Highlights from 2016 – 3rd Quarter

Top Stats

Top Question

Why doesn’t Discworld run out of water? asked by Nathaniel with a score of 104. Runner up was Why doesn’t Hogwarts have more teachers? with 90.
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Top Viewed

What do the Death Stars do, other than destroying planets? with 16066 views asked by Koldito and answered by Rogue Jedi. Runner up was Why did Batman do so much better in his second fight with Bane? with 14765 views.

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Top Answer

Valorum had the highest voted answer for Why does Watney’s notebook in The Martian have four holes?asked by crmdgn with 196 votes. Runner up was Why doesn’t Discworld run out of water? with 188 votes (also by Valorum).

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Top Controversial

What is JK Rowling “bad” at?, with 13 down-votes to its 14 up-votes, asked by Skooba and answered by Valorum.

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Bounties

There were 13 bounties awarded (strangely all of them for 500 rep each) for a total of 6500 rep.

User Favorites

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Questions

I rather liked Nathaniel’s

and RedCaio’s

Answers

Tooting my own trumpet, I thought my answer to this one went above and beyond the call of duty

And I also rather liked my answer to this one (on the basis that there’s no kill like overkill).

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Questions in underappreciated tags

Part of my pledge to this site for a long time has been to try to popularise some relatively obscure tags (not necessarily obscure works of SF/F, but those which haven’t had many questions asked about them here on SE). As part of this, I’d like to promote a few tags which don’t have many questions but have had some good ones this quarter. Most of them are fantasy novels, because hey, that’s my thing.

  • Special nod to Fiksdal for helping to breathe life into this tag. Among his many good questions about this series, I chose the following one which hasn’t yet been answered:

When receiving thought-speak, does one know who else it’s addressed to?

  • I’m very pleased with my own success in this tag this quarter, with many great answers from Radhil, but here I chose a question which Radhil and I weren’t involved with:

Why did Humperdinck want to start a war?

  • Nod to Bellerephon and Adamant for helping to breathe life into this tag.

What is the ranking order of resilience?

  • This had a few questions this quarter, and I chose the most significant one:

How does Geralt of Rivia meet Yennefer of Vengerberg

  • Only one question in this tag this quarter:

Suggested order for the Redwall series?

Who is the dark man in the feather suit?

Answers which redeemed questions

Sometimes a question is posted which is very poorly received initially but gains more traction and upvotes after being redeemed by a great answer.

Apologies to anyone I forgot!

I always hate answering these “favourite questions and answers” posts, because I know that I’ll never be able to remember all the posts I particularly liked. Doubtless as soon as this goes live on the blog, I’ll remember more tags I should have mentioned, or more mediocre questions saved by great answers, or just some posts I really really liked which have slipped my mind for the moment.

However, perfectionism must at times be put aside for the sake of practicality. Yes, I’m sure there are things I’ve forgotten; but it’s better to have an imperfect list than no list at all. Thank you for reading.

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Questions

Given the apparent inconsistencies in the books, I had often wondered what Rowling’s opinion was.

This is that rare question that (a) requires a good deal of analysis, (b) is not primarily opinion-based, and, most notably (c) attracts enough interest to produce numerous high-quality answers. Definitely a cut above the rest.

This is a question that at first looks a little silly. Upon thinking a bit more about Star Wars, you realize that of course they had to have a name for every single thing in the movie, and it becomes kind of brilliant.

Let’s face it, I had never though of this. It should have been obvious from how few teachers they had, but it takes a special attention to detail to notice the many more subtle ways in which Hogwarts differs from a regular boarding school.

This is just funny. I would never have guessed what the cover art was going for.

Answers:

60 upvotes for a answer. Definitely worth noting. I guess Gattaca is one of those movies whose name is always on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

I didn’t think this could possibly get an answer, because the description was fairly broad, let alone a good one. Plus, it was Marvel Comics, famous for having a million contradictory storylines over several decades. Thaddeus and his encyclopedia knowledge of comics proved me wrong, though.

Another really good answer from Aegon. I would just have assumed it was something everyone knew.

I was wondering whether there was some meaning behind the weird names and titles of Cassandra Clare’s various series. Apparently there was a lot more there than I had imagined!

It’s always nice when an unusual question unexpectedly turns out to have a clear canonical answer.

Blog Posts

Review of the Duncton Chronicles by William Horwood

The Martian Novel by Andy Weir (Spoilers)

The Book of Deacon trilogy by Joseph Lallo (spoilers)

The Rise of the Red Shadow – Prequel to the Book of Deacon Trilogy by Joseph Lallo Review

by Rincewind.


Doctor Who isn’t really about time travel

A review of the Stonewylde series

by Rand al’Thor.


Fant4stic: A Review

by Rogue Jedi.


Coverage of Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration for SFF:SE!

Star Trek 50 Day 1: Gorn Santa bearing gifts, Leonard Nimoy memories, and a raucous Klingon talk show

Star Trek 50 Day 2: Ferengi fun, Whoopi Goldberg, and Klingon karaoke!

Star Trek 50 Day 3: New TOS footage, George Takei, getting candid with TNG and Voyager stars, and a DS9 documentary in the works!

Star Trek 50 Day 4: Captains Shatner, Bakula, and Mulgrew, Bakula’s talking to Fuller, more TNG stars, Walter Koenig, and Star Trek The Concert!

Star Trek 50 Day 5: Getting deep into DS9, Star Trek writers reflect on the TNG era, and the Star Trek Rat Pack steals the show!

by Praxis.


Jack’s Bad Movies – The Fifth Wave

Review – Star Trek Beyond

Coverage of Salt Lake Comic COn 2016

Salt Lake Comic Con 2016 Recap

by Jack B Nimble.

Question of the Week

7 thoughts on “Highlights from 2016 – 3rd Quarter

  1. (By the way, this post was possibly mis-filed under “Review”. Feel free to delete this comment if I’m wrong or after the categorization is fixed.)

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