2

I know the meta section is overflowing with these kind of questions, but I'm still having trouble interpreting the policy.

I recently asked if there is any guitar learning software that offers a specific feature (App for practicing the matching of notes to guitar fredboard locations). The question was shortly afterwards closed as off-topic. On hindsight, i think that especially the last sentence

Can anybody give a recommendation here?

was a little unlucky, to say the least, as it changed the nature of my question. Actually I didn't want a quality based recommendation at all. I was just looking for any software that offers this kind of feature, no matter how good or expensive it is. So it essentially comes down to a rating free yes-or-no question.

Is there any use in rewording this question and how? Would it be sufficient to take out the last sentence and instead make my intention more clear or is this question "inappropriate beyond repair".

This strict policy is actually one of the things i like about SE and I would really like to get a feeling on what exactly my error was. Thanks!

1
  • 1
    I can't give a full answer right now, but it falls under the requesting external resources in the off topic section and I doubt you can edit it and still have it be what you want. The software recs SE is specifically designed to find software that fits a given criteria and has done well with objectively answering questions like this
    – Dom Mod
    Jul 9 '16 at 13:41
3

Generally, recommendations are off topic on most SE sites (this included). We've had some questions of the kind that were accepted, but to be honest, I never understood why some are left open and others are not. The reason why people close these questions is because they are mostly opinion based. I will recommend something, some other user will recommend some other thing, but most of the answers are going to be opinion based.

There is a specific SE site for this kind of recommendations:

Software Recommendations

Where you can ask for this kind of stuff.

4
  • Yes, i've seen questions like this too, hence my confusion. So, as a rule of thumb, requests for software with specific features should rather be posted in Software Recommendations SE than in the community for the trade it is associated with?
    – user3792852
    Jul 9 '16 at 14:40
  • @user3792852 yes,it'd be better to post it there. They have a music tag and also you can promote that question on our chat here, so it might receive some attention from this site as well
    – Shevliaskovic
    Jul 9 '16 at 14:42
  • Thanks! One last question: Would reopening my question here, then answering it with the link to the Software Recommendations posting and a note that this question has been moved, be appropriate? I remember seeing something like this on Stackoverflow now and then.
    – user3792852
    Jul 9 '16 at 14:50
  • 3
    What you have seen is not an answer linking to software recs, but instead a migration. Reopening and answering with a link would not be good.
    – Doktor Mayhem Mod
    Jul 10 '16 at 10:18

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .