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Image & text of the Software recs close reason (just so no-one thinks this was closed already ;)…

enter image description here

Questions seeking product, service, or learning material recommendations are off-topic because they become outdated quickly and attract opinion-based answers. Instead, describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve. Share your research. Here are a few suggestions on how to properly ask this type of question.

It's long been apparent that any type of software recommendation question gets short shrift in SU, no matter how carefully worded.

Is it time we updated the close message & associated close vote reason to point towards Software Recommendations SE rather than a 9-year-old meta post that isn't really going to help the OP any more?
It would appear this topic was last visited 8 years ago - Should we split up the off-topic "shopping" closing reason?

Suggestions welcome for re-wording.

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Reset to default
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I would like to keep the majority of the current reason in there but just add a disclaimer about the Software Recommendations site to add a caveat that I've seen David Postill use:

Questions seeking product, service, or learning material recommendations are off-topic because they become outdated quickly and attract opinion-based answers. Instead, describe your situation and the specific problem you're trying to solve. Share your research. You can try Software Recommendations SE, but please first read What is required for a question to contain "enough information".

This leaves us with 6 characters and a few questions. There are a number of feedback sections we can tailor. Do we prefer to just copy the above into each or do we want to add some more specific direction? Each section allows 500 words. and can be more or less specific than the above which would go in the Post Owner Guidance section at the very least.

Usage Guidance

Give the user guidance as to when they should select this option

Close description

When a post is closed with a single community-specific close reason, this message will be displayed publicly above any private guidance.

Post owner guidance

Provide meaningful actions a user can take to either get their question reopened or have a more favorable outcome in the future.

Privileged user guidance

Provide guidance for users with the reopen privilege so they can constructively engage the post owner and reopen the question if appropriate.

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  • Hmm, yes I like that. Do we sneak under 500 if we use https://softwarerecs.meta.stackexchange.com/q/336/22850 instead, ie the shortened version from Share? I don't have a character counter, but pasting it into a comment leaves 108 of what seems to be 600 max.
    – Tetsujin
    Dec 21, 2021 at 16:43
  • @Tetsujin cutting out the question title in the link does indeed work and leaves 6 characters. Problem is it raises more questions now I look into it. The interface is somewhat more in depth than it used to be. It might be worth editing the last half (or all) of my answer into your question.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Dec 21, 2021 at 17:13
  • I honestly have no idea what to do with those additional scenarios.
    – Tetsujin
    Dec 24, 2021 at 12:32

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