Is there a stock comment I can use to clearly link to our question expectations when another user points someone to ask their off-topic question here?

Question

Oftentimes, I see interpersonal-related questions asked across the network, where users unfamiliar with our site comment that they should ask their question here on our site. However, almost all the time, those questions are not a good fit for our site in their existing forms (usually, it's because they lack a clear goal).

Whenever I come across such a comment directing the author of a question that would fall short of our guidelines here, I usually post another comment such as "please note that IPS has specific requirements for questions; please read those and edit your question before asking there".

It would be nice if there were a community-written version of the comment, so we could decide what should be in it and so we don't have to retype it each time (or rely on a long-unmaintained user script).

Several years ago, the Software Recommendations site had the same issue: they had specific guidelines for questions, but users unfamiliar with the site were directing authors of questions that wouldn't be good fits there in their existing forms to the site. In that case, they came up with some canned comments to use for such questions:

• If you ever mention SR.SE in a comment or in chat, please always link to the question quality guidelines and mention the necessity for both a goal and set of requirements. Here's a proposed comment template for questions that don't quite meet the guidelines, but which the asker could improve to meet them — please adapt it to indicate what the question lacks.

  This site does not accept requests for recommendations. We have a sister site that does, but your question needs to meet [certain guidelines](https://softwarerecs.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/336/what-is-required-for-a-question-to-contain-enough-information). In particular, all questions must both define a goal or task to accomplish, and list some objective requirements. Please read the guidelines and improve your question accordingly, then you can repost your question on the Software Recommendations site.

  (Yes, I omitted the direct link to the site on purpose.)

• If you see an “ask on SR” comment that lacks the guidelines, please reply with a comment like:

  Note that Software Recommendations wants questions to meet certains [quality guidelines](https://softwarerecs.meta.stackexchange.com/q/336). In particular, all questions must both define a goal or task to accomplish, and list some objective requirements.

  @commenter Please always link to the [quality guidelines](https://softwarerecs.meta.stackexchange.com/q/336) when you mention the SR site.

Should we also come up with similar canned comments to use for our site? If so, what are some proposals for such comments?

Answer 1

Is there a stock comment I can use to clearly link to our question expectations when another user points someone to ask their off-topic question here?

There isn't.

Should we also come up with similar canned comments to use for our site?

Probably not. See e.g. this answer to a more recent discussion about stock comments. Or point 2 here. Comments for this site need tailoring anyways, so having a stock comment won't work.

If so, what are some proposals for such comments?

The most common mistakes I see though, that you can keep in mind while writing your comments, are two-fold:

1. The user suggesting the question should be on IPS just sees something that involves one or more humans, and as such says it should be posted here, even though the question is not about interpersonal skills (but e.g. intrapersonal, or just a rant). In that case, a tailored comment should point out to the user suggesting IPS that not everything involving one or more humans belongs on Interpersonal Skills and point out that this site isn't just called 'Interpersonal', but 'Interpersonal Skills' which is a very specific and limited subset of 'things involving humans'.
2. The question might fit, but doesn't meet the standards of the site. In that case, stating that posts should not be copy-pasted but significantly edited first is always good. But after that, you get into 'customization' territory: it's up to you to give actionable feedback on what does need to be edited and how. That's not something you can capture in a stock comment.