Recently, a question has been asked about the differences between Minecraft and FortressCraft. To save you the trouble of having to click on the link, I'll copy the entire question here:
What is the difference between FortressCraft and Minecraft?
That's it. No context, no problem to be solved. Just enumerate the differences between Minecraft and FortressCraft. Pretty straightforward "not constructive" closure. In fact, there's an entire blog post about it, "Gorilla vs. Shark" (substitute "Google+" and "Facebook" for "FortressCraft" and "Minecraft"):
Google+ versus Facebook?
This is marginally more credible, akin to asking Gorilla vs. Human. Including two natural competitors means the question no longer smacks of the daydream absurdity of Gorilla vs. Shark. But it still utterly fails to set any scope or terms, and is thus virtually impossible to reasonably answer. Not Constructive.
Yet it's still open, with the reasons being:
I disagree - there are real, demonstrable answers to this question.
and
I agree—there's no reason the differences between a game and its clone (or a not-a-clone-but-come-on-really-be-serious-now) can't be objectively enumerated. If people behave badly in the answers and comments, that's what moderation is for. I don't believe that any "opinion, debate, arguments" in this case will be to the exclusion of good answers.
Whether or not a question can get answers is not the point, and we've lost our way if "it can have an answer" is the only criteria to remain open. That way lies madness it opens the door for equally absurd questions like:
- What's the difference between Super Mario Land and Sonic the Hedgehog?
- What's the difference between Half-Life and Quake?
- What's the difference between Dragon Age and Final Fantasy?
These aren't real problems: they're Mad Libs exercises: pick any two similar games, create a dichotomy and ask what's different about them. We could fill the site up in a day with inane questions like these, especially since there is no throttle—in the form of providing context—to asking them.
As "Gorilla vs. Shark" concludes:
The asker must contribute a bit more work beyond the title, too. We expect questions to do some basic research before even asking. Did you spend time with both features on both sites? Did you compare and contrast them yourself? What are others saying? Share your research! And most critically, give us context. Explain why you’re looking at this, and what you mean by “better” — clicks to share, discoverability, design, and so forth. Put yourself in the shoes of the people you hope will answer. Have you given them enough guidance and specifics so they know how to reasonably answer your question in, say, 15 minutes?
Please put this question out of its misery. This is not the type of question we on Gaming.SE should be lowering ourselves to.