), which is An ...
HDE 226868's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
133 views

Worldbuilding Podcast #03 - Technology and Ewoks

Episode 3 is up! Thanks to Green, Nex and Art (Double thanks to Art since he does all the technical stuff) for making the podcast possible. In this episode we dream about what we would do with magic....
James's user avatar
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9 votes
0 answers
106 views

Can you help review the answers on this popular question?

We have a question that at the time of writing has over 30 answers (including deleted ones): Is there any job that can't be automated? With that sort of scale it's likely that excellent answers ...
Tim B's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
192 views

2023: a year in moderation

Itā€™s that time of the year again! As we wave goodbye to last year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here might be ...
JNat's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
116 views

2021: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
JNat's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
301 views

Why? What? A quick refresher on suspended accounts

Preface The main motivation for this is an explanation request received from a user after being contacted from a mod. Since the explanation for the user, which is the core of what is written below, ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
70 views

Please merge and perhaps synonymize [microgravity] and [zero-gravity] tags

We currently have zero-gravity and microgravity. As discussed in Do we need a micro-gravity tag separate from Zero-G?, in many situations these two are effectively the same thing. The tag wiki ...
user's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
124 views

Add feature to automatically add a notice to new questions

I added an answer to the question Can there be done more to assure users that closing questions is not a Bad Thing? and wanted to raise this as a new Meta-Post to discuss as Tim B and dot_sp0t ...
Secespitus's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
35 views

Tag synonym proposal: writing-systems -> language

Two tags are relevant here, language and written-material. Full tag wiki excerpts: language: For questions about the written or spoken language of a world. written-material: For questions about ...
user's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
134 views

Identifying incorrectly tagged [hard-science] questions

One of the more confusing things about this site is the hard-science tag. Looking through the meta site, there aren't a lot of clear policies surrounding the tag. One particular problem I have is ...
user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
124 views

Can we better welcome this first-time poster?

What would be the main reason to avoid providing confidential data to the police by a company? This Q starts with a note about being a first-time poster and not a native English speaker, etc. So It'...
JDługosz's user avatar
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8 votes
0 answers
66 views

What makes a good "what would be the impact of X?" questions?

I see a lot of questions along the lines of "what would be the impact if X happened?" These seem to me to be skirting the edge of on-topic, even for our blessƩdly open-minded Worldbuilding site. So ...
user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
70 views

Does "What are the implications?..." = Idea generation?

[To be clear, plenty of good questions are posed: "what are the implications on _____", or "what are the _____impliations?" I've got no problem with those. It's the un-scoped "what are the ...
nitsua60's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
91 views

2020: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the past 12 months. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange network ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 101
7 votes
0 answers
119 views

Is this vtc comment misrepresenting my actions?

I am wondering if the statement in the comment is correct or if it misrepresents the tiny edits and their timing? I think I've worked quite hard to not alter the question after the original post and ...
uhoh's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
95 views

2018 Community Moderator Election

The 2018 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks,...
7 votes
0 answers
167 views

How can a question be "Too Story Based" if there is no story involved?

This question is currently on hold for being too story based; What would be a realistic timeline for these prosthetic related events? But, the problem I am having is, there is no story in the ...
Noralie's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
43 views

2017 Community Moderator Election

The 2017 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks,...
7 votes
0 answers
80 views

World Building Podcast Episode #2: Aaaand Cut!

So we published Episode 2 today and though biased I have to say it is pretty entertaining. We chatted with Monica about her story, discussed questions from the site, built a world together and ...
James's user avatar
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