<p>I sometimes answer questions and vote to close them at the same time.  I don't see any problem with that.  What I would do is leave a comment to the OP explaining that the question is off topic and why.  I may point them towards another resource (stack overflow, the r-help listserv, our meta thread with software links, etc.) as well.  I don't necessarily expect many upvotes for answers like that, and I typically get few, but people don't downvote either.  In a sense, our 'real' purpose here is to build up a permanent repository of high-quality information about statistics and machine learning, but helping people out is a close second.  In the big scheme of things, it doesn't hurt to serve the second goal exclusively once in a while.  </p>
