The coding for charity Q. Any hope of ever being on-topic?

Question

A recent question was posted about coding for charity and finding organizations that help coordinate those activities.

Currently, it's closed as off-topic. An attempt has been made (by me) to make the question more on-topic and trigger a reopen.

This question is to spark a discussion on whether or not the question can be salvaged and made on-topic.

Edit:
There is a fair degree of agreement that the question is a list style question. To help focus additional answers and comments, I'm adding the following questions.

Is it possible to define a narrow set of circumstances where list style questions may be appropriate? If so, what would those conditions need to be?

Answer 1

I locked the post pending the outcome of this discussion here on Meta.

I don't see how this question can be a good subjective question, as identified in Good Subjective, Bad Subjective and Real Questions Have Answers. Of the six guidelines, I can only make the case for this question having a constructive tone, invite sharing experiences over opinions, and being more than mindless social fun. Ultimately, this question is just asking for a list of resources. There is little indication of a "why or how" emphasis, the answers appear to be shorter, facts and references can only be provided and verified by people who have used the particular service or attended the particular event. Given this, I rate it as a 50% on the "good subjective question" guidelines.

Although the question does have uses, it's still a list question and list questions go against the nature of Stack Exchange sites, where people are supposed to ask practical and answerable questions. Questions where every answer is equally valid is not answerable and therefore not appropriate for a Stack Exchange site. If we open a useful question that clearly doesn't meet the guidelines for remaining open, that leaves opportunities for people to point to it and say if it can stay open, their question should also stay open.

Even though the question can be useful, given that I scored it low on the guidelines for constructive questions and the need for consistency across questions (and, to some extent, sites), I don't see how the reopening can be justified.

Answer 2

Any and all new list questions should be terminated with extreme prejudice. This is a list question and its best case scenario is to make a it a slightly better list question.

Answer 3

This is me stepping in. While I appreciate and support the idea of keeping the quality of questions high, I don't think this is always necessary. If I do ask for a list of good X, I do not want to know how to identify the best X. Maybe it's freakin easy to see if something is good. The hard part may be finding it (which is the case with active charity coding clubs/organizations).

I do agree that list style answers indicate bad questions. However, many of the coolest pages on SO are list style answers and it would have helped nothing if they were transformed to good questions. Two things may happen to this questions: If they are worth it they are made CW (a resource for the community) or they're closed. Have a look:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/549/the-definitive-guide-to-forms-based-website-authentication

There are many examples of list style questions around on SO which are such a great resource but where closed because of a FAQ entry. They should have been made CW instead. Now they die slowly. But a few did in fact survive because someone did value the gathered content.

If I was googling for charity coding sites and the first hit was my question with a few links to start I would be more than happy. Mission accomplished!

I understand if the question stays closed. However, changing it so that the answers stay the same (because they are fine!) but the question applies to some random FAQ entry is dogmatic. I wouldn't like the question anymore ;)

Answer 4

I think the question should be rephrased from

What are some good open source projects, code-a-thons, or organizations which create software used for charity purposes or to help out charities?

to

How can I find open source projects, code-a-thons, or organizations which create software used for charity purposes or to help out charities?

The first form is asking for a list of items. The second form is asking for a way to find and identify the list of items for yourself.

To quote from the blog post Q&A is Hard, Let’s Go Shopping!, and I think the last paragraph sums it up nicely.

However, there is a way to ask these questions that avoids the inherent problems with shopping recommendations. For example, let’s say you wanted — as I did — to buy a point-and-shoot camera that takes good low light photos. So we’re going to ask on photo.stackexchange.com, naturally!

Here’s one way to ask:

Q: What’s the best low light point-and-shoot camera?

A: Canon S90 and Lumix LX3.

Here’s another way to ask:

Q: How do I tell which point-and-shoot cameras take good low light photos?

A: I strongly recommend looking for something with

• a fast lens (2.0 at least)
• reasonable ISO handling (at least 400, but preferably 800)
• the biggest sensor available

The sum of these factors are really critical for low light situations.

The former question provides the path of least resistance: a laundry list of products I can buy without thinking about it too much. But that answer will only be valid for a year at best. The latter question may take some thinking, but its answer will be valid forever … or at least until camera technology somehow shifts beyond lenses and sensors as we know them today. Thus, when it comes to shopping questions, don’t ask us what you should buy — ask us what you need to learn to tell what you should buy.

Answer 5

I would agree that the question is a list style question, which are generally discouraged. But I feel it is an exception-case, list-type question that is on-topic.

There are some notable exception cases on SO where list questions are allowed, such as the Definitive C++ book guide.

The scope of the question is fairly broad since Coding for charity is a subject that could apply to all programmers and the answers are a resource that all could consider.

I think that it falls into the category of "good subjective" since the OP wasn't asking for opinions on this one versus that one, but was simply looking for a listing of organizations to consider. That approach effectively removed the potential for rants and counter-productive dialogue.

Finally, when googling related terms, I ran into difficulty in coming up with good results. That kind of anchored the need for the question in my mind.

So because of the applicability to all programmers, I think the question is on topic and should be reopened.

Counter and supporting opinions welcome!

Update:
I think it's worth pointing out that a list of answers can be the answer to a particular question.
The challenge is that the SE experience is oriented towards finding just one answer. While I'm tempted to call that a remnant of darker times , I recall that SO was the first site and there are many cases where there is more than one answer. SO was created to draw out the subjective best answer when there was more than one possible.

I'm still struggling with where to draw a line on what types of list questions to allow, if they are to be allowed at all. It's not a hard stretch to see allowing canonical book reference lists with a similar justification. From there the slope starts getting slippier.