Why SF is failing - the dismal future of ServerFault

Question

This is a Canonical Question about the scope of Server Fault and the attitude of the community.

This is in response to Questions to ask the SE staff regarding the future of ServerFault

Why am I responding by posting a new question? Because the SF system is broken. I can't respond directly to the meta question because I don't have enough reputation. I don't have enough reputation because my community participation is so low. My participation is so low because - well that's what the meta question is trying to find out!

A comment by Chris S is a good introduction to my response: "Might be also worth noting that, year to date: traffic to the site is down, new users per day is down, new questions and answer are down, edits are down, voting is down - every meaningful measurement of the site is down, except closed questions, that stat is up."

Why are users leaving or not participating? Why aren't new users joining or staying?

JamesRyan nailed it with his answer to the meta SF question:"As a user (and professional sysadmin) my impression is the complete opposite, that moderators are overly critical and too quick to close questions as off topic that could be helpful to get answers to..." But the snobbish, elitist behavior is not limited to moderators but to many of the regular users as well. I have occasionally seen new users directly insulted by other users while their questions are closed with little more than a link to a previous question that is only slightly related. You want to know what the real problem is with ServerFault? The community. You want to know why site stats have dropped? Because legitimate users with legitimate questions can get better answers from a more welcoming community elsewhere. I'd tell you where they're going, but then this post would get flagged as spam :) The reason why users are not joining or are leaving is because it's quite clear that they are not wanted.

JamesRyan asked a number of questions pertinent to fixing this problem, but the first question that needs to be answered is point number 1 in the meta SF question: What is the purpose of ServerFault? Is it to be a country club golf course for elite cream of the crop IT? Or does the definition of "Professional IT" include those who work for MSPs or for small businesses, who frequently have a limited scope of experience? I fall into that latter bracket and so far my experience on ServerFault leaves me feeling unwanted and unwelcome.

But how do we solve this problem? Besides a shift in attitude on the part of those who are at fault (haha, pun) for this snobbish behavior? If "Professional IT" embraces a more broad definition, then perhaps new users can be welcomed to the community. "Newbie" questions can be responded to with politeness, even if the asker is being directed towards a previous answer thread or easily findable external resource. Condescending attitudes and "low quality" arrogant responses can be down-voted as much as low quality questions - in fact, users and moderators should be able to lose reputation points for being patronizing.

Voting on questions and answers should NOT be limited by reputation! Neither should commenting on a question or answer. As a measure of community participation, I can understand reputation being used as a limiting factor for meta SF, but that alienates users like me, who are the ones most directly affected by this particular issue.

In fact, if reputation governs anything, it should be required for new users to have a minimum reputation before asking a question - but only if you want to ensure that all new questions come from people who are participating in the community. Of course, then you alienate everyone who comes here to learn but is unable to contribute for whatever reason. Reputation governing community involvement (as opposed to only measuring it) is a lose-lose.

As for me, I may continue to use ServerFault as long as it proves useful. To their credit, there are a good number of friendly and helpful users here. Other StackExchange sites have much more congenial communities and I will continue to participate in them. But honestly, I can usually get better answers, faster, and with a smile from a different free IT forum.

Hopefully this proves useful. Hopefully someone sees this and can read enough of my good intentions to share on the meta SF thread on my behalf, since I'm unable to post this there myself.

:EDIT:
First off, thanks to whoever moderator it was who moved this into meta where it belonged.

Secondly, another suggestion. When new users sign up, they should be presented with a home page giving clear and organized instructions on how the community works and how to participate. I "signed up with facebook" and if there was any such information it was presented in a EULA style that I likely skipped over (who doesn't?). In this case, it's all about presentation. Perhaps a couple of guided "getting started" tutorial pages - heck I'd be willing to help write it.

:EDIT:
Another thought I had for a suggestion is to require comments from down-votes. Considering how important reputation is, I think a person deserves some kind of explanation when that reputation is being demoted by someone. Especially when askers may not realize that their questions don't meet the standards in some way; and most especially when such a question can easily be amended to fix whatever supposed violation may have occurred.

Answer 1

I almost made this a TL;DR intro to my other answer, but I think this is a standalone way of looking at most of the "problems" with ServerFault that we've been discussing lately:

• Most* of the regulars want ServerFault's focus to be on professional system administration.

• One thing that all professional sysadmins do is figure things out: we learn how things work and how to fix them when they stop working.

• Professional sysadmins also have to figure out how to access information: what resources are there that can help me? what forums are good for which issues? etc...

• ServerFault is just another information resource.

