May be better to start a queue of specific questions to vote on then. A duplicate question is a duplicate question though.

Looks like a goldmine for getting the Marshall badge ;)

understood and your link addresses my question.

I concede the point and the 2nd half of my original question. I intend my question to be annoying but see how it become so.

Fair enough, that isn't what I intended but it's clear now that I was getting too clever with my question.

@womble Agreed, and part of my reason for posting is to help figure out where the line of expert/professional is. Again, if you're accurately representing the bar for questions, then the faq could be amended to state that SF is for '.. professionals to ask advanced questions about system administration. If your question is on Basic/Intermediate systems administration tasks, it should be directed at SU". This would help rid SF of people like myself who have to do the job, but don't meet the requirements expected by the community (I know I'm getting off topic here).

Nope, I agree that I got the information I asked for and needed. Although the question got blasted to oblivion, which is what prompted my meta discussion. The answer I'm settling on is that participation in SF is entirely for those with a lot of experience and no one else. Knowing who you can place themselves in that group doesn't seem that clear though, and the SF faq may as well reflect that to reduce confusion (what exactly is 'professional').

For your 1st point, I'm not sure why "I know that this information is included in the output of various incantations of ifconfig, ip, etc and can be parsed out." isn't clear about what I've considered. Also, I wasn't trying to disregard your contribution, just make it more clear what I was asking. Regarding your 2nd point, there are often many ways to accomplish a task, but there may be one that is better than others. That's what I was attempting to express.

@Chris I disagree on the basis that not all professional sysadmins are aware of everything they need to know to do their job. While you might feel I'm unqualified for my job, the faq (see section 1) doesn't set any requirements on qualifications. However, it may be the that this is the general consensus of the SF community. If that is the case, and taking your points into consideration, I doubt that any potential questions I have would meet the 'base level'. I do want to clear up if that's the expectation though, otherwise I should be looking elsewhere for assistance.