How do I connect with a computer in a network sharing the same IP

Question

OK, I'm probably the worst judge of on-topic-ness here, but I do feel that this one ought to be OK. He is obviously using a home router, but his question is more about protocol operation than "how do I make my home network do X?"

Answer 1

Part of the beauty of the SE is that the community makes decisions for their own sites, so feel free to express your views as it may change how we run the site.

This specific site was created as a place for network professionals to interact. While we are welcome at ServerFault (which is targeted at professional systems administrators), it isn't known as a "networking" destination and most network professionals don't find much benefit in sifting through all the server issues to find the occasional network question (at least on a regular basis).

In this case, as Mike has pointed out, this question is actually off topic because it violates two of our distinctions between on/off topic.

While the concepts of the question may not be explicitly off topic, in this case it is the context that is important. While some of the bigger and older SE sites may let something like this slide occasionally, we aren't there yet. There are two primary reasons that I believe makes this question not fit on this site currently:

1. We are trying to grow the community, but to do so we need to make sure we continue to maintain quality that will attract the individuals at which this site is targeted.
2. As members of the larger SE community, we want users to find answers that help them. Speaking for myself, when I answer a question here, I make assumptions about the knowledge level of the audience. When I answer on another site such as SuperUser, I don't have the same assumptions. In this case, this may result in answers here that are not as helpful for the OP as the same question asked on SuperUser.

Answer 2

Regardless of whether the user is at home or at work...

Quoting the help center, on / off topic link...

Note: All questions about RESIDENTIAL/HOME networking and CONSUMER-grade equipment, are explicitly OFF-topic.

and

Off-topic: Users / Customers of Enterprise or Service Provider Netrworks

Questions from end-users of enterprise/service provider networks are off-topic. There is no point in assisting an end-user since there isn't anything they can do (if the problem is a corporate networking or ISP issue). If the problem is the user's, they should ask on Super User