As someone defending the original question here's my tuppence worth:

It doesn't seem to matter what is in the FAQ, as there are enough people with close voting rights that will do what they want anyway, and get their way. Maybe this is fair enough, or maybe 5 close votes is not enough. Who am I to say. Or maybe 10 points should be deducted for each close vote (although 10k+ folk don't care about that).

I've been told I took all this too hard. But it isn't without context. When I originally asked What might prevent IKE handshake success in building an IPSEC tunnel? I got close votes that were explained with the "violates policy arguement" based on the assumption about what I was trying to do that people seem to have made about our friend in Iran - is it relevant that I didn't know if the ISP/country were deliberately trying to block IPSEC? I had to close the question myself and write it again extremely carefully before I got a response that addressed the question, and not the FAQ!

It felt like there were more people on Server Fault willing to explain the rules to me and close my question than there were people who wanted to help or apply technical thinking to the question.

In the end it turned out that the ISP had a misconfigured switch not that they were specifically trying to block IPSEC. I've subsequently discovered exactly the same issue in 4 other ISPs in different countries.

Personally I think the FAQ is fine as it is. Interpreting what is and isn't "policy violation" is not always clear cut, and beyond our own workplaces, not our jobs. I'd prefer to simply choose not to answer a question I disagree with, vote it down, or flag it for moderator attention. Or better yet, as suggested in the FAQ, edit the question to improve it.

As someone defending the original question here's my tuppence worth:

It doesn't seem to matter what is in the FAQ, as there are enough people with close voting rights that will do what they want anyway, and get their way. Maybe this is fair enough, or maybe 5 close votes is not enough. Who am I to say. Or maybe 10 points should be deducted for each close vote (although 10k+ folk don't care about that).

I've been told I took all this too hard. But it isn't without context. When I originally asked What might prevent IKE handshake success in building an IPSEC tunnel? I got close votes that were explained with the "violates policy arguement" based on the assumption about what I was trying to do that people seem to have made about our friend in Iran - is it relevant that I didn't know if the ISP/country were deliberately trying to block IPSEC? I had to close the question myself and write it again extremely carefully before I got a response that addressed the question, and not the FAQ!

It felt like there were more people on Server Fault willing to explain the rules to me and close my question than there were people who wanted to help or apply technical thinking to the question.

In the end it turned out that the ISP had a misconfigured switch not that they were specifically trying to block IPSEC. I've subsequently discovered exactly the same issue in 4 other ISPs in different countries.

Personally I think the FAQ is fine as it is. Interpreting what is and isn't "policy violation" is not always clear cut, and beyond our own workplaces, not our jobs. I'd prefer to simply choose not to answer a question I disagree with, vote it down, or flag it for moderator attention. Or better yet, as suggested in the FAQ, edit the question to improve it.

As someone defending the original question here's my tuppence worth:

It doesn't seem to matter what is in the FAQ, as there are enough people with close voting rights that will do what they want anyway, and get their way. Maybe this is fair enough, or maybe 5 close votes is not enough. Who am I to say. Or maybe 10 points should be deducted for each close vote (although 10k+ folk don't care about that).

I've been told I took all this too hard. But it isn't without context. When I originally asked What might prevent IKE handshake success in building an IPSEC tunnel? I got close votes that were explained with the "violates policy arguement" based on the assumption about what I was trying to do that people seem to have made about our friend in Iran - is it relevant that I didn't know if the ISP/country were deliberately trying to block IPSEC?

It felt like there were more people on Server Fault willing to explain the rules to me and close my question than there were people who wanted to help or apply technical thinking to the question.

In the end it turned out that the ISP had a misconfigured switch not that they were specifically trying to block IPSEC. I've subsequently discovered exactly the same issue in 4 other ISPs in different countries.

Personally I think the FAQ is fine as it is. Interpreting what is and isn't "policy violation" is not always clear cut, and beyond our own workplaces, not our jobs.

As someone defending the original question here's my tuppence worth:

It doesn't seem to matter what is in the FAQ, as there are enough people with close voting rights that will do what they want anyway, and get their way. Maybe this is fair enough, or maybe 5 close votes is not enough. Who am I to say. Or maybe 10 points should be deducted for each close vote (although 10k+ folk don't care about that).

I've been told I took all this too hard. But it isn't without context. When I originally asked What might prevent IKE handshake success in building an IPSEC tunnel? I got close votes that were explained with the "violates policy arguement" based on the assumption about what I was trying to do that people seem to have made about our friend in Iran - is it relevant that I didn't know if the ISP/country were deliberately trying to block IPSEC? I had to close the question myself and write it again extremely carefully before I got a response that addressed the question, and not the FAQ!

It felt like there were more people on Server Fault willing to explain the rules to me and close my question than there were people who wanted to help or apply technical thinking to the question.

In the end it turned out that the ISP had a misconfigured switch not that they were specifically trying to block IPSEC. I've subsequently discovered exactly the same issue in 4 other ISPs in different countries.

Personally I think the FAQ is fine as it is. Interpreting what is and isn't "policy violation" is not always clear cut, and beyond our own workplaces, not our jobs. I'd prefer to simply choose not to answer a question I disagree with, vote it down, or flag it for moderator attention. Or better yet, as suggested in the FAQ, edit the question to improve it.