What is meant by the off-topic close reason "product or service recommendations"?

Question

One of the standard off-topic close reasons is this:

"Questions seeking product or service recommendations are off-topic because they tend to become obsolete quickly. Instead, describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve."

Can we clarify exactly what that means, and what types of questions count as off-topic because of it?

The link in the close reason above goes to a Jeff Atwood blog post from 2010 called Q&A is Hard, Let's Go Shopping!, in which he outlines the problems with typical product recommendation requests. However, he also shows what a good product recommendation request looks like.

I've seen several different classes of questions closed for this reason. Here are a few recent examples:

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Types of questions:

"Is this particular service any good?"

• On the subject of pre IPO positions for non accredited investors

"How do I find this information?"

• Where can I find the historical intraday record for Nifty 150 stocks?
• where can I get options historical data and charting tools?

"How do I use this particular website/service?"

• Where can I find the historical intraday record for Nifty 150 stocks?

"How do I accomplish this task?"

• How to accept payments using the community/website name with a personal bank account?
• I want a personal dashboard to monitor data from several sources. Which software tool to use?
• Which brokers offer trading API for stocks and currency exchange?

"Where can I get a better deal than what I'm currently getting?"

• How to transfer money more cheaply from Hong Kong to Canada, without HSBC?
• How can I get more interest than the 2.8% my bank is offering me on my $60,000 AUD?

"Which is the best product/service?"

• Is there a good book that talks about all the type of products to invest?
• Desktop Software to Help Stock Dummies Make Money?
• Which brokerages offer the best streaming quotes (tick level) for the best price?

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Should all of these categories of questions be off-topic?

Please note: I'm not arguing for or against any of the specific questions linked. These are just recent examples of the classes of questions that I have noticed have been closed as a "product or service recommendation" question. I'm only asking for general guidelines on what kinds of questions constitute a "product or service recommendation" request.

Answer 1

I think its a mixed bag. To me intent of this was to closed question like is Bank A better than Bank B. Which bank/service gives the cheapest service.

So to me there are 3 things happening;

1. Genuine closed where recommendation is being asked.
2. Some look like product recommendation but are know to seek info [for example API trading, tool for doing something].
3. Asking if some info exists. More often the answer would be there may or may not be paid service [for example Nifty 150 intraday]

I think from closing point of view, we have got most question right. There may be start few that maybe we shouldn't have closed. That I guess is bound to happen and hence we have the re-open process.

I guess the more serious issue is are we giving the right closure reason. I guess this is where more often we are getting boxed into picking easy options than type a specific reason.

Answer 2

I'll admit, when I am running through the review queue, I'll spend the time to decide a close is appropriate, but if there are two or more votes to close for a specific reason, I'm more likely to check that same one than to ponder whether another should have been chosen instead.

I do think the reason description is somewhat vague. Sometimes, to me, it seems like a variation of the "contact customer service" rejection that I'd thought would be a good choice of standard rejection reason. There are also times that an answer should offer a company, as in my comment on charity. There are dozens of brokers but only the two I named that I am aware offer the charitable gifting account.

In the end, I think we have a tendency toward checking a box even if a custom written response would be better.

Answer 3

Along the lines of your examples, perhaps it would help if we drew up more specific templates for the off-topic question classes we are trying to avoid? For instance, here are some classes of questions that, IMHO, we should be closing as product/service recommendations:

• Where can I get [free/paid] [current/historical] [stock/company/fx] data?
• What [brokers/banks/credit cards/money transfer services] will let me _____ from _____?
• Where can I find a [loan/mortage/funding] because _____?
• What [service/software/app] should I use to track my [finances/budget/portfolio/taxes]?
• What [service/software/app] has feature _____?
• What specific [funds/ETFs/other financial instruments] are appropriate for me?
  (steer such a question to discuss asset classes, not products)
• Who is a [cheaper/better/faster/more reliable] provider of _____ services?
• Where can I find an [advisor/accountant/insurance broker/other professional]?

I also tend to look at questions this way: If the answer to a question could just be the name or a link to one or more product or service providers (whether with or without descriptions of the products/services, promotional or otherwise), then IMHO it isn't a question we want — it will attract spam and it will get out of date.

I'll call out a specific exception for questions and answers about government tax authorities (e.g. IRS, HMRC, or CRA) or other government departments relating to social/retirement benefits (e.g. SSA, Service Canada, etc.). I wouldn't consider public resources to be products or services per se.

Answer 4

In this question, I have identified six classes of questions that are regularly closed as off-topic because of the "product or service recommendations" reason. I think too many of these questions really should not be closed. Without making judgments on the individual questions listed as examples above, I'd like to offer my opinion on how to handle these six types of questions. But before I do, I'd like to offer a principle that I use when reviewing questions:

A question is on-topic or off-topic based on what the question is, not on what the correct answer is. Askers ask questions that they don't know the answer to. As you review a question, if you think you know the answer and you think the question is off-topic, ask yourself if you would still think the question was off-topic if the answer was different. If you would probably change your opinion if the answer was different, then you should probably leave the question open.

