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Not picking on any contributor. This question...

Where can I buy “blocking” stickers for my left-hand drive car's headlights so I can drive in the right-hand drive UK?

...is fairly valid, as it affects travellers choosing to drive when visiting countries. The accepted answer, however, linked to a page for a specific product on a shopping website. I personally felt that a less biased answer would be to just mention the name of the product - 'headlamp converters', in this case - without linking to any particular product.

Should shopping links to specific products be allowed? What if the product is one-of-a-kind, sold only by one/handful companies?

Related: Q&A is Hard, Let’s Go Shopping!

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  • Example of one-of-a-kind product: "I am going to Gotham City, where can I buy a genuine batsuit to protect myself?" Obviously, there's just one manufacturer for this product.
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Jul 13, 2011 at 10:56

2 Answers 2

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It's less an issue of answers that link to shopping websites, and more an issue of questions that can be "answered" by links to shopping websites.

Questions like that are, by definition, off topic on all SE sites.

For the background and history, see the blog post: Q&A is Hard, Let’s Go Shopping!

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    If the OP (or someone else) edited to "how can I buy" and explained in the question that "I must not know what these things are called or what kinds of stores sell them, because I am not having any luck finding them" would the question be re-openable?
    – Kate Gregory
    Jul 14, 2011 at 1:10
  • @Dori: I edited the question to make it sound less like it was asking for shopping advice. OP didn't know what these items are called so I focussed on that instead.
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Jul 14, 2011 at 2:12
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I agree, with you regarding the linking. I should not have accepted the answer that quickly. Certainly because the ones sold by Halfords online are for UK-based cars and I am not sure if they work for mainland-based cars. But in general we should be restrictive with putting in links, except of course the exceptional questions, where you are in need for some life saving gear in the middle of the desert or you want to know where you can buy urgent medication.

And indeed headlamp converters is the name I was looking for.

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    Oh, by all means if the answer solves your query (and it does) mark it as accepted. The discussion on whether links should be there or not is, I think, a separate issue.
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Jul 13, 2011 at 11:19

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