4 ms·

You need look no further than this question to see that something is rotten in the state of Stack Exchange. The question was asked in July, posted to HN 2 hours

by cletus 14y ago

You need look no further than this question to see that something is rotten in the state of Stack Exchange. The question was asked in July, posted to HN 2 hours ago and locked an hour later. There is nothing flamebait-y in the answers. It's good stuff actually. As to the question at hand: Linux was more accessible and this was back in the pre-1.0 days (my first distro was ~30 5.25" disks of SLS downloaded over a 2400 baud modem). It happened to support hardware I happened to have. Honestly at the time it ever even occurred to me to use BSD or even that I could.

loxs 14y ago
Correction - July 2010
- danielbarla 14y ago
  Actually, last edited in July 2010, originally asked on Jul 6 '09. And yes, the whole "not a good fit for the site / not constructive" is hotly debated, with many high-profile members of the community having left over it already. Personally, I don't see how you can have meaningful discussions about soft topics while maintaining the "supported by facts" rule. And unfortunately (for the site), most of the more interesting topics are "not a good fit".
- andyjohnson0 14y ago
  According to the revision history [1] it was asked on 6th July 2009 [1] http://serverfault.com/posts/36359/revisions http://serverfault.com/posts/36359/revisions
anu_gupta 14y ago
ServerFault (and most SE sites) aren't designed to have vague quasi-religious debates about something as nebulous and subjective as why Linux became more popular than BSD. The network is supposed to be a focused, solution-centred set of sites - as evinced by this from ServerFault's FAQ: "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page."
- danielbarla 14y ago
  Some of the best, most insightful and useful answers have been chatty, open-ended discussions on SE... While I get the need for moderation, as the parent pointed out, the answers and debate were very civilised and relatively fact-based.
  - cmccabe 14y ago
    At the end of the day, chatty, open-ended discussions are not what StackExchange is about. It's a really focused site designed around Q&A on specific, clearly answerable questions. They may have made some bad decisions but closing this thread ain't one of them.
    - danielbarla 14y ago
      I agree with you, to a degree. StackOverflow is a good example of specific, clearly answerable questions. Many of the SE sites have topics which are, by their very nature, far less clear. Take "the workplace" for example - is anything on that site going to be fact based, and clearly answerable? I don't think so. When you move into topics dominated by softer, fuzzy areas, the applicability of that particular moderation rule also becomes fuzzy.
    - hackerboos 14y ago
      They should just make a sister site and throw these types of questions on there. Call it StackDebate or something.
      - finnw 14y ago
        Agreed. For every foo.stackexchange.com there is already a meta.foo.stackexchange.com and a chat.foo.stackexchange.com. Why not add idle.foo.stackexchange.com to the mix?
      - prodigal_erik 14y ago
        There should be such a site, but after http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2473029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2473029 I don't see them as well-suited or interested in being the ones who run it.
meaty 14y ago
I managed to salvage old Sun4 hardware out of skips and from usenet. It was far better supported on BSD than most of the rather fragmented x86 bits of kit were back then. The hardware support situation in the early-late 90's was horrible for most operating systems, Windows and Linux included. It is much improved now. I originally installed NetBSD off QIC tape that was mailed to me by a friend at a university which had a decent connection :) It was plugged in via a large SCSI cable that only worked if you bent it in half and put a cable tie around it (it's innards were shredded). Memories. Just to add: StackExchange is a horrible pit of elitism. I'd rather deal with Usenet SPAM than use it.
- antidoh 14y ago
  Usenet used to be ubiquitous, especially when most of us were using dialup ISPs. Now we're all on broadband and our ISPs (Comcast et al.) don't carry it. There's Google groups, sort of ... Does anyone subscribe to a for-pay usenet provider that they like? Does it offer old school text-based client access?
  - meaty 14y ago
    Yes I use xsusenet (http://xsusenet.com http://xsusenet.com) and my own private fork of slrn (http://slrn.sourceforge.net/ http://slrn.sourceforge.net/). It's free but they have a 25Gb cap which is fine if you're not leeching binaries (I'm not!).
6ren 14y ago
SO aims at definitive factual technical answers. That's impossible for this question. I think SO should have a sister "discussion" site, and just move these interesting questions across instead of closing them.

