116
votes
Accepted
What to do with the "rm -rf" hoax question
It was closed as a dupe. Delete the hoax and keep the dupe. Consider merging the answers from the hoax into it. Remember SF is for practical problems you are trying to solve. A hoax by definition isn'...
- 114k
113
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What to do with the "rm -rf" hoax question
Consider Nuking the OP's account too. Anything less will just encourage other marketing stunts like this.
- 114k
73
votes
Accepted
Some parting thoughts... and apologies for the drama
The biggest problem I see here is that Stack Exchange is showing that they do not trust democratically elected moderators to do what they were elected to do. We, as a community, elected HopelessN00b ...
- 55k
66
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Server Fault needs professional-quality questions, not just questions from professionals
I'll be the first to admit that I've stepped away from SF for a while. Those reasons are my own, and everyone should be able to step away when they want to.
That said, I've been looking at the site ...
- 36.9k
55
votes
What to do with the "rm -rf" hoax question
Undelete the question and edit it to explain the situation.
- 97k
50
votes
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Abrupt change in moderation staff?
Since HopelessN00b wants to have this discussion in public, I will oblige.
I was on the site today because we got a few different emails this past week about it. One was Chris S, stepping down as a ...
- 420
50
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Some parting thoughts... and apologies for the drama
(this started as a comment on Ryan's post, but it got too long, so now it's an answer)
The way SE staff handled this situation was an absolute nightmare. If one is going to be a Community Manager, ...
- 108k
47
votes
Accepted
Are questions about legacy products inherently off-topic on Server Fault?
No, each question should be judged on its own merits.
Although we all agree that life-cycle management is important, its is also difficult.
Good questions about legacy products are welcome.
- 71.4k
41
votes
Abrupt change in moderation staff?
So since this is a discussion question I'd like to discuss something tangentially related to the change in mods, which is a philosophy on mass-closures.
For my part I've got no problem with closing ...
- 79.2k
41
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What to do with the "rm -rf" hoax question
Undelete the question, mark it as a dupe, add a note, and lock it.
It has a significant number of inbound links, and a lot of traffic right now. Deleting it leaves these links broken, "Page Not ...
- 5,366
37
votes
Abrupt change in moderation staff?
I guess this'll teach me to ignore meta for a few days. ;)
This bothers me primarily because HopelessN00b is loud and brash and confrontational, and ran on a platform of, to put it n00b-ily, "...
- 18.5k
37
votes
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Is it okay to tell users to RTFM?
If the questions are of a low quality, they should be downvoted and/or closed. You haven't linked to any of the questions you consider remedial, but I'm assuming that you mean ones that show little or ...
- 27.3k
37
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PART 2: How does the drama on meta.SE affect Server Fault?
Thanks a lot for your times to write that to explain the situation. It’s really appreciated.
I will state it to let other know that I don’t intend to quit my moderation tasks.
nb; to state my ...
yagmoth555Mod
- 16.2k
36
votes
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Is useful 'spam', really spam?
Having just spent several minutes weed-whacking a bunch of similar posts from hopeful marketers trying to provide tool suggestions to people having problems, I can say that such tool-only posts are an ...
sysadmin1138Mod
- 131k
35
votes
Accepted
Can non-professional administrators still ask questions about professional setups?
I am fine with this, as long as:
The systems and equipment are truly professional-grade. (No questions about Aunt Mabel's inkjet printer)
You have full administrative permissions on the systems you ...
- 108k
34
votes
Accepted
Answer questions from low reputation users
There's a few things at work here:
You're right that some people avoid answering questions from low-rep users because there's a good chance that the asker won't give any sort of feedback. Personally,...
wombleMod
- 94.8k
34
votes
Accepted
I've found the answer to a question about 10 minutes after posting it. Do I just delete the question?
Answer yourself. It provides useful information to other people (including Future You -- I've found my own answers to SF questions via searches more than once).
wombleMod
- 94.8k
33
votes
Accepted
Where can I ask questions about web hosting control panels?
Unfortunately Server Fault is unable to support web hosting control panels for a variety of reasons. But you may still be able to get help at:
Your Service Provider
If you are using a web hosting ...
- 236k
33
votes
Rest in peace, Michael Hampton
Michael was someone I only knew online, here and through other sites. Among the group of very experienced and widely knowledgeable SysAdmins that he interacted with, he stood out as being pretty much ...
- 12.8k
32
votes
Abrupt change in moderation staff?
From the comments here and the answers and comments on Michael Hampton's post about Admin panel questions, it seems pretty clear to me that:
we have broad agreement that those sorts of questions are ...
- 12.8k
32
votes
What should we do with questions about Vagrant?
I would say yes. Systems administrators can also use vagrant for testing our own environments. Say you want to test your puppet manifests against a known standard configuration - you could vagrant up ...
- 68.2k
30
votes
Is it OK to just ask a question so you can post your own answer?
There appear to be good reasons to downvote and/or close this question, but the fact that the person asking is the same person answering is not one of them. Judge both questions and answers on their ...
- 236k
30
votes
Any reason not to display my full name in profile?
First of all: there is no requirement to associate your SE profile with your real life identity, it is a personal preference to do so or not.
The reasons to do that are also personal and diverse.
...
- 71.4k
29
votes
Is it time to kill problematic tags like cpanel, plesk, whm and webmin?
We should ruthlessly close questions which are inappropriate for us, though I have a plot twist:
A few weeks ago I had a discussion with one of the Webmasters moderators, who expressed interest in ...
- 236k
29
votes
Accepted
28
votes
Accepted
Is it OK to just ask a question so you can post your own answer?
To add to MichaelHampton's answer, the SE network encourages this style of information sharing, which is why it was made possible a while back to ask a question and post an answer at the same time. (...
- 5,521
28
votes
Accepted
Rewriting "minimal understanding"
I propose that we rip off SO again, and that this close reason be rewritten as follows:
Questions seeking installation, configuration or diagnostic help must include the desired end state, the ...
28
votes
What to do with the "rm -rf" hoax question
His account should be deleted, and the question should be heavily edited in content, along with a warning message explaining what happened.
I'll outline why I think so:
His hoax post in itself has ...
- 1,441
27
votes
How can we recruit and retain more talent?
It's a downward spiral, at least for me.
I used to be very active. I believe I averaged 30k rep per year for the last couple years, but my participation is essentially non-existent now. I've been ...
- 100k
27
votes
Accepted
How to handle situations where a user needs professional support and you are willing to provide it?
Agreed, this is a touchy subject, and I appreciate that you are bringing it up.
There are many barriers in place: both technical and ethical. Technical, in that we don't have a PM feature, and ...
- 108k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible