Why are useful questions on StackOverflow being closed as non-constructive? [duplicate]

Question

Useful threads are being closed as "not constructive:"

This question is not a good fit to our Q&A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. See the FAQ.

For example, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/337134/what-is-the-best-net-obfuscator-on-the-market was very useful for me since I am new to obfuscation and the question gave me a start. Also that question has lots of votes and bookmarks - these alone are the markers of usefulness. The question is closed anyway. No idea why.

Same happened to my question, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7888081/net-obfuscation-deepsea-vs-crypto-obfuscator-which-is-better, which received one bookmark immediately.

I was waiting for an answer with the two products downloaded and installed. I desired that experienced people would share their thoughts and point me to the better one. No. Closed. I.e. I must go to some other forum and ask there or I must search on Google and write down the pros and cons of each myself. I am not asking questions just because I have tons of time and want to chat; I need an answer, that's why I am asking. I am asking because I think that SO has the most professional people to answer and because I didn't find a good answer in Google.

I saw other questions closed which I myself found to be useful and I bookmarked some of the closed questions.

UPDATE

If I want people who have an experience which I do not have with some software products and I want to see which product is better in the terms of usability and reliability, not just better in terms of the price or has a better official website or better described on the official website, how do I ask this question? Or is this a question which I cannot ask on SO? I.e. this sort of information is not available on SO?

Is this one breaking the rules as well: How should I declare pipelines? ?

Answer 1

"What is the best $THING?" leads to a list of answers with, usually, no right answer.

Sometimes the questions can be re-worked to fit. Maybe asking "What features should I look for in $THING?" would work.

Those questions are sometimes allowed if there's a very narrow focus and you show your working. "I'm looking for a $THING that has $FEATURE. I've tried $BRAND_X, but it lacks $FEATURE. I tried $BRAND_Y, which has $FEATURE, but it also has $SUCKY_FEATURE".

Don't forget that (if the user has enough reputation) they can ask in chat for advice about how to ask the question, or what recommendations people have.

Answer 2

Useful in this case is subjective.

In the beginning SO was fairly relaxed regarding subjective questions, however the community has grown, and now consider these questions off topic as they are not solving a particular programming problem. The community has therefore started closing these questions, because they do not suite the mold of a Q&A site.

From the SO FAQ:

To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …

• every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”
• your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?”
• there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”
• we are being asked an open-ended, hypothetical question: “What if ______ happened?”
• it is a rant disguised as a question: “______ sucks, am I right?”

Robert expanded on this topic on the blog with Good Subjective, Bad Subjective.

Answer 3

Another answer:

You ask to compare two questions. Your question is purely subjective. Sure, people will share their experience, but it will still be subjective experience.

The other question (about pipelines) gives three options and asks which is better. But this question is less subjective; there's likely to be measurable performance or bug-testing or correctness or security or readability differences. And this si where people's experiences come in. "Don't do X! I remember we did that and it led to a bunch of hard to fault-find errors".