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Inspired by this question: Custom Close Reason Post-Mortem.

Can we alter

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.

To be

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

or

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

?

Because that's what the custom close reason meant. "Please explain my code."

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2 Answers 2

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No, that specific close reason is supposed to be directed at just the first sentence, with the rest of the close reason being an explanation or examples of common 'failure modes'.

The first sentence is: 'Questions must involve real code that you own or maintain'.

Explaining your own code is still involving code you own or maintain.

Explanations of other people's code, pseudo code, hypothetical code, and stub code are examples of when questions fail to 'involve real code that you own or maintain'.

Explanations of your own code is not an example of when it does not involve real code you own or maintain, and as a result, it should not be part of this close reason.

Remember, that the three standard off-topic close reasons are simply short-cuts to cover the most common cases. These off-topic reasons are not supposed to embody all the reasons questions can be off topic.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ We are allowed 5 close reasons in this menu, right? If questions from people seeking explanations of their own code becomes a common problem, we could make it a 4th close reason? \$\endgroup\$
    – nhgrif
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 12:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ @nhgrif We are allowed 3 close reasons as a beta site. \$\endgroup\$
    – rolfl
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 12:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ Is it increased after beta? \$\endgroup\$
    – nhgrif
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 12:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ @nhgrif - FYI: meta.codereview.stackexchange.com/questions/1690/… \$\endgroup\$
    – rolfl
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 12:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure anything needs to be reworded. I'm curious about how many close reasons we get and when. \$\endgroup\$
    – nhgrif
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 12:25
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This one fits the best to me:

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

It doesn't matter who's code it is. If it's your code then you should understand it already. If it's not your code, then you probably don't have the legal right to post it here.

Either way, if you are here then you should understand the code already.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ While it is true that we code explanation questions are off-topic no matter who wrote the code, this wording lacks coherence: what does the second sentence have to do with the first? \$\endgroup\$
    – 200_success
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 15:07
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    \$\begingroup\$ @200_success Does the second sentence have to have anything in common with the first? I'm using periods and not commas (or semicolons) for a reason. \$\endgroup\$
    – Simon Forsberg
    Commented Aug 24, 2014 at 18:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ Maybe we want to refer to the Proposal Code Understanding? Though I don't know it's current status.. \$\endgroup\$
    – Vogel612
    Commented Aug 25, 2014 at 6:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ The current status of Code Understanding is that it's closed as a duplicate of Stack Overflow. So all explanation questions can be redirected to Stack Overflow - provided you don't migrate crap, of course. \$\endgroup\$
    – Pimgd
    Commented May 19, 2015 at 7:40

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