Phil, it is not that all questions requiring list answers are frowned against, but specifically those that contain indeterminately long lists or lists which are likely to change frequently with time.
Our users are arguing that this is one such list. Frankly, I disagree, though I can see how it could become such a list eventually. I don't really think there is much you can do at this point.
I have also seen some users arguing that this is trivial information that one might find on Wikipedia. If our community determines that to be the case, there is also not a lot you can do.
If the community decides to close your answer, I would encourage asking more questions. It can take time to pick up on the culture around here, but you will find that most people are welcoming and ready to help new folks who are eager to learn.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me in the comments here or ask them in our chat room. Also, check out our help center if you haven't already!
For reference, here is what the SE staff told me about Community Wikis:
I wanted to let you know that I un-wikified this question (Present distances between planet. How can I find them?), but I wanted to fill in a few blanks about why.
Wiki has a long history of continued use where the use case is no longer needed... to the point where the entire feature has been largely deprecated. Since the concept of Community Wiki was created, we've added a lot of features that have almost completely negated the need for it at all. The best place to start is this blog post:
The Future of Community Wiki
Basically, we no longer use wiki as a broad rep-denial mechanism or when a question might become a list. Personally, I would have removed (or repurposed) the concept of Community Wiki on SE a long time ago, but it still has a really, really narrow use case when an answer is being used as a broad, collaborative repository that is constantly being updated by a lot of users.
I wouldn't worry too much about the "make a list" aspect of this question. This isn't quite the same as someone asking to compile a list of everyone's favorite blogs. This user is trying to solve a pretty specific problem where the answer just happens to be whether a tool exists to help him solve it.
Hypothetically speaking, if you suspect (or if it comes to pass) that the list of answers would become so long and boundless as to become completely unmanageable (or largely unvetted as folks lose interest in maintaining it), it would be fair to ask "why wouldn't any random tool easily found work for you?" If the list of answers is so impossibly broad that folks are only piling on and guessing what tool would help the original author specifically, the question should be narrowed down. That doesn't really seem to be the case here. This is the difference between a question saying "let's create a big list" versus someone asking "can someone help solve my problem specifically?"
