Do we need a separate site for "researchers"?

Question

Does this proposal define a new site beyond Server Fault, Super User, Computational Science, Linux, and our other computing sites?

Research Computing (proposal link)
for research computing facilitators, data center operators, XSEDE campus champions, ACI-REFS, and other users/supporters of advanced research computing

The purpose of Area 51 (our site-creation process) is to create sites in new subject areas that cannot be asked elsewhere. There's a discussion to decide if this proposal is mostly "general computing" questions that can be asked elsewhere. We generally do not create sites simply to give special-interest groups their own space unless the subjects are very specialized.

What do you think?

Top Example Questions

Have a look at the "top 40" questions above. Ignoring questions that may be "too broad" or too subjective, do you see a preponderance of questions that cannot be asked on either Server Fault, Super User, or our other computing sites?

Top 10 Marquee Questions for Research Computing

1. What are cgroups and are they useful for cluster administration?
2. How do I transfer large files to and from a remote system?
3. My ssh terminal sessions keep timing out. What should I do to correct this situation?
4. How do I find out what software is installed on an XSEDE resource, and how to link to it or use it?
5. I would like to use Singularity or Shifter to run a program that requires a custom library under the /opt protected directory? How do I do this?
6. How can I use passwordless ssh?
7. How do you handle emergency resource requests, while still maintaining fair access to all users?
8. What is OpenHPC, how and in what ways are people finding it useful?
9. What annual conferences in the US pacific northwest specifically cover cluster operations?
10. What are the problems with host Docker instances on a shared cluster?

Your help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

The only question you list in your post that would be squarely off-topic would be #9. Some have the potential to be too broad or open-ended (#1, #8, #10), but I don't see how this wouldn't be an issue on a potential new site.

In my view, a new site would have a relatively small audience that could be served here or on U&L just as well.

Answer 2

I looked through the list of questions and I don't think the support a specialized site for research computing.

A lot of them are look to me like sysadmin questions that could be fine here:

• What are cgroups and are they useful for cluster administration?
• How do I transfer large files to and from a remote system?
• My ssh terminal sessions keep timing out. What should I do to correct this situation?
• How can I use passwordless ssh?
• How do you handle emergency resource requests, while still maintaining fair access to all users?
• What tools can I use to initiate SSH sessions from my PC
• What tools can I use to find out why isn't my job request running?

OTOH, many of the questions that would be on-topic here have other problems, e.g. they're too broad or they're shopping questions:

• How do I transfer large files to and from a remote system?

shopping and/or too broad

• My ssh terminal sessions keep timing out. What should I do to correct this situation?

too broad

• What tools can I use to initiate SSH sessions from my PC

shopping

• What tools can I use to find out why isn't my job request running?

shopping and/or too broad, it's basically "how do I troubleshoot"

• What practices do groups adopt to ensure their systems are consistent with requirements for private and/or personally identifiable data?

too broad

I personally am ok with fairly subjective questions, but they tend to get closed here pretty quickly. I think many of the example questions are subjective and are therefore problematic for the SE format.