Recs.
Updated
Slant.co (this site) was designed specifically for those questions to which there may be multiple valid answers depending on the context of the question.
See what Slant.co has to say about itself in their blog.
Specs
Pros
Pro Pros and cons vs users' answers
Most Q&A sites give each user the chance to give an answer (sometimes multiple answers). A lot of the content of each user's answers will overlap, resulting in duplication of information (thus more to read), or information being lost in noise (e.g. if someone sees existing answers and adds a missing point without copying existing information, their point will likely languish at the bottom of the list of answers as it did not answer the majority of the question).
Slant approaches this differently; rather than focusing on the users, it focuses on the points; Pros and Cons. Any user may amend the information in a pro/con, may vote based on how much that pro/con influenced their decision, and may add their own pros and cons if certain points are missing from the canon.
Pro See all answers clearly
An enumeration of recommendations is easily viewed as a list, making it a good starting point for researching available options. This is the opposite of other sites in which multiple choices may be listed within a single answer, with the need for the user to read through paragraphs of information to pick out the key articles.
Pro Designed for subjective questions
Slant.co's reason for being is to answer subjective questions. It was born with the knowledge that other sites existed to handle objective questions and answers, but they made no attempt to handle the intricacies of subjective answers. Slant.co is the only site focused on solving this specific area.
Pro Multiple chosen answers
Subjective questions may have more than one answer. Slant allows people to vote for more than one answer as being correct, and to append the pros and cons which influenced their decision to their vote; thus giving a context of in which situations each answer may be considered correct.
Pro Continuously updated for relevance
Since recommendations and pros / cons can be updated by community members, content evolves to reflect modern standards.
Pro Allows Google independent rating for Android apps
It can be difficult to get user-ratings for Android apps that are not available on the Google Play Store.
So far other sites either indirectly use Google Play Store rankings or some technical writer tells you "which are the best XXX apps for YYY".
Pro Unbiased information you can trust
Slant isn't financially tied to any products listed on it. All the categories (organized into 'questions'), products (organized as 'options'), and pros/cons are added, and edited by real users - there is no way for a company to pay to have a favorable review (and if they try to do it themselves, the community can report (flag) or edit any false claims).
Cons
Con Fake and dated ratings
Some ratings seem fake and many of the top lists seem very outdated listing products years and years old when there are better modern alternatives. Probably paid rankings.
Con Needs improvements to avoid redundancy
Many questions can lead to the same app.
Example:
- https://www.slant.co/topics/4648/~es-file-explorer-alternatives-for-android
- https://www.slant.co/topics/1956/~file-explorers-on-android.
If you comment something on "Total Commander", you have to do this in more than one place.
According to this the Slant team is working on this issue.
Con Can be quite biased
For example, this one here: https://www.slant.co/topics/1196/~q-a-websites-for-subjective-questions
Con Maturity
The site is still young and has yet to build up the large user base required to have users with knowledge of all areas in which questions may be asked.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Low quality moderation
Inexperienced moderation, leading to products being flagged unfairly and fake ratings.
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Pro No credit system
Some sites have been criticised for their use of gamification techniques. Whilst the debate is still open on both sides, Slant has an effective mechanism for rewarding contributions which stands outside of this.
Slant allows you to view a user's profile giving you access to non-debatable facts; they've made this many contributions, asked this many questions, voted on this many topics. You can then drill down into these contributions to view the related details.