Could I make my design/approach question on-topic?

Question

I just want to discuss my question which was put on hold:

https://codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/93537/config-data-management-within-a-framework

I'm not ranting or arguing. I'm just trying to ascertain why my specific question was not on topic, and if it could be on topic here.

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I am new to this site, but not new to Stack Exchange at all. I did read a fair bit of the help center before submitting my question, and a bit of searching in Meta for "review" and "best practice" etc. It seemed what I was asking was ok, mostly based on:

If you are looking for feedback on a specific working piece of code from your project in the following areas…

• Best practices and design pattern usage

then you are in the right place!

And also:

it's okay to ask "Does this code follow common best practices?"

And I couldn't see a requirement that the code needs to be my own.

However, I'm not even asking about the code, but the design/approach, and the only reason I included the code is just to show the design approach I am asking about.

I could have written my own code out, but it would have been just about the same as it's a specific design approach, and probs used by many other people and applications all with very similar code.

Is there any way my question could be on topic? I have a basic description of what the code does, which is again just about a "design approach". So if I removed the code entirely, and changed the description to just describe the design pattern/approach, would that be ok?

I included the code so people know what I was talking about.

No probs if this will always be off-topic.

Answer 1

However, I'm not even asking about the code, but the design/approach, and the only reason I included the code is just to show the design approach I am asking about.

That by itself makes this question off-topic. This site is specifically about the code, not solely about the design and/or architecture or anything like that. You also mention in the question that it was taken from another source, which is also considered off-topic. Code here must've been written or maintained by you. The latter does not apply to third-party code that you're allowed to use freely. That still means that it's someone else's.

Here's that relevant part of the Help Center, with the exact point in bold:

I'm confused! What questions are on-topic for this site?

Simply ask yourself the following questions. To be on-topic the answer must be "yes" to all questions:

• Is code included directly in my question? (See Make sure you include your code in your question below.)
• Am I an owner or maintainer of the code?
• Is it actual code from a project rather than pseudo-code or example code?
• Do I want the code to be good code? (i.e. not code-golfing, obfuscation, or similar)
• To the best of my knowledge, does the code work as intended? Do I want feedback about any or all facets of the code?

Now, if you do want to have an on-topic question, you'll have to write your own code based on this. You're also welcome to include the third-party code, but that will not be reviewed.