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I have a question about my Quantitative Finance Stack Exchange post: Commodities API data source

First I don't mean to come to community and instantly question the way it works but please bare with my explanation to the end. I had the question above, it was marked as duplicate but the duplicate didn't have the information I needed. I re-posted it and it was explained to me that this type of the question has little value for broader audience. OK, I understand that but,

  1. I spend considerable time researching it without success. If any such resource would actually exist, I would argue that even if for narrow audience, it would have huge benefit. Also the fact that I didn't find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Some data sources I found were pretty much hidden because they were paid, hence not too popular in general public.

  2. I question the freshness and completeness of provided duplicate question and "Sources lists" in general. New sources might appear and when not specifically asked one might not go and add comment with just one resource link to it. Testament to that be the activity and freshness of the provided duplicate thread.

  3. In general most of the questions asked anywhere are for narrower audience and a lot of people are asking something which can be easily obtained elsewhere with a bit of effort. I 100% agree with just pointing those people to existing answer and close that question but my question doesn't have existing resource available in any list I found here.

In hindsight I see that my original question was a bit lazy written so I also understand, why it got dismissed so fast. I should've provided more description and more sources which I tried and why those are no good for me (short history, low detail...).

So my question is if I can re-post if properly written and also if this is a good general guideline at all? I understand that there was this Policy recommendation: all free data questions are henceforth off topic discussion but I feel that amateurism as an argument only has merit when one is asking something what was already answered. (Also if it makes me looks less amateur-like I don't mind paying for the data, I just didn't find any source of the type I need.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe we can make an additional list of paid for data vendors. What do you think about that? $\endgroup$
    – Bob Jansen Mod
    Commented Jul 29, 2020 at 20:27
  • $\begingroup$ Technically thread here: quant.stackexchange.com/questions/141/… doesn't focus only on free sources. Important distinction for me here is between people who ask what's already answered, creating mess and people who checked those lists and asks if anybody else doesn't have that info. On the other hand I realize that it is impossible to differentiate this easily and mods would spend too much time on it. I don't really know how to solve this generally but I would like to post my question, because I feel its justified in this case. $\endgroup$
    – eXPRESS
    Commented Jul 31, 2020 at 12:37
  • $\begingroup$ See quant.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1624/…, which also discusses this, I raised this a while back but a solution has not yet gained concensus. $\endgroup$
    – Attack68 Mod
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 5:18

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Actually I think your question should be valid for two reasons;

  • the duplicate doesn't already contain the answer you need
  • the question is specific enough to be a useful indexable self contained entry

whilst the general lists serve a purpose for a very specific request it can be better to find a dedicated post.

As a mod Im inclined to also copy the answer into the general list question when one becomes available for the specific post.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for input, you pointed it exactly. I've seen your question mentioned in the comment before but exactly because it was a while I've raised it again. I feel like it should be distinguished case from case and not generally ban every thread of this type maybe it will change in future. $\endgroup$
    – eXPRESS
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 9:19

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