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My question about whether Amazon CloudFront offered DDoS protection was put on hold as off-topic because I was allegedly asking for "product, service, or learning material recommendations".

I was clearly not asking for recommendations or opinions. Amazon CloudFront offers DDoS protection or it doesn't; and if it does, it could do so at different layers of the OSI model. The answers must be objective.

Another user didn't like the fact that I was referring to a commercial service, which seems perfectly fine according to what's considered on-topic here. Plus, the question was put on hold so that I can reword it -- And however I do that, I'd always be referring to the same commercial service.

I'd really love to know if I did anything wrong so that I can keep it in mind in the future, or if my question was appropriate, I'd appreciate it if it could be reinstated.

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    Since you're new here, I just want to explain that downvotes here on Meta don't work the same as downvotes on the regular site. Votes on Meta don't affect your rep, and they are often used to indicate agreement/disagreement, instead of as an evaluation of the quality of the question.
    – Jenny D
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 13:26

2 Answers 2

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I was posting this as a comment, but it makes an answer in its own right.
In addition to what Sven wrote: As moderator I read a lot of questions and yours fits a common pattern of:

"Does product X, from vendor Y, offer feature Z ?" -

Such a question is not indicative of an actual (configuration) problem a current user of product X would ask about, but more something a prospective customer doing market research would ask, in other words: an (implicit) shopping recommendation. Hence the stock close reason.

IMHO that is also a question pattern that often speaks of a lack of even the most basic research as such questions are typically only authoritatively answered by the vendor, in their product specifications.

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The main problem that I have with this question: This is a question that should be asked to the vendors support and we are not the vendors support channel. You even met a representative of the vendor face to face - why didn't you ask back then? And really: In his talk or whatever he said they offer the feature - why do you need to ask a 3rd party site if they really do?

Also, while it might be objectively answerable, the question "Does product X support feature Y" falls under the product recommendation ban because there are two main reasons for this, the second being that these types of answers have a tendency to become obsolete quite fast.

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    I could't have said it better myself.
    – HBruijn Mod
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 12:07
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    In hindsight, I totally agree that I should've contacted the vendor directly and for that reason I agree I shouldn't have posted it on ServerFault. However, I fail to see how you arrive at the conclusion that it's a "production recommendation", but I'm happy not to continue drawing any more attention to this issue because we all agree that I shouldn't have posted that question... Although for different reasons.
    – Gus
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 12:11
  • @Gustavo Think of it like this: a significant reason why this category of questions is considered off-topic is due to obsolescence factor. Whether or not company X does Y is a product selection question based on services offered, and the answer is a snapshot in time. If company X at a later date decides that Y was too costly and that they should no longer do it, the value of the Q&A becomes flipped around entirely.
    – Andrew B
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 16:16
  • Absent this rule, we surely would be deluged with "stealth spam" questions intended to raise the profile of a product, e.g.: {Q: "Does $SNAKE_OIL have $FEATURE to solve $PROBLEM?", A1: "Yes, it has the best $FEATURE ever and it works even better in version 3.6!", A2: "I had so many $PROBLEMs until I discovered $SNAKE_OIL and $FEATURE solved them all!"}
    – Skyhawk
    Commented May 4, 2016 at 0:08

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