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This question raised a relevant discussion, which sport should be on-topic and which not. The problem is, that it's pretty subjective whether one is considered "outdoorsy".

We've chatted a little bit and came up with the idea of creating this meta-post to build a list of sports which need to be discussed. Each list item gets a separate meta-discussion, to point out whether it shall be on TGO.

Current list:

Which sports do we need to add?

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  • This is a provocative question (that means good), but are we trying to be too prepared? I've written and erased about six comments on this question. When I try to expand the list (baseball, figure skating, football (American), bocce)) it starts to look like we are trying to be too prepared. About the only constant in my comments is that tennis should NOT be on-topic here (I am an avid tennis player.) As for skateboarding, I don't think any decision was made. A vote of 9 to 3 in favor does not seem to me enough to define a policy. (I'm on the fence wrt skateboarding.) (cont)
    – ab2
    Apr 14, 2016 at 0:10
  • (continued) But if outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/10470/… was on topic it is hard to see why skateboarding would not be.
    – ab2
    Apr 14, 2016 at 0:11
  • @ab2 Just to clarify this, I'll consider skateboarding in this list as on-topic as long as the discussion is in favor of "on". It's shown with the "+". If the odds change, I'll also switch to a "-".
    – OddDeer
    Apr 15, 2016 at 6:23

1 Answer 1

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In my opinion there are many sports which are played outdoors but - at least for my part - don't have an especially strong connection to nature or The Great Outdoors(TM).

Just to start listing some examples:

  • Sports played on a designated field/court
    • football, the other football, rugby, ultimate
    • cricket, land hockey, hurling, ...
    • tennis, badminton, (beach) volley
    • golf
  • Sports about shooting in ranges
    • Pistol/Rifle shooting, air gun shooting
  • Motorsports on designated tracks
  • track and field sports
    • running, jumping, throwing
  • olympic swimming

Why do I think these don't fit?
For me these sports don't really interact with nature or the Outdoors. They are played outside, but not because they interact or take advantage of nature/the landscape/the surroundings (as say climbing, mountain biking, hiking). Most often these sports could just as well be played in a big enough sports hall/stadium (and in many of the above cases this is the case).

(Now that I wrote this I see that the second part would be a better fit as an answer in the other question. I added it as an option here: https://outdoors.meta.stackexchange.com/a/761/6266)

Edit: All archery was decided to be on topic (see here), I removed it from the list above.

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  • I've added the designated court and shooting thing to the list. The rest like motorsport ist too obvious imho :)
    – OddDeer
    Apr 15, 2016 at 6:17
  • Would you mind open up a discussion for the "shooting in ranges" topic? I think it's going to be the most controversal point.
    – OddDeer
    Apr 15, 2016 at 6:18
  • Done: meta.outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/768/…
    – fgysin
    Apr 18, 2016 at 11:26
  • Given that the consensus on here seems to be archery is on topic can we remove it form the list above?
    – user2766
    Apr 29, 2016 at 15:16

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