Why is this an issue?

Methods and properties that don’t access instance data can be static to prevent any misunderstanding about the contract of the method.

Noncompliant code example

public class Utilities
{
    public int MagicNum // Noncompliant
    {
        get
        {
            return 42;
        }
    }

    private static string magicWord = "please";
    public string MagicWord  // Noncompliant
    {
        get
        {
            return magicWord;
        }
        set
        {
            magicWord = value;
        }
  }

    public int Sum(int a, int b)  // Noncompliant
    {
        return a + b;
    }
}

Compliant solution

public class Utilities
{
    public static int MagicNum
    {
        get
        {
            return 42;
        }
    }

    private static string magicWord = "please";
    public static string MagicWord
    {
        get
        {
            return magicWord;
        }
        set
        {
            magicWord = value;
        }
    }

    public static int Sum(int a, int b)
    {
        return a + b;
    }
}

Exceptions

Methods with the following names are excluded because they can’t be made static:

• Application_AuthenticateRequest
• Application_BeginRequest
• Application_End
• Application_EndRequest
• Application_Error
• Application_Init
• Application_Start
• Session_End
• Session_Start