The Comms Room

matt burnett

00:53

Anyone care to explain to me how serverfault.com/questions/733438/… is more appropriate on superuser rather than server fault? And really, how many home users use ESXi or VLANs?

Journeyman Geek

hm

I actually concur...

@EEAA I'd like to kick ^ back to SF. Its almost certainly more in your scope than mine

ahh

@mattburnett: I think it might be cause its nested ESXi in workstation?

Dosen't quite sound like a production setup

Dosen't quite feel like it belongs more on SU than SF tho

What're you doing with it?

(Hi, I'm an SU mod)

matt burnett

lab work, admitted at home, but really, how many home users have cisco networks or even know what esxi is?

*admittedly

Journeyman Geek

>_>

1. No, tho I've toyed with replacing my home setup with enterpriseish gear.

2. I'd be running it but my particular setup's terrible. I use KVM instead.

matt burnett

i've got dual E5 xeons and 160gb ram :)

Journeyman Geek

My home server would neatly fit in your power supply

matt burnett

01:00

lol

Journeyman Geek

Anyway, ignoring the fact that its running at home, I'll wait a bit for some feedback before I kick it back. Wouldn't want the question kicked back then closed on SF no?

matt burnett

meh, just seems silly that i'm being told to go to a place where the majority of the users wont have any idea what i'm talking about, and i wont get any response without a bounty

Journeyman Geek

lol

I can move it over right now

If you want

As I said, slight risk of closure, but I'll add a comment.

Oh wait

matt burnett

slight risk of closure?

Journeyman Geek

sorry, it wasn't migrated

(I've not had my coffee yet >_>)

Anyway, dosen't seem appropriate for SU, where my coffee-less addled state thought it was migrated to.

(AKA, I dun goofed)

matt burnett

01:08

So whats your advice for me?

matt burnett

01:19

regarding what i should do with my question? feel like i'm getting picked on just because its nested inside of workstation rather than another esxi instance

serverfault.com/help/on-topic says "managing the hardware or software of servers, workstations, storage or networks" and I can only assume ESXi and VLAN trunks, etc would qualify

And it does seem like Workstation is getting picked on for no good reason. You can see superuser.com/questions/757882/… which is vaguely similar to mine was migrated from SF, the question is over a year old, has 3,500+ views, 0 comments or answers because just about no one on that site has any clue what a VLAN is

EEAA

Gentlemen.

matt burnett

hey EEAA

guess we can move this to the room i created unless you'd think it would be appropriate to have the discussion here

EEAA

nah, keep it here so @JourneymanGeek can tag along.

so...

matt burnett

k

Journeyman Geek

No one really uses this room now anyway ;)

matt burnett

01:31

anyways, can you help me understand how this was inapproriate for SF?

EEAA

ESXi-nested-in-ESXi is sort of a supported configuration (officially). ESXi-in-VMware Workstation is not.

It's a rickety setup at best, and honestly, I very much doubt that your proposed setup can be made to work at all.

matt burnett

i dont think something being offically supported is relevant as to whether or not the question is relevant to SF rather than SU

EEAA

It's not anything you'd ever see in a professional environment.

matt burnett

A full cisco network with ESXi instances isnt anything you'd ever likely see in a home environment

EEAA

we actually have a close reason for not using "reasonable business information technology management practices"

right - I'm not saying it's appropriate for SU either

your question unfortunately fits into a no-mans-land of sorts.

matt burnett

01:33

there is nothing in the closure reason about "reasonable"

it says "Questions on Server Fault must be about managing information technology systems in a business environment."

i know

EEAA

right, which it's not. I could have also chose the "reasonable practices" close reason as well. Unfortunately it only lets me choose one. They're both applicable.

matt burnett

so my bastard child of question has no place on SE?

*of a question

EEAA

well, you might take it as a clue that you should change up your architecture.

I can't speak to its topicality on any site but SF, though. (as my rep on other sites would indicate) :)

matt burnett

its for lab work/getting familiar with vsphere

not really intended for production

EEAA

right, which is still off-topic.

Listen, your question isn't bad, and you aren't a bad person for doing things this way. It's just not on-topic for SF.

though, if I take off my SF mod hat for a minute and put on my VMware admin hat...

matt burnett

01:38

and how does preventing people from answering it make the community better?

EEAA

I'd recommend that if you want to familiarize yourself with ESXi, deploy it in as close to a way as you would in production. a.k.a. bare metal installation.

ok, back to the SF mod hat.

matt burnett

i'd actually do a bare metal installation if i could pass my gtx 980s thru, sadly nvidia makes you have quaddros for that

EEAA

SF has a very specific charter, and we do our best to stick to it. Non-production, non-professional, home lab environments are not part of that charter. I understand that you want to get your question answered. I truly do. However, if we start allowing questions like this, we will soon become "tech support for the internet". We've been there before and it was horrible. We won't be going back.

matt burnett

doing a search on SF for "lab" gives 1800+ results, with a handful closed, the rest open/answered

EEAA

I may just cull through those later to identify those which need to be closed.

