SO is now promoting their new Discussions site, a place for opinion-based and otherwise fuzzy questions, which is what this site should have been.

That is not what Codidact should've been. Codidact remains a Q/A site just the same way that SO is a Q/A site, and the Q/A format is unfit for discussion. Discussions are orthogonal to the main goals of both sites: a curated searchable and reusable repository of knowledge for current and future use. The goal isn't actually to be a teaching platform, but to be a resource for those looking to answers to their questions. Of course it's a goal that people will learn, but it's not a goal for us to be a teachers. That requires so much more than what is possible to deliver with this format, but most of all, it would require us to abandon the goals of a searchable and reusable knowledge repository.

I have been following the launch and development of the Discussions feature on Stack Overflow, and I can tell you one thing about it: it's doomed for failure, and the current state of it, is bad. It won't provide much value for future visitors. And when there's a lot of valueless content, it covers up the valuable content. I know from previous discussions with you that you don't believe in this idea, so I'm not sure how I can convince you that the best way for us to provide value to our visitors, is by having a highly curated database of content.

Novices often frame a question as "What is better, X or Y?" This is a teachable moment. We can factually discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different solutions, the history of their popularity, and the real-world reasons you would choose one over the other. On SO, such a question would be closed immediately.

And the reason why it's a good idea to not allow such answers on a Q/A site whose main purpose is value to future visitors, is that any answer to such a question, will require too much context about the question author. Because if you seek to answer this question, you cannot give a definite answer independently of the person behind the question.

There is however a very useful way that you can work with these questions on Codidact; generalize them, and write a canonical which teaches the reader in a general case; this way, you will ensure that the answer remains valuable for all future visitors, not just the single person asking the question.

But, I would be more than interested to actually see an example where you think that such a question works out on a Q/A site like Codidact. If the question author can precisely define the requirements for comparing them (in a way usable to future visitors), I have no reason to oppose such a question to live on Codidact. My impression is that you mean something wider, though. Like, a general "what is better" question, with no clearly defined bounds. That just doesn't work out here.

We should strive to always ask ourselves: "will this be useful to future visitors"? If the answer is yes, we should strive to find a way to preserve it on the site. If the answer is no, we have no reason to host the content, even if the question author can receive a useful answer here. Because that's not the goal of the site, to be a helpdesk. Asking and answering questions on the site, is only a means for reaching the goal of sharing knowledge with the broader group of people; those coming to the site to read, and not just ask.

If one cannot find an existing question, so one has to ask a duplicate, perhaps because it's so vague, or hard to search for, the question is of little use to us.

Andreas from the dark caverns‭ I'm also advocating a highly curated database of content, just one that is positively curated instead of negatively curated. Flag "good" content and allow people to access it through an interface that only shows the "good" content if they so desire. This creates the possibility of multiple such interfaces to the same content, curated for different purposes and/or by people with different opinions about what constitutes "good" content. I'm not sure why so many people can't seem to wrap their heads around this idea.

I know what this site was intended to be, and I know its design follows that intention and is therefore unsuitable for discussions. I'm saying the intention was misguided. What's the point of an ideological clone of SO? Competition requires a differentiator.

SO Discussions is having some growing pains and might even be under attack from purists who are angry that it exists. But I've already seen some very good discussions there.