When Do We Consider Questions about Electronics Aimed at IoT Use Cases On-Topic?

Question

While the close queue is certainly one thing that can and will take care of the following question in either direction I wanted to make a meta post about the on-topic-ness of questions like this one.

Edison Ubilinux Flash Error "Cannot allocate memory of size 1610612736"

This is not an IoT question. Questions about basic usage of random development boards are not on topic here. IoT specific tasks on them might in some cases be, but the question being asked here is not IoT related at all, but rather a basic "how to use this board" question which should be pursued using board-specific resources. – Chris Stratton 10 hours ago

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This is first time I have posted a question, first on one board who then told me to post here and it seems you guys are more concerned on removing the question then the real purpose of it which is to help people who come across the problem. I'm sorry but the Intel Edison is an IOT device and this is a real world issue people will come across and appreciate. The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and system – theweekendcoder 4 hours ago

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While the edison might be usable for IoT (do keep in mind it is an orphaned product), your specific question does not belong here, because your actual question is not about IoT. Each site in the stack exchange system is required to justify its existence by having and maintaining a unique theme. Indistinct scope like allowing general development board questions would imperil the continued existence of this beta site and make it unlikely to graduate to a full site in the system. – Chris Stratton 1 hour ago

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We have tangled a bit with some other topics but in my view there's not a very strong meta consensus in either direction. References:

• On-Topicness of programming questions in general
• On-Topicness of Embedded Programming Questions
• Are questions about software/hardware primarily related to the Internet of Things on-topic?

Answer 1

This question is absolutely on-topic. I'm not sure if there are enough details for it to be answerable, so it might be unclear. But it is on-topic.

A question on this site doesn't have to be about “IoT specific tasks”. Whatever that means.

Rejecting a question about an Intel Edison just because the question doesn't involve the Internet (or whatever “IoT specific” means) would be like rejecting a question about romance in Star Wars on Science Fiction and Fantasy on the basis that romance is a distinct genre from SF, or rejecting a question about Bash on Unix & Linux on the basis that Bash runs natively on Windows 10. The Intel Edison is marketed as an IoT device, therefore any question about building it, setting it up, writing software for it, connecting to it, etc. is on-topic.

Generic questions that could be applied to any environment, in particular generic programming questions, may be off-topic. The point is, is this question relevant to IoT experts? For example, a generic C programming question is best answered by a C programmer, who may not be an IoT expert. A question about setting up a board is not generic. Every board is different. An expert on setting up an Edison board is, by definition, an expert on an aspect of IoT, so the question is firmly on-topic here.

The existence of other Stack Exchange sites is irrelevant to determining what is on-topic here. Please respect the community. Our site's topic isn't “IoT except for the parts that are covered elsewhere”.

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This site tries to unite end-users and developers. This is proving to be difficult cohabitation. The preponderance of end-user questions, combined with rejecting development questions for insufficient IoTness, makes this site off-putting for developers. Maybe it would be best to redefine the scope of this site as being for end-users. (I would be personally uninterested in this new scope. I'm making this proposal because I'm finding so little of interest on this site as it is, even though my job description says “IoT”.)

Answer 2

Questions actually about IoT Use Cases are fine.

The problem is that the question linked is not an IoT use case. It's merely a generic problem with the Edison board, a very generic (not to mention discontinued) Embedded Computer that may be used for IoT purposes among many others. The only thing possibly IoT related about this question is that the poster might hypothetically be hoping to use the board for something IoT-ish after they figure out how to make it work at all - but that IoT aspect doesn't figure in the question actually asked at all.

If the question had actually been about an IoT use case, for example trying to get mosquitto-client to run on it or something like that, it would be on topic. Further, an actual IoT question like that is likely to have some degree of commonality to problems and solutions on other platforms which might be used for IoT - so unlike with the cited question, "IoT" actually would be the appropriate subject area.

But a generic question about making a general purpose embedded board "go" is not an IoT question - it's an embedded question or an Intel Edison question and needs to be moved to a site appropriate to those topics within the stack exchange system, or deleted and posted on an appropriate forum or vendor site outside of it.

Defining our purpose is not only essential to the development of IoT Stack Exchange as a legitimate site in the SE network, rejecting questions that do not belong here is a service to their askers because asking them in the appropriate places for their actual topic matter will yield better answers from the wider community of those with relevant expertise, not only the IoT afficanados found in this small community. And in looking to more appopriate sites, askers are also more likely to discover existing questions and resources which can resolve their issue without a need to post at all.