also, the existence of the word "lab" does not deem a question OT

matt burnett

01:43

you said "non-production" a lab would inherently be non-production

EEAA

not if it's an academic IT employee supporting a computer lab. I'm not going to argue with you about the topicality of this. IMHO your question was off-topic for at least two reasons.

matt burnett

serverfault.com/questions/529734/sccm-2012-virtual-lab is 2 years old and isnt about a academic environemnt

EEAA

Matt - honestly.

there are likely hundreds of questions in your search that should be closed.

matt burnett

jusy sayin

EEAA

I'm not going to debate each of those right now.

feel free to flag them for closure if you'd like.

matt burnett

01:47

i'm not the one who feels it is outside the bounds of SF

EEAA

questions slip through the cracks. SF charter changes over time. Things eventually get cleaned up and closed when appropriate, but none of us are getting paid for this. The mods and other users with close vote privileges do this on an hour or two a day.

so...

as I said, I'm not going to argue with you here about your question.

matt burnett

i'm aware, but if the community concured with your opinion then the problem would be self solving as no one would answer it

which would make the closure redundnat

*redundant

if people did respond then obviously they would feel as if it belonged

EEAA

OK, last statement on this. IMHO your question was off-topic for at least two reasons. If you feel your question was closed un-justly, you're always welcome to come to meta.serverfault.com and state your case. If the community agrees that the question should be allowed, I'll gladly re-open it.

matt burnett

what were the two reasons? 1 was the non-production, non-professional home lab

not sure what the 2nd was

EEAA

"reasonable business information technology management practices"

matt burnett

01:53

<sigh> reasonableness is no way against the rules

anyways i'll post it to meta and give you a link in a few mins if you want to add your two cents

EEAA

No need to send the link - mods get a notification for any new meta questions.

I hope you understand that I'm not out to get you.

When agreeing to be a SF mod, I agreed to uphold the site's charter to the best of my ability.

matt burnett

i know its nothing personal but still

EEAA

...which is what I'm doing.

matt burnett

pretty sure that my question wont lead to SF becoming the tech support of the internet, SU is that

anyways thanks for you input, even if i grosslyd ont agree with it

better than the drive by downvoting with no explanation

EEAA

regarding your last comment about SF becoming internet tech support:

Broken windows theory

The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments to prevent small crimes such as vandalism, public drinking, and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening. The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. Since then it has been subject to great debate both within the social...

we're obviously not dealing with criminal behavior here, but the same thing applies.

matt burnett

01:59

using that fallacy isnt exactly the best argument

Broken windows theory

The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments to prevent small crimes such as vandalism, public drinking, and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening. The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. Since then it has been subject to great debate both within the social...

sigh silly chat rewriting my links, anyways scroll down to criticism of that theory in the article

EEAA

Every theory has its criticisms. That doesn't mean we've not experienced the direct effects of it on SF.

matt burnett

02:22

EEAA, you still there?

vmware.com/products/workstation

VMware Workstation is marketed to run nested ESXi

"Experiment by running multiple operating systems and applications, or run enterprise-focused hypervisors like ESXi as virtual machines to build a personal lab while preparing for VMware Certification tests (i.e. VCP). "

EEAA

k, that's great. Still doesn't make it on-topic.

matt burnett

just saying regarding resonableness

EEAA

well, it's still quite un-reasonable in a non-training, non-lab environment.

it may be supported by VMware. That doesn't make it a good idea outside of a few very specific situations.

matt burnett

it was a lab environment...

EEAA

right...which are off-topic

matt burnett

02:25

lab environments arent listed as such here serverfault.com/help/on-topic

EEAA

Matt, I'm done trying to help you understand topicality on SF. I'll be looking forward to your meta question.

I feel like you're taking this quite personally.

matt burnett

lol no

EEAA

why not reach out to VMware support?

matt burnett

i have my reasons

EEAA

well ok then

matt burnett

02:31

0

Q: Where do questions regarding labs for enterprise equipment & software belong if not SF?

So this is in regards to Nested ESXi - VLAN Trunking Not Working, which was closed because it was considered off topic. I had a chance to discuss this with EEAA, one of the two people who voted to close it. His criticisms of the question had to do with it being "non-production, non-professional, ...

please let me know if I misinterpreted your statements

ty

Journeyman Geek

@mattburnett: wikipedia links and others onebox. Add something before them and they won't

matt burnett

thanks

anyways i'm pretty sure workstation just isnt supporting vlan tagged packets

errr.... nevermind, thought of what was going on wrong

it might but im guessing its not

lol the meta question is up for a couple minutes, already 1 downvote

is this really inappropriate for meta too?

Journeyman Geek

@mattburnett: that might have been my first port of call

On metas, downvotes work differently

Downvotes = I disagree

matt burnett

ah

Journeyman Geek

rather than "This is a terrible question and needs to be slightly punished"

matt burnett

02:44

thanks for the explanation

eeaa, how is that ad hominem?

ad ho·mi·nem
ˌad ˈhämənəm/
adverb & adjective
1.
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

his position was that "he didnt care" while in another post saying that SF is overly hostile to new users

matt burnett

03:04

lol eeaa, now it seems like you're the one taking things personally

if sven is resorting to name calling, i can hardly think he isnt demonstrating a hostile attitude

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