Detailed List questions and CW

Question

I posted a question to ascertain what web-sites were out there for automated die-rollers. The motivation behind the question was that I wanted to find a die-rolling site that didn't require a sign-in, and would email to any email I entered, in a easy-to-enter in form. I decided instead of being this specific to ask people to give me answers of these sites with details about them, that way it would be more useful for those in the future who wanted a die-rolling site with a slightly different aspect.

I've gotten respectful comments that I should make this Community Wiki. While I don't mind the question being CW, I don't want to make the answers from others CW, because I want to encourage useful answers by a rep reward.

There was link posted to this answer on MetaWa from Jeff, where he pointed out that he wanted detailed answers, i.e. with useful content, not just cut-and-paste links. So I then edited my question to emphasize the need for details.

Then I found this answer from Robert Cartaino, that mentioned that lists should be CW, but also pointed out that it's not their intended purpose.

I'm hoping to get clarification from the Team on whether these SE sites will be changing how CW is used and applied.

Personally, I go with the original meaning of CW where it was intended for those kind of posts that wanted to allow community editing (at lower rep levels). I've never bowed to the Community Wiki Police, who want to turn everything that has multiple answers into a CW, but I will go by whatever the Team wants. I'd just like clarification and preciseness, because hey, I'm an Engineer and I like definite answers. :)

Answer 1

The "official position" is that all "list of X" -style questions should be made community wiki.

List-of-X questions are not really what we want in a Q&A system. When you ask a question like "Detailed list of automated die roller web sites," one answer is not any "more correct" (or even better) than another. So voting turns into either a popularity contest or a shout-out. Poll questions subvert the knowledge-part of the equation to award reputation somewhat randomly. That's not what reputation and voting is about.

Most people seem to agree that there shouldn't be a deluge of list-of-X questions on the system, but the author of each one of those questions thinks somehow that theirs is the useful exception. So we reluctantly tolerate them in small quantities by taking away the reputation awards part of the equation.

You're right, list questions was not community wiki's intended purpose. The intention of community wiki to lower the reputation barrier needed to edit so collaborative answers could be maintain by a wider group of users. The post becomes the property of the "community" so there is no reputation awarded for votes received on the collaborative answer.

However, lists don't have one answer either. The "value" of the list is in the entire collection of answers, created collaboratively. So, in this sense it is wiki because the so-called "answer" is a collaborative work.