The other extreme seems to be a situation like reddit's r/programming, which says (on every page) "If there is no code in your link, it probably doesn't belong here", yet usually half the posts violate it, i.e., you have guidelines but they're pretty universally ignored.

Which is better? I don't know. I personally haven't used either one in a while, because they don't seem to work well if you're not using a mainstream programming language. Google still wins for me here, since the right answer is very frequently on some random person's blog.