<p>A question asking for software referral is not on-topic, unless it needs some kind of statistical expertise. The same applies to questions about code. So, for example, a question asking about R packages for reading Excel files, plotting social network data, or asking how to implement linear regression in Python, etc. would be off-topic. </p>

<p>On the other hand, asking how to translate some theoretical paper to some practical problem, including implementing it, would be on-topic. </p>

<p>The distinction is often blurry, but the general rule pivots on whether the question asks about <em>programming</em> or about <em>statistics</em>. For me, the easiest way to tell what kind of question it is would be to consider if the question could be answered using pseudocode, ignoring all the language-specific and implementational details. If it can't, it's about programming.</p>
