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How's the interest for a Worldbuilding site? [duplicate]
Closed as duplicate by ArtOfCode on Aug 27, 2021 at 12:51
This question has been addressed elsewhere. See: Proposal for a Stories & Worlds Community
This question was closed; new answers can no longer be added. Users with the reopen privilege may vote to reopen this question if it has been improved or closed incorrectly.
I would like to propose a Worldbuilding Q&A site. This site would be similar to Worldbuilding SE and would be ideal for anyone creating a world, including: writers, game designers, and anyone else looking to fact-check the plausibility of their creations.
The website is primarily geared around:
- Checking to see if a given scenario is realistic/plausible
- Asking what would realistically happen in a given scientific scenario (based on supplied/known/theoretical science, not pure speculation).
- Asking how a desired effect/scenario can be achieved scientifically, with a given level of technology/biology
I for one used Worldbuilding extensively in the days before 'the incident', and I would love to have an alternative where I can pose my ideas and see if they are realistic before I include them in my writings.
Note: Worldbuilding by its nature blurs two lines: one is between what belongs on worldbuilding and what belongs on writing. The other is between questions that help others and questions which apply only to you. If we create this site, special attention should be given to the guidelines section in these two areas.
Since I'm no longer on SE, I don't have a group, but I'm sure others would be interested in this, specifically creative writers, game designers, and people interested in scientific application to theoretical scenarios.
Our existing Scientific Speculation mostly covers what would be on-topic at Worldbuilding stack exchange etc. The site c …
4mo ago
The Other Side of the Moebium It looks to me like Speculative Science codidact forum is going to claim the scientific s …
4mo ago
Please use this post to indicate your interest in helping to build this community. You can either edit this post (if yo …
9mo ago
3 answers
Our existing Scientific Speculation mostly covers what would be on-topic at Worldbuilding stack exchange etc. The site can also do with more attention. So rather than to launch a new community, I would strongly recommend to go over to that site's meta and raise discussion there.
If you can find a case for a "worldbuilding" question that somehow would be off-topic, then perhaps that site could do with an additional category for more subjective questions? It already has a Rigorous Science category which is supposedly the one that you should use when you don't want subjective answers but answers backed with sources and evidence. So the default already ought to be "subjective questions tolerated".
For questions about "storybuilding", creating fiction, fantasy worlds and similar, there's https://writing.codidact.com/ where such questions are likely to be well-received.
The Other Side of the Moebium
It looks to me like Speculative Science codidact forum is going to claim the scientific side of the geopoetical coin. This is good (though I really don't get the name -- speculative science speaks to me of what the future has in store for real world science). I'd like to propose that Whatever This Forum Is Going To Be Called take up the artistic side of the same coin.
WB.SE seems to focus a lot on general science and I notice that a lot of queries get comments essentially along the lines of "your scenario is implausible, because that's not reality works". Well, duh. Querent isn't asking about reality -- she's asking about a fictional world! That forum also seems to slightly downplay art and to more than slightly downplay creativity. Which is really kind of counterintuitive!
There is currently some beginnings of a discussion on storybuilding as a legitimate part of worldbuilding (I don't mean character development or plot determination, but rather, how the fictional world and the developed character interact to form the plot). And there has long been discussion and some tension on what constitutes "opinion based" queries.
I think we could distinguish this forum from both WB.SE and from SS.CD by embracing and treating seriously the fanciful, the opinion based, the artistic, the intuitive, perhaps even the literary. If SS.CD is taking science in worldbuilding seriously, then why not take art in worldbuilding as seriously?
Lots of questions at WB.SE seem to be really "basic", if you take my meaning. Like "can I have a unicorn cavalry in a Civil War setting". I'd like for this forum to bring that up a few notches. Explore the hows and whys, the wherefores and hownows. Consider the choices made as matters of art: what are the underlying meanings and significations? How do these choices mesh and create a deeper world? Where do we touch the transcendentals of goodness, truth and the beauty through geopoetical arts?
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