The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
I would like to say yes to this. I think this is a great place for very technical discussion and Q&A and thus would like this to be a place where people can ask and answer questions about software applications typically used in digital preservation work.
We should try and avoid shopping list questions, however, I think it is completely relevant to ask for advice on which particular tools do a good job addressing particular preservation risks or threats.
Further, when it comes to digital preservation software applications (JOVE, Fedora, DSpace, Archivematica, etc) or content management systems that are used as defacto digital preservation systems (ex. ContentDM, Omeka, etc) I think it is relevant to ask those questions here. Granted, there will be questions that are so detailed with these applications that the would be better fielded on application specific support-email lists. In my mind, the litmus test should be if the questions and answers would be useful things for folks working in digital preservation to potentially know about or be aware of.
Trevor Owens
Yeah. That all sounds pretty reasonable, and it's consistent with the practice on other sites (I know music.SE works like this).
I think the central issue for good shopping-list questions is "Is it constructive?". It's all about the details. How to use particular software for on-topic purposes, should be on-topic. What software exists for on-topic purposes, should be on-topic.
I agree that questions about software apps are relevant here. Software tools are a critical part of the digital preservation field, so must be covered.
Completely open ended and non specific "shopping" style questions should be pushed towards re-writes to ensure they are useful and constructive. I would not like to see a really strict interpretation of the wider Stack approach of being very anti-"shopping" question, which is seen on many (though not all) Stack sites.
I'll echo the already existing YES, but also add another aspect to the issue.
It becomes pretty hard to discuss digital preservation without mentioning the file formats of various specific products (see e.g. How can I recover old digital formats whose readers are no longer extant? which specifically mentions WordPerfect 5.1. Specific product advice then becomes somewhat hard to avoid in a complete answer to a question as asked, and a fully generalized question may not do the OP much good.
This is another yes, but from yet another angle. I think this could be a 'safe' place where people could ask questions about particular software and tools they may not feel completely comfortable asking in the application-specific email lists, which can be intimidating for even the most savvy users.
I vote for yes, with no limitation on "what software", but the question should clearly explain how the particular usage of the software is useful for digital preservation purposes.
e.g. "how to use ms word to save docs in future-proof formats" - OK, "here is super duper library software, how do I promote it" - not OK.
Coming from Michael's angle as well, allowing questions about preserving software-specific formats can hopefully surface some migration chains necessary to migrate formats into something legible/preservable. It would link up nicely to the Just Solve the Problem project from Archive Team.