Furthermore those of us who spend most of our day writing code, or doing other work aren't always going to know/have the time to understand what the latest trend on serverfault might be, perhaps serverfault could be understanding that the community as a whole might be more diverse than the power users who spend hundreds of hours on the site.

Neither of these comments address the issue, @AndrewB I'm discussing this in the global picture, not just one case. If you guys feel that you are above having to deal with loosely defined "nonprofessionals" and you are closing off the site to anyone you deem not fitting that definition, then you are in fact closing off part of the internet. Just because you can't see how a question might be relevant does not make the question irrelevant. Why should this not be a resource for everyone, and if you don't want to answer a basic question then YOU don't answer a basic question.