*Foreword added at +2/-1*:

To make this clear: As far as I can tell (and I quote a diamond moderator below), **this is already official moderation policy on this site. I just want to have this added explicitly to the FAQ.** This is not a discussion about whether that policy actually is reasonable or useful.

If you oppose the stance of not allowing any questions asking for recommendations, having *what is already current policy in diamond moderation* added to the FAQ could even lead to increased support for you as visibility of this policy increases — users will actually be able to learn about this outside of the Meta archives and comments to users whose topics were closed based on this.

In the end, **it's just not useful having the FAQ say something different than what is really being enforced**. That's what this topic is about.

Please post your suggestions on what the FAQ should say on this issue. I'm especially looking forward to diamond contributions — it's time this issue is cleared up.

Original post below.

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I think we should make it clear, that *asking for recommendations of any kind* is off-topic.

The current clause, [initially introduced through this Meta topic](https://meta.superuser.com/questions/1103/should-we-add-a-no-shopping-recommendation-clause-to-the-super-user-faq) reads:

> and it is not about …
>
> * [...]
> * a shopping or buying recommendation

But we don't just consider *shopping or buying* recommendations off topic, but *any* kind of recommendation. Diago ♦ wrote an answer to [my question](https://meta.superuser.com/questions/3510/recommendations-for-the-best) here:

> We've been very clear defining what is and isn't allowed, and **any type of recommendation supposed to be off-topic**. Hardware one's date quickly, but software one's also have issues with version upgrades, and requirements being specific to a scenario, so do we need one for every type of requirement each individual user has?

<sup>Emphasis mine</sup>

In a comment, he later wrote:

> The key is recommendation, not the shopping part. If your asking to recommend something to perform a task, your stepping on dangerous ground. […] the policy is in place network wide, and I can't see it changing anytime soon.

<sup>Consider the whole quote emphasized (didn't look good though, so I skipped doing that)</sup>

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I'm likely not the only user who missed this fact for a long time.

**So let's put that into the FAQ to make it very clear**:

> and it is not about …
>
> * [...]
> * a shopping, buying, or product recommendation

I think we should keep *shopping* and *buying* to make it clear that we don't answer questions about what web shop's shipping policies are better.