Will/Should Serverfault be dropping the "networking support" in the upcoming future?

Question

There is a currently private beta site for Network Engineering here:

http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/52519/network-engineering

The beta is new, but seems to be garnering a decent following so far, and will probably ramp up participation when it becomes a public beta site. I think this new site should exist...as this is a core role/area within IT. But only if these topics aren't to be covered by ServerFault. After all, why have a separate site at all if the topics can and should be covered here?

Given that the ServerFault FAQs state that a question can be about:

Network routing, switches, and firewalls

and the site name is Server fault...is the idea to get back to a core based on the name of the site, centering around questions regarding server/application administration and moving networking questions to their own site, eliminating this from the FAQs and acceptable topics? Or do sites like this new Network Engineering one exist as supplements to the larger sites like SF and SO for more granular or specialized help?

If so, what happens when these questions overlap (ie. serverA cannot communicate with serverB)?

Answer 1

1. Don't get hung up on the name. Seriously, servers are a small fraction of our topicality. I've heard this argument many times now and it's getting really old.

2. If we made subjects off-topic here when another site covered them, there'd be nothing left.

Answer 2

The name is, and always has been, a bit of a misnomer. As near as I can tell it was crafted by programmers wanting a non-programmer site.

The whole notion of StackExchange encourages community fragmentation with site overlap, and this isn't really any different. There are two real questions that should be asked should Network Engineering survive:

1. Would that site take significant content from ServerFault?
2. Where should the line be drawn with respect to migrations?

PeterGrace made some pretty good arguments, largely anecdotal but that's the only data we'll have available for a while, that seems to indicate the impact due to fragmentation will be limited. For the other we'll have to make that call based on how the community works itself out. There will definitely be some overlap, but it seems like the real hardcore expertise has always been hesitant to come to SF in the first place, so it will largely exist over there anyway.

Answer 3

No we don't have to drop the networking questions any more than we dropped questions related to security, databases, and other topics. If it relates to professional system administration it can be asked here. If the question will get better answer over there we will migrate them.

Looking at the questions so far on the Beta, I think many of the questions would fit here, but probably would not receive much attention. I don't know if it will work, but the Network Engineering people think that another site will attract more experts that will be able to answer the types of questions that were not getting much attention on serverfault. I signed on to the Network Engineer proposal to see if believe is true. If the site doesn't gel, then I expect many of the questions will get migrated back to here. If it does work well, then we can migrate the networking related questions over there, we they don't get enough attention, over here.

Answer 4

The original tag line for the site said

Network Engineering

... network engineers and administrators

This has subsequently been edited to remove the and administrators

so now it reads

Network Engineering

... network engineers

So it looks like they want to focus on the engineering rather than the administration...

Hopefully someone from the site will pass by and give us some guidance.

Answer 5

You might not like my opinion (i.e. answer), but I think SF concensus will eventually be sending users to the networking SE for networking problems. Similar to what has happened when the DB SE opened. Seems logical to me. SF cannot be all things to all people without losing its focus on professional systems administration.

Answer 6

That would be "not entirely". There is a pretty clear division IMHO:

1. network protocols and the "ought to" questions (gig to NE);
2. configuration/behaviour of hosts participating in protocols and the "what actually does occur" questions (gig to SF)

There will be some lore that falls between the two stools:

eg:

"what's the best way to approach the implementation of this network protocol in situation X comprised of hosts A, B, and C to achieve outcome P?"

For pragmatic "here's how to get it working", SF gets the question. For theoretical "here's how it would ideally work, assuming hosts actually obeyed the protocol and provided appropriate configurable features", NE gets the gig.

[SF question] "how do I setup X on router Y?"

Answer: "you get your head around [ref to NE], and then you take these concrete steps ..."