29
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 having questions like this migrated there. They are especially interested in receiving questions about shared web hosting, control panels like cPanel and Plesk, ...
28
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 specific problem or error, sufficient information about the configuration and environment to reproduce it, and attempted solutions. Questions without a clear ...
24
Yes, nuke it.
Bump: I've started the cleanup of this tag. If anyone else would like to assist, please feel free. Please perform your edits in small batches so that the front page doesn't stay inundated with these edits.
20
This is a particular set of broken windows that is long overdue fixing.
I think though it depends on where you are sitting as to whether your Panel question is topical or not.
If you are using a Panel to administer a host then you are driving a web application. This is not system administration within the meaning of Server Fault and your question is not ...
19
New "Not A Professional" close reason
Questions must be relevant to professional system administration. Server Fault is a site dedicated to professional system and network administrators; questions by end users or enthusiasts are off-topic (you should contact your system administrator, or hire a professional to help you out). Please see the Help Center ...
17
One thing is certain: without an attendant increase in the close vote review limit, this would only result in the close review queue length increasing.
Putting questions on hold is not a panacea for the quality of questions on this site, though it is a step in the right direction. We can also vote them down, and encourage good Q&A with upvotes and ...
17
Yes please. Now. Do it now. NOW NOW NOW.
16
My vote goes to burninate - it's adding nothing.
15
I believe that the issue about professionalism is just as much reflected in the presentation of the question as it is the content of the question. New users are going to write their issue in the box and never click the link tucked away on the right side pointing towards "visit the help center" or "asking help". Why? Because you click on links related to ...
15
These tags are sufficiently generic as to not be all that useful. It's a concept, not a specific technology, and isn't the kind of thing we'd build a tag-community around.
Nor are they common enough to warrant blacklisting, so probably should be periodically gone-through and retagged with more specific items. That said, we could pretty easily alias header ->...
13
From the Better Late Than Never department...
Starting with the next build, we are going to underline the links both in posts and in comments:
(Ignore the content in the screenshot. I don't have SF's database up locally, so this is MSE with the Server Fault skin.)
Keep an eye out for rev 2014.6.12.1659.
13
In the true spirit of "better late than never"... I just pushed a change that will add a border to the blockquotes similar to what's proposed here, but a bit more lightweight:
This change applies to both Server Fault and its meta, and will be live as of rev 2014.5.21.1619.
13
HOW SERVERFAULT DEALS WITH SHOPPING QUESTIONS
Should I deploy Windows Server or RHEL?
What’s the best hardware firewall on the market?
Which monitoring solution should I deploy?
What cabling should I go with?
Which CLI tool is best for this?
Which hosting provider is the cheapest for my VMs?
These questions may seem tolerable at first glance. Isn't it our ...
12
I recently stole Jon Skeet's excellent check list and modified it for use on Server Fault. I've left a link to it in quite a few comments recently and on a several occasions people have responded positively to it. Perhaps it (or something similar) could be used?
I think this has the advantage over @voretaq7's excellent How can I ask a better question ... ...
11
They should be blacklisted here. But the blacklists are site-specific, not network-wide. They're also not something moderators can touch, so someone from Stack Exchange would have to add them.
10
See also: Topicality: What should be done with “hobbyist” firmware questions?
My opinion on this hasn't changed: the quality of the question is what matters, not the tools in use. If a question in those tags is terrible, then the normal close criteria apply; if each and every question in those tags is close worthy, then close them all - a blanket ban on ...
9
" the real answer is that processionals don't use that shit"
Professionals do, sometimes you need to set up limited access through web tools to enable non-technical users to administer simple tasks.
I can't think of a technical way to filter people before they post. Maybe they should answer these questions when they create an account:
Are you a ...
9
I've set the limit at 50 per day, making Server Fault consistent with other large sites on the network.
9
Yes, please.
I have that Q&A "starred" and regularly use it as a duplicate and in comments to point out that people made their bed and now must lie in it...
8
The appropriate thing to do with repetitive, boring novice questions is to close them as a duplicate of the appropriate canonical question. If we are lacking a sufficient canonical Q&A, we need to make one (which shouldn't be hard, right?). We do, however, have a problem in that the canonical questions are not visible during the close process, and you ...
8
Bumping this. Given recent events it's possible we need this now more than ever. I've burned through 20 in an hour today alone, and our close queue is steadily increasing.
I'm in favor of an immediate increase in close votes, and also a tiered approach based on how close votes are being used. 500 is a lot of closed votes, If we get bumped up to 50 close ...
8
Suggestion: Add a statement that we give people the benefit of the doubt... if the question gives no hint as to whether it is in a business environment or not, but seems like it could be, assume it is appropriate.
For example, someone recently asked a question about copying millions of small files over a network using rsync. The question was brief and ...
7
Despite the communities best effort the plesk , cpanel and whm have recently been resurrected again.
I have taken the liberty to follow Michael Hampton's suggestion and added warnings that explicitly state those labels/topics that are off-topic.
Wiki Excerpt:
Off Topic Warning: cPanel | WHM | Plesk control panel questions are generally ...
7
There's a bug with some localization code - a fix is going out right now.
Also, your vote was properly recorded; the bug only affected any optional display message that might have been sent back to the client.
7
In a case like this, you should bring the tags to meta so that we can do this:
regexp has been merged into regex and synonymized. Enjoy!
7
One big flaw is that there's now no generic "off-topic" close reason.
There are tons of crappy questions that are arguably on-topic somewhere else but you're not supposed to migrate crap. The generic "not related to professional sys admin" close reason was perfect for them - close in place, w/out fobbing them off on SU or UL (and then possibly having ...
answered Dec 24 '14 at 1:59
7
I would burn it, I cant see a professional use of that tag.
To compare, on Information Security that tag is used 289 times, and its a better site suited for that tag in my own opinion.
6
I stand largely with Iain, and I like posting fire, doom, and desolation. Thus:
However, I must disagree that there should be a canonical question, because I can't imagine any useful or on-topic content that one might contain. It is not appropriate for us to maintain a support directory, and that is aggravated by the fact that the software being supported ...
6
I've merged and synonymized dnsbl and dnsrbl into rbl, since RBL is the most commonly used term.
6
I definitely agree that it's a bad tag, and should be burnt to a crisp and banned from ever being used again. Some of the questions it is on are already reasonably tagged, but others need to be retagged a bit to maintain a reasonable amount of clarity (for example, questions tagged reverse and proxy should probably have both those tags removed and replaced ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible