-4

I posted this question yesterday: Native (non-electron) git clients for Windows

I know about the off-topic clause and avoiding discussions or seeking recommendations. So I specifically worded it as a technical question. One with a clear answer.

And yet somehow it still ended up being marked off-topic.

Am I missing something here?

Did I just fall victim to overzealous moderation?

10
  • 2
    For starters, you never even ask a question. You might claim that it is implied somehow, but when you don't explicitly ask a question then people are left to guess at what you're actually asking. And they're going to base their guess on this statement: "If you list any paid clients however do include that fact as well. And maybe if they offer trials" ....which clearly makes it sound like you're asking for a product recommendation.
    – n8te
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 6:25
  • 1
    The question asks for a product that meets certain criteria. I'm not seeing any technical question. Can you clarify how you view this as not a request for a product recommendation?
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 6:26
  • Please ask on softwarerecs.stackexchange.com after making sure no duplicates exist.
    – undo
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 6:35
  • Is asking, for example, if X javascript framework has Y feature not a technical question? Does this make it a technical question: "What git clients are not based on the electron framework?" I'm having a hard time seeing the difference here.
    – martixy
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 6:37
  • You might think that you are asking "if X javascript framework has Y feature", but it is not actually in your question and as a result your question was closed because of what was in it: "What git clients are not based on the electron framework?" Is effectively all there is in your question as it stands. You don't ask about whether a single specific individual thing has a specific feature at all, you are asking which thing (product) from a group matches your criteria. You are asking us to go through a shopping list and find you the product, not for us to tell you about a specific product.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 7:40
  • @Mokubai All correct. That is what the topic boils down to. Is the former permitted? If yes, how is it qualitatively different than the latter? Quantitatively, sure.
    – martixy
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 7:46
  • Look at it this way. Questions seeking product recommendations are not allowed primarily because they invite spam answers. Someone asks for a product that meets certain requirements and it opens the door for all manner of spammy answers from people with products they're hawking. When you ask "if X javascript framework has Y feature" it doesn't invite the same sort of spam. An answer to that question would simply be something like "Yes, feature Y does exist in X javascript framework. Here's how to implement it according to so and so documentation."
    – n8te
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 8:25
  • @n8te - It's not even about the "spam" answers, more of the "how about this random tool", it leads to answers which are correct due to a subjective determination instead of one that is simply correct due to cold hard facts. There might be multiple way to do something but anyone with enough time and/or skill can determine if the solution is helpful and correct.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 13:48
  • There is also the element that what features are in what software is tied to a specific point in time. Tomorrow, the information will be outdated.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 15:19
  • @Ramhound - Yeah okay, I see what you mean. I stand corrected.
    – n8te
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 19:25

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
8

Its essentially a recommendation question - there are ways to get a software recommendation but this dosen't feel like it.

If you list any paid clients however do include that fact as well. And maybe if they offer trials.

Literally is an expectation for a client recommendation.

You might want to try the software recommendations stack instead. Less gymnastics involved and its actually on topic

5

Your question appears, at a glance, to be "which product or products in this list are not electron based". You are essentially asking for someone to find you the product that matches your requirements.

The closest you get with an actual question is the sentence

The git site itself lists a bunch of GUI clients: https://git-scm.com/download/gui/windows However it is unclear which are electron-based, and which are native.

The problem is that it is not specific. You are giving us a list and asking us to tell you what products fit certain criteria. It is still, broadly, asking us to find the needles in a haystack of products.

If you'd have asked about a single specific product then perhaps it could be on topic, but then you'd need a hundred questions to go through the list and for most of the time you shouldn't need to care as long as the product does the job.

Perhaps you could ask how to determine how a product is built. The problem there is that it is far too broad, there are too many frameworks for too many systems and it would be impossible to give an answer beyond "install it and see" or "Google it".

Just saying "I'm not asking for product recommendations" does not mean you aren't asking us to recommend products.

Think about what you are asking for us to do, not how to somehow skirt past the topicality rules of the site.

2
  • Wasn't trying to skirt the rules, bad wording on my part, to have left that impression. I genuinely am confused. Perhaps I have a different understanding of the word "recommendation" that the rest of the site.
    – martixy
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 7:44
  • It might help to say that what we are specifically trying to prevent is "shopping questions" rather than "recommendations" . While a recommendation might be someone saying "you might like this...." actively seeking a large number of recommendations of things to try is inherently a shopping request. See Q&A is Hard, Let’s Go Shopping!
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Jun 20, 2019 at 7:54

You must log in to answer this question.

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