user3269: I was reading what type of questions are allowed and it said clearly:

you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”

are not really allowed/encouraged. However, I wasn't quite sure if that meant every "hypothetical question" is disallowed. What if there is an answer to the question that has very high probability of being correct? What if even though it never happened in the anime, the question probably has an answered that could be backed up with detail events that happened from the anime?
The question I was thinking was:

If Pain got in a battle with Hashirama Senju, who would end victorious?

It is true that the question is (unfortunately) hypothetical since these two never had the please to fight. However, one could infer which one would win from different events in the show. For example, pain already fought two users of sage mode (jiraya and naruto), so there are things we could infer about who would be successful. Furthermore, Hashirama did battle madara with the rinnengan and we know the result of the battle, so we can infer further things. Etc, so it could lead to very interesting answer leading to better understanding of both characters fighting style.
Anyway, is that question allowed? Are all hypothetical questions plainly banned? What if they have potential to having very well backup reasoning from the show?

user2808: I don't think they should be disallowed. If you can base the answer with solid arguments, drawn from canon or from logic and sound application of scientific knowledge, it is ok.
If we were to disallow these kinds of questions, several great questions and answers would just vanish. This SE site is an entertainment site, so we can affort to be a little more lax on the subjective side than other sister sites, like SO.
So without any attempt of laying ground rules, I will list some examples of when I think its ok:

If the canon can support the argumentation for the answer, it is valid (like a Death Note rules what-if)
If it can be answered using real-world physics or other scientific knowledge, but outside canon, it is valid. Ex: How is Misaka's railgun so destructive?

The question need to set the ground for an answer that is verifiable; i.e. in the case of an hipothetical battle, even the fans of the defeated party would agree that he would be defeated in those conditions.

user1908: Okay, hold up.
As I commented on the question, I think that hypotheticals within a single universe are fine in some cases - namely, when the universe has its own internal logic that is reasonably coherent. Death Note is a stellar example of this, and there are surely other franchises that work reasonably well.
Similarly, questions that ask about real-world justifications for some anime thing are generally okay (a la How is Misaka's railgun so destructive?), since even if the anime's rules are wishy-washy, the real world obeys very clearly-defined laws, so we only have one source of uncertainty here. Granted, sometimes the answer is "this thing that happens in anime X is completely incompatible with the way the real world works because Y", but that's fine.
However, I don't think that hypotheticals that involve multiple universes - like Mindwin's question https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/19778/ - are ever okay. Both Mahouka and Code Geass have fairly coherent internal logic (for magic and geasses, respectively), and so I think that hypotheticals within either universe would generally be okay.
But when you mix them? Oh my god that's a horrible can of worms. Here's why:

We now have two sources of uncertainty, whereas in the within-one-universe and universe-vs-real-world cases, we only have one. This makes it drastically more difficult to consider how the rules of the two universes should interact. What exactly does it even mean for Geass to use psions to work? What is a Code in the context of the Mahouka universe's magic framework? Does the concept of "immunity" to passive Geass powers like C.C.'s even make sense?
Any universe-mixing question is going to have any number of points of uncertainty like this, and there's no obvious way to resolve them. After all, there's no a priori reason to expect the fictional laws underlying the two universes to be compatible.

This opens the door to "Can Flash beat Accelerator?" and "Can Goku beat Superman?" questions, which we absolutely do not want. (Right? This isn't a controversial point of view, is it?)

Tangentially, what value do these questions give? I'm not of the opinion that this site should be entirely about "problems you want to solve" like SO/etc are - amusing diversions are fine - but even so, this type of question still seems too far removed from the realm of useful questions.



