Questions involving lists

Question

I think that some question involving list are actually good this site (not that the baseline level of objectiveness is shifted with respect to e.g. SO), as:

• objective,
• useful,
• of general interest,
• not chatty.

For example, I consider this question:

• https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/36/what-citation-manager-should-i-use (perhaps up to the wording like "use" vs "list of")

much better than

• Is it worth to switch from Bibsonomy to Mendeley?.

Moreover, discouraging questions of the first type will generate a lot of questions of the second type (roughly $n(n-1)/2$, where $n$ is number of apps).

In case of doubts - look at the answer the question generates.

Do you agree with such point?

Answer 1

List-based questions can serve as a useful tool, so long as they encourage answers that are explanatory. A simple collection of web links should not be our goal; curation and explanation fo why links are useful will go a lot further.

As you said, list questions can replace the large number of "Should I do X or Y"-type questions, and in that sense can be valuable, especially if the question is likely to come up anyways.

We should be vigilant to make sure that list-based questions contribute value, rather than just lead to sprawling lists of links.