Are web hosting control panels on-topic?

Question

There's a discussion over on ServerFault Meta about how to handle questions about web hosting control panels, such as e.g. webmin, cpanel and their ilk.

The consensus is that at least 99% of those questions don't belong on ServerFault, because using those things pretty much destroy any chance of handling the system according to best practices.

Would it be appropriate to move such questions to Unix/Linux, or would they be considered off-topic here too?

I could see how they would be on-topic, given that they're about software that runs on Unix. I could also see how they would be off-topic, given that at least cpanel mucks around with the systems so much that it's very hard for someone who knows "normal" unix operations to figure out how to solve their problems. And I'd rather not recommend migration of stuff that this community doesn't want.

Answer 1

The general rule is: If the software runs on UNIX or Linux, it's on topic here.

However, that doesn't mean that here is the best place to ask a given question. Many questions which are on topic here will get better answers, or answers with different perspectives, on other Stack Exchange sites.

In the case of web hosting control panels, I would say that those which run on UNIX/Linux can be asked about here, but are not likely to get good answers, as the community has little expertise in this niche.

If Server Fault is looking for a good migration target for these questions, it would be well advised to look elsewhere first before considering U&L. A better choice might be Webmasters, which is focused on exactly the community which would be most likely to have, or want to have, experts to answer these questions.