by cletus 14y ago

loxs 14y ago

Correction - July 2010

danielbarla 14y ago
Actually, last edited in July 2010, originally asked on Jul 6 '09. And yes, the whole "not a good fit for the site / not constructive" is hotly debated, with many high-profile members of the community having left over it already. Personally, I don't see how you can have meaningful discussions about soft topics while maintaining the "supported by facts" rule. And unfortunately (for the site), most of the more interesting topics are "not a good fit".
andyjohnson0 14y ago
According to the revision history [1] it was asked on 6th July 2009 [1] http://serverfault.com/posts/36359/revisions http://serverfault.com/posts/36359/revisions

anu_gupta 14y ago

ServerFault (and most SE sites) aren't designed to have vague quasi-religious debates about something as nebulous and subjective as why Linux became more popular than BSD. The network is supposed to be a focused, solution-centred set of sites - as evinced by this from ServerFault's FAQ: "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face. Chatty, open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of our site and push other questions off the front page."

danielbarla 14y ago
Some of the best, most insightful and useful answers have been chatty, open-ended discussions on SE... While I get the need for moderation, as the parent pointed out, the answers and debate were very civilised and relatively fact-based.
- cmccabe 14y ago
  At the end of the day, chatty, open-ended discussions are not what StackExchange is about. It's a really focused site designed around Q&A on specific, clearly answerable questions. They may have made some bad decisions but closing this thread ain't one of them.
  - danielbarla 14y ago
    I agree with you, to a degree. StackOverflow is a good example of specific, clearly answerable questions. Many of the SE sites have topics which are, by their very nature, far less clear. Take "the workplace" for example - is anything on that site going to be fact based, and clearly answerable? I don't think so. When you move into topics dominated by softer, fuzzy areas, the applicability of that particular moderation rule also becomes fuzzy.
  - hackerboos 14y ago
    They should just make a sister site and throw these types of questions on there. Call it StackDebate or something.
    - finnw 14y ago
      Agreed. For every foo.stackexchange.com there is already a meta.foo.stackexchange.com and a chat.foo.stackexchange.com. Why not add idle.foo.stackexchange.com to the mix?
    - prodigal_erik 14y ago
      There should be such a site, but after http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2473029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2473029 I don't see them as well-suited or interested in being the ones who run it.

meaty 14y ago

I managed to salvage old Sun4 hardware out of skips and from usenet. It was far better supported on BSD than most of the rather fragmented x86 bits of kit were back then. The hardware support situation in the early-late 90's was horrible for most operating systems, Windows and Linux included. It is much improved now. I originally installed NetBSD off QIC tape that was mailed to me by a friend at a university which had a decent connection :) It was plugged in via a large SCSI cable that only worked if you bent it in half and put a cable tie around it (it's innards were shredded). Memories. Just to add: StackExchange is a horrible pit of elitism. I'd rather deal with Usenet SPAM than use it.

antidoh 14y ago
Usenet used to be ubiquitous, especially when most of us were using dialup ISPs. Now we're all on broadband and our ISPs (Comcast et al.) don't carry it. There's Google groups, sort of ... Does anyone subscribe to a for-pay usenet provider that they like? Does it offer old school text-based client access?
- meaty 14y ago
  Yes I use xsusenet (http://xsusenet.com http://xsusenet.com) and my own private fork of slrn (http://slrn.sourceforge.net/ http://slrn.sourceforge.net/). It's free but they have a 25Gb cap which is fine if you're not leeching binaries (I'm not!).

6ren 14y ago

SO aims at definitive factual technical answers. That's impossible for this question. I think SO should have a sister "discussion" site, and just move these interesting questions across instead of closing them.