4
votes

Plot-Inconsistency is now Plot Explanation

--TylerShads

With graduation coming up, it's time to get some of these old issues sorted out once and for all!

This meta question suggesting "nuking" is a year old. It had 14 upvotes, and a range of answers. One of the top rated answers, with five votes, was:

I think the subtle difference between the two classifications is "" is "why did X happen?" while "" is "how could X have happened?"

Now, whilst this was valid then, I know from hanging around this site and chat, this tag is often frowned upon as being unnecessary. After all, if something seems inconsistent in a plot, it requires explanation - so simply label it .

To get to the bottom of it once and for all, I'll add two answers - vote for what you want!

18
  • Well, to be honest I think to be one of the very few to take a disliking in that tag, so your impression might be clouded by the fact "that I'm a permant feature of this site". ;-)
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 15:37
  • possible duplicate of Let's nuke [plot-inconsistency]!
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 15:38
  • 1
    "Possible" duplicate my backside. It IS a duplicate lol! That's the point. A final end to the discussion, a year on, to see where the community is.
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 15:42
  • Well, you could also have repolled the old one. Maybe people from then and their valid argument aren't around anymore. We don't always need to start new questions just because we feel they aren't definite. When this one here ends with an activity level (votecount) of 3, would that be more definite?
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 15:47
  • @NapoleonWilson: It would be more modern. If I added a new answer to the old question and it got three votes, should that be counted higher than the older answer with five votes? Ultimately, if people want to be heard, they should answer/respond to the newest meta. If within thirty days this question has generated three/four/five votes, so be it. Go with it and get rid of the tag. That's my view anyway. I don't think duplicates should be allowed on the main site, but on a meta I think it's useful to gauge if opinions have changed over time.
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 15:49
  • And I just closed the other as a dupe of this one, so HA
    – Tablemaker
    May 26, 2014 at 16:26
  • @TylerShads: Woo hoo, thanks!
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 16:27
  • 1
    @TylerShads If this is supposed to be an official election with just 1 week of time, please make it featured (and be sure Community Bulletin has enough space) as soon as possible.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 16:54
  • "Possible" duplicate my backside. It IS a duplicate lol! That's the point." - Yeah sorry, I didn't even read this question thoroughly enough to realize that you were aware of and even referencing that other question.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 16:56
  • Don't worry buddy, I was very tongue in cheek in my response ::
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 17:35
  • Two things: 1) For future votes of this sort, I really think we should go with "count upvotes only". The current way of upvoting one answer and downvoting the other really skews the results.
    – magnattic
    May 26, 2014 at 18:06
  • 1
    2) If this gets finally through, we should go with the tag synonym solution (which I also proposed in the earlier question).
    – magnattic
    May 26, 2014 at 18:08
  • 1
    @atticae: I don't think it skews results. To me, it's clear that at this time three people have preferred one solution to another. I ask people to upvote one and downvote another because when I ask them to vote on only their preference, there is always someone who votes one up and the other down, thus skewing the results. Therefore, I felt it would be less skewed, more accurate if people gave their votes to both questions.
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 18:11
  • I think the best solution is to simply ignore downvotes on decision-votes like this one. They will still show of course, but only the upvotes go into the final decision. That's how some of the other sites do it, and I think its the safest option, because the results don't get skewed if someone forgets to downvote the other options.
    – magnattic
    May 26, 2014 at 18:15
  • 1
    @TylerShads if we have space issue in bulletin then remove chat meta question and add this in his place.
    – Ankit Sharma Mod
    May 27, 2014 at 6:01

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
6
votes

2. Nuke/burninate and label all questions involving plot discussion as .

Vote up if you agree, vote down if you don't. Note, if you vote this up, you should vote the other answer down.

4
  • 3
    Though, synonymizing rather than deleting would probably be the better approach for managability of both future and existing questions.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 16:50
  • How do you mean? My intended approach was anything currently labelled "plot-inconsistency" gets labelled plot-explanation and we then remove the tag from future use. Is that what you're suggesting, or do you mean something slightly different?
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 16:51
  • 3
    Instead of polluting the frontpage with thousands of old questions and risking a reuse of the tag in future, we should just make plot-inconsistency a synonym of plot-explanation, which will make the whole transition (and possible future ones) happen by pure magic from one second to the other.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    May 26, 2014 at 16:53
  • Ah, it never occurred to me that they was an issue. Never nuked a tag before. Good thinking.
    – Andrew Martin
    May 26, 2014 at 17:34
-5
votes

1. Keep tag and strictly adhere to it.

Any thing which is inconsistent, even if labelled as , gets changed.

Vote up if you agree, vote down if you don't. Note, if you vote this up, you should vote the other answer down.

0

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