Why should the "list of breakthroughs in physics" be allowed?

Question

I just noticed the question on Accidental, unplanned breakthroughs in physics which you have probably seen if you're reading this. It's attracted a lot of positive attention, but I cannot for the life of me figure out any reason it should be an appropriate question for the site. Consider these excerpts from the Help Center:

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

This question is not based on an actual problem, but it is open-ended pretty much by definition.

To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where...

• every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”
• your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?”
• there is no actual problem to be solved: “I’m curious if other people feel like I do.”

The "breakthroughs" question hits all three of these points on the nose.

Some subjective questions are allowed, but “subjective” does not mean “anything goes”. All subjective questions are expected to be constructive. What does that mean? Constructive subjective questions:

• inspire answers that explain “why” and “how”

This one doesn't, it's just assembling a list without any specific prompt for information.

• tend to have long, not short, answers

Naming a breakthrough is not a long answer.

As detailed elsewhere on meta, questions with these attributes fail to increase the quality of the site at best, and actively pollute it at worst.

We do have an active discussion (in a long-term sense) on list questions, but even looking at the suggestions made in that question and answers, nothing seems to allow an all-encompassing list of breakthroughs. A common opinion is that list questions of limited scope are likely to be okay, but this is absolutely not one of those.

So here's my question, primarily to people who upvoted or reopen-voted the "breakthroughs" question: in doing so, it seems that you're suggesting we ignore fully half a page of the help center and an emerging consensus on list questions from this site itself. Why? What are your arguments that these policies don't apply to this question?

Answer 1

It seems people are arguing that this question has the potential to elicit answers containing fairly high-level and interesting physics. Of course I agree it's interesting and enjoyable to read about accidental discoveries of important phenomena or physical principles/laws. And as pointed out in the comments to the question, such answers might indeed encourage experts to join the site (more so than, say, simple kinematics questions or copy-paste homework ones).

However, there are undoubtedly entire books devoted (completely or in part) to such discoveries. Furthermore I think the experts-argument is insufficient. Not only is it a vague way to judge whether or not a question should be allowed, I think it's far worse to undermine current policy than it is to close one question that may or may not attract good new users. Of course, if the policy changed, it could become an allowed question. So I would encourage people to focus their energy on finding a good new list policy that includes positive, interesting list questions (like this one, perhaps altered slightly) but excludes the problematic ones - instead of putting it all into battles about specific questions.

Just to be clear, I agree that certain list questions have the potential to be acceptable and attract good new users, experts. But I also believe we should not undermine current policy and instead try to improve it if possible. David is right when he points out how this specific questions fails to pass the current filter, so it should be closed. Therefore I re-iterate: please focus your energy on developing an improved lists policy. It's more difficult than semi-anarchistically fighting specific battles, but it is very important and far more useful. Lose one in the short run, save a thousand in the long.

Answer 2

Personally, I voted to reopen because I felt this particular question would be a valuable resource and a positive addition to the site. I understand many of your concerns and agree that it would be a blatant exception to current policy; I also agree with Wouter that communal energies are best directed to the design and implementation of a more comprehensive list policy that will not lead to site pollution.

On the other hand, I must say I am disappointed that this question was closed by moderation action and that it took this long for a moderator to bring this to meta. The review queue is by now very efficient: out of the 50 newest closed questions, 33 were closed with at least four people involved. The post was in the review queue and would have been dealt with by the community, with a woulda-coulda-shoulda outcome that's useless to speculate upon now.

Even if the question had been voted off the review queue, I would have appreciated a post like this before, or at least shortly after the moderator closure. Note that I'm not in any way advocating such discussion for all moderator actions and I speak exclusively of this question: it was a well-phrased question (if somewhat naive to the policies of this site) that attracted positive attention, in the form of upvotes and answers, and it was clear that a lot of people were watching. I feel this question was an exception enough that it warranted a more open, discussed and justified closure process. (A similar feeling may have motivated the other upvoters and reopen-voters, I think.)

There, I've said my piece. Now I'll go have a think about list question policies, instead of brooding about this.