2

I recently asked Which of VGA/DVI/DisplayPort/Thunderbolt/HDMI supports all the others?. It was closed and eventually auto-deleted:

enter image description here

The reason given was that it was a hardware shopping recommendation.

It wasn't a shopping request, though. The question was about compatibility of display adapters and protocols. There are many precedents, including but not limited to:

My intent was to ask a question about display adapter electrical compatibility for a specific set of connectors and protocols, not to ask for some sort of product that does something.

My question is: Why was this interpreted as a shopping request and how could I have worded it otherwise?

The word "shopping" was in the first revision of this question; not to ask for a product but to explain why I was looking (I was shopping for a crash card adapter, so I was looking for info about display compatibility), since I like to give some background to questions to avoid XY situations. During that time it received one close vote, and I immediately edited it out. The remaining four came much later, when the question was in the form it was in above.

3
  • The word shopping was in the first 4 revisions of the question and not removed until more than an hour after the question was first posted.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 15:13
  • @DavidPostill That's true, but the way I look at it, the word "shopping" was removed after the first vote, a while before the remaining four, and even with the word in there it wasn't intended as a shopping question.
    – Jason C
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 15:17
  • <shrug> I've voted to undelete the final edited version.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 15:18

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

Your question was probably closed because it sounded like it was looking for an adapter, which is a hardware recommendation (off-topic).

One possible way to repair it would be to ask about only the electronic aspect and the similarity between the ports, since that seemed to already be fairly important to you. I've edited your question and voted to reopen it.

2
  • Thanks; and for the edit, too. Good suggestion about what to focus on for future reference. Let's see if the question survives.
    – Jason C
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 16:50
  • The "supports all the others" was my hangup. Your edit showed the way to fix that. Also voted to reopen.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 17:14

You must log in to answer this question.

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