Where is the line with the Google sponsored tags?

Question

Google sponsor some tags within the SE network. In particular, here on Server Fault google-cloud-platform, google-app-engine and google-compute-engine.

The Google support pages have this to say on the matter

... the Server Fault links for technical questions about system and network administration ...

Ok so here is the text of a recently asked question tagged with a Google sponsored tag

Unable to start a google cloud project- Forbidden

I recently signed up for google cloud using my google apps for business account. Entered the billing information and went to the google cloud platform however, I cannot start a new project. The only information I get in the activity window is 'forbidden' I am not sure what is wrong here.

Anyway to help me rectify this

I put a Close->Off Topic->Questions involving web hosting control panels vote on it.

This isn't the first question like this and I imagine that like the others it will soon be closed as off topic as, at this point the OP isn't really doing system administration they are using a Web App/Control Panel to create something to do system administration on.

The purpose of this question is to garner community consensus on the validity of this type of question or not here on Server Fault.

My question:

Where is the line for the Google sponsored tags between using a Web App/Control Panel and doing system administration on the objects provided by the Web App/Control Panel ?

Answer 1

I think there's definitely a bright line here.

With vendor-sponsored forums, you end up with a lot of angry chatter between customers, and when you look through such things there are pages of people with smoke issuing from their ears over fairly minor issues, and occasionally the vendor will chime in with something only slightly helpful.

Nobody needs that, anywhere.

How do we stop that, then? Also, how do we avoid this feeling like a helpdesk? Easy. These questions are on topic if:

• They relate to professional systems administration, or at least closely enough that the answer will be useful to a reasonably competent professional
• The way the cloud service is being used represents reasonable business practice
• The community can give an answer, because doing so wouldn't require access to the cloud vendor's systems
• The question is not specific to that particular asker and their account issues
• The question provides enough information about what is going on that we can reduce it to an actual systems administration problem and answer it

That all comes from close reasons we have actually used and had as templates.

Nobody could possibly expect us, this community, to provide free support for Google. They get a fancy logo on their tags and who knows what else, but really, questions that don't meet the 4-part test above don't belong here and aren't helpful and probably won't get an answer from us anyway.

That a web control panel is used to bring up a server is neither here nor there. Yes, generally, there are APIs for this kind of thing, but the web control panel doesn't butcher the system in the same way cpanel or plesk does. It's just used to configure the environment around it, and it's just a direct frontend to the API in every case I know of.

The issue here is more that we need to close questions about people's bills and credentials, and questions where people haven't given enough information, and other questions that aren't answerable. That's it.

Answer 2

I'm going to try to put in my opinion on what is a hard topic...
As I am often involved with Azure setups, my opinion might be clouded towards allowing them, so keep that in mind.

Are cloud hosting panels the same as control panels and as such Off Topic?
No definitely not.
While control panels change the way the underlying OS handles, interfaces such as those offered by Azure, Google, AWS only serve to configure the OS on a basic level.

Are cloud hosting panels Off Topic by default?
It depends.
Cloud hosting panels are used to configure the underlying OS, which could be On Topic as it is becoming a more prevalent subject in the world of systems administration.
They are however also used to manage things not directly related to the OS, such as billing.
There is also the fact that problems that occur by misunderstanding the cloud hosting panels interface is not something we can help with.

So where is the line?
If you're asking questions on how to configure your OS in a specific way, or how to compare a specific OS to its on-premise variant. There is a good chance your question can be formulated in a way that is On Topic.
If you're asking about billing, or about functionality of the panel that is not directly related to the OS, it is Off Topic.

That doesn't really help.
No it doesn't. The subject is a bit hard to put into definite terms.
For cloud hosting panels it can vary wildly on the subject matter, the expertise of the person asking, and the way the question is formulated.
Even more so than regular questions, if you have a question about any of these, do plenty of research first.
Otherwise chances are your question will be closed.

Answer 3

There are a couple of topics involved here, one of which probably deserves its own meta question. But first:

Where is the line for the Google sponsored tags between using a Web App/Control Panel and doing system administration on the objects provided by the Web App/Control Panel ?

Yes, technically-speaking, they're using a vendor's control panel to create infrastructure.

But:

How is this different from someone doing the same with AWS? We get a quite a few questions from people about how to do such-and-such on AWS, which most of the time involves their GUI Console, and I've never felt that those questions are off-topic.

One caveat that I try to mention whenever I'm answering these questions is that best practices dictate that the GUI Console (whether AWS, GCE, Rackspace, etc.) should only be a read-only interface. Any modifications should be done via the vendor's API in a controlled, repeatable, testable manner.

Now, the second point is the appropriateness of Google sending their unsupported customers here for support. Perhaps this should be a sepearate question? Seeing all of these "HALP!!" questions come through, my reaction was always "Go ask Google", because I'd never actually seen Google follow through on their statement that they have people monitoring and answering questions here. Well, turns out that's not true - if you look at google-compute-engine, you can see that there's at least one Google employee that comes here periodically to answer questions.

So, to summarize, as long as the user seems to have a modicum of a clue about GCE operations, I say leave the question as-is. People that aren't familiar with GCE don't need to feel any obligation to answer the questions or help out - just let them sit until a Google employee comes along to answer.

Answer 4

To my way of thinking, we can't control what crazy stuff anyone is going to send our way. Thus, the fact that someone has come here because Google suggested they come here shouldn't be part of the on/off-topic decision. If a questioner expresses some displeasure at having their question closed after following Google's advice, our response should be a polite but firm "take it up with Google".

The issue of the tag being a sponsored one doesn't, IMO, change the topicality of the question, but I can see how it could get into a slightly more grey area. SE pays to run the site, in order to keep running, they need money. They get the money through advertising (of which sponsored tags are a part). Sponsors need to see value in spending the money... but what value are sponsors getting? I can't actually find anything concrete about what assertions are made about what sponsoring a tag actually gets the sponsor.

I'm not saying that if SE were insane enough to tell Google, "sponsor this tag and you can send all your freebie users to SF and they'll do your support for free", that we should just roll over and take that, but the issue isn't automatically quite as simple as "burn them all with fire". Without the sponsored tags, there's less money to run the site, and (in theory) SE might go out of business. So... compromises. Maybe. Or hopefully not.

Answer 5

We've had a ton of discussion on control panels, and the consensus was to make them OT. I don't care who the vendor is, or anything about the question. It should be marked OT and closed. The very second we start making exceptions for platform x we invite trouble.

Additionally the rate of change in these control panels is such that these questions will become obsolete relatively quickly