• So a professional's approach to using ServerFault would be to figure out what it's good for and to use it appropriately.

That means understanding what's on- and off-topic, what type of questions are good and bad fits, how the site works and how it's part of the larger StackExchange, Inc. structure.

It means understanding that not every server or networking question is appropriate here.

The issue with crappy questions isn't "is the person asking a professional sysadmin?" it's, "does the question indicate a professional approach to the problem?" Very basic questions can be asked here as can quite subjective questions (it's hard, but it happens). But if the question isn't taking a professional approach, this isn't the right place for it.

Answer 2

What is the purpose of ServerFault? Is it to be a country club golf course for elite cream of the crop IT? Or does the definition of "Professional IT" include those who work for MSPs or for small businesses, who frequently have a limited scope of experience?

I think you're right in comparing the site to a country club, and this is something I have a problem with. In fact, there are a small handful of users who are pushing this agenda very hard lately and closing everything in sight that they don't like. I disagree with this behaviour, but that's a discussion for another day.

To clarify: Sever Fault is for professionals working with IT in a professional manner. It doesn't matter if you're a Fortune 500 company or a small startup, or a contractor that's been embedded into a bunch of different companies. We care about your intentions first and foremost.

Besides a shift in attitude on the part of those who are at fault (haha, pun) for this snobbish behavior?

You're right. There are a lot of snobs here. For some reason, and I'm not entirely sure why, a lot of systems administrators act like snobs, treating users like unwashed masses who are diseased. We treat new users like that here too sometimes. Instead of taking the time to step users through, old grey users just slam the door in their face, ignoring the fact that there are other more green people who might like to help them.

This is because a lot of us have answered the same questions, over, and over, and over again. There are about a dozen questions that come up multiple times every day, written by new users who just slap-dash copy-pasta whatever crap is inside their head into the nearest textinput field on random websites.

This is uncool behaviour, but it's also what causes people to have very little patience for new users. I see the correlation between the two acts, but I don't like it. I actually have raised this issue in the past; nearly 3 years ago but my attitude has changed somewhat since then. It has a very good answer from the founder of the site about why this is fine:

If you're bored by Server Fault, that's OK. Take a month off. Take a year off. Find something you can do where you're actually learning, not repeating yourself endlessly.

This is something a lot of people could take a leaf from.

perhaps new users can be welcomed to the community.

I agree. This goes back five years and looks like it's not going to go away any time soon.

Condescending attitudes and "low quality" arrogant responses can be down-voted as much as low quality questions - in fact, users and moderators should be able to lose reputation points for being patronizing.

I also agree. If you see something like this, flag it for moderator attention. We have a cardinal rule here, which is "Be Nice". A lot of people forget it, but if you don't flag this activity, we won't know it's there and we can't do anything about it.

When new users sign up, they should be presented with a home page giving clear and organized instructions on how the community works and how to participate.

They are. Most users just skip it without reading it.

Answer 3

Frankly, I'm seeing a great deal of wheel spinning lately over what people want this site to be that it currently isn't. Some of this is within the context of what SF says it wants to be, but the rest basically amounts to SF would be useful to me if it were X.

SF is not useful to everyone, nor can it be.

I feel that a great deal of our problem stems from the debate over who it should be useful to, and if you can see +/- vote breakdown, you can tell from the scoring on meta lately that lots of people within the SE network seem to have a dog in this fight. This meta question further serves to drive that point home in my eyes; no insult intended to Thomas, but objectively speaking we have a SO user criticizing us on the basis of some of the same features that SO has, such as minimum rep for comments.

This is getting crazy.

All of this cross-site linking to the discussion of SF's future is not helping. Our identity was fragmented enough simply on the basis of what the site says it wants to be and what the reality was based on the current website design. Now our comment threads are filled with discussion over whether SF's mission statement is even realistic or attainable. People know that change is coming, and everyone wants that change to serve them personally.

I'm going to take it a step further and say that this tug of war has been going on for awhile now -- long before this most recent round of debate on meta -- and that is why SF is failing. SF can't be what it says it wants to be if everyone is going to ignore that, and instead demand that it serve their own needs regardless of context.

---

We're basically left with the SE admins choosing an identity for us, and changes being made to more firmly lock in what that identity is. I don't think that repeating this endless circle of opinions is getting us anywhere, so...leave more questions for the conference call if you've got 'em, otherwise speak your piece once and be done with it.

Answer 4

I am on here because of these policies. I only turn to serverfault when I cant find an answer to a problem I'm facing or there is something I dont understand. I assume a certain level of knowledge from the people I'm talking to, and its nice to know the people replying are profesionals and tend to know what they are talking about.

