Stack Overflow suffers from a mismatch in expectations. The community is seen from the outside as "a place to find answers" so many people go there to ask questions. But in order for your question to be eligible to be answered (and not closed/on hold) it must be: (1) objectively answerable (no opinions!), (2) completely specified (reproducible problems).
#1: lots of people want answers to subjective issues. "Should I do it like this or like that?" "What's the best way to ..."
#2: many of the people who ask the questions just don't know the right way to ask their questions in order to get answers. Also, taking all the steps to make something reproducible can often make the problem apparent, eliminating the need to post the question.
SO has these rules so that they can be a canonical place for people to be pointed by people who go to search engines looking for answers. But I think it's a big turnoff that they close so many. They might have been better served if they had created roles to prune questions that they don't want indexed or shuffle them to a sister site. Pruning them without telling the user they're "closed" or "on hold" would be a much more friendly experience.
#1: lots of people want answers to subjective issues. "Should I do it like this or like that?" "What's the best way to ..."
#2: many of the people who ask the questions just don't know the right way to ask their questions in order to get answers. Also, taking all the steps to make something reproducible can often make the problem apparent, eliminating the need to post the question.
SO has these rules so that they can be a canonical place for people to be pointed by people who go to search engines looking for answers. But I think it's a big turnoff that they close so many. They might have been better served if they had created roles to prune questions that they don't want indexed or shuffle them to a sister site. Pruning them without telling the user they're "closed" or "on hold" would be a much more friendly experience.