Off Topic questions [duplicate]

Question

Recently I asked a question in stack overflow about creating an HTML5 report designer .The current reporting services (crystal reports,Xtra reports) etc creates reports at server side.Since this process consumes too much resource most we applications will have a separate report server.With so much development going on in HTML5 I think someone might have already succeeded in pushing the report generation to client side.I tried googling for hours but could not find an example and thats when I placed the question in stackoverflow.In fact I was asking for any open source library or examples but the question was voted down and put on hold.I edited the part asking for a library after that but still its voted down. The link to question is here .

I think the new users of stackoverflow will become frustrated with overcomplicated rules.The main purpose of asking something in stackoverflow is to find answers to something related to technologies .The moderators or users with high points might find some questions off topic but these questions might in fact be very useful to many other users. For eg : this question here is closed as off topic but it have got high number of votes.

Going forward is there any chance of creating another site in network where users can ask opinions about technologies or reference to unknown libraries ?

Answer 1

There are lots of places where you can discuss opinions and ask for recommendations; they are called forums. StackExchange is not a forum; it is a question-answer format site where it hosts a database of questions of a certain form, and answers.

That form is questions related to the site's purpose that have a single, factual answer (and other limitations). That's important, because the purpose of the site is very simply that: to be a repository of knowledge (ie, of facts). Discussion and opinions are very valuable, but not to StackExchange due to its format.

As far as frustrating new users, we generally try to comment on questions that are not appropriate and let the user know why, and if it is something potentially salvageable, we try to give suggestions as to how to improve the questions. I don't think there's a whole lot else we can do; if you're looking for a forum and wander in here, you're going to be frustrated, just like a guy looking for a cup of coffee who wanders into an ice cream shop will be frustrated when they don't serve coffee.