First question:
From the ServerFault FAQ as of January 20, 2011 (emphasis mine):
Server Fault is for system administrators and desktop support professionals, people who manage or maintain computers in a professional capacity.
Please enunciate what you believe is a good definition of "professional capacity".
Second Question (related):
What determines if a question is asked in a "professional capacity" and deserves an answer and what should be closed and/or migrated to another site (usually SuperUser)?
Response: Mark Henderson
First Question:
If you are in charge of more than just your own computer at your company, or your company has appointed you to a position where you're expected to manage hardware or software, then you can ask your question here. This includes both beginners and old-timers alike. That said however, we expect you to take a professional attitude towards your question, and not ask "plz send teh codes, kthxbai".
Second Question:
Does the question include the word "home"? If it does, can the question be re-written so that it applies to the sysadmin community. For example, if you're setting up "Windows Home Server", then it should be moved to Super User. However, if you say "I'm having trouble applying a GPO policy to my Active Directory that I've set up at home", then by removing the last few words of the question the question is then applicable to a wider audience.
Response: SysAdmin1138
First Question
"Professional Capacity" means you get paid to do what we do, or in a better funded organization would normally be paid (I'm sure we have some non-profiteers around here somewhere). That's about 80% of it right there, which is the easy part. We also expect a certain foundation of learning in questions, unless they're specifically tagged as seeking learning. The topics vary, and so does system-administration, but some depth in your field is expected. Depth provides the ability to ask focused questions, which yield answers and not multi-page essays on the potential gotchas of $Technology.
Second Question
Questions asked in a professional capacity and not deserving of closure/migration, have a few key features:
- Is implicitly not about something in the home, or devices/technologies rarely seen outside of the home.
- Displays at least some understanding of the technology causing the problem.
- Is asked with enough focus to allow an answer with just the supplied information.
- Focuses on technology in the context of the enterprise or web-services, or policy relating to that technology.
Migrating to another site needs to be done with care. The SuperUser community is tired of being the dumping ground of the trilogy (see their moderator nomination-statements for proof of this). Webmasters.SE, one of our migration targets, defines "webmaster" differently than we system administrators do. A good question for migration needs to be topical on the destination community as well. Because of this I've been voting to close-as-off-topic questions that are earning migration votes.
