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[Impx]

I am a newbie, I admit it. This is going to sound like a dumb question.
I'm not too far into my fortress, but I have a MASSIVE amount of stone, and I have NO IDEA what to do with it! I built walls around EVERYTHING, and even statues, but they just clog up everything. I want to find a good and productive way to use my rocks. If anybody has any suggestions, preferably ridiculous, do tell.

[DeadorK]

I had this exact problem. At your craftdwarf's workshop, start churning out stone crafts, mugs, toys and instruments. That won't be enough, I just designated most of my stone to be put in larger stockpiles or to be dumped.

[Jurph]

The stone management problem has several solutions that have become standards:

1) Quantum stone piles.  When you tunnel out a room or a long shaft, designate all of the stone for dumping (d-b-d) in a 1x1 tile near a mason's shop.  Every game month or so, go back and unforbid the stone that gets placed there.  Pro: stone stacks infinitely high in a single tile.  Con: HUNDREDS of hauling jobs, and dwarves can't move stones that are tasked for hauling to place new furniture or constructions.

2) Atom-smashing.  Drawbridges vaporize piles of stone when they come down.  Use the technique from (1) or designated stone piles to stack stones under the bridge.  Lower the bridge.  Repeat.  Pro: stone is gone.  Cons: you can't use the stone later if you need it.

3) Use the stone!  Stone blocks are a great way to train up masons from the peasantry, and you can fit ten of them per bin in a Bar/Block pile.  This reduces the floor space of your stone storage by 90%.  Build a mason's workshop, designate it for low-level masons only (everything up to "Skilled" for example), and fill the job queue with Build Block-Repeat.  This keeps the shop from accepting task orders from the manager, so only your high-end masons fulfill your fortress needs.  If you want to generate trade goods, slip a single "Make crafts" or "Make mugs" order in the queue (on repeat) and 10% of the production will be used to make craft goods.  I like to do 8 blocks, 1 door, and 1 miscellaneous item (coffin, statue, coffer, or cabinet - depending on my needs).  Pros: levels up masonry, provides value to fortress, reduces floor space, increases value of constructions.  Cons: wastes large volumes of material on bins, takes lots of time.

Note that you can combine (1) and (3) so that your block factory sits next to a nearly-infinite pile of stone.  You can also mod the INIT files to forbid certain stones from being used as blocks - for example, in my latest fortress I'm using primarily obsidian for the blocks to triple the value of exterior constructions. 

[chonger]

Link to the awesome DwarfFortress Wiki.

On stone management:

Mine for long enough and you'll find yourself surrounded with various stones and ores. How do you get rid of them?

Here follow several stone management techniques.

[G-Flex]

Keep in mind that blocks, crafts, etc. will all fit in bins (and therefore be more space-efficient) whereas stones won't.

Also, if you're using stone at least somewhat regularly, you'll clear the place up eventually. It helps to make and sell crafts for this.

[Randominality]

if you get your masons to make blocks out of the stones then you can create above ground tower or castle or something just for the hell of it. That seems to be what lots of people do once they have too many dwarves to give labours to them all.

[Magua]

Really, though, there's only one reason to care about stone: moving it out of the way of stockpiles.  Outside of that, stone has no effect on anything, so you can ignore it, or d->b->h to hide it.  It doesn't impede movement, it doesn't block you from placing furniture, the dwarves don't care, etc.

[Footkerchief]

Really, though, there's only one reason to care about stone: moving it out of the way of stockpiles.  Outside of that, stone has no effect on anything, so you can ignore it, or d->b->h to hide it.  It doesn't impede movement, it doesn't block you from placing furniture, the dwarves don't care, etc.

Actually, it doesn't block non-stone stockpiles anymore either -- my dwarves seem to happily throw food barrels on top of stone.

[MrFake]

Really, though, there's only one reason to care about stone: moving it out of the way of stockpiles.  Outside of that, stone has no effect on anything, so you can ignore it, or d->b->h to hide it.  It doesn't impede movement, it doesn't block you from placing furniture, the dwarves don't care, etc.

