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I have seen some allot of questions that are way over the border of anything to do with the Pi. eg.

How to setup FQDN with Pi for sendmail?

The only reason the question is allowed because it has the word Pi in it. But really its about Postfix and Domain configuration, which is more suited for Super User, Ubuntu Exchange or some other Technical Exchange. Postfix has nothing to do with Raspberry Pi, yes, its related to Debian and the most appropriate Exchange is Ubuntu. Networking is closer to home but its related to FQDN which has nothing to do with Pi.

I mean that question has been answered a zillion times in other exchanges. Is the only reason to keep it open for SEO? We lure in Pi users, but then they got shockingly bad and incorrect answers instead of actually going to the correct exchange?

It really bothers how far off topic question can be asked, as long as they have the word Pi on them. I am seeing more and more questions like this and I just cant ignore this any more. Any other Exchange would have transferred this.

The goal for quantity is seriously affecting quality of answers.

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    I have to admit, when I first read the headline I thought "That sounds like a really cool automation project - why was it posted on meta?"
    – Bex
    Commented Apr 29, 2014 at 5:35
  • the quality of answers will eventually come when more people answer and the good ones get promoted, what really bothers me is the quality of questions.
    – lenik
    Commented May 12, 2014 at 0:07
  • 1
    I can tell you that this question would not have been welcomed on Ask Ubuntu. Possibly Unix & Linux would have been its best home.
    – TRiG
    Commented Oct 2, 2014 at 14:44

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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I have closed that question.

It is easier for us to see and moderate posts when they already have action taken on them by users. When you vote to close a post it's more than just casting your opinion, you make to post appear in the Review Close Votes queue. This makes it much easier for us to review any posts, especially those we might have missed.

We're up to 20-30 new questions a day, so anything you can do to help the process would be greatly appreciated :)

For the future we need to encourage a better review culture so that the community can deal with these sort of posts without as much moderator intervention.

Keep up the good work!

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  • Thanks Jivings. It seems to be unclear to me where the border lies to specific to this Q&A or to another. I mean sure, he is using a Pi, but really the essence of the question is about software from Linux, and the guys at Ubuntu stack love these kinds of questions.. but this one in specific may have several great answers already. For the future, how can one measure how relative it is to this community? I have had mixed answers on chat.
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 18:43
  • raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/15389/… - This is classic. It seems to me the essence of the problem is with the software, it just happens he is trying to run it on the Pi. As interesting as it sounds. Is it really the best question to ask on Pi Q&A. This is seems extremely borderline, how do you decide?
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 19:17
  • @ppumkin Let's Raspberry Pi Chat :)
    – Jivings Mod
    Commented Apr 28, 2014 at 20:05
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While I can fully understand that for experts these questions are offtopic, we still have to see that this is a QA site for the target group of the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a mini computer especially designed for getting young people in touch with computer science - people that never worked with Linux or programming or webservers up to the day the delivery guy hands them their Pi. A very large part of the Pi community just buys the device and flashes Raspbian to it - without knowing that Raspbian is a Debian Linux and without knowing that "setting up a server" or "installing git" works the same on (almost) all Linux-based computers.

So, of course, there will always be questions that are related to Debian, Linux, Software, Applications, Servers. Simply because the Raspberry Pi is the very first experience for these kind of things for a great number of young and interested people.

So, with this in mind let's phrase the original question in a different manner:

Can we really exclude the Pi's target group from this QA site?

I'd say no.

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  • yeah, here's a fresh one. still not impressed?
    – lenik
    Commented May 12, 2014 at 14:41
  • @lenik No. That's a Hardware question, which is explicitly allowed in the FAQ on this site. I agree, it's very generic and badly worded, but asking for a specific problem that appeared using the Pi. After all, a Pi is a regular computer as any other computer (just without case) - so why have this QA site at all? Why not close it down, since we have SO, SU, Electronics and Unix QA sites already which cover everything one could do with the Pi?
    – Foo Bar
    Commented May 12, 2014 at 15:53
  • @lenik I just got this extemly generic question migrated here (from Serverfault), just because the word "Raspberry Pi" was in it: raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/15900/… So, if you want such question not here as well, then we have a problem.
    – Foo Bar
    Commented May 14, 2014 at 11:36
  • you've been clearly told, your question is better suited for SuperUser and/or Linux/Unix sections. as my personal advice, please, don't mention Raspberry Pi when asking a generic question, because moderators are people, they see a keyword, they migrate your question. if you want to get help with git and router settings, the fact you have a Raspberry Pi is quite irrelevant.
    – lenik
    Commented May 14, 2014 at 12:51
  • No, there were two contradicting things happening at once: Getting told that Unix or Superuser would be best but at the same time the question was migrated from Serverfault to Raspberry Pi. Stackexchange currently simply has to many sites to find a clear line between them.
    – Foo Bar
    Commented May 14, 2014 at 17:39
  • once again. if you don't mention Raspberry Pi, you'll get your answer on SuperUser or Linux/Unix, but if you mention it you don't get an answer. quite simple, as I thought =)
    – lenik
    Commented May 14, 2014 at 17:53
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I generally answer questions which are not specifically Pi related e.g. Reading data from external device if they are well stated PROVIDED they relate to GPIO or interfacing to the Pi.

This seems to be in line with the Pi's aims of education and encouraging experimentation with the hardware.

Unfortunately many of these questions get "answers" from some of the newer SE users who often don't even read the question properly. (Reminds me of employing young engineers. They are like puppies, and love solving problems; they just don't bother with working out the problem actually is.)

Incidentally it is a mystery to me how the messages such as the "put on hold" such as in the following are actually initiated Stop program after a period of time (Maybe I just don't have the reputation?) of if there is a formal process to refer questions.

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  • I think at a certain rep you get to see a new icon where you can review certain questions, edits, new users question and new user answers, etc. At 2K? There is a page you can access from your profile that shows you how much rep you need to get before you unlock new features.
    – Piotr Kula
    Commented May 2, 2014 at 10:00

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