How to deal with the numerous off-topic (business environment) Windows Server questions

Question

We get lots of questions about Windows Server. By their very nature, most of these questions specifically involve a business environment and therefore do not belong on Super User, since both the help center and tour state that "issues specific to corporate IT support and networks" are off topic here.

I've already rewritten the tag wiki excerpts for the various Windows Server versions:

windows-server windows-server-2003 windows-server-2008 windows-server-2008-r2 windows-server-2012 windows-server-2012-r2 windows-server-2016

All of these tag wiki excerpts now contain the following text (changed to conform to "Questions about Small Business environments on topic?" and per Hennes's answer):

Questions about administering Windows Server systems that are specific to a business environment are off topic for Super User; please consider asking on Server Fault instead if your question is on topic there.

However, how do we deal with all those questions that are already on our site? Should we vote to close or migrate them en masse? What else should we do?

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Of course, I recognize that people may run a Windows Server machine in a home or testing environment for any of a variety of reasons and questions of this sort should not be migrated. How do we distinguish between business and non-business Windows Server questions?

Answer 1

SF mod chiming in...

tl;dr: Don't migrate crap.

If the OP is clearly clueless, I don't care if it's a business environment - we don't want their question because the professional way to handle that situation is "Well, hire someone to help you out.".

If, however, the OP has:

1. Given evidence that they've worked on the problem on their own,
2. Provided ample details on the environment to help others understand the situation, and
3. Have administrative privileges on the system(s) in question,

...then yes migrate away.

Now, we don't expect SU users or mods to be experts in what is on-topic at Serverfault, and I recognize that some bad questions may get migrated. If in doubt, and if you're a mod, ping the SF mods in the Teachers' Lounge chat room for us to weigh in on whether or not we want the question.

Answer 2

Surely the usual rules apply;

• If you have a high quality off topic question that is topical elsewhere then migrate it to $elsewhere.
• If it is a low quality off topic question then close it.

Don't forget

Don't Migrate Crap

Regarding SF in particular ... SF expects questions to be in the business environment ( sadly, somewhat watered down from the original position). It also expects that the people asking the question have more than a basic understanding of systems. They should also have authority and suitable access to the systems to carry out the operations and should not need their hand holding - we don't do step by step tutorials!

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Regarding the old stuff. Again the usual rules apply and remember no one can migrate stuff which is older than 60 days.

Answer 3

Questions about administering a Windows Server system in a business environment are off topic for Super User and should be asked on Server Fault instead.

As a high snobbed [SF] user: Fuck no!^*

Serverfault is not the place to ask about any business environment setup. It assumes you know what you are doing. SF will not issue warnings that you need to make a backup before reinstalling a system. It assumes you have at least two, as any sane admin would.

It is not the place for all of these questions, though some might indeed fit. Please elaborate and at least add a 'read the SF FAQ to see if it is on-topic there'.

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^* (excuse the profanity)