You might want to look at Stack Overflow's younger sibling(? child? cousin?) - http://programmers.stackexchange.com/ which is intended for the design type questions rather than the code type questions.
Realizing that these softer questions are very likely to stray into the discussion and debate realm the caretaker community of programmers.se can be very active in closing the questions (also with only ~50 questions/day, one can look at every question each day).
The exact phrasing of the "Should I use NoSQL or an ACID based approach..." question would likely run into this and cite the Gorilla vs Shark blog post ( http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/gorilla-vs-shark/ ) and close the question as a recommendation question.
However, if you went through and wrote it "Here is my problem, here is my design, here are the potential issues that I see with that design, would switching the database from A to B solve these issues without creating worse new ones?" it would likely be a question that remains open.
Programmers.SE really does try for a higher threshold of quality than stack overflow in that with higher quality questions it is possible to attract people who will give high quality answers.
One bit to note is that with a small amount of reputation on any stack exchange site, someone can get into the chat part of the site (the minimum rep is to keep the spammers out) where discussions are completely appropriate.
All of the Stack Exchange sites are designed around the "problem and solution" model. Furthermore, the model was designed to avoid some issues of the scale of community by making discussion difficult and not appropriate. To that end, I'd suggest reading A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Much of the problems that Stack Overflow in particular is facing (compared to the smaller stack exchange sites) is a clash between the core group (read that group article) and the endless september.
It saddens me, but I do believe the endless september is winning in that the core group lacks the numbers or the tool to properly defend itself within the system.
Realizing that these softer questions are very likely to stray into the discussion and debate realm the caretaker community of programmers.se can be very active in closing the questions (also with only ~50 questions/day, one can look at every question each day).
The exact phrasing of the "Should I use NoSQL or an ACID based approach..." question would likely run into this and cite the Gorilla vs Shark blog post ( http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/08/gorilla-vs-shark/ ) and close the question as a recommendation question.
However, if you went through and wrote it "Here is my problem, here is my design, here are the potential issues that I see with that design, would switching the database from A to B solve these issues without creating worse new ones?" it would likely be a question that remains open.
Programmers.SE really does try for a higher threshold of quality than stack overflow in that with higher quality questions it is possible to attract people who will give high quality answers.
One bit to note is that with a small amount of reputation on any stack exchange site, someone can get into the chat part of the site (the minimum rep is to keep the spammers out) where discussions are completely appropriate.
All of the Stack Exchange sites are designed around the "problem and solution" model. Furthermore, the model was designed to avoid some issues of the scale of community by making discussion difficult and not appropriate. To that end, I'd suggest reading A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Much of the problems that Stack Overflow in particular is facing (compared to the smaller stack exchange sites) is a clash between the core group (read that group article) and the endless september.
It saddens me, but I do believe the endless september is winning in that the core group lacks the numbers or the tool to properly defend itself within the system.