Now, let's look at the six types of questions being discussed here:

Should be on-topic (open)

• "How do I find this information?" Certainly, we answer questions for people seeking information all the time. If we are able to provide information, we should also be able to help people learn how to find information for themselves, teaching them to fish in addition to giving them the fish. This should be on-topic. Yes, occasionally the answer will require a pointer to a commercial site. This does not have the same problem as a true shopping question. The question is not asking for opinions about which service is the best, which changes over time. It is simply seeking information. The question asker doesn't know if the info is available from government websites, corporate websites, community websites, or private websites, and often the question reviewer doesn't know, either. These should be on-topic regardless.

• "How do I accomplish this task?" In this type of question, the asker needs to accomplish a task, and doesn't know what needs to be done. In some instances, the task can be accomplished for free using government resources. In other instances, professional help (accountants or lawyers) is required. Still in other instances, it is best done by utilizing a paid commercial service. These should be on-topic. Now, if the question asker already knows how to do the task and is simply looking for a recommendation on the best commercial service to utilize, that is different. But in general, these should be allowed.

• "How do I use this particular service?" This is similar to "How do I accomplish this task" questions. We do allow questions on software usage, and these questions should be on-topic even if they are about using a website/webapp instead of a downloadable/installable piece of software.

Should be off-topic (close)

• ""Which is the best product/service?" This is actually the type of question that founder Jeff Atwood was talking about in his blog post, and should be closed as off-topic for the reasons discussed there.

• "Is this particular service any good?" This is a little different than a simple shopping question. Instead of asking for recommendations among lots of different services, it is simply looking for a review of one particular service. However, these ultimately suffer from the same problems as the standard shopping question. Reviews are opinion-based and will change over time as the service itself changes and competition changes.

It depends

• "Where can I get a better deal than what I'm currently getting?" This is a gray area. According to our on-topic help page, "Strategies for saving more money" related to "Spending Wisely" are on-topic. However, these questions are often simply asking for recommendations for another service. These could go either way, and it really depends on the merits of the individual question.

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In conclusion, I would ask question reviewers to think about these issues before clicking "product or service recommendations" as the close reason. When you incorrectly close a question and cite a reason that doesn't fit, it confuses everyone. If the question should be closed for another reason, then select the correct reason. But if you are closing a question because you think it is a product or service recommendation question, compare it to my list here and see which category it really belongs to. You might find on further analysis that it really should be kept open.

Answer 5

I think there is room to be more permissive in this area. To my mind, there are two main downsides to these types of questions. First, they are too specific and thus often cannot get answers that will satisfy the questioner (sometimes leading to endless back-and-forth in comments). Second, they tend to not be useful as references later (e.g., if found via Google search), again because they are too specific.

As with many close votes, I think we should try to restrain ourselves from closing questions that ask something specific if we can instead give a helpful but more general answer. We should also be wary of knee-jerk close votes simply because the question mentions specific products/services; the question is not whether the question has to do with those specific products/services, but whether an answer would be useful to others. An answer can be useful to people other than the original questioner because it applies to similar (but not identical) circumstances, or because the specific circumstances in the question are very common.

In practice, I think this means we should accept many questions that related to widely-used products and services. I think there have been discussion on meta about this before, but personally I think questions like "How can I do XYZ commonly needed task in Quicken/GnuCash/etc" should be on topic, because lots of people use those products and the answers may be generally useful. At an extreme, the S&P 500, for instance, is actually a specific product provided by a specific company, but (I hope) we wouldn't think of closing a question simply because it was asking something about the S&P 500.

Some of the other questions (like the "which brokers offer a trading API" or "what is a good book about investing") are more shopping-list like, but I think they often admit of good answers that simply sidestep the specifics. When someone asks "what is a good book about investing", often what they actually mean is "how can I learn about investing", and that's a perfectly fine question. So you can just write an answer that says "Personally I liked this book, but there is also this website and this podcast, and those are some starting points for you to find resources that you personally would like." Likewise if someone asks "Should I invest in this particular mutual fund", often you can give a general answer about how to decide what to invest in.

In other words, people sometimes ask questions that are more specific than the ones they actually needed or wanted to ask, even if they're not aware of it. If someone asks "is X good", the the question is often really "how do I tell what is a good choice in this domain", and that can be answered.

On a more general note, I think one way my perspective on this differs from that of many others is that I don't think it is a bad thing to have a fair amount of unanswered questions. There are lots of good questions that probably have real answers, but that no one here knows the answers to. That is fine. We shouldn't close a question just because it happens that no one is around who can answer it. We should close a question if we can't imagine anyone ever being able to give a generally useful answer.