After 4.5 years of experiencing this polity, my beliefs are no longer reflected by this answer. Please see this answer for details. Thank you. -JBH

Hallelujah!

I applaud and approve the effort as stated. I'm not as concerned about whether or not any particular rule meets my personal standard of happiness as I am concerned that rules are clear and consistent.

For the reader's edification as all may not understand all the ins-and-outs of this issue...

Up/Down Voting: Up/Down voting is intended to reflect a question's quality. This includes lack of research. Inevitably this will be used to reflect question popularity, which means a badly formed or researched question may have an enormously positive score. This is unfortunate, because SE has automation in place that detects when OPs submit too many negatively-received questions that leads to warnings and finally banning. When not used properly, this system is effectively circumvented. In an ideal-but-I'll-never-see-it world, you never up-vote a question simply because you're interested in the subject of the question.

Favorite: This is, IMO, the most underused and misunderstood link in the entire SE system. THIS is what you're supposed to click if the subject matter of the question is of interest to you.

Close Voting: Close voting reflects the potential for a question to result in answers that are out of control. Insofar as I'm concenred, if a person cannot point to a specific bullet in the Help Center that explains the VTC, it should not be cast. No VTC should be cast because the voter believes the question violates the spirit or intent of the site. That is far too subjective! It even suggests VTCs that are themselves POB.

Put on Hold: If there were a way to brand into people's heads the difference between VTH (vote to hold) and VTC (vote to close) I would do it. Unfortunately, the two issues use the same mechanism and are universally referred to as "VTC." Questions put on hold are meant to motivate the OP to improve the question and are, therefore, meant to be reopened (always assuming the OP is improving). There are three VTH reasons:

1. Unclear What You're Asking

• Resulting answers will be all over the map, basically addressing every perspective but the OP's because nobody really understood what the OP wanted.

2. Too Broad

• Resulting answers must be massive to address the entire question, making the result nearly useless for posterity. Stack Exchange is not a discussion forum and is best used using its one-specific-question-one-best-answer model.

3. Primarily Opinion-Based (POB).

• No answer can be deemed any better than another because there is insufficient restricting, limiting, or defining criteria. By the way (and just because someone did it recently) you cannot VTH a question as POB when that question has been tagged with the hard-science tag. A hard-science question is not POB by definition.

There are two general VTC reasons and four in total. Questions are closed because their nature is adverse to the intent of the site or do not add to the database of information in a way that's useful. One of them is (IMO) the reason for James' post:

1. Duplicate Question
2. Off-Topic: Does not appear to be about WB per the Help Center
3. Off-Topic: Story-based
4. Off-Topic: Belongs on another SE site

Off-Topic: Belongs on another SE site

This VTC reason doesn't make sense to many people because they don't understand how SE works. It's ONLY purpose is to identify a question that should be moved to Worldbuilding Meta —and not to any other site on the network. Therefore, it should really read, "Off-Topic: Belongs on Meta."

It helps to understand that you can't simply force a question onto another SE site. Each site can reject incoming migration requests and has their own rules about what they will and won't accept. That makes using the existing Off-Topic condition very confusing because it suggests pretty much the opposite. Because you cannot guarantee the migration, you cannot simply close for that purpose. (Flagging for moderator attention and identifiying the migration target is much more valuable, if migration really is warranted.)

It is my understanding that other sites could be listed under this VTC reason, but rarely are due to the problems mentioned. I'd rather see it renamed to focus on migrating to Meta.

Off-Topic: Too Story-Based

This exists because our purpose is NOT to write the OP's story for them. Our goal is to help the OP develop a consistently usable world in which any story could be placed. The moment it becomes a question of how one story can be placed, it's too story-based. This is why questions about one character (regardless the nature of that character) are off-topic as too story-based. The moment you ask how Herman would solve a problem in your world, you're asking us to write your book, not help develop your world (even if the answer could be used to develop your world).

TL;DR... Off-Topic: Does not appear to be about WB...

This is the VTC reason that desperately needs clarification because it is subject to too many opinions — especially opinions about what "worldbuilding" is.

I consider James' question and the moderators' efforts to be a valuable first-step to improving this overly abused VTC reason. There are existing rules on this page (the bullets following "...not about:") that are the only rules we have for closing a question for this reason. I do not mind (and even look forward to) the improvement of these rules — but until they are improved, they are the only non-subjective reasons for VTC:Off-Topic:NA/WB that we have.

My thanks to the moderators for discussing and tackling this issue.