On the other hand it can be difficult for someone who's green, has a fire to put out, and doesnt have the time to build the base knowledge they should have in order to solve the current issue. They are professionals, but they are lacking the tools they need and trying to learn, and many times they should hire a consultant but cant.

There's an old saying "There is no such thing as a stupid question." Thats true, but there is such a thing as stupid or lazy people. That is why I like SF, because those people get booted rather quickly. On the flip side, questions can get shot down rather quickly that are deserving of an answer or at least being given the tools to find an answer.

(Some)Green IT Professionals become seasoned experts, eventually. You cant fix stupid/lazy, but you can fix lack of knowledge in those willing to learn, and I've seen it go both ways.

I think some of the moderators here are a little too quick on the trigger to remove questions that they don't take the time to evaluate the question completely.

For example My First Question, did it deserve to be closed out? or was it closed out because I had 1 rep?

Answer 5

I've always felt - from as far back as Usenet before the word spam was coined - that if you want to get something out of a community, you HAVE to participate in it.

One one level, that's obvious hyperbole - someone can come here, create an account, and ask a perfectly good question or post a good answer without any prior activity on the site. But in most cases, people will do much better by lurking a bit, seeing how the site works, seeing what's on- and off-topic, etc. In the case of SF (or any other SE site) even if you're not an expert in the site's topic, you can learn about the mechanics on another SE site.

So although I don't care about the OP's low reputation, I just can't give too much weight to opinions offered by someone who clearly doesn't understand how SE sites work - both SF and in general. And I think the idea that "only someone who's a total outsider can explain why SF isn't popular to new users" is laughable: it doesn't take that long to learn about SF and SE:

• read the FAQ
• understand voting
• read some highly voted Qs and As
• including the "Take the tour" overview
• which leads to discovering that SE includes 100+ sites
• find the SE blog and read some of the classic posts
• ...

The list isn't meant to be exhaustive or definitive, but you don't seem to have done anything. You say things like "Other StackExchange sites have much more congenial communities..." but you've only participated in 2 others - and asked a grand total of 8 questions. Other than voting, I consider my participation to be pretty minimal, but I'm active on half a dozen sites and I've lurked on another dozen. (And anyone who thinks SF is bad, hasn't seen some of the bitching on sites like Physics or EE.)

OTOH, some of what I've written so far is ad homenim, so let's look at your suggestions:

my impression is the complete opposite, that moderators are overly critical and too quick to close questions as off topic that could be helpful to get answers to..."

By repeating JamesRyan's comment, you're making the same mistake he (and so many others) did: it's not moderators closing most questions, it's normal users.

Condescending attitudes and "low quality" arrogant responses can be down-voted as much as low quality questions - in fact, users and moderators should be able to lose reputation points for being patronizing.

All SE sites already have these mechanisms - downvoting and flagging.

Voting on questions and answers should NOT be limited by reputation!

It's not limited, unless you have absolutely nothing to contribute. It takes a measly 15 rep to vote up, 125 to vote down. If you contribute 7 useful edits, you can vote up. Give a reasonable answer to a couple of questions and you can downvote as much as me (well, after several years...)

Reputation governing community involvement (as opposed to only measuring it) is a lose-lose.

Everything you comment on in the 2 paragraphs preceding this comment is the fundamental basis of how all SE sites operate. If you don't like the way reputation governs community involvement, that's got nothing to do with Serverfault, you need to bring it up with the people who run all the SE sites. (Have fun on meta.SO!)

Secondly, another suggestion. When new users sign up, they should be presented with a home page giving clear and organized instructions on how the community works and how to participate.

Again, this is not something under the control of any user or moderator of SF, this is an issue for the people who run SE. But how much more do you want? You get all sorts of in your face guidance as you use the site, and there are help and about links on the top of every page...

I'll say it again: if a new user wants to benefit from a site, they should put some effort in to understanding it. There are way too many new users for the experienced regulars to guide them through. If you - or anyone else - won't spend a bit of time or effort reading before posting, why do you expect someone else to spend a lot of time giving you personal guidance?

Another thought I had for a suggestion is to require comments from down-votes. Considering how important reputation is, I think a person deserves some kind of explanation when that reputation is being demoted by someone.

The pros and cons of this have been extensively debated on meta.SO and it's never going to happen. A downvote only costs 2 rep, and if no comment is given, it can be assumed that the downvoter agreed with the pop-up you see when you hover over any downvote button: "This questions does not show any research effort, it is unclear or not useful."

