Re: I found your forum doppelganger
Posted: 2013-12-23 07:58
If the time comes that this place no longer becomes interesting to visit, I will probably just start frequenting irc instead.
Randicus wrote:I am not presumptuous enough to speak for others, but I my mind, when the people in charge ignore the board, for all intents and purposes, it is abandoned.
From an administration point of view, yes, we have issues to resolve. However, for every difficult situation or troll post there are terrific contributions of insight or humor. As a community we can make these boards as great as we want them to be. One of the ways I do my part to help make this a better place is to put serious time and effort into answering questions...even if those questions seem "obvious" or "simple."Birdy wrote:Will forums.debian.net recover? I doubt it.
Regarding The Decline of this ForumBeginners face a language problem: they can't ask questions because they don't know what the words mean, they can't know what the words mean until they can successfully use the system, and they can't successfully use the system because they can't ask questions.
Thus far in my life I have found the above mentioned issues to be indicative of a flawed social and traditional educational system rather than specific to computing. What I have observed is that some people are unmotivated to do anything because that is the attitude they have inherited from their elders and/or peers.lou wrote: lack of interest in learning [GNU/] Linux...
'googling' is an alien concept...
instant gratification is the norm of the day
Free Software is more than just a price; it is an entire shift in the philosophical, legal, technological and ethical ways of computing. Since our [the Free Software community's] way of solving problems is antithetical to the way proprietary companies instruct their userbases how to use computers, there will be frustrations.lou wrote: Noobies pissing in the soup...
some of them have never been to debian.org,
know nothing of the Social Contract...
their Microsoft habits is all they practice.
That's an interesting way to look at it. I used to use a forum reader called Tapatalk until the developer purposefully broke the paid application to force people to "upgrade" to a new version.Bulkley wrote: I think a bigger threat is a combination of hand held devices and social media. People are gravitating away from desktops and traditional forums. Desktops and forums will be around for a while yet but they don't dominate computing like they did a couple of years ago.
You might find that the Debian mailing lists are interesting and full of knowledge.vbrummond wrote:If the time comes that this place no longer becomes interesting to visit, I will probably just start frequenting irc instead.
There is a "profile" of the kind of person who gets on the wrong side of some of the particularly grouchy forum regulars e.g. someone who arrives from one of the derivative distros, he wants the same tools/apps as that distro and complains that they aren't there, he is ungrateful, critical, demanding, wants spoon fed assistance... for years this site had a "system" where the users themselves would deal with such people through sheer force of personality. Whether good or bad those days are long gone./tmp wrote:Thus far in my life I have found the above mentioned issues to be indicative of a flawed social and traditional educational system rather than specific to computing. What I have observed is that some people are unmotivated to do anything because that is the attitude they have inherited from their elders and/or peers.
Through patience, a positive attitude and compassion we can help break this cycle.
Who said it would be a threat?Bulkley wrote:The doppelganger, as the OP calls it, only gets a couple of posts per day. I don't know why anyone sees it as a threat to this forum. I think a bigger threat is a combination of hand held devices and social media. People are gravitating away from desktops and traditional forums. Desktops and forums will be around for a while yet but they don't dominate computing like they did a couple of years ago.
I'm usually here 3 or more times every day, but I don't post as much as I used to.Birdy wrote:...You being an example for an exception of that general rule, saulgoode too, Computer Bob posts every other day too ... there are a few who are still around)...
There was a time when most newcomers to this forum came from a Windows environment and expected Windows features and solutions. We now see many, if not most, migrate in from Ubuntu and it's derivatives and the expectations are as you describe. We are also seeing users who have used very techy solutions elsewhere and immediately after installing Debian try to install software the hard way rather than just using apt-get. (It can be humorous watching the mental gymnastics some newcomers go through trying to install software when apt-get install foo would do it in two minutes.) There is the newbie who wants the latest version of everything available and turns his sources.list into a cross distro mess. And there is guy on a distro marathon; he who dies with the most distros wins.curtaintwitcher wrote:There is a "profile" of the kind of person who gets on the wrong side of some of the particularly grouchy forum regulars e.g. someone who arrives from one of the derivative distros, he wants the same tools/apps as that distro and complains that they aren't there, he is ungrateful, critical, demanding, wants spoon fed assistance... for years this site had a "system" where the users themselves would deal with such people through sheer force of personality. Whether good or bad those days are long gone.
mez wrote:There is no need for further discussion over this matter.