What specific off-topic close reasons do we want or need?

Question

We have had questions related to this matter here on Meta before (there are probably more that I just don't recall right now). When we added the custom close reason dealing with specifying a relevant jurisdiction for legal questions, it unfortunately removed the possiblity of choosing a generic "this is not about amateur radio" close and flag reason. That can at best be described as an oversight on the part of us moderators at the time.

The site has also now had some time to grow and find its scope, and we have seen examples of different kinds of close-worthy questions.

Let's have an open discussion here. What close reasons do we want or need in addition to those provided by the Stack Exchange network software itself? That is, what options do we want under close -> "Off-topic" and flag -> "Off-topic", aside from migration to another site and custom flag/close reason? If examples of questions that you feel would fit the proposed close reasons exist on the site, it may be worthwhile linking to them as well as examples.

One close reason per answer; please make your answers Community Wiki to lower the bar to improving the suggested close reason texts; and let's see what the community thinks.

Please try to make the suggested close reason texts actionable by a poster. If someone's question is put on hold or closed because of one of these reasons, it should be as clear as possible what they can do to make the question eligible for reopening. We can always reference meta posts elaborating on the reasoning behind the close reason, should a reasonable-length text not suffice.

Answer 1

I'll give some general advice on these. This is not a close reason, just some general advice on using them.

They should be need-driven

It's very tempting to be preemptive with these, because you can often reasonably predict the kinds of questions that you'll probably not want. However, try to wait until you've got a real-world lingering problem that one of these could address. Sites only get a few of these, so they should definitely be reserved for when closing of a certain type of question becomes a repetitive, incessant task.

Every word in them should count

Have you ever managed to condense a paragraph into two sentences? That's basically what these need to be. We've found that anything longer than 1.5 - 2 sentences isn't likely to be read. That's less important if the type of question you're addressing could not possibly be made to fit, because there's no additional guidance or action for the user. If you're closing something that could conceivably be re-opened after some editing, then make those first two sentences as informative as possible. The first should be the why, explain as succinctly as you can what's wrong with the question. The second should be the what, as in what they can do to fix it.

Ideally, the what conveys a gist while offering a link to more details, because (again), people don't like to read lots of things when they just want to ask a question.

Monitor Their Usage

This is something for both users and moderators to do. Watch closely how folks use the close reasons, and make sure it's how you thought it was intended. If you see things deviating, it's time to make some noise about it here on meta. Don't rely on new users to protest closings that they don't agree with - it's just as easy for them to find some other site.

Moderators should also keep an eye on how often these reasons are used, and consider pruning reasons that don't see a considerable amount of light any longer. We can run some queries at their request and provide them with the data, we're also working on something that lets them see this without having to request it.

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With all that said, Amateur Radio is probably one of the friendliest sites in the network, you folks do an amazing job of figuring out what everyone wants to talk about and seeing if it'll work within reason. That's how you build an engaged community, and I'm sure you all will make sparing, but judicious use out of these.

Answer 2

This question asks for recommendations for specific products, services, software, or electronic designs, which are off-topic as they attract opinionated rather than comprehensive answers. Please consider rephrasing your question in terms of what you should be looking for given your use case or whether a specific product has the capability you need.

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Rationale:

We get questions like this. We generally agree they're bad. They're not getting closed. Having a standard reason will help get them the close votes they need.

I've made sure to include the standard advice on asking a better question (ask what you should be looking for, not directly for products) and also mentioned asking a concrete question about a product.

I also included “software” and “electronic designs” to help make it clear that this isn't about buying things, and because “What's a simple design I can build” is a thing we get.

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Improvements:

"Given your use case" is clunky; please improve.

Answer 3

This question does not appear to be about amateur radio and is outside the scope defined in the help center.

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Rationale:

This is the general “this is completely off-topic” close reason. It also applies to questions about things like "Internet radio” (not actually radio despite the name), and questions specific to other radio services such as broadcasting.

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Improvements:

It would be nice to make it more actionable, as suggested, but all I came up with was “Questions about radio technology … Electrical Engineering or Signal Processing.” which doesn't really help as questions which would be on-topic those places are more likely to be (marginally) on-topic.