I wrote that line in chat. It was pinned for several weeks, as I recall. So I'll preface this by saying that what works at Server Fault may not work here.

The reason I prefer "not constructive" is that closing shopping questions as "off topic" is too confusing. I've lost count of the number of users whose shopping question was closed as "off topic" who couldn't understand it because they thought they were asking a question about professional system administration (they were, which means it's not really off topic in that sense, leading to the confusion).

"Not constructive" explains more of why shopping questions are closed and helps these users understand more quickly, not only why their question was closed, but how they might improve it.

As an addendum, I should note that the ban on shopping questions originated at Super User, and was later adopted on SO and SF. But it is by no means universal; some SE sites (like unix.SE) welcome questions that would be closed as "shopping" on SU or SF.

I wrote that line in chat. It was pinned for several weeks, as I recall. So I'll preface this by saying that what works at Server Fault may not work here.

The reason I prefer "not constructive" is that closing shopping questions as "off topic" is too confusing. I've lost count of the number of users whose shopping question was closed as "off topic" who couldn't understand it because they thought they were asking a question about professional system administration (they were, which means it's not really off topic in that sense, leading to the confusion).

"Not constructive" explains more of why shopping questions are closed and helps these users understand more quickly, not only why their question was closed, but how they might improve it.

As an addendum, I should note that the ban on shopping questions originated at Super User, and was later adopted on SO and SF. But it is by no means universal; some SE sites (like unix.SE) welcome questions that would be closed as "shopping" on SU or SF.

I wrote that line in chat. It was pinned for several weeks, as I recall. So I'll preface this by saying that what works at Server Fault may not work here.

The reason I prefer "not constructive" is that closing shopping questions as "off topic" is too confusing. I've lost count of the number of users whose shopping question was closed as "off topic" who couldn't understand it because they thought they were asking a question about professional system administration (they were, which means it's not really off topic in that sense, leading to the confusion).

"Not constructive" explains more of why shopping questions are closed and helps these users understand more quickly, not only why their question was closed, but how they might improve it.

I wrote that line in chat. It was pinned for several weeks, as I recall. So I'll preface this by saying that what works at Server Fault may not work here.

The reason I prefer "not constructive" is that closing shopping questions as "off topic" is too confusing. I've lost count of the number of users whose shopping question was closed as "off topic" who couldn't understand it because they thought they were asking a question about professional system administration (they were, which means it's not really off topic in that sense, leading to the confusion).

"Not constructive" explains more of why shopping questions are closed and helps these users understand more quickly, not only why their question was closed, but how they might improve it.

As an addendum, I should note that the ban on shopping questions originated at Super User, and was later adopted on SO and SF. But it is by no means universal; some SE sites (like unix.SE) welcome questions that would be closed as "shopping" on SU or SF.