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How do we handle questions asking for "good examples of X". For example:

My understanding is that they must be closed (answers must be "practical" and must avoid being "chatty" or "open ended"). But is there some form of them that is okay to be kept open? Perhaps a very specific scope - examples of a single element - are okay but very broad scope - sites of type x - are not okay?

Cheers.

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Short answer: no.

Longer answer: they're good questions, but the title can throw you off. Perhaps we should consider retitling them to be less about "examples" and more about highlighting design patterns or best practices. I think UX.SE could be a great place to come if you're looking for insight or expertise into a particular approach or how to apply a certain pattern, and you can get a lot of inspiration from the answers. But we should probably discourage "examples of X" because they lead to shallow answers where people just post a link or a picture. Instead, your two examples may be better off with titles like:

  • What are best practices to keep in mind when creating a keyboard shortcut manager?
  • Which airlines have well-designed frequent flyer/loyalty programs and why?

Example questions aren't really unpractical or open ended. But I think we could refocus them a bit to get better answers. Feel free to go ahead and edit some of those titles if you have better suggestions.

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    the explaining of why is critical, per blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/09/good-subjective-bad-subjective and one hallmark of bad questions is that they do not ask why but merely imply a list is acceptable.. Aug 12, 2011 at 2:47
  • A short answer “no” to the questions “Are we closing questions that ask for examples? […] But is there some form of them that is okay to be kept open?” is very ambiguous. Which did you mean as a short answer? Aug 20, 2011 at 22:19
  • @Tsuyoshi It was an answer to the question asked in the title, not those in the body.
    – Rahul
    Aug 20, 2011 at 22:28

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