@IlmariKaronen Well, they're not really off-topic. That is, not all of them… the last consensus boils down to what the related tag info says: crypto.stackexchange.com/tags/reference-request/info

@e-sushi A PNG ad doesn't work?

The jpeg artifacts hurt my eyes

Got a png too. Will replace in a few mins.

@e-sushi Well, the part about open ended reference requests being off-topic should IMO still be mentioned in the help center, or at least the help center should link to the tag wiki.

Also, perhaps the canned close message should be tweaked, too, since it currently just says:

> Requests for literature, software or similar recommendations are off-topic here. For details, see: Do we want “literature recommendations” and similar “list/subjective questions”?

> Open ended requests for literature, software or similar recommendations are off-topic here. For details, see the reference-request tag wiki.

In any case, my real point is that we shouldn't be regularly closing things as "off-topic" for reasons that aren't actually documented on the "What's on-topic here?" help center page. Whether we fix that by changing the help center page or the canned close reasons or both is a secondary issue.

Maybe I should just post a meta question about it.

@IlmariKaronen Personally (from a non-mod point of view) I've always had a bit of a problem with the ref request thingy anyway... as it's frequently a base for confusion and discussion, due to that fine line between "can you point me to related docs when answering" and "I'm too lazy to use a search engine". Especially new users tend to stumble into this. Most probably due to that, I am all for a related meta Q&A as that might (finally) produce a useable and less borderlining consensus.

@IlmariKaronen we have an established process for this: Post a meta Q, give people an answer to vote on, give a deadline (~1mo) and a threshold (>+6, up > 2* down) and then wait it out and it's official

(that is if the threshold is passed)

@SEJPM I wasn't intending to propose any new policy, though, I was just suggesting that the existing policy (as established here, here and here) should actually be documented in the help center. But if people feel like reopening the discussion of whether (and to what extent) reference requests should be on-topic, I can do that, too.

Certainly, there does seem to be a discrepancy between the canned close reason I quoted and the tag wiki @e-sushi linked to.

The reason why I noticed this issue in the first place is that I included (what I thought was) a helpful link to the help center in the first version of this comment (now 10k only, as the OP deleted the question), and then clicked the link myself and realized that the help center doesn't actually say anything about questions like that being off-topic here.