Yeah, it feels like that close reason is sometimes used to broadly. I remeber i asked once what role Dolby actually played in home theater 5.1 audio, so i could assemble a chain of compatible devices (single PC mirrored out to two TVs each with 5.1 hardware via HDMI), but suffered an ignominious closure. Sometimes I feel like i need to contort my question to keep casual readers from casting close votes. I don;t ask many questions, so not a huge deal, but it does seem like we're too quick to vote to close if something smells like a "what should I buy" question.

Interpreting meaningful guidance from SMART stats (before its too late), inherently requires a degree of "educated/expert opinion", much like you might get from your doctor when you ask "why does it hurt when i do this?". Unfourtunately, we can't just say "get an MRI". while the ops question can be understood as "can I keep using this disk?", you can also model it as "what should I do?", which is basically the only motivation anyone has for posting questions.

part of the problem is that there can't be a canonical answer due to the mechanical/analog nature of the device itself. SMART stats are indicators, but are not conclusive for most diagnostic purposes. in particular reallocated sector count as a single snapshot in time, absent any other alarming SMART stats, is not conclusively bad, but also may as likely indicate a critical failure in the near term.

+1 for recognizing that a not-insignificant percentage of "Why" questions do have observable reasoning, that dosen't require you to mind-meld with the original development team to answer without it being an "just an opinion".

I've appreciated your contributions over the years. best wishes.

but one impact of the tech stack to consider, is that you cannot use Docker for Windows on a system where you are already using VirtualBox, since you can't install HyperV and Virtualbox on the same system.

I really don't like the idea that somehow superuser's overall "quality" as a Q/A site is based on the quality of other peoples questions/answers rather than on trying to reliably help people with questions find answers. Its like google is the customer, not the community itself.

so the question was closed under the "software recommendations" rule. in theory the question would be safe if you asked "how do I do X", rather than "what tool am i looking for to do X". yes, I know the distinction seems somewhat pedantic, but .... anyway, try touching up your question if you like, and see if you can get an admin to reconsider.

@BoppityBop, I actually suspect its a somewhat different impulse, more like the tech support from any vendor are trained to look for any reason to say the problem is someone else's fault and thus "out of scope" for the support they provide. like the website company blaming the browser company, or vice-versa. There may sometimes be a degree of victim blaming, but I don't think imaginary Internet points are as much of a motivator to someone over 10k rep as you appear to. I like it when people read what I wrote, and upvotes are a sign they agree or appreciate it, but point totals are meaningless

I agree that this is a big problem for the site. We also should not discourage/admonish people from/for answering (while still accumulating close votes) or commenting on questions that are perceived as off topic. as for mod intervention, we've already done the damage to the sites reputation and user's perceptions of it by the time someone reaches out on meta. Maybe my question got reopened, but I'll never forgive its closure.