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Proposal: Nexenta should be closed as a subset of ServerFault. There are already a group of Nexenta questions on SF, and [nearly] everyone of the proposed questions could (and should) be asked there instead.

One of the proposed questions even asks why it isn't a duplicate ... and is answered (wrongly, in my opinion) in the comments with the statement that SF is a "how" site, and these questions will be more "why" types:

In my opinion, ServerFault is a "how to" site, and serves its purpose quite well. Nexenta and ZFS in particular have many considerations that cannot be answered by a "how" - instead, "why" becomes important, and understanding all the intricacies of the underlying technology is not something ServerFault is geared towards. – Kirill Davydychev

I would like to find out why the dozens of folks who have already flocked to this proposal don't want to add all these questions to SF (or maybe even SuperUser for the home-type inquiries).

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I agree. Unless there is something about Nexenta that would drive away SF/SU users, I think this is basically covered. On SF, this doesn't seem to be the case, and at the time that I posted this, there's no interest on SU. – Tim Post Feb 23 at 17:06
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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

It all depends on the amount of people willing to commit; aren't the Drupal Answers and Sitepoint sites perfectly on topic for SO? They're about specific software that has a large enough dev community to be able to branch off, which helps lower the noise on SO and helps the specific questions get better answers and more (relative) attention.

Seems to be the only important factor is whether a specific subject area has enough dedicated users to create a healthy community around it; which is exactly what Area 51 is for.

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up vote -3 down vote

Nexenta is a specific set of software. I am actually not that familiar with this site, but server fault is for sys admin and desktop in general..

I have a narrow band of interest for nexenta specific information, wading through all of server fault will mean hours of looking at questions that are irrelevent to this specific software package discussions. I read through most of the documentation and thought that this site is for very specific interest groups? Am i incorrect?

I also looked through server fault and the last nexenta question was asked on Mar 11 2011. Being part of a larger discussion means our people who know the answers, can't focus on answering the questions.

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Linda, there is no need to "wade through" non-Nexenta questions - that's precisely what filters, such as the one shown by myself and others by showing the questions tagged 'Nexenta' – warren Feb 24 at 0:01
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-1 @ "X is a specific set of software", no need to read more. If this is the explanation, it's almost always wrong, narrowing just for the sake of opening a new proposal, without caring if it actually really "no really" makes sense or not. – Lohoris Feb 24 at 17:13
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This really belongs on ServerFault. Nexenta without any context (professional storage use) doesn't make sense... – ewwhite Mar 13 at 22:45
"Being part of a larger discussion means our people who know the answers, can't focus on answering the questions." There are roughly 100 Javascript questions on SO for every question about Lua. Yet there are still 2,000 Lua questions and most of them are answered promptly. Niches exist and are quite functional on Stack Overflow. Why should they not exist on Server Fault? – Nicol Bolas Apr 11 at 9:34
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