Is this close reason right?

Question

Linked list vs array performance for RemoveAt() function [closed]

This question was closed with a custom close reason. The comment left for the custom close reason was:

This question appears to be off-topic because it is not about reviewing and improving code, it's about analyzing a specific aspect of it.

Yet there are plenty of on-topic questions that ask reviewers to analyze a specific part of the code. That doesn't mean the rest of the code isn't fair game to review--it just means that's the code that the asker is most interested in having reviewed.

If anything, this question might be closed for this reason:

Questions must involve real code that you own or maintain. Questions seeking an explanation of someone else's code are off-topic. Pseudocode, hypothetical code, or stub code should be replaced by a concrete example.

Because it seems to be asking for an explanation... but it doesn't appear that the asker is asking for an explanation of someone else's code.

However, he does seem to be looking for an explanation of his own code, which seems odd. But maybe a good fit for StackOverflow?

I'm not suggesting that the question should be re-opened and re-closed just for the sake of getting the close reason right--instead, I'm looking for a discussion about this question to see whether we got it right.

What should the appropriate action for this question have been?

• Leave open as on-topic.
• Migrate to StackOverflow.
• Close using the Questions seeking an explanation of someone else's code close reason
• Close using some other existing (non-custom close reason)
• The appropriate action was taken--closing using this custom close reason

Answer 1

You have a really long question with a really short title. The text in your question is a bunch of discussion, but, your title is:

Is this close reason right?

The close reason is:

This question appears to be off-topic because it is not about reviewing and improving code, it's about analyzing a specific aspect of it.

Is it right?

The closed question presented two different code items, and then specifically asked:

Shouldn't the linked list Remove at() function be faster as it avoids Array.Copy in array?

The above is requesting an analysis of the algorithm, and not looking for a review for how to implement the algorithm with better, cleaner code.

Yes, the close reason is close enough to right for engineering purposes.

There is no request for a review, and there is only one request which is to understand code why the code is 'slow'.

Just because there is no pre-canned off-topic reason that applies to this particular case, does not mean that the question is on topic.