How related to Raspberry Pi must a question be?

Question

I flagged this question as off-topic: Feature detection for embedded platform OpenCV

My rationale was that the question was a general programming question about OpenCV that had no apparent connection to Raspberry Pi other than that the OP said that they happened to be using that hardware. The same question could have been asked on any hardware though.

My flag was declined, which is fine. That happens sometimes, but it seems to me this is part of a larger trend, so I'm asking about it here. The site help, under "What topics can I ask about here?" includes

Software specific to the Raspberry Pi. [Emphasis original]

It further specifies in the enumerated list of things that are explicitly off-topic:

General programming questions, e.g., "How do I implement a keyboard interrupt in python?".

The question that I've picked as an example here is the first one that I flagged, but it seems to me that the site is flush with questions that are either straight programming questions or straight Linux/Unix questions (which are also explicitly off-topic according to the site help).

So my meta-questions:

• Is there some standard that this community is using to allow / disallow these questions?
• Is the practice of the community consistent with the help?

The former would be good to document, even if only in meta. If the answer to the latter is "no," then it seems that an update to the site's help would be appropriate.

Answer 1

Thanks for bringing this question up again. I think it is reasonable to discuss it again to determine how the community thinks of this now and how we agree to handle it. Maybe it's time to reconsider how we apply our own standard and make the helpcenter reflect the practise.

This ist the most recent discussion on the topic (early 2016): What defines the borders between RPi and other related Stack Exchange sites?

Personally I used to go with:

When in doubt, ask there first. Questions where the Raspberry Pi is not a significant factor will likely be closed. [emphasis mine]

However as a moderator I try to not hammer things down without a few votes by the community (sometimes I still do if I feel it is the right thing to do or if the question is blatantly off-topic). So usually votes need to be carried by community - that is, five voting members to agree an a certain position. So as Goldilocks' has put it in his answer to the meta question linked above: "this depends of the willingness and availability of participants" and might take some time.

While we need questions to be at least a little specific to the RPi Milliways has brought up an important point (again in the discussion linked above):

I agree, although pragmatism sometimes prevails. If a new user asks a 'NIX question I will often answer, because the questioner is often new to LInux and the Pi is the first and only experience. Besides Unix & Linux (Operating systems) can be intimidating. Users there don't seem to understand absolute beginners and confuse them with technicalities.

This is usually fine if a question receives a helpful answer at our site. If it does not however, one might still consider asking at the larger and more general sites such as SO or U&L. Note that migration of such questions is not always the best approach. Usually hinting to ask alsewhere while closing a question here works better if the question need some polishing to work well on another branch of StackExchange.

I have experienced that most users of our community tend to give quite some leeway to questions of users that are new to the Raspberry Pi and/or StackExchange... and again if the question does not blatantly violate the scope of our site and the respective user gets a helpful answer here we could call it mission accomplished. Given time and a few guiding comments one could still point out the nuances of the workings of StackExchange and how and where to post additional questions.

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The openCV question that you have linked however is an example of how it's not done well. It is technically completely unrelated to the Pi and a solution that would perform well on any other Linux board is likely to do the trick on the Pi too. The question received just one short answer and one could very well argue that the significantly larger user base on SO could have been beneficial to better answers (or impromptu close as a duplicate).

Closing it now however will change little as it will still persist on our site (question with answer). It is also too old to migrate away. The only good that it would do is a sort of setting a precedence here... but I think this is done better discussing the issue here on meta and handling new questions.

Answer 2

I was the moderator that declined your flag. I felt that the question was acceptable because the OP seemed to be focusing on how to tune general software for the RPi and its relatively unique development requirements. I admit, that's an arbitrary line.

You'll see a lot of answers that aren't particularly on-topic here. That's the product of the fact that our community is rather... odd. Many of our users are very new to Linux, embedded things, IOT, web dev, robotics, or insert subject here. At the minimum, they're often dealing with 2-3 new subjects and they honestly don't always know where the lines are.

These new users don't know what's a general programming issue, what's a linux issue, and what's a software issue. Simply closing the questions and trying to send them elsewhere gives people a bad impression and would frankly, leave us with seemingly few questions. Plus, it often just feels mean to me.

Given all that, users are often given a lot of leeway here. What we're left with is a tricky balancing act, and it's something we need to work on and better define.

One of our moderators is currently on a vacation that doesn't include much in the way of internet. When he's back, I'd like to reopen this discussion and see how the community at large feels about the matter.