<p>Asking about my On-hold question,
<a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/125784/what-online-tools-to-diy-anonymize-user-names-no-pii-concern">What online tools to DIY-anonymize user names (no PII concern)</a></p>

<p>I freely admit my question is naive in comparison to the included linked post. However, when I wrote the post I believed it was relevant to Stats.SE by the example set in the in-post link (upvote 13). I also searched for relevant tags for pre-analysis data conditioning or data-cleaning for which there are 28 posts. </p>

<p>Also the Cross Validated <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic">on-topic</a> page includes:</p>

<p>"collecting data"</p>

<p>And from what I was taught, cleaning data, preparing it for processing, is inextricable from the actual processing. Where decisions are made to manipulate the pre-analysis data one way or the other, this impacts analysis. </p>

<p>Please, if you will, instruct me. I just don't understand why this question would be off-topic. As I continue to work in some areas of overlap in statistics, I expect to have more question in the future. I would very much appreciate any guidance or explanation which makes the policies of CrossValidate/Stats.SE clearer for me so that I may contribute more constructively to the community in the future.</p>
