Q:

Is a statement and link to research of a problem considered off topic at RPI.SE?

Please forgive my ignorance. I'm having a hardware problem, which is on-topic per Help Center | What topics can I ask about here?. I also posted a link for the research I performed. The research started with a Google search of the issue, and it involved me visiting the relevant links.
The question received a comment that the research and the link was off topic. Based on the reception from the commentor, it appears he felt it extended to the entire question.
Is a statement and link to research of a problem considered off topic at RPI.SE? Or is it inappropriate to include the statement of research in a question?

A:

I think (and hope) that just a little cooling down is necessary here. It is worthwhile to separate the issues that seem to have gotten entangled thus leading to a heated discussion. 
Links to relevant research or external references are encouraged on StackExchange but they should always be put into context. Problem with a google-link are that it is a) not persistent - if you refer to "the second hit" today that might be something completely different from the second hit next week - and b) that it seems to contain lots of links that are completely unrelated to the Pi - thus off topic. My understanding is that Steve pointed out this problem in his first comment. Be aware that he is saying that the most of the links are off topic - not the question itself. He also provides some input on additional possible causes (power/heat issues) that could be reason for or contributing to the problem you describe. Those may or may not be worth investigating. 
Again, key to helpful use of external URLs is to provide context to all your links. First and foremost all posts (Q's and A's) at StackExchange should stand on their own. External sources should provide additional information or backing up the claims you make. In my book that includes that you - the OP - pick the relevant links from the google search and make it clear to the reader of your question how they relate to your problem. Extract the relevant info of a few selected links and boil it down to one or a few sentences. 
Think of it that way, the way your question is written as of now you expect the reader to follow up on multiple external links to figure out what you might have tried. If you were to put that in the question in the first place it would reduce the guessing on the answerers side and thus potentially leading to more useful answers.

A:

First, it should be noted that no one has cast an "off-topic" vote on any of your questions here, or any close votes period, so it is a little confusing why you are asking this (blatantly rhetorical) question beyond (transparent) game playing.

I also posted a link for the research I performed.

As per my comments on the question (I'll provide a link, since you didn't) [Note all comments on the question have since been deleted, and the question itself edited to remove the "research" link under discussion, but it is included here below], in the original context that research is on the same level as this: 

My Ford Taurus is suffering the engine trouble reported by others.  How do I disable the ABS and power steering in order to stop this?

I.e., it reads as a complete non-sequitor and implies 1 of 2 things:

The person who wrote it is very, very dazed and confused, has practically no experience using the internet, doing technical research, or asking for help online, and also does not understand anything about cars, and most likely is a new driver who has never had any trouble with one previously.
The person who wrote the question created that link while writing it as an excuse for supporting evidence, knowing anyone who clicked through would not bother reading any of it and hopefully presume #1.

There's nothing wrong with #1, and at first glance that's the way I would take this question, until I looked at your profile, which led me to your S.O. account, which makes me much, much more inclined to see this as #2.  And there is a problem with that.  It is indicative of contempt for taking things seriously and making an effort, so the idea here that this is really "a statement and link to research of a problem" is a bit hard to swallow, and the fact that you did not include a link to the question here further implies you know that could easily contradict the twisted picture you are trying to paint.
I will break down Ghanima's point a little more.  Here's what that "research" link is:
http://www.google.com/search?q=rpi3+lock+up
Any normal human adult who has used google for any length of time on one computer (or with a google user account) and paid any attention at all must almost certainly recognize that the hits returned by this link depend in part on the search history of the person who clicks it.  If most of your prior research on the pi pertained to bluetooth and wifi before you composed the question, perhaps you made a naive mistake.  Still a bit hard to believe though, since you obviously are not a person with no experience doing technical research or asking for help about it online.
In any case it does not explain, if you genuinely "visited the relevant links", why you would not link to them directly.  Unless, of course, if that would complicate your claim...further evidence that the link, like this question, was an intentional rhetorical ploy.
For me, it leads to a bunch of stuff very much akin to the "Ford Taurus engine trouble" links.  Is there a pattern there?  Maybe if ran analysis on the first few thousand hits I could say there is.  
Let's have a look at the top five. Probably they are not that different than those of someone who never looked for anything involving this, as I would tend to use "raspberry pi 3" (quoted as a phrase), not rpi3. 

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=142481 This does indeed include the phrase "lock up" and and bluetooth apparently turns out to be the culprit, but what's interesting about it is bluetooth was not mentioned in that person's initial report of an issue.  It's mentioned in the solution and what's more, exactly how to disable it is also mentioned.  So if you already found a solution in the first link of your research, why are you asking about it?
https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux Nothing to do with any of this but may indeed be indicative of my google chrome browser history since I'm there at least a few times a week.  However, it is also perhaps because of #3...
https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/1360 Is indeed again a connection between "rpi3 lockup" and "bluetooth", but there's another common connection to the first hit: The use of PS3 controllers! Since they were posted a week apart, and the person who posted #1 found their solution the next day, very likely it was because of this.  But you do not mention PS3 controllers in your question...
Raspbian migration from Raspberry Pi 2 to Raspberry Pi 3 A question from here where the solution appears to have nothing to do with bluetooth or wifi.
http://www.runeaudio.com/forum/the-raspberry-pi-3-t3256-80.html Completely tangential.

Based on this, I'll hazard a guess and say that if I did run analysis on the first few thousand hits, there would be no pattern involving lock-ups caused by bluetooth and wifi, and it certainly is not, as you labelled the link, research demonstrating anything about "the frequent lockups reported by others". In other words, your question here should be:

Is a statement and an incredibly pathetic excuse for research considered off-topic? 

No, it's not considered "off-topic", and no one voted to close your question as such.  It should be considered pathetic, low quality, and demonstrative of, as the downvote tooltip says, "no research effort", and so at this point has received a number of those.
By my reading of Steve's initial comment, "off topic" refers to search hits which are a random assortment that do not mesh with the topic of disabling bluetooth and wifi.  Note again, he did not close the question, so he obviously did not mean your question is off-topic here, and the sentence is literally:

A link to a google search where most of the links are off topic really!

Your misinterpretation is then born out in further comments on the question -- which, again, you presumably did not link to because you are trying to paint a different picture than the background reality presents and you know it.  I.e. You are playing games.  Please play them somewhere else in the future.

