You encounter a specific computing problem. You search for a solution everywhere and don't find one. You spend a considerable length of time writing a well-thought-out, researched, eloquent and articulate question on superuser.com or another one of the StackOverflow websites. You post the question... and within a few minutes it's [closed] with this lovely message:
This has become a regular trope on the SO network and it is seriously pissing me - and a lot of other people - off.
The guidelines on this issue (here) basically boil down to "don't just ask for software recommendations, but manipulate your issue into some kind of question which can be answered or which has a solution". That's stupid. In many, many cases, the solution is going to be "use X software".
The rule is apparently in place because such questions result in single-link answers which quickly become outdated or stale. So what? Programming solutions - or any other type of solution, for that matter - become outdated and stale just as easily.
If someone asked back in 1999, "How do I make text bold using HTML?" should the question have been closed because the <b> tag would be deprecated within a few years?
By all means, force responses to contain more than just a hyperlink. Force them to include detailed description of the solution (software) being recommended. Force links to be archived.
But stop wasting my time, and the time of my colleagues, by closing legitimate questions and forcing me to perform cursory re-writes and re-phrasing of questions just to end up asking exactly the same thing.
Read the top comments on this post - I am not the only one who is being driven away from StackExchange by this nonsense: How do I ask a question that may require recommending software?
