I think all programmers among us will be familiar with this scenario. You spend several days writing some code and submit it to be tested by someone else. The points that they return, though valid, are not really the reason you wanted it tested. For instance, spotting a missing comma in an error message that you wrote.
I often find myself searching for an appropriate phrase to describe this kind of comment. Perhaps an idiom exists for this particular occurrence.
Consider using tangential or peripheral.
If you're thinking specifically of getting replies that are about grammar or formatting when you're looking for something about actual content or algorithms, I'd say "pedantic".
pe·dan·tic (p-dntk) adj. Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules
If that was just an example and you're thinking in broader terms, JasperLoy's suggestion of "tangential" might be better.
While it is neutral as to the correctness of the answer, inane focuses on its lack of usefulness
extremely silly or lacking real meaning or importance: There are so many inane programs on television!
And on computers!
Similarly, irrelevant and immaterial.
There are many possibilities that you might want to look at here.
Some of the best options: frivolous, irrelevant, useless (very strong) or inconsequential feedback. Or you could say the comments were wide of the mark or trifling.
Maybe trifling is the best option because it seems to imply correctness where a word like useless does not. For example, there are reams of scholarly papers that make trifling observations -- observations that are not necessarily wrong, but not particularly useful either.
I'd call it a Microsoftian response, because it reminds me of this old joke:
A pilot is flying a small, single-engine, charter plane with a couple of really important executives on board into Seattle airport. There is fog so thick that visibility is 40 feet, and his instruments are out. He circles looking for a landmark and after an hour, he is low on fuel and his passengers are very nervous.
At last, through a small opening in the fog he sees a tall building with one guy working alone on the fifth floor. Circling, the pilot banks and shouts through his open window: "Hey, where am I?". The solitary office worker replies: "You're in an airplane."
The pilot immediately executes a swift 275 degree turn and executes a perfect blind landing on the airport's runway five miles away. Just as the plane stops, the engines cough and die from lack of fuel. The stunned passengers ask the pilot how he did it. "Elementary," replies the pilot, "I asked the guy in that building a simple question. The answer he gave me was 100% correct but absolutely useless; therefore, I knew that must be Microsoft's support office and from there the airport is three minutes away on a course of 87 degrees."
I suggest that behavior is called nitpicking:
Minute, trivial, unnecessary, and unjustified criticism or faultfinding.
What you mean is that the pointers are unhelpful.
Editorial: An Unhelpful Debate October 4, 2012 [NY Times]
The first debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney, so long anticipated, quickly sunk into an unenlightening recitation of tired talking points and mendacity.
I use vexing to describe those kind of comments that feel as if the tester is being payed by the amount of problems they find. Although, with all fairness, those comments are usually really are important as well, I just hate to admit it.
I also used Out of Focus to describe them.
I would suggest, particularly in the original poster's context of "I wanted you to look at the algorithm but you instead corrected spelling in the variable names", that the suggestions are irrelevant, since they have nothing to do with what you actually asked for.
I call such comments non-substantive.
From The Free Dictionary:
substantive: substantial; considerable.
substantial: considerable in importance, value, degree, amount, or extent
Comments about missing commas are non-substantive. Such comments literally lack substance.
One could also use non-substantial, but I prefer non-substantive.
A few candidates that haven't already been suggested:
Ivory tower: a state of privileged seclusion or separation from the facts and practicalities of the real world:
the ivory tower of academia
While the above words all essentially imply unrealism/unhelpfulness, they also connote a degree of correctness.
