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Before I blow through a day's worth of flags on this, perhaps there's a better way. I believe that virtually no question with the tag belongs here. Here's a discussion on the topic from two years ago: "How to deal with Windows Home Server questions on Serverfault?"

Most people seem to want it dead yesterday. However, there is some dissent worth considering. The dissent highlites possible weaknesses in our FAQ and stated purpose. Let's use this as a time to refine our FAQ revision.

Objections

Oorang says:

I personally know consultants currently selling WHS to small businesses. I don't see why you should make a differentiation just because MS marketed it with the name "home" in the title.

I believe there might be outlying cases where someone that is defined as a "system administrator and/or desktop support professional" (slightly modified from our FAQ) can and should suggest WHS to a client. Those cases would be for "micro-businesses" of just a handful of people.

Scott says:

I think it's a big mistake to try and draw a line between corporate and residential IT. In my former career as an IT guy, I dealt with just as many residential customers as corporate customers.

This would cause the word workplace to be in dispute. If a person's workplace is to consult within in the walls of a private home, then technically that's a workplace. I think the spirit of that word means that you are in floorspace that is leased or owned 100% for business purposes in an area zoned for commerce and not residence.

Just because your profession calls you to someone's home, doesn't mean that the work falls within the scope of ServerFault. People who manage or maintain computers in a professional capacity would then include many of the questions that you see on SuperUser, like for instance this one that I asked in the capacity of someone who maintains computers in a professional capacity. Then again, Scott also says:

Trying to separate corporate and residential IT is like trying to separate HTML and CSS; they're so closely related. I think SuperUser is fine for questions about how to do blah in Microsoft Word, but anything to do with adjusting system settings or system building is, in my opinion, most definitely sysadmin-related.

If that's how we define "SysAdmin-related" then we've got some serious FAQ rewriting to do (and, of course, we are doing that. Yay!)

Kev says:

Isn't Windows Home Server a "server" and thus equally deserving of support by ServerFault?

But the FAQ also says that you can't ask about home network related things. What happens when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object? In the immortal words of Zorak: "Eh... chicken salad... maybe?"

Since we have a history of closing questions that relate to a person putting a server on their home network, I believe that the "home" trumps the "server." Thus, no, Windows Home Server is not equally deserving of support by ServerFault.

Conclusion

Let's ban all WHS related questions regardless of if a consultant has implemented it on a small business network. By it's design, it is for home networks, regardless of how someone applies it. The converse reasoning is "Hey, this Juniper EX4500 is business class, so I should be able to ask about using it in my home network." Of course, we wouldn't allow that (except if the question made no reference to being in the home).

Let's kill most if not all questions as off-topic.

Let's migrate the rest and blackhole the tag.

Let's charge for the guns!

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  • 1
    Here here!​​​​​​ Jan 19, 2012 at 4:07
  • @MarkHenderson cough en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
    – Andrew
    Jan 20, 2012 at 2:13
  • @Andrew No, he was shouting at me across the restaurant. I didn't know which table he had reserved.
    – Wesley
    Jan 20, 2012 at 2:19

1 Answer 1

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I agree with everything Mr David just said.

If you're trying to do a port forward on a Belkin Home Router, I don't care if that router is sitting in a 10,000m2 datacenter of a Fortune 50 company - it's off topic.

Additionally, if you're working from your home and you can't figure out why your TV won't authenticate against your AD so you can stream porn from your SAN in full 50" Full HD glory, that's off topic (because it's a freaking TV).

So, if you've gone and deployed WHS, I don't give two hoots why, it's off topic.

Regardless, it is actually quite a good product

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  • Yes, I do like WHS from what I've seen - until they went and shot the backup service in the knee with an arrow.
    – Wesley
    Jan 19, 2012 at 4:15
  • @WesleyDavid - yeah that sucked Jan 19, 2012 at 4:16
  • 1
    I approve this message. I think WHS is a far more cut-and-dried topic than Mac-Mini-as-a-server was.
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Jan 19, 2012 at 12:29
  • Just for the record, we use a Belkin in our office. OTOH, if I have a support question I contact the ISP who supplied it as part of our account. I suppose that's the difference. Jan 20, 2012 at 1:25
  • Perhaps we need a canonical question for the former scenario, instead of closure. It can be very short. Q: Should I be using SOHO devices in my large production network? A: Verily, thou shalt do that not. May 25, 2013 at 6:20

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