Soliciting chargeable work from OP?

Question

So I stumbled on a post when OP clearly was out of their league.

In the comments of an answer, the OP was informed that the scope of work was such that they should pay for it. Further down, a second commenter appears to be attempting to establish private communication with the OP (possibly for the purposes of selling him their services).

In comments on the main thread, the same commenter left this comment

I suspect I know the answer. Possibly. Contact me if you need more information

Is this sort of thing permitted?

Answer 1

In general, if a question is reasonably scoped, and can be answered here on the site, it should be answered here.

In many cases, though, the OP is so far into the weeds that professional, paid help is truly needed.

I really don't have a problem with people soliciting work on the site, as long as they're providing value via answers. In this case, the person in question is clearly providing great value to the site, and would be absolutely qualified to help the OP.

Answer 2

You have misread and/or misunderstood my comment about payment and you misrepresent what happened in your question based upon that. Nowhere is scope of work mentioned.

The person in question isn't soliciting for paid work, they are responding to the OPs statement that they are willing to pay for a resolution. Even if that were not the case I can't see a problem with taking tech support off site.

Something that many people forget is that Server Fault is Q&A not tech support. This OP needs and wants tech support as their underlying problem cannot be resolved on site by Q&A.

Here's how it came about

I answered the headline question It is clear from all the comments though that the OP doesn't want to hear that the kernel is acting correctly, as they have 'lots of free memory'. So I left this comment ¹

... If you're not going to listen to what people who are clearly knowledgeable have to say then perhaps you should pay for your support because advice is worth what you pay for it. The advice won't be different but you'll have paid for it so will value it more.

and the OP responded

I would happily pay for advice. Do you know any places where I can do so?

So I contacted someone who I'm fairy sure will be able to figure this out and encouraged them to contact the OP.

This won't be straightforward. It won't be solvable by asking the OP questions in the comments. It will require access to the system and time, to resolve.

Q&A is not tech support. Tech support is not Q&A.

¹ Note that my comment doesn't say, as the OP above suggests, `that the scope of work was such that they should pay'.