<p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/">Stack Overflow</a> uses a fairly stringent definition of what constitutes a programming question (perhaps just as we have a fairly strict definition of what constitutes a statistical / machine learning question).  A question that simply has to do with how to use, say, <code>R</code> is not <em>necessarily</em> a programming question.  One good rule of thumb is that programming questions should have a <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/5963269/1217536">reproducible example</a> / <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve">MCVE</a>.  A question about programming that doesn't have one should not be migrated until it has been edited to include such.  A question that <em>cannot</em> have one (e.g., 'what is the package for _______') should not be migrated, but should simply be closed here as off-topic ("because it is not about statistics, machine learning, data analysis, data mining, or data visualization").  </p>

<p>I recognize that this may seem harsh to people who want help and are upset that we are not providing it.  However, there is no guarantee that any given question must fit in somewhere on the SE system.  Many general R questions can go to the <a href="https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help" rel="nofollow noreferrer">r-help listserv</a>&mdash;that's what it's for.  In addition, we can point people to our meta.CV thread that lists <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/q/793/7290">Internet Support for Statistics Software</a>.  </p>
