Why was my question on high-performance-networking put on hold?

Question

testing network connectivity on a server with Gigabit Ethernet

Let me quote the bolded out part from the question:

• only control one server
• tool that would let me download a 100MB file in several simultaneous TCP streams over HTTP

Now, let's just do some common-sense math in regards to the concept of Bandwidth Delay Product, based on the 20MB/s from the question and 25 ms from my comment as a reply to someone else's comment.

20 MB/s * 25 ms ≈ 512 KB

Wow, quite a round number and quite a big buffer, I wonder whether it's a coincidence that one's throughput is indeed limited by 200Mbps in one's tests with single-stream downloads?

Now, a bunch of yahoos came in, and flooded the question with irrelevant answers about internet pipes, about how connection speed is irrelevant, about how networks have congestion, and just about all kinds of variables other than what the question has been asking for -- command-line tool similar to wget with simultaneous download support.

I didn't babysit these answers, and the "community" has then decided to put my question on hold with the following reason:

• "Questions must demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved. Try including attempted solutions, why they didn't work, and the expected results. See How can I ask better questions on Server Fault? for further guidance." – MDMarra, Scott Pack, mdpc, Falcon Momot, Nathan C

Oh, pardon me, yes, I'm obviously a clueless monkey that has no understand of bandwidth delay product or some beyond-basic internet connectivity issues like speed of the interface vs. the speed of the overall connection.

Shouldn't people who vote to close a question demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved?

BTW, thanks to one humble user, tomodachi, I was able to confirm that my connection is indeed 1Gbps, since he actually answered what I was asking for. :-)

But I'm overall disappointed that this situation happens so often on various SE sites: people have no clue what the question is about, so, they just vote to close it in their own ignorance, especially after their own misinformed answers have received a negative attention or rating.

And it is a problem.

Answer 1

I'm going to be extremely blunt, because it's after midnight here and I'm cranky:

In short what's wrong with your question is that instead of including all of this relevant information that you decided to post on meta in a great fit of offense you chose to throw a turd against our window and then asked us to use Google for you.

The Google part I can forgive (because I tried a few obvious searches, knowing I would recommend Aria or a few other tools for multi-streaming downloads, and I didn't get useful results with that foreknowledge). Your question is, as a whole, on-topic.

The turd part I can't. Your question needs some additional effort in order to be "professional quality".

---

If you ask a good question people will be happy to help you.

Good questions tell us what you've researched and eliminated.
We shouldn't HAVE to tell you about bandwidth delay product, buffer bloat, route saturation, etc.: As a professional you should have some research, determined whether or not these things are a factor, and shown us your work so we don't have to rehash it and waste everyone's time.

Of course we don't expect you to figure out EVERYTHING on your own - you wouldn't need us if that were the case! We just want to see that you've done something and aren't just taking the lazyweb way out.

If you want to improve your question and have it reopened take a few minutes of your time to edit it to include the details you've provided here. Make it a professional quality question that shows you take your work seriously, and aren't just asking the internet to do all the thinking for you.

Remember that we only know what you tell us, so let us know that you know delay isn't a major factor, and that the remote site can meet or exceed your server's available bandwidth (and if you aren't sure tell us that -- it's important, and influences our recommendations).

---

We aren't doing this to be mean.

Please don't take having your question closed personally. We really don't care who you are - we care about whether or not the question meets our standards for quality and topicality.

Pitching a fit on Meta is not the way to handle this sort of thing.
It just results in your question sitting, closed, for a longer period of time while we wait for you to improve it.

If you had taken 15 minutes to include the relevant information in your question it would be reopened already and I wouldn't be wasting my evening giving you a lecture.

You'd be happier, I'd be happier, and the community would have a good question about performing real-world bandwidth tests, that will attract good detailed answers (as opposed to just a link to a multi-streaming download tool).

Answer 2

I didn't touch your question, and didn't even read it until now, but I do want to make the following observations:

• First, the question says nothing about bandwidth delay product, TCP slow start, or any other relevant issue. Thus it's perfectly reasonable to assume that whoever asked the question is ignorant of these issues.
• Questions asking for product, service and learning material recommendations aren't permitted here. While we could reopen the question, without a bit of rewriting, we'd just have to close it again for that reason.
• As Nathan C noted, rudeness is a really bad idea. Not only is it also not permitted here, it will also annoy the people you are seeking help from. Not a good way to start a relationship...

Answer 3

It's an awful question.

You have GigE and are complaining that you can't download at 100MBps from some random site? Please.

Listen buddy, the Internet is the Wild West. You have NO IDEA what's going on in between you and the other server.

Maybe it's rate limiting you. Maybe you don't have GbE. Maybe the tubes are saturated with pictures of crap depicting the Royal Baby on Etsy.

Oh, wait, your NIC shows 1GbE negotiated. I guess you must have High Performance connectivity. How cute. Have a biscuit.

Answer 4

You couldn't be any more rude with your comments, could you? The close reasons are not meant to be taken personally.

For what it's worth, I VTC'd the topic because the answer can be easily found on [insert search engine here] and a few minutes of research. That, and even though people provided additional information to your issue, comments like this are just making people not want to answer you.

Just a bit of friendly advice: when asking a question, please instead just not upvote/accept wrong answers. Everyone here is a volunteer and no one's right 100% of the time.