Used when seeking review of a complete/detailed worldbuilding construction (the "idea"). Incomplete ideas or those lacking details will be closed. The only question: a request for the review. Any other questions will result in closure as Needs More Focus. These questions are permitted to violate specific Help Center prohibitions. Users are expected to up/down vote based on question, not idea, quality. It is strongly recommended to review this tag's wiki.
Use this tag to identify your question as a Review-My-Idea Question (RMIQ). Traditionally, RMIQs violate a number of Help Center prohibitions including, but not limited to, being open-ended, opinion-based, and leading to all answers having equal value. Questions using this tag may not be closed for violating those prohibitions, but may be closed for violating others (notably being too broad, AKA violating the Book Rule).
This tag implies the worldbuilding-process tag.
Posts inviting a review of a worldbuilding construction (the "idea") must conform to the following:
Complete and Detailed: The presented idea must be complete and detailed. This does not mean you may only present your entire world (see Scope:, below). No matter how large or small, if the idea is incomplete or lacking details (especially if the purpose of the review is to resolve known weaknesses or fill in missing concepts), then this tag cannot be used (the question shall be closed as Needs More Details). Worldbuilding constructs needing help resolving weaknesses or missing information must be asked as normal, non-review questions and this tag shall be arbitrarily removed if such is the case.
There is Only One Question: The presented idea may only be presented for a review. Therefore, there is only one question that may be asked: a request to review the idea. In keeping with Stack Exchange's rules, posts that have multiple questions ("What about A? What about B? What about C?") such that they're asking about divergent possibilities of the idea will be closed as Needs More Focus.
Goals and Conditions Required: The querent is required to explain the goals of the review and any limiting expectations.
Scope: Questions may not ask for a review of an entire world. Questions must be narrowly scoped, dealing with a specific aspect of a world. Questions asking for a review of climate are specifically warned to keep the review narrowly focused as planetary climate is a very large and very complex construction.
Edits: Querents (original posters) may NOT edit their post as answers point out possible improvements. The specific goal of an RMIQ is to review the presented idea — not to produce a final or corrected idea. If the querent wants the next iteration of the idea to be reviewed, it should be presented as a new question only after receiving the same due diligence in preparation as the earlier post. The goal is to use the new-found worldbuilding skills and not simply to spackle over the earlier idea. So little effort would demonstrate the intent of having the community flesh out the idea for you, requiring closure of the question.
Abuse: Querents who abuse this tag by requesting frequent idea reviews, notably but not exclusively in a perceived effort to have the idea fleshed out for them, shall first be warned by the community, then warned by the Moderators, and finally have their account suspended or banned. The querent is obligated to complete their due diligence by completing their worldbuilding construct to the very best of their ability before asking for a review.
This tag has been created as a consequence of the Meta post Policy: Review-My-Idea questions are permissible. If there is a discrepancy between this wiki and that post, the information found in that post shall supersede this wiki. Should this occur, it would be appreciated if you would notify the Moderators that this wiki (or that policy) can be updated.
Additionally, this question type should be administered by the community with the following in mind:
Voting: users are encouraged to up-vote/down-vote RMIQs based on the quality of the question (how well it has been presented to the community) and NOT the quality of the idea. A low quality idea should have answers explaining its weaknesses, not down-votes. On the other hand, a well-explained question should be up-voted. Thus, voting for RMIQs should reflect the effort to seek the review and not the popularity of the idea.
Worldbuilding: The specific focus of this tag is NOT to help an individual to build their world, but IS to help them be better worldbuilders. Answers are therefore expected to explain worldbuilding concepts rather than point out weaknesses. It is anticipated that the majority of answers will want to focus on weaknesses, rather than celebrating strengths. However, the best answers will be those that help the querent understand the trade-offs associated with a weakness and the process of choosing between the trade-offs. Therefore, answers that instruct the querent (and, thereby, all future worldbuilders) should be up-voted while answers that simply point out a weakness should be down-voted.
Civility: It is the nature of reviews to critique, meaning it is anticipated that the majority of answers will be negative. While we admonish the querent to be prepared to have their proverbial baby called ugly, we also admonish respondents to great courtesy, respect, and civility. Ideas both good and bad are anticipated to have had a considerable effort put into them — and that effort should be recognized. The goal of RMIQs is NOT to tell people they suck. It IS to make them the best worldbuilders they can be. Knowing that this question type lends itself to a natural negativity and knowing that it's the desire of the community to build up rather than tear down, answers that fail to be civil will be under threat of deletion.
