The quality of content coming in needs to be drastically pruned. I remember a few times where Iain spot-checked all of the questions on the front page, and over half of them were consistently from users with almost no rep on SF, but a lot of rep on SO or Programmers. This is a continuation of the same issue that got SF removed from SO's migration list. However, instead of asking on SO and having crap migrated here, it seems like developers are asking directly. In most cases pro developers are not pro sysadmins and ask ridiculous questions or questions that people with even a tiny drop of experience wouldn't care about one bit.

Combine this with the "drive-by" questions that happen all the time from a new user that asks a garbage question and never comes back to edit/update and you've got a major content problem.

We've tried being welcoming and we've tried accepting "newbie" questions, since - yes - everyone needs to start somewhere, but it's obviously not working. If something isn't a well thought out and worthwhile question from a pro admin, it needs to die an immediate and painful death and the people killing it need to have no remorse.

I know that SE cares about pageviews and that's fine, but the pageviews that low quality content brings in will also bring in more low quality users. If all that SE cares about are views, then they're on the right track. If they actually care about content, then things need to change quickly. The Summer of Love was last year. We need a Summer of Relentless Massacre.

Just to prove my point, here is a screencap of the current front page with sadfaces for every question that could be answered with RTFM or that is shopping or otherwise inappropriate.

The quality of content coming in needs to be drastically pruned. I remember a few times where Iain spot-checked all of the questions on the front page, and over half of them were consistently from users with almost no rep on SF, but a lot of rep on SO or Programmers. This is a continuation of the same issue that got SF removed from SO's migration list. However, instead of asking on SO and having crap migrated here, it seems like developers are asking directly. In most cases pro developers are not pro sysadmins and ask ridiculous questions or questions that people with even a tiny drop of experience wouldn't care about one bit.

Combine this with the "drive-by" questions that happen all the time from a new user that asks a garbage question and never comes back to edit/update and you've got a major content problem.

We've tried being welcoming and we've tried accepting "newbie" questions, since - yes - everyone needs to start somewhere, but it's obviously not working. If something isn't a well thought out and worthwhile question from a pro admin, it needs to die an immediate and painful death and the people killing it need to have no remorse.

I know that SE cares about pageviews and that's fine, but the pageviews that low quality content brings in will also bring in more low quality users. If all that SE cares about are views, then they're on the right track. If they actually care about content, then things need to change quickly. The Summer of Love was last year. We need a Summer of Relentless Massacre.

Just to prove my point, here is a screencap of the current front page with sadfaces for every question that could be answered with RTFM or that is shopping or otherwise inappropriate.

In fact, NINE out of these 10 are from users that have more rep on SO than on SF, meaning that they are likely developers and not IT pros. I know that this isn't the only measure of an IT pro and it certainly isn't the only measure of being able to ask a relevant question, but it strikes right to the heart of the problem. Server Fault really is no longer By IT Pros for IT Pros.

The quality of content coming in needs to be drastically pruned. I remember a few times where Iain spot-checked all of the questions on the front page, and over half of them were consistently from users with almost no rep on SF, but a lot of rep on SO or Programmers. This is a continuation of the same issue that got SF removed from SO's migration list. However, instead of asking on SO and having crap migrated here, it seems like developers are asking directly. In most cases pro developers are not pro sysadmins and ask ridiculous questions or questions that people with even a tiny drop of experience wouldn't care about one bit.

Combine this with the "drive-by" questions that happen all the time from a new user that asks a garbage question and never comes back to edit/update and you've got a major content problem.

We've tried being welcoming and we've tried accepting "newbie" questions, since - yes - everyone needs to start somewhere, but it's obviously not working. If something isn't a well thought out and worthwhile question from a pro admin, it needs to die an immediate and painful death and the people killing it need to have no remorse.

I know that SE cares about pageviews and that's fine, but the pageviews that low quality content brings in will also bring in more low quality users. If all that SE cares about are views, then they're on the right track. If they actually care about content, then things need to change quickly. The Summer of Love was last year. We need a Summer of Relentless Massacre.

The quality of content coming in needs to be drastically pruned. I remember a few times where Iain spot-checked all of the questions on the front page, and over half of them were consistently from users with almost no rep on SF, but a lot of rep on SO or Programmers. This is a continuation of the same issue that got SF removed from SO's migration list. However, instead of asking on SO and having crap migrated here, it seems like developers are asking directly. In most cases pro developers are not pro sysadmins and ask ridiculous questions or questions that people with even a tiny drop of experience wouldn't care about one bit.

Combine this with the "drive-by" questions that happen all the time from a new user that asks a garbage question and never comes back to edit/update and you've got a major content problem.

We've tried being welcoming and we've tried accepting "newbie" questions, since - yes - everyone needs to start somewhere, but it's obviously not working. If something isn't a well thought out and worthwhile question from a pro admin, it needs to die an immediate and painful death and the people killing it need to have no remorse.

I know that SE cares about pageviews and that's fine, but the pageviews that low quality content brings in will also bring in more low quality users. If all that SE cares about are views, then they're on the right track. If they actually care about content, then things need to change quickly. The Summer of Love was last year. We need a Summer of Relentless Massacre.

Just to prove my point, here is a screencap of the current front page with sadfaces for every question that could be answered with RTFM or that is shopping or otherwise inappropriate.