Granular off-topic close reasons

Question

There have been some recent changes to the closing process for questions and will be rolled out to our site some time over the next week. While the linked post has lot of details about what exactly has changed, this post is specifically about the following two changes:

1. "Too localized" is no longer a close reason.
2. Each community is free to pick its own list of off-topic reasons (moderators will add/delete)

TL was probably the most used close reason on this site, especially for lazy documentation lookup/missing semicolon/read this paper and solve for me/etc. type questions. While I think its use has been very fair on our site, I do agree that network wide, there has been some abuse which justifies its removal. This means that we will have to find a place for a similar reason under the "Off Topic" banner.

This brings me to the primary purpose for this question — What should our off-topic reasons be? Now that we're 1.5 yrs old, we have certain identifiable patterns in questions that get closed and have a history of meta discussions to serve as a starting point for our choices. There are some relevant discussions in the following posts:

• Handling blatant RTFM cases---harmful to the community?
• Policy on Homework questions
• Can/should we have additional reasons for closing?
• Can we do something to suppress Tom Sawyers?
• Same old, same old

that are worth reading before participating in this one.

With these in mind, what additional granular close reasons (under off-topic) would you like to see? An answer should, preferably,

• justify having the suggestion as a built-in reason (i.e. identify a clear and present closed question pattern that will be addressed with the suggestion)
• provide a short and concise description of the close reason, which will be displayed under the "closed" banner (we'll figure out the word limit later).

Please use comments under the answer (and up/down votes) to discuss the usefulness of the suggestion (we don't want 10 different reasons, which makes it a giant mess) and to alter/modify/mollify the tone and increase the clarity of the description, which is what the user will see.

The end goal should be to convey to the user politely, but firmly and clearly, that their question is not a good fit for the site.

Answer 1

Question does not relate to the Mathematica® software

Description:

The question either does not concern the technical computing software Mathematica by Wolfram Research, or does so in a way that cannot be effectively addressed by the Mathematica user community (e.g. licensing issues).

For example:

• the question exclusively concerns concepts from a specific, narrow field of study, which are not meaningful/relevant/interesting to the broader Mathematica user community, and to which the fact of using the Mathematica software is purely incidental
• the OP is asking about licensing, specific support arrangements, or something similar that only WRI can deal with
• questions concerning other WRI products that we consider explicitly out of scope, e.g. W|A

Answer 2

Simple mistake

One common use of "Too Localized" is for questions arising from a simple syntax error, for example using the wrong type of bracket, failing to capitalize a built-in function, or omitting the space between symbols being multiplied.

Description:

• This question arises due to a simple mistake such as a trivial syntax error, incorrect capitalization, spelling mistake, or other typographical error.

Answer 3

Here is my idea for a sub-category that I hope will help to suppress Tom-Sawyer-ism.

• This question is more suited for a professional consultant.

The justification for this sub-category is given in Can we do something to suppress Tom Sawyers?

Answer 4

From time-to-time we get questions because there is nothing wrong with the code posted. Even though the real problem in such cases may be that there are free variables in the code which have not been cleared, I think such questions should still be closed.

• The problem posed in this question can not be reproduced.

Answer 5

This question is not self-contained

Description:

This question cannot be answered without knowledge of additional external sources. All essential information necessary to answer a question should be embedded to make it permanently useful for future visitors. Especially any sensibly representable data used for programming examples should be put permanently into the body of the question.

This is still rather vague, but would concern:

• External linking to bits of data that might just as well be hard-coded into the question, expecially for small bits of data.
• Extensive referencing of material (e.g. "algorithm xyz in link uvw") which contains essential informations relevant for any try to answer the question.
• External data that cannot be accessed freely or which might not be available for the (forseeable) future, especially considering mutating URLs.

Answer 6

Question is too basic

Description:

The answer to this question either is sufficiently addressed in the documentation, or can reasonably be considered common knowledge.

For example:

• questions about the meaning of sigils such as /@, _, @@@, /., etc.
• the OP is asking how to do something that can be accomplished through a single call to a well-known core function, where this appears directly as an example in the documentation or can be inferred from it straightforwardly and without any additional knowledge
• the question concerns the use of a well-documented argument or option for a particular function
• simple questions about basic mathematics or programming, knowledge of which can be considered a fundamental prerequisite to the use of Mathematica

This is an attempt to combine the putative "No archival value" option with the "Already thoroughly treated elsewhere" reason in a way that may be more palatable to most people, although these two are intended to be mostly orthogonal. It can be thought of as an analog of the "General reference" close reason appearing on English.SE, e.g. here.

Answer 7

Requires extensive discussion

Description:

The question does not seek a concrete answer, but rather is an attempt to start a discussion. Although difficult to accommodate in the question-and-answer format, discussion is welcomed both in the chat and in other Mathematica communities, to which we direct you instead.

For example:

• questions asking about the advantages/disadvantages of particular design choices, or for the reasons behind them in cases where the definitive answer is not clear
• "rants"

This is not the same as a subjective or opinion-based question. Subjective questions that rely on personal experience and resulting preferences can be answered concretely and should not necessarily be closed, while those seeking to survey opinion should be closed using the new "primarily opinion-based" reason.

Answer 8

Thanks for all your input. The moderators have compiled this into the following three cases (we were only allowed three).

This question arises due to a simple mistake such as a trivial syntax error, incorrect capitalization, spelling mistake, or other typographical error and is unlikely to help any future visitors, or else it is easily found in the documentation.

and

This question cannot be answered without additional information. Questions on problems in code must describe the specific problem and include valid code to reproduce it. Any data used for programming examples should be embedded in the question or code to generate the (fake) data must be included.

and

The question is out of scope for this site. The answer to this question requires either advice from Wolfram support or the services of a professional consultant.

Answer 9

No answer can be given for this question

Description:

The question is clearly and correctly stated, but for theoretical or strong practical reasons, it is known to be unanswerable.

For example:

• the question asks for something mathematically impossible, e.g. to find the inverse of a singular matrix
• it is desired to perform an impractically large computation, for which no reasonably efficient algorithms are known (such as where a solution can be obtained efficiently only with a quantum algorithm, or iff P = NP, etc.)
• (perhaps controversial) to give an answer would for some reason require an illegal act, or would be illegal in itself

N.B.: these questions are not very common, and may perhaps be better "answered" (in the SE sense) by stating that an answer (in the usual sense) does not exist. Please consider this when voting (or not voting) for this close reason.

Answer 10

Already thoroughly treated elsewhere

Description:

This question has been so exhaustively addressed elsewhere in the Mathematica literature or user community that no meaningful further contributions can be made here.

If possible, a field should be provided for a link to the referenced material. If this isn't feasible, closers must be reminded to leave a comment containing this link.

This should only be used in cases where both of the following apply:

• nothing can usefully be added to what has already been said (i.e., by thoroughly, we really mean exhaustively: an answer could not possibly do more than repeat the prior treatment, and all related discussion, verbatim)
• the external resource and the link to it can reasonably be considered stable (e.g. official documentation; MathGroup, preferably linking to the archive at wolfram.com and not one of the many other newsgroup archive sites; The Mathematica Journal; SO posting that will not be migrated)