<p>The actual criterion is in our <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">help/on-topic</a> (search for <em>programming</em>). A question containing code or asking about code -- or even sometimes asking <em>for</em> code is not automatically off topic, but many are. Briefly, if the issue is one that takes our subject-matter knowledge to answer it belongs here. If it doesn't (such as "what's wrong with this code?", which is nearly always about language issues*), then it's off topic. </p>

<p>[I feel that sometimes a few of our voters can be a little overenthusiastic in closing questions that contain code, but the form of the responses in comments combined with the fact that several of the close voters are machine learning experts suggest that the issue may be primarily one of coding. In any case, I'd hesitate to try to unilaterally overturn a decision by 5 of our high reputation users unless there was a clear indication that the question should stay.]</p>

<p>If you feel your post should be seen as on topic under our guidelines, the best thing to do would be to edit it to emphasize those aspects of the question and de-emphasize the code-related aspects.</p>

<p>If you want your post migrated, the right thing to do is flag it for migration. I'll leave it for now in case we get some consensus here that the question should be on topic after all, but you can choose to flag your post at any time; as long as it meets the criteria for being on topic at the destination and would not be likely to close as too broad, unclear, etc, then it will be migrated. </p>

<p>--</p>

<p>*  and in any case, in that form rarely a good question for our site even when it is on topic</p>
