7 votes
Accepted

What exactly is a recommendation question on Ask Different?

Software Recommendation questions are allowed here and they will almost always be closed if they don't follow the guidelines for asking a good question in general and in specific listing detailed ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
5 votes
Accepted

Many supposed questions are actually requests for debugging

This is a hard problem and I’m glad you are approaching it from the viewpoint of how to be helpful of people asking for help and respectful of the time and effort to properly answer a question. It’s ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
5 votes
Accepted

Are questions about Apple history on-topic or not?

Firstly, thank you for your involvement and contribution to the site. I hope you find it to be a valuable resource! With regard to your question, although it wasn't me, I agree with the Moderator's ...
Monomeeth's user avatar
  • 64.3k
5 votes

How do we file complaints about a moderator closing people's posts when he doesn't know better?

You can file a complaint by clicking on the "Contact" link at the bottom of the main page.
nohillside's user avatar
  • 98k
4 votes
Accepted

Is this question on topic?

It's absolutely on topic. With a few exceptions there's an OR clause between the following: Apple Hardware Apple Software Apple Services See https://apple.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic Even ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
4 votes

What exactly is a recommendation question on Ask Different?

This is a good question and one that will be hard to definitively answer, although we could try to define, over time, what is and isn't covered by this particular close reason. One type of question ...
Monomeeth's user avatar
  • 64.3k
4 votes

What exactly is a recommendation question on Ask Different?

Not to be argumentative here (hah!) It seems that the definition of "Off-Topic" is fairly clear (IMHO) in that the subject matter is something that is open to interpretation, varies with your ...
Steve Chambers's user avatar
4 votes

Explanatory text or policy for duplicates are clashing

Is there some harm with the reverse time ordering for this specific close? If so, please let us know and we can look at it. When both questions have been asked more than a year before now, I’m less ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
3 votes
Accepted

Shall I close or even delete question based on misunderstanding?

I’m a big fan of there’s no harm in a wrong answer or even a question that can be edited. If the question is something you didn’t realize, answering how you discovered the actual answer can be super ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
3 votes

What exactly are "off-site resources" from the "off-topic" close reason?

Here are off source resource questions I believe should be closed: Recommend the best book for high school Mac users What list of iPad models is the most complete? Where can I buy a twentieth ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
3 votes

Off Topic Questions - When is a question/problem within scope?

Generally speaking this site is for people using Apple products, the hardware used in combination with them, and the software that runs on them. So any question relating to any of these is more or ...
nohillside's user avatar
  • 98k
3 votes

Off Topic Questions - When is a question/problem within scope?

I like to look at this from a distant perspective any time I look to moderate between two people on whether something is on topic or off topic by reading over the core tour and help articles: https://...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
3 votes

What exactly is a recommendation question on Ask Different?

We do have the software-recommendation tag. This might be a good place to talk about when that is appropriate.
dwightk's user avatar
  • 7,599
3 votes
Accepted

Would you ask about 3rd-party iOS apps here?

Yes - using iOS makes questions on topic for any use of that device. Whether it's a third party or first party device, it's still about a user of an Apple product. Now - questions covering "on topic" ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
3 votes
Accepted

Sales Figures are Off Topic?

I thought I voted to put a hold on this - but others beat me to the punch. My initial thinking combines two reasons we close questions: Asking about how Apple does it's business isn't the core ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
3 votes
Accepted

Are questions regarding topics whose legality is questionable allowed?

That jailbreak exists should be a tip off to the acceptance of grey-area questions on the site. If they weren't allowed, the tag wouldn't exist, right? We are not the police and the laws are not ...
Ian C.'s user avatar
  • 45.7k
2 votes

It's broken - then get it fixed!

It will be a case by case basis but I don't think the example you gave should be closed. It is a reasonable question and others will search for this issue as well. The problem for Ask Different is ...
mmmmmm's user avatar
  • 29.8k
2 votes

Why is a specific, non-customer support question on hold as basic customer support?

The close reason used here has two parts. For your question the second part [...] or questions asking to recommend or find off-site resources (Mac/book/software/tutorial) are off-topic for Ask ...
nohillside's user avatar
  • 98k
2 votes
Accepted

Feedback to OP when flagging question

Actually no moderator commented on the second question you've linked. The comments have been created automatically based on the actions the reviewers selected for the question in the review queue. ...
nohillside's user avatar
  • 98k
2 votes

What exactly is a recommendation question on Ask Different?

What about script writing? (I know it appears outside the scope here, but hear me out for a second). It could be argued that this is a recommendation to find an off-site resource for developer ...
Allan's user avatar
  • 98.7k
2 votes

Why was this question closed?

For the users without sufficient reputation to see the exact wording of why why this was closed see below for the exact text: Questions must demonstrate a reasonable amount of research & ...
Allan's user avatar
  • 98.7k
2 votes

Why was this question closed?

Very good question - the hiding of custom close reason seems like either a decision that should be reviewed or we should agitate for changing the threshold - I can see no reason why we shouldn’t let a ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
2 votes

Can we make this question stronger with facts and references?

Safari is incredibly more CPU efficient This needs references and a benchmark so no one can dispute in what ways this is a trade off. Battery life is dramatically better if you use Safari vs Chrome ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
2 votes

Does this post's status suffer from wrong close reason and is indicative of robo reviewing?

I've had a look at your original question (including the full timeline) and thought I'd share my thoughts even though I wasn't one of the close voters. Is it on topic? I recall reading your question ...
Monomeeth's user avatar
  • 64.3k
2 votes

Just got an "your question (from 7 years ago) is closed as duplicate of a question (17h ago)" - what is this policy?

It was closed in the wrong direction I read, and re-read both questions/answers several times. Here are my conclusions: Both questions are about processes running in the background of other users ...
Allan's user avatar
  • 98.7k
2 votes

Just got an "your question (from 7 years ago) is closed as duplicate of a question (17h ago)" - what is this policy?

Thanks for asking. Closing can take a while to get right. I. Your case, I don’t see much harm if any closing to new answers nor in the close direction - sometimes it’s better to close an old post to a ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
2 votes

How do we file complaints about a moderator closing people's posts when he doesn't know better?

I agree - if you’re sure you want to escalate - contacting the stack employees is an avenue to review any action here. Whether it’s moderators like you (you can access moderation tools due to ...
bmike's user avatar
  • 232k
2 votes

You closed my question as duplicate when it obviously isn't

Thanks for bringing this up in Meta. One of the answers on the original questions mentions if the package/application follows unix standards, then install it to /usr/local/. There will be no ...
nohillside's user avatar
  • 98k
1 vote
Accepted

Why was the "accepting user input" question received on the site while being off-topic?

Python questions are a borderline case IMHO. Looking at the strict wording of the on-topic/off-topic pages it's probably off-topic, OTOH it's used in a lot of scripting-type scenarios (for which ...
nohillside's user avatar
  • 98k
1 vote

Does this post's status suffer from wrong close reason and is indicative of robo reviewing?

The following will now indeed read as quite broad. It lists the most probable of the possible angles to approach the problem I can think of at the moment. If the question can be edited into form again,...
LаngLаngС's user avatar
  • 8,229

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible