I disagree, as long as there is knowledge to be gained it's helpful to all of us. If a community loves the questions why delete them? I especially like reading this kind of posts because seeing lots of different opinions as to what is better in what situation can help me make the right choice. And it has some entertaining value much like the "new programmer jargon thread" or this one
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/58640/great-programming-q... which, of course, I can't see anymore. I myself like to read these quotes because they often contain simple and elegant truths.
You make the following points for why they shouldn't appear on SO
- Nobody needs to know the answer to this question.
-> There will always be someone looking for the answer in question. Surely a lot of people would like to know it still. I googled "Git vs Mercurial" and it has 965.000 results. I suppose at least few people thought it was worth discussing.
- It’s not nearly specific enough.
-> A or B. Seems specific enough to me. And the difference in the opinions and experience of the those who answer will bring a depth and specificity that can not be found on Wikipedia or a blog post. If all the answers in life were as easy as A or B, life would be a lot easier.
- It is difficult to learn from these questions.
-> This is where I disagree the most with you. A person who hasn't used one of both will surely gain some insights why or why not to use A or B
- It drives away experts.
-> I only see it attracting people as there are lots of votes. Of course that doesn't disproof your claim. But perhaps you can show us the numbers? Do you see a disproportionate larger amount of votes from people with less points?
What I think are good reasons are:
- Perhaps you want the site to remain clean Q&A not Q&O(pinion)
- You want to avoid opinion battles as they can get out of hand
As for the opinion battles. I can understand. But I still value the opinions. And whether an opinion is constructive should be measured by it's upvotes.
But the clean just Q&A. As I said earlier. There isn't always a clean cut answer to a question. Life would be a lot easier if it was.
And to answer the Gorilla vs Shark question the answer is obvious. If you're on land the Gorilla will win. If you're in the water the Shark will win. And that's what you can learn from such a question. That's what someone is looking for if he's Googling for "Gorilla vs Shark"