How should we handle posts intended as community resources?

Question

I was just editing What blogs write about good Android apps and tips? when I realized we might have something of a problem. I moved the answer-in-the-question out to a proper answer, and added my own answer; now there are 7 answers. If we split all the other answers into one website per answer we'll have 14 answers, which is getting unwieldy.

On the one hand I would prefer one site per answer so that we can vote on them individually and the good ones can rise to the top. This also makes sense since it's impossible to create a single definitive answer (some editors will find a particular site useful and others won't). Once the answers overflow a page, though, you get into a situation where new answers never get seen or voted on, since few people go to the next page.

What should we do about this? I personally have no problem favoriting these sort of questions and keeping an eye on them, and deleting old low-voted answers to keep everything on one page, but I'm not confident that that's the best solution.

Answer 1

As others have indicated, perhaps go a bit deeper and ask:

Maybe this question doesn't work because it doesn't belong here.

I would in fact argue this question really shouldn't be here -- any more than "favorite/best/most useful .NET/Java blog" should exist on Stack Overflow.

(This is generally known as the "Infinite List of X" problem.)

Answer 2

On the one hand I would prefer one site per answer so that we can vote on them individually and the good ones can rise to the top. This also makes sense since it's impossible to create a single definitive answer (some editors will find a particular site useful and others won't).

Well, there are a few problems with these questions. Older answers will by default have more votes than newer answers, so for a question that's been open for months, you can't judge anything about the quality of a site/answer by the number of votes (unless they're into the negative, in which case it's a useless answer that misleads visitors who don't understand our voting and should probably be deleted).

Once the answers overflow a page, though, you get into a situation where new answers never get seen or voted on, since few people go to the next page.

I think the StackExchange team have tried to combat this effect over time. Unlike us, who've all been here long enough and clicked enough links to change all the defaults, new users coming to those pages will see a semi-random ordering of the answers (I think there's an activity bias to the randomness) so no two visitors should see the same "first page" of answers.

I'd be tempted to say that if we keep these type of questions on the main site, then rather than treating them as a popularity contest between the answers, we do something more like the other "community resource" questions (like the "when will my phone get updated", "how do I root" type-stuff). So we make (almost) no obvious judgement on the quality of the sites and edit them all into one community wiki answer by category. (obviously the quality bar of each site will now be whether a user thinks they're good enough to nominate, after that all linked sites are treated equally).

Answer 3

I don't think that's a good question for the site. It is, after all, subjective, a poll, and an infinite list. It's different than a resource like When will my device get the Android 3.x update (Honeycomb)? because that's dealing with facts (and, admittedly, rumors) but that can be confirmed.

It also covers similar ground as Where can I ask questions that aren't Android Enthusiast questions? Perhaps that question should be on meta?