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As per How to marry the conflicting philosophies? we can "control all of the "off topic because..." close reasons" and as that answer asks, we should be more friendly.

So: let's come up with better wordings.

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    +1 from me, but I'd also like to see if you have any particular ideas in mind. – Mołot Dec 2 '15 at 9:08
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Questions on programming, PHP, SQL, etc. that do not relate directly to Drupal are off-topic here, but can be asked on Stack Overflow.

Might be changed to

Not everything you see when developing for Drupal is really Drupal specific. Some things might as well happen in any other PHP, HTML, or JavaScript environment. These should be asked on Stack Overflow instead.

Also, for not exactly programming questions, separate reason like this might help:

Not everything you see when developing for Drupal is really Drupal specific. Some topics are more generic and apply to various systems other than Drupal as well. These questions are better suited for serverfault, Database Administrators, Webmasters, User Experience, Information Security or similar websites dedicated to general areas of expertise and not a single ecosystem.

This would solve issues with "what the... this isn't bout coding at all, what do you want from me?! Why SO?!" issues.

This question belongs on another site in the Stack Exchange network

This is a migration path to the proper site, not really a close reason, so no intervention needed.

Questions asking to recommend or find a book, tool, module, theme, distribution, tutorial, or other off-site resource are off-topic for Drupal Answers as they tend to attract opinionated answers and spam. Instead, describe the problem and what has been done so far to solve it.

This is actually pretty good, but corresponding text in help center is bad:

Requests for tutorials and other online resources

At the very least Help Center should include all things forbidden explicitely, so people might read it earlier than in a close reason! Apparently it's not always obvious that modules are off-site resources. They are, all right, but that's not the point. The point is it is not intuitive for new users.

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  • I like the first suggestion, might be wise to make it not PHP specific though - we get a lot of non-Drupal CSS/JS/Apache/Nginx/etc questions, perhaps more of those in total than regular PHP ones – Clive♦ Dec 2 '15 at 10:17
  • @Clive and I'm sure I already asked for separate close reasons for things that belongs to server fault, database administrators and UX. For things that should go to SO, you are right. I'll update my answer. – Mołot Dec 2 '15 at 11:04
  • @Clive OK, I can't quite find it now. – Mołot Dec 2 '15 at 11:10
  • Actually, the closing reason makes clear that questions asking to recommend or find a module are off-topic; there is no need for the users to understand they are off-site resources. The problem would be with other type of off-site resources, but since it mentions tutorials, we should be covered for the most cases. – kiamlaluno♦ Dec 4 '15 at 13:05
  • I am not sure the first suggestion makes it more friendly. – kiamlaluno♦ Dec 4 '15 at 13:07
  • @kiamlaluno "friendly" is hard to define. I'm sure it explains what should go to SO in a way that's easier to understand. But I'm open to alternatives. I agree that my best shot might not be the best possible. Oh well. At least I actually went and tried to rewrite it, not only complained. – Mołot Dec 4 '15 at 13:13
  • I would rather leave the closing reason as it is, but add a link to a meta FAQ post that explains what related to Drupal means. Also, I would expand it to cover those server questions. – kiamlaluno♦ Dec 4 '15 at 13:17
  • @kiamlaluno Post it as an answer here and I'll gladly upvote. Close reason lacks clear and easy to grasp explanation why some things are not related to Drupal and i don't really care if explanation is there directly or via link. – Mołot Dec 4 '15 at 13:27
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In my opinion the message can include a link to a good discussion about the theme, in this way the new users can learn more quickly the philosophy behind the Community of sites. When I started to use my first site (Stackoverflow) I had to read a lots of meta post to understand the site's rules.

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  • I have mixed feelings about that. A link to Help Center, yes. A link to meta question? I'd rather we didn't have that. It would look like encouragement for arguing why this one is on topic... – Mołot Dec 4 '15 at 13:03
  • Stack Overflow uses (or used) links to their meta site, but a meta post cannot cover all the cases for which a closing reason is applied. It would risk to confuse users even more. – kiamlaluno♦ Dec 4 '15 at 13:09
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    @kiamlaluno and if the Help Center is improved with the discussions in meta? Like a merger of answers and examples. – Adrian Cid Almaguer Dec 4 '15 at 13:57

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