<p>I don't agree that <em>book recommendations</em> are a good use for <strong><em>this</em></strong> site &mdash; but let's set that aside for a moment to avoid using Community Wiki as a way to make these somehow <em>okay.</em></p>

<p>Community Wiki was <em>not</em> designed to solicit crowd-sourced lists of stuff. The problem with Community Wiki is it's often used to to allow questions that otherwise would <em>not</em> be allowed on the site. That's why we largely deprecated the feature &mdash; <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/the-future-of-community-wiki/">Future of Community Wiki</a>.</p>

<p>The problem with most of these <em>"let's create a list"</em> questions is that it becomes really hard to begrudge anyone their addition, and every suggestion of a random favorite book/tool/application/website/blog/etc is no better than any other, until all semblance of <em>expertise</em> is lost. </p>

<p>In this question (for example): <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/125/246">What is the best introductory Bayesian statistics textbook</a>, 26 answers citing the "best textbook" (really?), and the voting has a strong correlation to the <em>age</em> of the answer. More views = more votes. That's not exactly what we're supposed to do here.</p>

<p>There will always be users who prefer to just ask the easy <em>"getting started primers"</em> &mdash; It's just easier to cast a broad net and pick through the rubble of random answers to see what suits them later. But let's start with the premise that, with overly-broad, generalized questions, <strong>users will only be <em>guessing</em> how to help them, specifically.</strong> </p>

<p>This site will work better if you help these users flesh out a question about what specific problem they are encountering and what they are having trouble understanding in their day to day work. Specific, long-tailed questions will work much better than <strong><em>"you guys talk and I'll pick out the good stuff later."</em></strong></p>

<p>It's not like these polls of the community should never be asked anywhere (discussion forums are great for this stuff), but what makes a Stack Exchange site "work" is its laser-sharp focus on specific, long-tailed questions at can be answered canonically. We stick to the practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that we face in our day-to-day work. That's a pretty big ask, I know. But specifically forgoing these types of overly-generalized questions is how we set ourselves apart from every other forum on the topic. It's a tough sell, but it's that practical, low-noise approach to Q&amp;A that drives experts to these sites.</p>

<p>And let's not (mis)use the Community Wiki feature to <em>fix</em> these questions.</p>
