It seems that there are many good questions that end up being closed as "not constructive" because they are open ended or end up being never-ending lists of small answers. Examples are "best hidden Eclipse features" or "good questions to ask during interviews." Similarly, questions like "what's the best or most popular tool/language to solve a certain problem" can have real value to programmers.

I think it would be nice if there were a Stack Exchange-like interface to support questions and answers like this. I could see it working sort of like Area 51's site suggestion mechanism, only much leaner.

Maybe there could be a way to specify that a question needs open-ended list of answers. These types of questions couldn't choose an "answer." Users could submit "micro-answers" that would show up in a more list-like format, and the answers with the most votes would float to the top of the list. Duplicate answers could be flagged as such. You'd also need a way to split up single answers into multiple ones when users put too much in a single "answer."

It seems that there are many good questions that end up being closed as "not constructive" because they are open ended or end up being never-ending lists of small answers. Examples are "best hidden Eclipse features" or "good questions to ask during interviews." Similarly, questions like "what's the best or most popular tool/language to solve a certain problem" can have real value to programmers.

I think it would be nice if there were a Stack Exchange-like interface to support questions and answers like this. I could see it working sort of like Area 51's site suggestion mechanism, only much leaner.

Maybe there could be a way to specify that a question needs open-ended list of answers. These types of questions couldn't choose an "answer." Users could submit "micro-answers" that would show up in a more list-like format, and the answers with the most votes would float to the top of the list. Duplicate answers could be flagged as such. You'd also need a way to split up single answers into multiple ones when users put too much in a single "answer."

It seems that there are many good questions that end up being closed as "not constructive" because they are open ended or end up being never-ending lists of small answers. Examples are "best hidden Eclipse features" or "good questions to ask during interviews." Similarly, questions like "what's the best or most popular tool/language to solve a certain problem" can have real value to programmers.

I think it would be nice if there were a Stack Exchange-like interface to support questions and answers like this. I could see it working sort of like Area 51's site suggestion mechanism, only much leaner.

Maybe there could be a way to specify that a question needs open-ended list of answers. These types of questions couldn't choose an "answer." Users could submit "micro-answers" that would show up in a more list-like format, and the answers with the most votes would float to the top of the list. Duplicate answers could be flagged as such. You'd also need a way to split up single answers into multiple ones when users put too much in a single "answer."

It seems that there are many good questions that end up being closed as "not constructive" because they are open ended or end up being never-ending lists of small answers. Examples are "best hidden Eclipse features" or "good questions to ask during interviews." Similarly, questions like "what's the best or most popular tool/language to solve a certain problem" can have real value to programmers.

I think it would be nice if there were a Stack Exchange-like interface to support questions and answers like this. I could see it working sort of like Area 51's site suggestion mechanism, only much leaner.

Maybe there could be a way to specify that a question needs open-ended list of answers. These types of questions couldn't choose an "answer." Users could submit "micro-answers" that would show up in a more list-like format, and the answers with the most votes would float to the top of the list. Duplicate answers could be flagged as such. You'd also need a way to split up single answers into multiple ones when users put too much in a single "answer."