Discussion of this close reason so far have been... pretty abstract. That's a shame; it's a waste of everybody's time. 

These custom off-topic reasons aren't here to define the limits of what's on- and off-topic; that's what your [help](https://serverfault.com/help/on-topic) and [about](https://serverfault.com/tour) pages are for, and both should be informed by the discussion of *specific topics* here on meta.

Rather, those canned OT reasons are meant as a convenience, a way to succinctly explain why **commonly-asked-about** topics are not allowed here without needing to bother writing specific comments every time you have to close a question. [As I wrote when we released this feature][1]:

> **Don't try to brainstorm on what you *think* should be or might be off-topic.** Critically examine what you're seeing in practice instead - this should be driven by the community, not by your own personal preferences or prejudices.

When we first released this, I sat down and went through a sample of off-topic questions for every site on Stack Exchange, including this one, and compiled a list of the specific topics that were closed. Then I picked the top 2-5 by volume and wrote custom OT reasons for them. I **did not** ask myself if I *agreed* with them or not - that's not my call; I just wrote the reasons to reflect the data. (If you're curious, you can find [my initial OT reasons in SEDE][2])

Now, a lot can change in a year and a half; the common off-topic questions you get today may not match those I found back then. But I *strongly* recommend y'all follow the same *process*: look at the data, note the **specific** topics that are being closed, create pre-defined off-topic reasons for the most common ones. 

You can do this using SEDE as well: http://data.stackexchange.com/serverfault/query/250376/off-topic-questions-past-90-days; if going through 800 questions doesn't excite you, then [take a random sample](http://data.stackexchange.com/serverfault/query/250378/40-random-off-topic-questions-from-the-past-90-days) and analyze that instead.


Triva: over the past 90 days, **43.4% of *all* closed questions were closed using the "must be relevant" off-topic reason.** If you're gonna close everything with the same reason, there's no point in bothering with convenience reasons at all; conversely, if you're gonna spend the time hand-crafting custom OT reasons, they should actually be meaningfully distinct.

  [1]: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/184637/what-do-site-moderators-need-to-do-to-support-the-new-custom-question-close-reas/185097#185097
  [2]: http://data.stackexchange.com/serverfault/query/250368