How to create a list of answers?

Question

I tried with https://stackoverflow.com/q/8161486, but it was suppressed. Other Stack Exchange sites allow such things, even when considerably less "on topic". Eg, List of Interesting Math Videos/ Documentaries.

It seems like having info on a particular topic in a central location is a valuable feature. Why is this so difficult?

Added: As it turns out, there are a whole bunch of "list" threads on SO:

What is the most useful R trick?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/488020/what-is-your-most-useful-sql-trick-to-avoid-writing-more-code

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6230706/whats-the-most-useful-ggplot2-tip-or-trick

What is your favorite R debugging trick?

Useful little functions in R?

What useful R package doesn't currently exist?

However, it appears that R is somehow "special". The following similar threads were closed:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3613938/what-is-the-most-useful-python-trick-shortcut

What is your single most favorite command-line trick using Bash?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5945904/what-are-your-most-useful-own-library-extensions

Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

Answer 1

You can't. To quote the FAQ in the What not to ask here section:

If your motivation for asking the question is “I would like to participate in a discussion about ______”, then you should not be asking here. However, if your motivation is “I would like others to explain ______ to me”, then you are probably OK. (Discussions are of course welcome in our real time web chat.)

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?”

There are still some legacy questions that are open from the past, but the sites have matured since and lists or multi answer questions have been banned. Some newer sites tend to have them in the beginning, but the community generally tire of them quickly and they get closed.

Answer 2

The first problem with https://stackoverflow.com/q/8161486 is that it is a question asking for a list that doesn't seem asked because a real, and specific, problem you are having.
It is also a too generic question, as you are not asking about compatibility issues for a specific case.

What would users answer to that question? They would write in their answer what reported in other sites, and if there is more than a site that reports different compatibility issues, you would get different answers that would be equally valid. The FAQ has a section about this, and it says that questions where each answer is equally valid should be avoided.
Even in the case the question was "What incompatibility issues did you find between iOS 4 and iOS 5?" the answers would still be all equally valid, and the question should not be asked.

The other problem is that the interest for the answer to that question is limited. Once there will be a new version of iOS, the list of incompatibilities between iOS 4 and iOS 5 will interest less people: When iOS 5 is the minimum version for which creating an application, the incompatibilities with the previous version will not be interesting anymore.

Answer 3

The reason you see arbitrary standards for closing and deleting questions is that this is how the sites are intended to be. They are community-moderated.

The true answer to "why was this question closed" is, "because five users voted to close it". Similarly to why things are deleted. The reasons why the closers or deleters closed or deleted may be unique to the individual.

But if you're getting enough close votes to close, or enough delete votes to delete, then you really need to give more thought to why you're so out of line with the rest of the users here.

Do take the opportunity to read the faq of each site you use.

Answer 4

The list questions you mention do not generate exhaustive lists. They are a motley collection of whatever people have seen fit to mention. They are not organized in any sane way. Usually each answer gives a separate “tip or trick”. The votes on the answers don't mean anything useful (the number of votes reflects primarily the age of the answer, secondarily the popularity of the item mentioned in the answer, and not at all the usefulness of the answer).

These questions are not good because the answers are effectively lost to people seeking information. Many of the answers would be useful, but they are very difficult to find: you have to scroll, and scroll, and scroll, … Instead, each useful answer should be on a matching question. A question about a specific problem porting an application to iOS5, or a specific programming problem in R, or a specific problem writing SQL, … That way, each issue is easily searchable (if I have a problem with my table view working on iOS4 and being truncated on iOS5, I'll then be able to search for “[ios5] [uitableview] +truncated” rather than slog through “list of incompatibilities between iOS4 and iOS5”).

Stack Overflow and other Stack Exchange sites used to be more tolerant of questions of this type, but the general drive towards quality has mostly driven them out. You've found most of the major remaining exceptions. Please join our effort to keep the site high-quality. Ask about your specific iOS5 problem. Let others ask about their iOS5 problems. By doing so, Stack Overflow will build a list of incompatibilities between iOS4 and iOS5: the questions tagged both ios4 and ios5.

Answer 5

I totally agree with Daniel. Even if the current SE-engine is not really "made" for this kind of questions, this could be the case with some adaptations...

The argument is, even if it is not a "solve-my-problem" type of question, it is tremendously helping people.

So as there is a flag for "Wiki" kind of questions, it maybe a nice improvement of the SE engine to think about a "List-type-of-answer" flag (that will for instance present another kind of form for the answer and will disable the voting on answer (because it has no sense in that case)