@RobM With regards to rolling back your edits, I am not sure I can do that. I don't see a button that allows me to do so. Even then, I would want to be sensitive and at least consider your suggestion to re-read and edit. I am not an ass. That said, I have spent way too much time on this subject and really need to get back to work. SF isn't so important to me that I need to win this battle. I responded to bullying by raising the point and suggesting that the FAQ, the operating rules at SF and the behavior of some of it's members needs to be looked at. I can move on now. The rest is up to you.

@RobM Just like USENET newsgroups --yes-- where regulars would gang-up on newcomers and beat them until they either fell in line or left. No different here. And it will lead to the same final outcome: the site will become a place for a "clan" to exists at the expense of others interested in participating and contributing. Most people aren't like me, it take a lot to intimidate me into shutting up, as these and other posts indicate. When I know I am right I can't be bullied into choosing looking at the wall: youtube.com/watch?v=4KnaU65nLr8

@RobM "I wasn't adding to the 'ganging-up'". Well, you did, unintentionally so, but you did. While I understand that what I said might tweak some the wrong way it needs to be addressed because I feel that it is affecting the feel and personality of SF to newcomers.

The FAQ needs to be improved and tags need to, at the very least, be "active" in that they should warn newcomers that the subject is off-topic. This would certainly give our Vulcan friend pause.

You see the problem is that the wrong message is being sent at many levels. The FAQ, despite claims otherwise, is not precise enough. To a newcomer without folklore it means something totally different than what regulars think or want SF to be about. Second, the availability of tags such as XAMPP seem to indicate that this is OK here. You have to place yourself in the shoes of a new visitor. Make him a Vulcan. What's the conclusion? Certainly not in alignment with folklore at all.

OK, got it. On the same page, why does the XAMPP tag even show up? And, even when it shows-up, why doesn't it say in bold type "this is off-topic in SF"?

@EEAA The problem with your vision of SF and the way the current moderation system works is that, in the absence of a more accurate FAQ it leads to oligarchy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy The problem, very specifically, is that the interests of SF visitors might not exactly align with the folkloric interpretation of the FAQ by high-rep users who, from the inside, shape it in their image. And so, SF reflect the views of the few rather than the many. Not sure how to solve this one other than with an accurate FAQ to start with.

@EEAA Then the message you and other are transmitting though your actions is completely off-base. There is such a thing as using tools such as XAMPP on workstations and in a professional environment. Your disdain for them causes you to interpret the FAQ as you see fit and wield the power afforded to you by means of your high ranking in an rather unfair manner.

Take another subject that "town elders" seem to indicate are off-topic here, VMWARE. Here's a quick search: serverfault.com/search?q=vmware You have over 4,000 questions there and I see a single closed question in the first 50. This, as a new visitor, tells me that VMWARE is fair-game here, when, apparently, it is not. Look at the first question in the search: "VMWare Workstation hdd issue". What's the message?

Put yourself in the shoes of a new visitor, maybe even someone who's Q was migrated here from SO. Nothing whatsoever is telling this person that, to continue along the example, XAMPP questions are off topic. Nothing. The FAQ needs to do a better job of communicating what SF is about and off-topic questions need to be shredded.

How is this for an example. I come to SF to get help with an XAMPP question. No, not for my computer in the dorm but for a pro environment with a bunch of users, etc., etc. I look at the FAQ. It doesn't, in any way, say this is off-topic. I run a quick search: serverfault.com/… Wow. 566 questions on the subject. Only one of them closed. Look at the first one "lost xampp password". Clearly EVERYTHING XAMPP is OK here. Post away. Right?

Folkloric interpretation of the FAQ doesn't work. You need to be more precise. Perhaps my push for this comes from being a hardware and software engineer. When I do either of those, whether it means writing code for an FPGA or, yes, server-side software, I have to be very precise or things don't run. I live in a world where definitions are important. So do you I suspect.

@RobM "where can this question get the best answers". That's exactly part of the problem. Some questions (XAMPP is what I experienced) don't seem to have an accepted home anywhere. They were getting moved from SO to SF and then sometimes closed in SF. The message is very confusing.

@RobM Of course it is clearly slanted to address the issues I have seen, because that's all I know. How could I possibly slant it to address issues others have had that I know absolutely nothing about?

@RobM Where were you and your editing magic when high-rep users called me a troll for daring to challenge them? I think it is wrong that you edited my post. What I said may have been offensive to you but it is the truth and it needs to be discussed and addressed. In many ways you are adding yourself to the problem by attempting to suppress the message --in meta, of all places.

Off-topic questions still have SEO juice in them. SF (and maybe all of SE) has to make a decision to not prostitute the mission for the sake of the traffic off-topic Q's can generate. I have seen a "town elder" make exactly that argument here on meta. To paraphrase: let's keep closed questions because they generate traffic. In my opinion, that's a horrible double standard that sends the wrong message. Removing them is the right thing to do. At the very least remove the answers and comments so there's no real utility to them.

With regards to the deletion of off-topic posts. The existence of questions with answers on off-topic subjects presents a mixed message. One is that, hey, I can post this here and maybe I'll have someone sneak-in an answer before it is closed. The wrong poster gets the benefit, other wrong posters see it when they visit and do the same. If I search for VMWARE or XAMPP and there's nothing. Or, even better, I get a message specifically stating that these areas are off-topic here, as a good-guy new-comer I'd refrain from posting. I think what you want is to attract more good guys.

It looks like your scenarios for not wanting to implement such things as auto-magic banned-topic tags and the kind of FAQ language I am proposing is based on bad citizens rather than potentially good citizens. You have to place yourself in the shoes of an intelligent and thoughtful person who actually wants to become a part of this community. They would respond to such messages and, I would also argue, they would read more than five bullet-points. You actually want to guide newcomers who care into good citizenship. The creeps will always ignore guidelines, no matter well crafted they might be.