[zellio]

While I am not a mod on SO I have been on the site for a while and have been answering for most of that time. As such I do have edit rights on questions general and have the ability to recommend posts for deletion.

Generally speaking mods close questions for quality reasons or because they don't fit the format of the site. The F.A.Q. is fairly explicit about what SO is for and while I can only speak for my self, I do my best to adhere to those rules when closing questions.

As for locking questions, that is a bit more subjective but in most cases they are locked because they are well known and they have been solved. Being that there is no need for additional answers they are closed such that you don't have the spam issue of "Thanks" posts.

I doubt that there is a systemic pattern of censorship and rather what you see is the normal operations of a very large and famous Q.A. site with a very specific purpose.

[doomrobo]

The most common reason for closure I see is "not constructive." And yet the links of these "not constructive" post have great answers that are then linked to in sites like these. SO's rules are very clear and I understand their reasoning for closing things, mostly because It's a Q&A site. End of story. So could it be that the users are purposely being ignorant of the rules with the knowledge that if it's a good, albeit potentially not constructive, question that it will be answered? Maybe another site more suited to these questions would be more appropriate. Just thinking out loud.

[readme]

Not constructive is often the reason given when a question is subjective. SO is not meant for subjective questions. It's specifically for problems encountered while trying to accomplish some goal.

I've been on SO for a while and have a good amount of karma there. I think another site couldn't replace SO for these closed questions, (there's quora, already, anyway). There is some culture around this: you can post a subjective, or even funny question, and get away with it for a bit, depending on your reputation on the site/who you are etc. The community produces these questions and answers, so merely using a different website purposed for this case wouldn't work, since it would require the SO community to generate the content, and you wouldn't have that.