Actuality problem of questions

Question

On SE sites shopping advice is strongly discouraged, and frowned upon. The main reason behind that is that the market constantly changes, and new products are introduced. The relevance of the answers to such questions decrease dramatically over time. So far so good...

But how about software suggestions? I have seen this on StackOverflow many times, and never really gave a second thought. Now I stumbled upon this question here, and it got me thinking "how is this any different than shopping advice?" Essentially the user is asking for a software solution to transport some data back and forth between logs. Isn't this typically something that is prone to change over time? I mean sure, the number of new run logging sites are significantly less than the number of new squash rackets released in the same timespan but the point is still valid I think.

Is it worth rethinking further into long-term relevance of the question?

Answer 1

Hmm...tricky. Some shopping suggestions (see this) can actually be written to be useful to the community. If I have a common problem in a sport, what is the issue in asking for suggestions on what equipment/techniques (etc.) to use to combat the problem (again, if it's written to be useful to the community)?

From the help-center (emphasis mine):

Sports Stack Exchange is for participants, hobbyists, and fans of all sports and forms of competitive physical activity. We welcome questions of all levels.

You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face.

Transfer of data from one running log to another is an actual problem that a participant, hobbyist, or fan faces. Sure, this is suitable for Web Apps...but it seems to be on-topic here as well.