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I wrote this question 24 hours ago and amazingly, no less than FIVE of the mods put it "on hold." Apparently I wasn't specific enough in pointing out that this was a BUSINESS QUESTION.

I appropriately added the word "business" 20 times in the post and twice in the title to make it clear that this is a business question about a business web site appearing on a Stack Exchange site that specifically states that it is about Business questions for business technology in a business. There, is everyone happy now? Can my business-related question be un-held now?

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    Only one moderator contributed to that action, and the action the mod took did not use their moderator powers, but were performed with the power that would be gained by having a high reputation. So in other words no less than FIVE of the mods put it "on hold." is entirely false.
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 17:35
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    Hmm, the "On hold" action listed five names. Apparently they weren't all mods then. My bad, sorry.
    – user1071914
    Sep 5, 2016 at 17:37
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    Also, facetiously over emphasizing the word "business" in your off topic post doesn't make it on-topic any more than writing "business suit" on your naked body would make you any more presentable in a board meeting.
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 17:39
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    Sorry if I seemed a little snippy. I thought the reaction to my question was a little over-the-top (a simple comment requesting clarification would have sufficed), so my reaction to the reaction was likewise. I don't think a lot of people pay $150 a year for a hosting package to put their collection of kitten pictures on line, so I thought it was clear that this was a network administration question in a business setting. I know from experience that if I had put it on SuperUser it would have been put closed as "Not a home networking" question, so I figured this was the proper place.
    – user1071914
    Sep 5, 2016 at 17:45
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    I'm also curious as to why you think that I was "facetiously" emphasizing the word "business" in my "off topic" post. My post was on-topic, even if it didn't appear to be, and I have since edited it to make that clear. You may not like that I used a sledgehammer instead of tweezers to make my point, but my post is not (and was not) "off topic." It's a legitimate business networking question that I needed the answer to. If you have such hostility to people who don't have your in-depth knowledge, perhaps you should spend less time on StackExchange.
    – user1071914
    Sep 5, 2016 at 17:50
  • To your first comment, the rationale behind this specific closure may not be perfectly described by the generic text that was put on the closure since it appears the majority of close voters chose to click a radio button close reason rather than elaborate with custom text. A more accurate close reason may reflect the sentiment that 1) The tools being used are not typical or generally topical for a systems engineer, and 2) The topic at hand is already thoroughly described by standard documentation, and ServerFault shies away from answers that would rehash basic topics. Part of the DRY concept.
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:15
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    I'm also curious as to why you think that I was "facetiously" emphasizing the word "business" in my "off topic" post. Because standard rules of verbal communication in the English language do not dictate that it's proper to use of the word "business" that many times. You are either being facetious or English is not your first language (and yet you somehow manage to have perfect spelling in spite of that).
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:21
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    My post was on-topic, even if it didn't appear to be, and I have since edited it to make that clear. It was not on topic, and thus was closed by five independent members of the site. An occasional misjudgment with a close vote is common on ServerFault. In my 7+ years here, I think I can recall about two, maybe three questions that had five separate people mistakenly vote it closed.
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:21
  • You may not like that I used a sledgehammer instead of tweezers to make my point, but my post is not (and was not) "off topic." It was entirely off topic. You are superimposing your own bias concerning the motives of those closing the question, and the motive you feel were in play do not appear to match with reality.
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:24
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    I v-t-c because it is not about managing computers. In fact it seems to be more about how not to have to manage computers. It's just end user or programmer stuff really.
    – user9517
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:25
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    It's a legitimate business networking question No it wasn't. If you have such hostility to people who don't have your in-depth knowledge, perhaps you should spend less time on StackExchange. Again, you are superimposing your own bias on the motives of other. The assumption of hostility where there is no indication of it perhaps reflects more about you than others. Your methods and goals were orthogonal to ServerFault’s purpose. Summarized: professional systems engineering topics handled by professional SEs using standard SE best practices. (My attempt at a summary of the spirit of the FAQ)
    – Wesley
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:25
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    +1 business points for your business-focused approach!
    – user121391
    Sep 6, 2016 at 6:53

2 Answers 2

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I think most of the regulars contributing on Meta can see the revision history of your question but for completeness sake the original question I cast the fifth and final close vote on:

I own a domain and have a web hosting package at Network Solutions. I'd like to point the domain to my Facebook page, which would be simple if my page had a static IP. Unfortunately it does not.
Currently I'm doing this with a Javascript redirect in my hosted site's index.html page, but that means I'm paying $150 a year for one line of Javascript. I'd like to know if there's a more elegant (not to say cheaper) solution.

Your first sentence "I own a domain and have a web hosting package" is what primarily disqualifies your situation for ServerFault. You're an end-user and not a system or network administrator.

The remainder of your question is, paraphrased, "find me something cheaper" which is of another class of questions that is not on topic either, that of product and service recommendations.

That is also the reason I did not migrate your question to https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/

Lastly your problem is far from unique and not very interesting to our community either, a tiny bit of research would have shown you that many domain registrars offer to redirect/forward your domain to another URL either for free or for a nominal amount, where the implementation determines if your domain remains visible in the address bar or not.

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  • I asked what I thought was a legitimate system administration question, in what I thought was a legitimate and proper place to ask it. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
    – user1071914
    Sep 5, 2016 at 23:44
  • @user1071914 I have to agree, it really doesn't sound like you're administering a server or network equipment or anything like that. Funny though, I see similar questions to yours get answered sometimes without a fuss. Like "Help, my hosted DNS is all screwy and so on..." or "I want to use some AWS service I don't understand, please explain xxx...". At least you got your question answered here in Meta.
    – Ryan Babchishin
    Sep 9, 2016 at 6:47
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    Nobody cares if your question is somehow 'related to a business', it's that the question is about administering servers in a production environment. You have a domain, you want it pointed at facebook. You have no server. The site is named 'Server Fault'. You don't have a server with a fault. You have a question that you would ask YOUR systems administrator if you had one. You don't (you are the end user for paid services). This isn't a place to fill that gap.
    – user143703
    Sep 15, 2016 at 5:19
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I thought the reaction to my question was a little over-the-top (a simple comment requesting clarification would have sufficed), so my reaction to the reaction was likewise.

Questions are easily closed and easily reopened. If a question has problems, putting it on hold until these problems are resolved is intended behaviour. (Some problems cannot be resolved, in which case questions will remain closed and perhaps eventually be deleted.)

There’s a reason why closed questions display “on hold”, not “closed”, for the first five days: it’s to make it obvious that this is not necessarily a permanent state.

Without saying anything about your specific question, I just want to clear up the misconception that closing a question is an extreme step. It happens all the time, even to very good questions which need a bit of sprucing up before they’re properly answerable.

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