It affects the stone type used in crafts and masonry, if not otherwise managed (maybe this is what you mean by affecting stockpiles?).  I had to clear out a gigantic area of my fortress of stone because masons were preferring gabbro to obsidian, even though the obsidian was in a stockpile closer to the workshop.

I started by clearing a radius (z included) around the workshop to ensure the obsidian was always closer.  No dice.  I found that the masons were hanging out in a meeting area filled with gabbro and olivine, and were picking up their rocks there when the orders came in.  So, that whole section of the fortress was cleared.  I still needed to clean up the path between meeting area and workshop to get a better chance they'd use the right stone.

Re-siting has been a royal pain. 

[Il Palazzo]

Magua, but some of us just can't stand the thought of stone rubble spoiling our fortresses clean n' tidy feel(like a hospital with kittens). And [h]idnig them is just like averting eyes and pretending that it's ok.
My personal favorite is magma chasming(aka dumping it all into a pool of said liquid). Unlike 'atom-smasher' or 'infinite stockpile' solutions, it doesn't fell like cheating. And it's always good to have some magma, it's just too much fun.
Oh, and having one mason on a constant assingment of making stone blocks is a good idea if you're ever planning on building a complulsory Tower of Awesome.

MrFake: if gabbro(or else) is spoiling your production, it's easier to forbid all of undesirable stone types in your Stock screen(assuming you've got a bookkeeper working on it)

[MrFake]

Yeah, that was the "if otherwise managed" part.  I can't do that because I know I'd forget about it, then scratch my head for days wondering why they refuse to make bauxite mechanisms or somesuch.

[Dorten]

Really, though, there's only one reason to care about stone: moving it out of the way of stockpiles.  Outside of that, stone has no effect on anything, so you can ignore it, or d->b->h to hide it.  It doesn't impede movement, it doesn't block you from placing furniture, the dwarves don't care, etc.

Actually, it doesn't block non-stone stockpiles anymore either -- my dwarves seem to happily throw food barrels on top of stone.

It doesn't block stockpiles, which use bins or barrels. But it blocks the placement of huge prepared meals, statues, bones... everything that is not binned or barreled (sacked maybe)

[Ter13]

If you find yourself with an excess of stone, you are clearly not playing DF like it is intended to be played... Or at least, how almost everyone here does it.

One word: Megaprojects.

You'd be surprised at how much stone a single megaproject takes up. I am working on what I call the "God Dam", in my current project. It'll take over 6,000 raw obsidian to build, can house as many as a hundred dwarves, and can provide approximately 5,000 power via waterwheel. Dimensions are 37x10x7, and thus far has taken almost five in-game years to build.

It's probably also best to keep one or two (i've got four) masons on hand making stone blocks full time.

Generally, I order batches of about 1,000 at a time, and set them to low priority, then if I need other masonry done, I just create the order, and slap a higher priority on them. (Not to mention the fact that I've got four other Dwarves on constant masonry (construction) duty, and I've still only got about 25 residents...) That may be because I've let most of my migrants get slaughtered by those bastard goblins that showed up in year 2, and forced me to lock the gates... I've never opened them again, actually... No need for wood, and I locked my fortress off from the surface completely, so really, it's no big deal... Maybe it will become a big deal when I have to fight them off with no access to weaponry, and no anvil, but I think I might try to lure them onto the dam, and then drop them in the river...

Anyway, like others said, the atom-smashing bridge, lava, blocks and bins, or just grinding out masonry are all good options. The real Dwarf's only answer, however, is to build something for the glory of almighty Armok. Something big, something impressive, and more than likely, completely useless is the best choice.

[Martian]

Maybe it will become a big deal when I have to fight them off with no access to weaponry, and no anvil, but I think I might try to lure them onto the dam, and then drop them in the river...

You could try spamming stonefall traps. Enough would massacre any siege.

[Jurph]

Anyway, like others said, the atom-smashing bridge, lava, blocks and bins, or just grinding out masonry are all good options. The real Dwarf's only answer, however, is to build something for the glory of almighty Armok. Something big, something impressive, and more than likely, completely useless actively dangerous to your dwarves is the best dwarfiest choice.

Fix'd.