Timeline for What questions belong on Super User vs Server Fault?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
26 events
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| Nov 2, 2009 at 22:15 | history | edited | Jeff Atwood | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
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| Nov 2, 2009 at 22:14 | comment | added | David Thornley | @Shog9: Trust me, I know you're not making up arguments, and I'd be as quick as anybody to vote to close that question. However, I have been arguing the letter of the law, and therefore suggest that that letter should be changed. It may be perfectly clear to people more involved with the community, but people coming in and reading the FAQ could use better guidance. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 22:02 | comment | added | GEOCHET | And the SF users are imploring you to stop advocating the dumping of garbage on their sites. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 22:01 | comment | added | dlux | Oddly enough ChrisF, Thomas Owens and yourself all appear to be fairly inactive users on SF and probably not professional system administrators. ;-) | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:59 | comment | added | Shog9 | stackoverflow.com/questions/1419004/… (in case you thought we were making this up as a wild and crazy "slippery slope" argument) Anyway... I don't know that I actually disagree with you at all: as i said above, I would ask a question on any site other than SU if i could find even a shaky justification for it. But even though I don't totally respect the letter of the law when it comes to the divisions between these sites, I still recognize that it's there, and shouldn't be flagrantly ignored. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:57 | comment | added | David Thornley | Shog9: If the duties of your system administrators relating to desktop support include pizza toppings, well, I'd like to see your office sometime. The BSOD question is not just hypothetically from an admin, but hypothetically also about supporting the desktop computers, which cannot be said about pizzas or sandwiches (well, not seriously). | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:53 | comment | added | David Thornley | @Shog9: In which case we are reading the FAQ differently, and Rich B agrees with you, and ChrisF and Thomas Owens with me. I fail to see the overwhelming evidence that your reading is correct. I'm not saying it's definitely wrong, but so far the evidence has mostly been assertions that I'm wrong, a difference in interpreting "general troubleshooting questions", and digressions about sandwiches. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:53 | comment | added | GEOCHET | @Shog9: But I still don't understand what sandwiches have to do with this! | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:52 | comment | added | Shog9 | See, I thought Rich was waaay too quick to jump in with the sandwich analogy, but... Look, here's how it goes: if I'm right, then sysadmin questions are appropriate for SF, but other questions that just happen to come from system administrators are not. David, if you are right and any question from a system administrator is appropriate for SF, then that opens the door wide for questions that have nothing to do with system administration or even computers. "What should I put on my Tombstone as a system administrator?", etc. So ask yourself: do you want SF to be SO... or Y! Answers? | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:51 | comment | added | GEOCHET | @DLux: Indeed, this is not rocket science, it is help desk stuff. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:49 | comment | added | dlux | @David - I'm guess you have not done desktop support in a professional manner...otherwise this would be quite obvious. Need help with an Excel formula question - SU. Need help installing Excel on 100 desktops - SF. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:46 | comment | added | GEOCHET | @David: You keep asking the same question, and you get the same answer. Your ability to understand what you are reading is the issue here, not the answers you are receiving. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:45 | comment | added | David Thornley | @Rich B: I am interested in understanding, but I keep getting the same answers which do not appear to take into account the parts of the SF FAQ I quoted. I'd like to understand why you and Shog9 believe that part of the FAQ doesn't apply here. Note that the way the SO and SU FAQs on one hand and the SF FAQ on the other differ: the first define questions in terms of subject matter, the second in terms of specific job duties. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:44 | comment | added | Shog9 | @David: I'm reading the FAQ with the assumption that it states a general guideline and then refines it; so starting out, you can assume that your question does not belong on SF if it isn't about "servers, your networks, or desktops that you support". Furthermore, if it's a general computer troubleshooting question, it doesn't belong on SF. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:42 | comment | added | GEOCHET | @David: Two of the three people are understanding intent and the rest of the FAQ. One is arguing incessantly in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and no one to back him. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:41 | comment | added | David Thornley | @Shog9: And here's the other key: "as long as the question is about...desktops you support, anyway". If the question fits that description, then "...you're in the right place to ask your question!". In other words, we have a specific and detailed part of the FAQ saying the question belongs there, and a more general part saying it might not. This may be a problem with the FAQ wording, in that three intelligent people are getting two seriously opposed readings out of it. Personally, I think it proper to go with the more specific and detailed portion. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:31 | comment | added | GEOCHET | @Dlux: This is nothing new either. SO has always had people who think anything a programmer does or thinks about is 'programming related'. This is an example of how dense those people can be. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:29 | comment | added | dlux | And this is why Server Fault is full of noise. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:25 | comment | added | Shog9 | @David, here's the key: "Please note that Server Fault is not for general computer troubleshooting questions..." If the question fits that description, then you can safely assume it's not appropriate for SF. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:22 | comment | added | GEOCHET | "I am skilled and experienced in the English language" -- "So far, the only argument I've seen is that diagnosing a BSOD is in essence the same as making a sandwich, which I find incomprehensible." -- Something does not line up here. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:20 | comment | added | David Thornley | @Rich B: I just edited my question with the intent of making my point clearer, including quoting the first parts of the FAQ. I understand that you think what I'm saying is wrong, and it is possible that I am. So far, the only argument I've seen is that diagnosing a BSOD is in essence the same as making a sandwich, which I find incomprehensible. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:19 | history | edited | Shog9 | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
formatting
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| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:17 | history | edited | David Thornley | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
More specific argument.
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| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:04 | comment | added | GEOCHET | @David: I understand what you are saying. But what you are saying is wrong. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 21:01 | comment | added | David Thornley | No, I am saying that system admins (and I'm not in the target SF audience) are asked by the FAQ to ask questions about supporting their desktops in SF. It's true that non-admins also diagnose BSODs (I've tried it), but it's also true that corporate admins might have to diagnose BSODs. It's also true that a power user who isn't a programmer might write a shell script or something like that, and questions about that script would belong on SO. | |
| Nov 2, 2009 at 20:41 | history | answered | David Thornley | CC BY-SA 2.5 |