The poster usually doesn't know the policy of our site. So somebody comments "this is off topic / tell us what you've tried etc." The poroblem starts when they get 3 answers from >10k users it sends mixed messages
It's like a parent telling a five year old not to eat candy, and then the other one giving them candy every day.
Some time ago, we announced that certain SE sites will have advertising enabled. This has gone well and we're extremely thankful to everyone for their support and feedback. Because it has been successful so far, we're going to be extending the program to the majority of our graduated sites. Well,...