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I don’t think they are for “open ended discussion” though? From https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask:

> You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page.

This is sort of the fundamental limit of the format they chose.

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they have that page for all stack exchange sites regardless of content I believe

https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask also has it even though it encorages a significant number of answers per question (so, open ended)

Chatty, open-ended stuff can go in the StackExchange chat system, can't it?

Sounds like banishing it into the abyss. I use StackExchange a lot, and this thread is the first time I've heard it has a "chat system".

The chat system had been around for a long time. It was introduced by Jeff with the blog post https://stackoverflow.blog/2010/04/29/do-trilogy-sites-need-...

Question tangent comments get sent there to try to keep the focus on Q&A rather than side back and forth. It's not gone permanently.

There are also persistent chat rooms for various topics. Their archives are easily searchable.

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