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This is in reference to What is the basis of purism in LEGO building?, recently closed by Dori.

I can see how this question might seem subjective, debatable, or even frivolous if one hasn't been a part of or observed Lego fan culture. But if you have, some serious answers are already probably springing to mind — or would, if you'd stop and think about the background. It's something I've discussed at length with other Lego fans, but I've never really put anything into writing. I thought some of the other experts and fans here might be able to articulate it well, and indeed we already have at least one answer that's a great start.

The culture of Lego fandom is a big part of why we have this site. If we can't ask questions about that without having the questions closed, we're missing the mark. And if you think that sociology in general is "bad subjective" or all "not real questions", well, I guess you can take up an argument on Skeptics or somewhere on whether sociology is a real science or not.

Can we please have this question re-opened?

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I would say that questions about the sociolgy of Lego is off topic here, but I'm not sure the question you are refering to falls into that category.

As it stands, the question asks about why people choose to build Lego in a certain way. The answers seem to suggest that this is as much a quality of the Lego bricks themselves as it is a question about the builders. Lego has unique qualities (reuse, quality of production, versatility, limitations that lead to challange etc.) that inspire some builders to take a purist approach to their building.

I would argue, therefore, that this is a question that can uniquely be asked about Lego, and that it leads to answers that meet the "good subjective" criteria listed in Dori's (helpful) answer.

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  • I've tried to remove the parts of the question that are most likely to be "bad subjective" and leave the bits that are "good subjective", and voted to reopen. I realise that the question is a little different from the original, and that it still might not be to everyone's taste. Hopefully, however, @mattdm can still get what he needs from it.
    – Kramii
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 16:42
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I can't yet vote for any re-openings, but I think that if we should be willing to answer questions about programming, electricity, events, or identification, or LEGO clones, it's only fair that we also include [sociology]. I have added this as a tag in an edit to the question, er, in question, and I hope that whoever peer-reviews it is willing to seriously consider this idea.

We are a community that is dedicated to the finding of answers to questions the detached and inattentive internet will not resolve. I personally believe that we need to accept questions ike this for two reasons:

  1. It is a question that only we may know the answer to.
  2. It is a question that people here want to get the answer to.

This is my personal belief on this, that sociology is a worthy topic.

A note to the people considering this topic:

There are not as many of us as there used to be; we need to recruit more people. At this point, every question, including ones that may not feel directly related to our topic, if related at all, should be taken into serious consideration! We are a family, not just a chat room, and it should be our ultimate duty to respect and consider every question we see. You may not agree with me, I am okay with that. The fact that you do not do as the trite, racist population of the general internet does and flame me over my view, proves how good we are. And the fact that we are doing as I suggest right here makes me really happy. We are actually considering the problem, and trying to find the ultimate solution.

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