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This question about on-topic sports launched a discussion about archery and its on-topic'ness on The Great Outdoors.

There are many sub disciplines - some of which seem to be more obviously outdoor-related, some are not. I feel we should discuss this point and come to a consensus on which archery-related questions are on-topic here.

Archery sub disciplines:

  • target archery (e.g. FITA/WA)
  • crossbow shooting (in a range)
  • field archery
  • 3D archery
  • bow/crossbow hunting
  • archery-tag
  • clout archery
  • bow-fishing

(There are likely many more, feel free to add them here or post a comment.)

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  • 1
    Field and 3D archery are basically two different things. It would be wrong to say "3D archery is a subcategory of field archery."
    – OddDeer
    Apr 18, 2016 at 11:54
  • 3
    Archery tag? That sounds... painful.
    – Kevin
    Apr 18, 2016 at 17:25
  • @Kevin it actually looks like a lot of fun, the tips are replaced by a big squishy marshmellow looking tip, i've also seen it done where the tip is basically a paint sponge so you can track hits. Played on similar fields to paintball with large inflatable cover.
    – Nate W
    Apr 18, 2016 at 22:15
  • @Kevin, it actually is incredibly fun and hurts less than paintball, well... not counting back and knees if you aren't that young anymore
    – Erik vanDoren
    Apr 19, 2016 at 2:49
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    Anybody care to explain to me the difference between climbing an artificial wall at the gym and outdoor climbing vs target practice and hunting? I read in other discussions that the point taken into account is the bulk of the sport but really, if someone asks about arrow weight is going to see the question on hold because he mentioned WA competitions rather than going around taking down elephants? If done this way I can see how there will be a lot more of "Is this ontopic or off?" questions on meta just for one word. I'd say once you decide for an activity make it all ontopic or none at all
    – Erik vanDoren
    Apr 19, 2016 at 3:08

1 Answer 1

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I'm not really clear why we need to limit our scope in this way? for me the factors as to why something should be out of scope are:

  • Is it covered by another SE site?
  • Is it causing a particular issue or confusion in the community?
  • Is it very definitely nothing to do with the "Outdoors"?

The tag seems to me to answer no to all of the above points. So why not just say

archery is in scope (full stop)

I can't think of a good reason to say that x type of archery is out where as y is in.

To go back to the question Is it very definitely nothing to do with the "Outdoors"?. For me we need to address what the "Outdoors" actually means. I don't think "Outdoors" (capital O) activities actually have to be outdoor (lower case o).

There are many examples of Outdoor activities that actually happen indoors, i.e. indoor climbing. So if we allow indoor climbing why not allow indoor archery?

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  • Fair enough, I can get behind "all archery is in scope". But I still think it is useful to come to some sort of informed decision on which sports are OT and which aren't. Preferably the criteria for inclusion or exclusion respectively should be transparent and somewhat consistent, wouldn't you say? Or how would you explain to someone asking about golf why we consider that to be OT, while skateboarding isn't?
    – fgysin
    Apr 19, 2016 at 11:14
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    Skateboarding I'm not sure about, you could argue this is purely a sport and therefore should be on sports.stackexchange.com, but well, that's a different question. Archery is related to hunting. I think we can all agree that hunting is on topic. So how would I ask question about bow hunting if I couldn't about archery?
    – user2766
    Apr 19, 2016 at 12:03
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    @fgysin maybe a custom close reason along the line of "while this activity is often done outside, it is not consider part of the great outdoors"
    – StrongBad
    Apr 29, 2016 at 15:12
  • I think a custom close message is a good idea.
    – fgysin
    May 1, 2016 at 12:01
  • Liam -- Could you lend such clarity to this related question?
    – feetwet
    May 19, 2016 at 18:30

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