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The standard "offtopic" reason has become the "homework offtopic" reason. What to do with many off-topic questions, which are not homework questions but simply off-topic? (And yeah, let's assume there is no obvious migration candidate).

Can't we have both offtopic and the homework-offtopic reason?

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The homework justification didn't replace anything else that was there before. But we supplement it with (up to two) new custom off topic reasons (just as we created the homework one).

When there is no consensus among the people voting to close a post, the site displays the default off topic notice:

This question does not appear to be about economics, within the scope defined in the help center.

so one possibility would be to introduce this as an explicit off-topic option for people to choose. The danger I see in that strategy is that almost any reason for closing would match this statement. It would probably be best if the off topic reasons were (at least roughly) mutually exclusive.

Alternative suggestions are welcome.

EDIT

I have added a new custom off-topic reason matching the quoted text above. But it requires a second moderator's input/approval at here.

For the record, we are able to add one more custom off-topic reason if necessary/desired (the site maximum is three).

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    $\begingroup$ If you really feel the need, you can reformulate the homework-close-reason as "This question is about economics, but it is a homework questoin, so it is off-topic". Then, it would be mutually exclusive with "This question is not about economics, so it is off-topic". However, I don't see the need for being this picky. $\endgroup$
    – FooBar
    Feb 23, 2016 at 16:53
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    $\begingroup$ (+1) I think the best thing would indeed be to repeat as an explicit option in the inside window, this general sentence, separately from the existing ones. $\endgroup$
    – Alecos Papadopoulos
    Feb 23, 2016 at 17:18
  • $\begingroup$ Perhaps you need to notify one of your fellow moderators about approving the new off-topic reason. $\endgroup$
    – Alecos Papadopoulos
    Feb 27, 2016 at 2:29
  • $\begingroup$ @AlecosPapadopoulos Unfortunately, there is no mechanism in the SE network to send private messages to other users: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/431/… This policy seems to extend to moderators (who can only send warning messages). $\endgroup$
    – Ubiquitous
    Feb 28, 2016 at 16:59

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