We have basically three classes of geoscience questions here:
Specific Geoscience Questions
- Day and night temperature on an earthlike planet with longer rotational period (Note: Says "earth-like" a few times, but the crux of the question is "What would happen if Earth were tidal-locked?")
- Earth and ferromagnetism
- Why is the Earth's center still hot after millions of years?
General Space Questions Directed at Earth
That is, types of questions that we very frequently ask about space objects that happen to be directed at Earth.
- How fast do we travel through space?
- Why isn't Earth a perfect sphere?
- Why does the Earth have a tilt of ~23°?
- How would Earth's climate differ if it's axis were tilted around 90 degrees like Uranus?
Questions about Earth that Involve Other Astronomical Bodies
- Why does the Moon stablize Earth's axis?
- How often does Earth cross the galaxy regions with higher supernovae activity?
- If the moon wasn't receding from Earth, what would be the impact on the weather and tides?
- What is the relevance of the Tropics and the Polar Circles? Do they Exist on other planets?
- Does the Moon's magnetic field affect Earth's magnetic field?
It is easy to see why the latter category is deemed on topic, because it involves other astronomical bodies. The middle category is somewhat more difficult. Especially the "perfect sphere" question, which really seems like it should belong in geoscience. The axial tilt question is of a lot more interest to astronomy.
The first category is the one that seems like it should be off topic. And in the case of the last question in it (Why is the Earth's center still hot after millions of years?), we have almost enough close votes from the community to close it (4 out of 5). Yet somehow the other two still managed to pass relatively unchallenged and got a number of upvotes.
So here's the central question:
What stance do we take on geoscience questions?
If they are to be generally excluded from the site, how do we divide those that we include from those we don't?
If you came here from a weird question on Astronomy, an explanation is in order.
We have decided to allow planetary science as a topic on Astronomy.SE, which makes perfect sense. However it brings up the problem that Earth science is a special case of planetary science. Now when one thinks of geoscience they often think of geological questions, questions that frequently apply to other planets. However, geoscience in the broad sense encompasses all Earth science (just a fancy term for any science that studies stuff on Earth). This is a problem because there are a lot of Earth science questions that we probably don't want here. There are milder cases (do we want plate tectonics here?), but there are also stronger cases (cockroaches...seriously?). We need to somehow draw the line between geoscience we allow and geoscience we don't. That way users don't get confused when their question is frowned upon.
I started my campaign of weird questions on Astronomy to draw attention to this issue. So if you are here, please leave a comment or answer of how you think we can draw the line.
