For those of us who don't yet know or use SQL Server but have a need or desire to learn such a question and its answers may be very welcome.

Harshness is one thing. Being offensive in any manner is not welcome here. If you see answers or comments where someone gets too brutal, rude or offensive please flag it for moderator attention, no matter who posted it.

In hindsight it might have been worth adding links like that to the FAQ. Maybe next time.

For this kind of situation it's pretty pointless asking us. Get in touch with one of the many companies that specialise in helping people make intelligent decisions about server room purchases. If you don't know how to find those companies you might start by finding the partners on the hardware manufacturers web sites.

+1 for "Just vote as you see fit, others will do the same". It's actually a little uncommon to see 5 close votes for the same reason on a single question, so clearly we all have our own voting preferences.

I flagged this as belonging on MSO, where site wide issues are discussed. The flag was declined. Not by one of our elected moderators but by the OP himself.

+1 It really does depend on who sees the question. e.g. I'm usually pretty quick on the voting button but the vim question is a topic I know noting about, so would never even view it. The subject doesn't attract my attention as possibly off topic because syntax highlighting is important to me, both as an admin and as a code cutter.

That's a pity. I though that question had been more than satisfactorily addressed here in favour of it not being a dupe of SF. It never fails to amaze me which sites get started and which ones get snuffed out, and why. There's some real absurdities amongst them.

@Iain, maybe this should be a feature request. I've previously asked for a "sticky" feature which keeps a post at the top of the list. That's a suitable substitute for a more conventional announcement and would be simplicity itself to code. I do of course assume the feature would be be available only to staff members and each post would have the sticky feature removed when appropriate.

Yes, that's mine. I try to vote honestly, not according to rank.

Strange how a question asked by someone with a diamond gets upvoted when the same question be someone else would get downvoted.

While there's a lot of truth in that, and I do love the analogy, just remember that the new kid in school sees them ONLY as cranky old ladies and knows nothing of the good they do. SF gets a LOT of new kids.

Oops, that should of course be "red" tag.

I'm assuming that a read canonical tag could only be applied by mods, which would be a good thing.