I didn't intend that comment as a "cheap shot" - there's only so much you can say in the space of a comment.
A little bit of background might help here: along with most of the people on my team, I spend a fair bit of time doing support work - helping folks who are trying to learn to use these sites when they get stuck. When such people post questions on meta, or use the "contact us" link at the bottom of every page, we get notified. Usually, these problems are pretty straight-forward: they were unclear in their writing or just misunderstood what was on-topic for the site they had trouble with. In a great many instances, I need only point them to the comments or close reasons below their question for a succinct explanation of where they went wrong.
But I dread questions about Server Fault:
- Your site-specific off-topic reasons border on worthless; it's very difficult for an outsider (and I include myself in this group) to suss out the reasoning behind why "Questions must be relevant to professional system administration" or "Questions must demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved" are used in some situations and not others - much less what should be done to correct the problem (if anything can be done).
- There's a really bizarre tendency here to answer questions in comments, and then shut down the question. Perhaps this is born of a desire to be helpful while still being strict? But it sends a mixed message, particularly when no one bothers to say what's wrong with the question.
- Y'all have a penchant for getting into arguments with authors instead of just stating a problem and walking away. And not just a few of you. I've even had to warn some moderators about this behavior. There's a culture of one-upmanship that seems to encourage playing to an audience instead of trying to provide useful criticism.
I'm not saying this behavior is pervasive, but it's been wide-spread enough for long enough that I've come to expect it. And quite honestly, it makes me reluctant to even engage y'all here; there are too few hours in the day to spend them arguing for someone's idle entertainment, so if that's what I have to expect then my time is better spent elsewhere.
And the last thing I need is another "exceptionally snarky and cruel" moderator here creating messes for someone else to clean up. If that's honestly what anyone thinks is necessary, then they haven't been paying attention here for the past few years.
It's up to the community here to decide who gets elected. But I do have the minimum rep necessary to vote like anyone else, and the ability to comment, and I intend to use both judiciously. I strongly encourage the rest of you to do likewise.