My question was "put on hold as off-topic"

Question

I posted my question mac osx - Docker OS X - Is your docker daemon up and running? - Server Fault on ServerFault, yet my question was put on hold due to:

put on hold as off-topic by kce, EEAA♦ 37 mins ago

This question appears to be off-topic for this site. While what’s on- and off-topic is not always intuitive, you can learn more about it by reading the help center. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:

"Questions on Server Fault must be about managing information technology systems in a business environment. Home and end-user computing questions may be asked on Super User, and questions about development, testing and development tools may be asked on Stack Overflow." – kce, EEAA If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit your question.

My posted question actually has nothing to do with "development system" and everything to do with "IT systems in a business environment". I work as System Administrator in enterprise environment and we're looking into using docker in our business.

I don't believe my question is off topic at all, question is not about "home and end-user computing" and I am aware of Superuser & Stack Overflow sites (I do post my question there that do not belong to Server Fault).

Please review. Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

I cast my vote to place your question on-hold for a combination of reasons:

1. Your question appears to be about using a one-click installer to generate a Docker environment on a end user's machine. The one-click installer also utilizes VirtualBox, a piece of software of which the topicality has been greatly debated on Meta.SF. One-click installers and VirtualBox are generally what the community considers developer tools. StackOverflow or SuperUser is generally a more appropriate place for those kinds of questions.
2. You just linked to an article of instructions. This does not tell anyone how you followed them or where in the process you were when you encountered this problem. Linking to an article or instructions without context is generally indicative of a low quality question.
3. You copy/pasted a bunch of CLI output without context. Again, supplying a bunch of logs, shell output or configuration file contents without any context is indicative of a low quality question.
4. You did not supply any real information on what you actually trying to accomplish, the steps you followed to do so and where they failed. (See: How can I ask better questions on Server Fault?)
5. You are clearly familiar enough with the site and its requirements to have garnered a decent amount of rep (with the lack of voting 4k is significant). This combined with the other considerations clenched the deal for my close vote, I tend to be less lenient with long-term users.

Anyway - please don't take it personally. It is quite possible I voted to close your question in error. I think if you edit it to address some of these points you might find that it is better received.

Answer 2

In this case, installing and configuring Docker on Linux on Virtualbox on OSX is no different than installing and configuring Visual Studio on Windows. It's a development tool, and this type of question is no more suited here than would be a question about how to properly configure syntax highlighting in an IDE.

Answer 3

I had nothing to do with closing this question, but I would have been comfortable closing it as "Off Topic / No Clear Problem Statement". However, the "not sysadmin" threshold really isn't met, either, because Docker-on-Mac-OS-X is overwhelmingly a "development tool".

Your question doesn't exactly scream "I'm a professional", either. The error message seems pretty clear about what's going wrong, and you don't acknowledge that you've read it and even attempted to understand what it means.