Recommendations are a recurring topic on multiple Stack Exchange (SE) sites.
Some sites allow recommendations (ex: boardgames), some do not (ex: gaming). There are many reasons for that and I can still remember animated discussions on this subject on the Gaming meta.
Then there is that existential problem with Sci-Fi SE, "What problems does answering a question on this site solve?"
The only common problem I can think of is What to read/watch next?, which obviously led to a big number of recommendation questions, later slightly disguised as list question. And the main trouble with these questions isn't objectivity at all, some of them aren't even subjective. It's the fact that they don't have an answer - they are open ended.
Those questions are monstrously popular because:
- There's an actual problem to be solved, find the next book I should read or which technical book to buy to learn something
- This problem is quite common.
In view of the Real Questions Have Answers blog post, a recommendation question fails the "real questions have answers, not items or ideas or opinions." criteria.
But it's still a "practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. " and it requires expertise to answer.
The problem is that there are multiple acceptable answers, and the asker is not the best person to evaluate the best answer because he doesn't know which one is the best compared to the others, and he cannot test it in short term. Even the need to accept an answer is questionable.
So, is a recommendation question an acceptable kind of list-type question or should it be closed just like any other list-type questions?