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For example, the maintainers of this app have requested that new feedback goes over GitHub instead of the answer section. I've seen at least one other case of this too. Essentially, Stack Apps answers are not being accepted as feedback anymore.

Should we close such questions here to channel feedback to the developers' bug/FR tracking system? If so, should we require confirmation from the original poster of the question?

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Closing them would help the developers, as sites like GitHub make it much easier to track and act on issues.

However, I don't think we should/can assume that every Stack Apps user has an account on sites like GitHub -- they may not be developers and are just casual users. Although it's easy to make an account, I don't think we should force them to!

If we did close the questions, they could comment but then they would be limited in the details they can provide because of lack of space. I often have users post issues/bugs in comments and it makes it a lot harder to track than an answer would be.

How about a 'mod message/notice' kind of thing like they have on Meta sites just to bring to the attention of users that ideally issues are posted elsewhere? This feature request on Meta would be perfect IMO: Allow Moderator Comments with the Prefix "Moderator Note" to show up in collapsed comments (main Meta site).

@Brock mentioned that there is a way to add post messages without locking the post, which would be ideal. Screenshot courtesy of @Έρικ:

mod post notice

We could ask a CM to add another pre-defined message for our use case if we had enough posts to show it's needed. A possible message:

The post author has requested that all bug reports and feature requests (and questions?) are posted on [sitename]. Please consider doing so to help them manage issues!

Another possible solution (which would again require something 'extra' for Stack Apps, so I'm not sure if it's feasible) would be to show an alert similar to when users post an answer, like is currently shown when you post 2 answers on the same question:

"Are you sure you want to add another answer"

However, the message would be something like:

Are you sure you want to add an answer?

This post author has requested for issues and feature requests to be posted on [sitename]. Please consider doing so if you can, as it would make it easier for them to manage

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    Ah, the dilemma. Note that the "moderator note" in the screenshot is actually a lock, and such notes can't have arbitrary content, only one of (three, IIRC) select snippets of text.
    – EKons
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 19:08
  • Ah, you're right. I'm not sure if it'd be possible/high enough priority to get it done specifically for stack apps. But that feature request linked is basically what I'm thinking of :/
    – ᔕᖺᘎᕊ
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 19:14
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    Locks also make the question unable to receive votes, which, I believe, app developers do deserve even if they otherwise want feedback to go elsewhere (you may want to weigh in on this).
    – EKons
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 19:15
  • I completely agree. I didn't really mean lock the post, just adding the notice if it was possible!
    – ᔕᖺᘎᕊ
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 19:16
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    Notices are possible that don't lock the post. There is currently no notice here that's appropriate. But, if we can show a CM that several posts merit a new/custom notice, one can be added.
    – Brock Adams
    Commented Sep 4, 2018 at 19:20

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