Many users of the site have a need to keep up with current research in specific areas related to computational science. Recently, someone asked
Which journals should I read to keep up on advances in solving PDEs numerically?
The question has been closed as not constructive. A similar question is
Venues for publishing papers that emphasize software
Do we want to allow such questions or not?
I think such questions should be allowed. They have a factual answer (a list of all journals on a given topic) which may not be easy to find anywhere else. They also admit subjective answers, which would be short lists of the most useful/important/whatever journals in some area. The subjective answers are very useful since nobody could read all the journal articles about, say, numerical PDEs.
As discussed in this blog post, subjective questions can be very useful as long as people stick to answers based on references or on personal experience. Many of us have a lot of personal experience reading the computational science literature, and we can use that to give useful answers to newcomers or outsiders.
As Geoff points out, apparently SE staff have an aversion to questions asking for lists. But the stated reason is that such questions are really polls. That's simply not true in this case; take a look at Venues for publishing papers that emphasize software. I learned a lot from answers to that question and I consider myself an expert on that topic. I'm confident that that information doesn't exist in any other single place. Indeed, I've been using that question to "show off" the site to many people, who have reacted positively.
I think the Solomonic solution would be to allow list questions when they provoke answers beyond just lists. "What are tools for X, and when should we use them?" goes far enough beyond the "list of X" question that it should be considered a reasonable question for the board.
(Of course, questions that just ask for a generic listing should be edited to encourage better responses!)
I think the content of the question DavidKetcheson linked to is certainly on topic, and I have no problem with re-opening that particular question. My issue with that question was not subjectivity at all, because I agree, such answers fall more on the "good subjective" side of the spectrum.
My issue with that question was that it looked like a "List of X" question, and there are several links on Stack Exchange talking about how such questions are bad:
Opinion on "list of X" questions is mixed. These links tend to talk about how list questions might be good in some contexts:
There may indeed be some context in which a list question is okay, but looking at the two responses, one was a list (by JedBrown) with not much in the way of commentary per bullet point, and another was a shorter list (by DavidKetcheson), again with not much in the way of commentary. I believe that the author of the question, Dan, was looking for a list of journals when he asked that question. When the subject of community wiki came up in Meta, we eventually had a comment thread that discussed closing the question DavidKetcheson linked to. Dan and I both felt that the question probably should be closed unless community discussion tilts things the other way.
I am inclined to decide against questions that ask for explicit lists. The question What core skills should every computational scientist have? was well-intentioned and topical, but asked for a list of skills explicitly.
I draw a contrast between the linked question and a questions asking for software recommendations on the grounds that often times, questions asking for software recommendations don't necessarily need a list. If I ask about recommendations for a good numerical integrator or linear algebra package for a specific use case, I may get a list as an answer, but mentioning one or two software packages with sufficient commentary is appropriate and valid. Consequently, I don't consider software recommendation questions to be "list questions" unless the poster explicitly asks for a list.
That was my whole thought process, after doing all of the research; it was originally prompted by dmckee's (seemingly apoplectic) comment about list questions, and I asked about list questions a bit in the Teacher's Lounge to get a feel for it. I thank dmckee for giving me a heads up about the issue of "list questions".
In the past couple days, I asked some of the more experienced mods and SE employees about what's going on with journal questions. Opinion was divided, making it sound like these questions are sort of a corner case of list-type questions. The impression I get from the community (based on the current 8-2 total) is that we're going to allow these sorts of questions. Based on that response, here's my take on things:
For starters, DavidKetcheson is right: some questions legitimately have lists as answers. Opinion questions (that ask for lists) for which there are "no" wrong answers (or rather, that allow a wide range of admissible answers) are definitely not suited to the SE format. They allow too much in the way "me too" answers that don't add much to the discussion, even though it's possible to have really good answers. However, questions like, "What languages are most common in computational science?" or "What are good numerical linear algebra books?" do have factual lists as answers, and thus, are reasonable questions on their face.
However, I believe we as a community need to be careful. A good answer to a recommendation question has some of the following characteristics:
What I liked about the answers to the software question was that the better answers of that question had links, as well as paragraphs justifying the response with quotes from the aims and scope of the journals, or personal experience (either reading the journal, or experience submitting to the journal), and those justifications really put the recommendations into context. What I didn't like about some of the answers to that question was that they were a sentence or two stating that software was in the aims and scope for the journal recommended (in whatever subfield).
In that vein, I'm more inclined to think that a journal question is not a list question if answers tell me:
I say all of this because I too want to know what journals to read, and I've learned that not all journals are equal. Merely getting a list of journals doesn't help me (and it probably doesn't help anyone else), because my time (like everyone else's) is limited. If an expert tells me in what situations and why I should read a journal, I'm much more likely to actually try and read it than if they don't, and their answer is profoundly more valuable. If they give me a list without any of that information, it's virtually worthless to me, because they've given me no context. With minimal effort (a Google search), I could probably cobble together a list that answers the question. With some effort, I could probably answer some of the questions I posed about journals (read the aims and scope, skim some articles, hunt down the impact factor). To actually get an expert opinion on a journal I initially know nothing about would take considerable effort, and I think those expert opinions are most likely to be valuable and save people time.
If a lot of the answers are short, or lists without justification, I'm much more likely to comment that I think the question isn't constructive, because it isn't a good example of what the SE sites can do when they reach their full potential. I think the answers to the PDE question could be better, and I think for these questions to have useful answers, the moderators (myself included) are going to have to keep an eye on them to make sure that we have good answers that are valuable for people.
I'll also move to wikify any journal question.