3269: <p>I was reading what type of questions are allowed and it said clearly:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>you are asking an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>are not really allowed/encouraged. However, I wasn't quite sure if that meant every "hypothetical question" is disallowed. What if there is an answer to the question that has very high probability of being correct? What if even though it never happened in the anime, the question probably has an answered that could be backed up with detail events that happened from the anime?</p>

<p>The question I was thinking was:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If Pain got in a battle with Hashirama Senju, who would end victorious?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It is true that the question is (unfortunately) hypothetical since these two never had the please to fight. However, one could infer which one would win from different events in the show. For example, pain already fought two users of sage mode (jiraya and naruto), so there are things we could infer about who would be successful. Furthermore, Hashirama did battle madara with the rinnengan and we know the result of the battle, so we can infer further things. Etc, so it could lead to very interesting answer leading to better understanding of both characters fighting style.</p>

<p>Anyway, is that question allowed? Are all hypothetical questions plainly banned? What if they have potential to having very well backup reasoning from the show?</p>
 2808: <p>I don't think they should be disallowed. If you can base the answer with solid arguments, drawn from canon or from logic and sound application of scientific knowledge, it is ok.</p>

<p>If we were to disallow these kinds of questions, several great questions and answers would just vanish. This SE site is an entertainment site, so we can affort to be a little more lax on the subjective side than other sister sites, like SO.</p>

<p>So without any attempt of laying ground rules, I will list some examples of when I think its ok:</p>

<ul>
<li>If the canon can support the argumentation for the answer, it is valid (like a Death Note rules what-if)</li>
<li>If it can be answered using real-world physics or other scientific knowledge, but outside canon, it is valid. Ex: <a href="https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2235/how-is-misakas-railgun-so-destructive?s=1|1.0961">How is Misaka&#39;s railgun so destructive?</a></li>
</ul>

<p>The question need to set the ground for an answer that is verifiable; i.e. in the case of an hipothetical battle, even the fans of the defeated party would agree that he would be defeated in those conditions.</p>
 1908: <p>Okay, hold up.</p>
<p>As I commented on the question, I think that hypotheticals within a single universe are fine in some cases - namely, when the universe has its own internal logic that is reasonably coherent. Death Note is a stellar example of this, and there are surely other franchises that work reasonably well.</p>
<p>Similarly, questions that ask about real-world justifications for some anime thing are generally okay (a la <a href="https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/2235/">How is Misaka&#39;s railgun so destructive?</a>), since even if the anime's rules are wishy-washy, the real world obeys very clearly-defined laws, so we only have one source of uncertainty here. Granted, sometimes the answer is &quot;this thing that happens in anime X is completely incompatible with the way the real world works because Y&quot;, but that's fine.</p>
<p>However, I don't think that hypotheticals that involve <em>multiple</em> universes - like Mindwin's question <a href="https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/19778/">https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/19778/</a> - are ever okay. Both Mahouka and Code Geass have fairly coherent internal logic (for magic and geasses, respectively), and so I think that hypotheticals within either universe would generally be okay.</p>
<p>But when you mix them? Oh my god that's a horrible can of worms. Here's why:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>We now have <em>two</em> sources of uncertainty, whereas in the within-one-universe and universe-vs-real-world cases, we only have <em>one</em>. This makes it drastically more difficult to consider how the rules of the two universes should interact. What exactly does it even mean for Geass to use psions to work? What is a Code in the context of the Mahouka universe's magic framework? Does the concept of &quot;immunity&quot; to passive Geass powers like C.C.'s even make sense?</p>
<p>Any universe-mixing question is going to have any number of points of uncertainty like this, and there's no obvious way to resolve them. After all, there's no a priori reason to expect the fictional laws underlying the two universes to be compatible.</p>
</li>
<li><p>This opens the door to &quot;Can Flash beat Accelerator?&quot; and &quot;Can Goku beat Superman?&quot; questions, which we absolutely do not want. (Right? This isn't a controversial point of view, is it?)</p>
</li>
<li><p>Tangentially, what value do these questions give? I'm not of the opinion that this site should be entirely about &quot;problems you want to solve&quot; like SO/etc are - amusing diversions are fine - but even so, this type of question still seems too far removed from the realm of useful questions.</p>
</li>
</ol>
