There are a few questions popping up every now and then that want to get the answer about reliability of services based on the rating of the answer. For example:
Is such answer-picking going against the rules or the spirit of Stack Exchange? Shouldn't one provide some external data regarding service reliability, user testimonies, etc, instead of using SE as a review website? How should such questions be handled?
Questions like that are generally discouraged across Stack Exchange.
The Q&A model here isn't really built to handle recommendations well. This is why you tend to see requests like "please post one [thing] per answer". Another issue is that questions like this tend to attract answers that are often just links and don't offer any additional information. This is not useful to future visitors, especially if any of the links ever go out of service.
Some sites are more tolerant towards questions like this than others and it is up to you guys to figure out whether or not you want to keep them, but here are some tips that might help increase their quality.
Of all these, #1 is by far the approach that results in the most constructive questions that remain useful long term, but you may find all of them helpful to varying degrees.
Good advice, however here's some more:
Refrain from drawing conclusions to your own questions that call for yes or no answers, when clearly there is no constructive basis to this approach, as the conclusion should be left to the reader, unless it's absolute fact(s) and or truth! Otherwise there is no point in asking the question in the first place... especially if the information is readily available elsewhere and providing an honest answer by way of a genuine link, and not links that further compound an unproven question or answer... This is NOT helpful to anyone!
Moderators I would expect to be un-bias, and hold no favoritism - this should go without saying, but obviously is not the case from what I've experienced here on just one thread^ Especially when you can't respond to some voting up or down for lack of points?! This is completely unfair and defeats the purpose of an honest debate, when some are subject to edits and others are not?! Rewarding for contributions is one thing, but limiting responses to others, simply because some are more active on site than others? Again defeats the purpose...
An open source subject - should not be restricted or limited due to participation requirements or rewards... this only negates the validity of Q&A, and losing yet more credibility as such - It's like saying "you can stand here - but if you stand there you're not allowed to speak!" And limiting edits to 5 minutes is also ridiculous, if mis-spoken in the real world, there's no limit to retracting your statements!
Free speech has no limits, unless it's a dictatorship or promotes slander in any form/forum!