So although there's some value in an outsider's opinion, most of your points aren't useful because you simply don't know what you're talking about: most of the things you've identified as problems have nothing to do with SF, and all of your suggested solutions already exist.

Answer 6

I'm not entirely convinced that SF is failing at all. Traffic to sites ebbs and flows. There is a lot of content here which will come up in searches, and novel, sane questions about things actually relevant to administering a production network do get asked, answered, and upvoted.

Things like conceptual questions about a technology, or questions about a specific error in a particular scenario, or the consequences of a particular event or series of events, tend to get answered. Questions about how to approach nontrivial scenarios also tend to get answered. These things are interesting, and are interesting to a number of people rather than only the asker.

These questions generate quality answers that help the asker out, and can then be used as reference material by others. they show up in searches and increase the site's visibility, and are generally useful content. They build community too.

That said, there are a lot of things that have a propensity to find their way here which really don't belong, and aren't especially likely to hold much interest for anyone besides the asker. Questions asking people to check over their configuration files or walk them through things specific to their environment are less interesting. Questions outright asking someone to do the asker's job for them are incredibly uninteresting (the exact configuration for your site is something for you to work out, after gaining an understanding of how you need it to go). We get a lot of questions like that and they tend to be (rightly) closed.

Additionally, questions which ask how to do something repugnant like send spam, or bypass policy or licensing constraints, tend to be rightly closed. The same goes for questions asking for privileged information like trade secrets. The reasoning behind this should be obvious.

Questions from end users, such as people using shared hosting, working with a residential connection, setting up a personal dev environment, or dealing with their IT department, tend to be rightly closed. The problems encountered while doing this, if they have solutions at all, will have solutions that wouldn't make any sense in a professionally-managed production network.

There are also the questions that get asked where it is truly unclear what the problem is. The asker has such a poor grasp of English that nobody can tell what they are trying to say, or they have such a poor grasp of the concepts that nobody can decipher what the problem might be. Sometimes, people simply post a requirement and a pile of configs (which often appear to correctly implement the requirement). It's hard to tell what it is that would help the asker out, so these questions rightly get closed.

Then, there are the questions asking for purchase recommendations (or recommendations for a tutorial or a book), questions so broad in scope that the answer could be either a book or a detailed consulting report, or questions that are really just discussion points without a right or wrong answer. These get closed because, while they are perfectly valid questions, Q&A really just isn't the right format for them.

Even if these types of questions were answered, they would contribute absolutely nothing to the site. Closing them isn't snobbery, it's moderation and topicality.

Somewhere in the middle, however, are questions from people:

• Asking how to do something which is a tremendously bad idea (or impossible),
• Working for a small business with plenty of constraints,
• Using ancient, outdated components,
• Being overly nitpicky, and
• Out of their depth.

As a rule, these questions should be left open as long as they are reasonably coherent. Sometimes, they get closed, but they shouldn't. Closing them might even be snobbery.

Even so, however, these middling questions (neither great nor unanswerable) will probably provoke a little snark, or at the very least get answers the asker didn't expect. For instance, when answering some of these questions, I've been downvoted because the asker didn't want to be told one of these correct answers, respectively:

• You need to not do it this way. Rethink your architecture a little bit before your environment becomes a horrendous mess.
• You need to increase your budget if you want to do this smoothly; the SOHO and low-capacity hardware you have can't do what you need to do reliably.
• Your gear or software is too far out of date. To compatibly do what you need to do cleanly you're going to have to do some updating as well.
• This isn't something you need to worry about in your scenario. Even though it looks dangerous, it isn't a concern, and it is either impossible or prohibitively difficult to prevent.
• Before you approach this, you really need to understand how the technology fundamentally works.

Any professional system admin who has worked for any length of time in the field understands the importance of doing things right. None of us want to help promulgate ugly, necessary hacks, because we've been in environments that embody the consequence of years of that kind of activity, and they're unmanageable. For the same reason none of us want to help construct monstrous kludges or make bad architecture work. This is neither snobbery nor naivete, but rather education. Answers like this, along with conceptual answers, are what help people grow their expertise, and stop being green.

So, though I think the site is actually not working that badly at all (there is something of a balance between people who would see every question closed and people who would see every question answered), if there is an area for growth, it is in better discriminating and answering the questions in the middle of the quality spectrum.

I'll also point out that even if you wrote only one answer, and two people happened upon it and liked it, you get to vote, post in meta, flag things, and some other stuff. I say again: it takes approximately just two clicks of the mouse for any two people (or even one person, if you wrote more than just one answer) to enfranchise you. The threshold is low if you post quality things.