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I just came here to Programmers Stack Exchange to ask a question for recommendations for resources to learn a particular topic (in this case, natural language processing), and I just noticed that a similar question I asked soon after the site opened was closed and deleted as off topic (three years after it was asked, answered, and favorited several times) with this message:

Questions asking us to recommend a tool, library or favorite off-site resource are off-topic for Programmers as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam.

So, where are we supposed to ask these kinds of questions now? There's value in them. I thought they were literally the whole point of this site.

And now for the feature request (which is not duplicated in the others, I might add):

It's pretty bad to straight up delete questions like this (non-spam, with answers, favorites, etc). It was completely gone from my profile. I users should at least be given the ability to find them again if they've interacted with them.

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    as always before; forums. Reddit, I think Quora allows this stuff too? Don't know. SE wants wikipedia-quality authoritative content. Subjective questions aren't going to get this kind of authoritative responses, so it just doesn't fit with the whole SE networks goal.
    – Jimmy Hoffa
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:01
  • see also: Is programmers.stackexchange the right place to ask for reading material?
    – gnat
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:08
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    "users should at least be given the ability to find them again if they've interacted with them." - You would be better off making that request on Meta.StackExchange. As a site, Programmers has no control over that system wide configuration. I'd recommend searching MSE before you ask though as I'm sure it's been asked many times before. You'll need a new line of persuasion if you wish to convince the SE team.
    – user53019
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:13
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    @GlenH7 it's Show all of my question/answers to me even if they are deleted. Note the score over 600 and 150+ linked questions
    – gnat
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:32
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    @gnat - good find, thanks! Also worth noting is the "status-declined" tag on that MSE post.
    – user53019
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:33
  • @GlenH7 that status isn't a death sentence, note how it has changed in one of the linked questions over there. "Since June 2013, deleted questions and answers that were posted in the past 60 days, can be seen using the "deleted recent questions" and "deleted recent answers" links on the questions and answers tabs in your user profile"
    – gnat
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:41
  • @Jimmy Hoffa So what are some good communities on reddit for questions like this? /r/programming appears to only accept links, not text posts. Stack Exchange has gobbled up most of the mind-share in the Q&A space.
    – Kaypro II
    Aug 12, 2015 at 16:56
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    @KayproII Quora, AskHN, Ask Slashdot, read the amazon reviews for a book and then start navigating the "people who bought this book also looked at..." links. The "list of resources" style questions here have really failed to produce good material, and what material there is that was generated back in '11 is now outdated and not useful to people finding the question now. Unless people are diligent at curating their own material, in the fast paced world of technology the books and links become outdated (and frustrating to those people finding it now).
    – user40980
    Aug 12, 2015 at 18:11

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