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Again, simple as.

I was very supprised and disapointed that these questions are locked. I think for students and mathematicans who may want to enter the field these questions are great and could be very insparational.

I really think that these lists can have something to add.

I agree that many of the answers were simply un-detailed lists of a half-dozen books, but it is not the fault of the question nor the question-poser that the answers given were not in line with the rules.

So my question is, can we open the Every Physicist Books question and the Layman Books question?

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  • $\begingroup$ Related: meta.physics.stackexchange.com/q/5391/2451 $\endgroup$ – Qmechanic♦ Apr 14 '14 at 0:28
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    $\begingroup$ @Qmechanic yes, that's exactly what I was talking about. I read that question, and the answers, but I am asking the exact opposite question. It is a, related, yet completely different question. $\endgroup$ – Flint72 Apr 14 '14 at 0:30
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    $\begingroup$ My answer to the link Qmechanic gives is the exact reason why both threads should remain closed: they are big list questions and they do not fit the current book policy. $\endgroup$ – Kyle Kanos Apr 14 '14 at 1:02
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    $\begingroup$ I know you're new around here, but do you have any idea how many times we've been over the ground on site after site after site? Yes, these things could be valuable in and of themselves, but they break sites. No, really, they do. The easy-to-ask, easy-to-participate-in cruft drives out the real content that makes the site different from the rest of the internet. They ruin the one thing that makes Stack Exchange sites different and better. $\endgroup$ – dmckee♦ Apr 14 '14 at 1:17
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I agree that many of the answers were simply un-detailed lists of a half-dozen books, but it is not the fault of the question nor the question-poser that the answers given were not in line with the rules.

True, but the questions weren't locked because of their answers, they were locked because they - the questions themselves - are not good content for a Stack Exchange site. (That's a general rule, by the way. Whenever a question is locked or closed, it's not because of any answers it may have received.) As dmckee said in a comment:

Yes, these things could be valuable in and of themselves, but they break sites. No, really, they do. The easy-to-ask, easy-to-participate-in cruft drives out the real content that makes the site different from the rest of the internet. They ruin the one thing that makes Stack Exchange sites different and better.

Keep in mind that Stack Exchange sites are not trying to be your one-stop resource to find all useful information on a particular subject. We are trying to be the best place to ask specific questions and get accurate answers. Accordingly, we don't want to deal with anything that's not a specific question or an accurate answer. I'm not saying all that other content is useless; on the contrary, some of it is very useful. But it's not what we're trying to collect here. There are plenty of other places online where that other content can find a good home.

Open-ended lists fall into that category of non-SE content. So no, we will not unlock those questions. They're useful, sure, but this site is not the place for them.

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  • $\begingroup$ I only just noticed that all but one of this site's "Stellar Questions" are big-list book list questions. Coincidence, I think not! $\endgroup$ – Flint72 Apr 20 '14 at 16:17

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