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Only 53% of questions posted on https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com are answered, and this statistic doesn't take into account the many questions that get automatically removed, which means that just a minority of questions (30% to 40%) gets an answer here. Where else can I ask for software recommendations?

So far I have found:

Where else can I ask for software recommendations?

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  • Yeah, my posts on this site have been very unproductive compared to other SE sites.
    – endolith
    Commented Sep 16, 2022 at 15:22

2 Answers 2

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Not all Stack Exchange sites have banned software recommendations. In my limited experience, they are permitted on many of the smaller sites, as long as they pertain to the topic of that site. And it helps if they are as detailed as they need to be here.

Examples:

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  • I've noticed this as well. I think StackOverflow, Superuser, and Android SE are the 3 largest SE sites for which software recommendations are considered off-topic. Likely a few of the smaller SE sites as well, but as you noticed, software recommendations - at least for now - are still allowed on quite a few SE sites.
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Mar 31, 2021 at 5:58
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I'm finding this Stack Exchange is overall poor at producing answers to questions. Nearly half of my questions posted here have gone unanswered for at least 2 years.

Of the questions that get answered, most only get 1 answer.

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    And to make it worse, many of your unanswered questions will get removed automatically. meta.stackexchange.com/q/355097/178179 hundreds of my questions got removed, just because they were unanswered.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Dec 4, 2021 at 23:42
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    The best way to encourage answers may be to contribute more answers and to upvote existing quality answers. There is also a "Share" button on each question to share it, if you're into that sort of thing.
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2021 at 6:42
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    @FranckDernoncourt I find that "feature" of Stack Exchange to be the worst of ideas for a QA community. Hopefully - some day - they will dump it, at least for unique QA sites like this one. As you've noticed, it's destructive; it's also disrespectful to our community members, as our members expend much time and effort writing quality questions.
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2021 at 6:46
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    @RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket yes, to make it worse one day I tried to encourage people to vote on questions more often and got threatened with suspension/ban by some Stack Exchange employee (Robert Cartaino, who later got fired): softwarerecs.meta.stackexchange.com/a/1117/903 Even worse, people here mostly upvoted his post, while Nicolas Raoul's nice answer got downvoted. Since then, I have barely cast any vote on this SE, to avoid getting suspended. I'm ready to bet this created a significant increase in the number of questions removed by Roomba.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 4:15
  • @FranckDernoncourt The numbers are even a little worse for that Meta QA when you consider I had downvoted Robert Cartaino's inimical answer, and upvoted Nicolas Roaul's kind answer. Fortunately, that was nearly 7 years ago, and things have changed for the better in our community (to the contrary, IMHO, things have gotten notably worse on sites like Stack Overflow).
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 6:25
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    Personally, I upvote any question that I think is interesting or of high quality (i.e. took the author significant time/effort to write). I also upvote all first-time question posters who write a reasonably high-quality question. By doing this, they receive immediate positive feedback and are provided with sufficient rep to perform basic tasks within our community. I have cast over 3500 votes, and probably well over 90% of them are upvotes. I also upvote any answer that I read that I think will help others.
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 6:25
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    Don't worry about getting suspended; no one should have been making threats. The only real ways to get suspended around here are to post spam, be engaged in sockpuppetry, or to act like a total ass. IIRC, since I've been a moderator, not a single person has been suspended for the latter 2 causes because our community really does attract the best people on all of SE.
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 6:25
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    People come here for the right reasons: they come here to help each other and to get help. No one is here to flex their ego or act like a pedantic nimrod. If you think a question or answer is worthy of an upvote, my recommendation is to give it an upvote. It costs you nothing and it may add a little joy to someone else's day. :)
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 6:26
  • @RockPaperLz-MaskitorCasket says "No one is here to flex their ego or act like a pedantic nimrod." — Perhaps not deliberately, but my first response on reading this was wanting to point out that this incorrect use of "nimrod" is based on a misunderstanding of something Bugs Bunny once said, which, had I done so, would have made me a … .
    – Ray Butterworth
    Commented Oct 5, 2022 at 14:56
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    @RayButterworth LOL. I do still love Bugs Bunny. I've only scratched the surface to hunt down all the meanings of the word nimrod (please don't get me embarking on that rabbit hole of an Internet journey), but if Bugs Bunny's use was the origin of the modern interpretation, all the better! Given that I'm all ears to learn something new, I quick as a bunny reached out to a harried friend who is a language expert. She popped out of her hole to tell me that this particular use is now accepted as an informal standard: thefreedictionary.com/nimrod - That's All Folks!
    – End Antisemitic Hate Mod
    Commented Oct 6, 2022 at 5:23

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