Recently I posted What does this symbol mean in JavaScript? and it set off a bit of a mini-bombshell, rocking back and forth between close and re-open votes.
Initially it was criticized for posting "answer" material in the actual question, so I moved the content to an answer.
The concern has been raised, though, that "reference" questions aren't really along the lines of Stack Overflow, though this PHP Reference has certainly taken off.
The concern is twofold; one, it is rather generic - seeking to answer a large subject matter (JS syntax/operators) in one question, instead of addressing specific issues, and two, it simply points to answers instead of actually answering them.
Should this community wiki be used for this type of reference material? If not, is a single "What do these symbols mean?" question and accompanying exhaustive answer good for Stack Overflow (i think this has been addressed before)
Some have suggested that the tag wikis be used for this generic reference material, but imo they aren't easy to find and not enough people know about them. Additionally, the tag wiki seems to broad to contain reference material on the more specific details of a tag.
Should exhaustive reference (whether pointing to existing answers or not) community wikis be posted?
The concern has been raised, though, that "reference" questions aren't really along the lines of Stack Overflow, though this PHP Reference has certainly taken off.
Which kinda proves that it takes one crap question to derail any sensible conversation and consensus building... Argh...