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I think I know that UbuntuBSD is not supported by this site, however it may need to be made clear:

The website for UbuntuBSD pretty clearly states that if downloaders have questions, they should come to askubuntu to get their answers. My question is, how can we cleanly discourage this?

4 Answers 4

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This page clearly states what is and what is not considered on-topic for Ask Ubuntu:

Questions that you may ask:

Using and administering official Ubuntu flavors* including: Edubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Lubuntu, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Touch, and Ubuntu "Snappy" Core.

* emphasis mine

Because ubuntuBSD is not an official flavor, all questions specific to the distro are considered off-topic.

Now to answer your question about what should be done.

Someone with a SourceForge account can contact the author using this form to politely inform them that these questions are off-topic and would be immediately closed after being asked.

As for the questions themselves, we can continue to close them as off-topic.

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  • Should we accelerate such off-topic closings perhaps?
    – Stephen Michael Kellat
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 2:25
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    @StephenMichaelKellat I don't see a need for that unless things get out of hand. And at that point, I think it's probably best that a moderator intervene.
    – Nathan Osman
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 3:02
  • Understood and acknowledged
    – Stephen Michael Kellat
    Commented Mar 24, 2016 at 3:03
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    Unix & Linux mod here. If anyone does chose to inform them, please let them know that such question would be perfectly welcome on Unix & Linux.
    – terdon
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 12:49
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How can we cleanly discourage this?

I raised this with the project organiser, pointing out our official policy.
They apologised and removed the link to Ask Ubuntu.

That was fairly clean.

I'm sure stray users will still find their way across to us but just use the "Off-topic Not Ubuntu" close reason —as we tradionally do— and hopefully they'll get the message.

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Questions specific to an off-brand ubuntu flavour are off topic. But often the fact that an asker uses an off-brand ubuntu is irrelevant. Many good questions at this site aren't even specific to ubuntu, or even debian based systems, nor even linux (eg, questions about the default posix compatible shell, dash). If someone has a question about ubuntu in general, they should ask here, even if they happen to use an off-brand flavour. If a well-intentioned question turns out to be specific to the off-brand ubuntu, it should be closed.

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I would respectfully send them over to Unix and Linux and close the question as off-topic for the reasons Nathan Osman presented.

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