The Decline of this Forum

[Lou]

This used to be THE forum when it came to Debian.

I've been away for about 3 months and when i came back i found a different animal. Noobies pissing in the soup, lack of interest in learning Linux, some of them have never been to debian.org, know nothing of the Social Contract, 'googling' is an alien concept, instant gratification is the norm of the day, their Microsoft habits is all they practice.

Then we have the trolls and pseudo-geeks who know nothing of what they're talking about, to them 'apt-get' is a mystery, they don't know how to upgrade, they just want to tell their friends they are using Debian.

A quick glance of the questions gives you a good snapshot of the laziness. If they don't have a display manager or 20 icons on the desktop they are at a loss.
I notice the absence of old regulars and am beginning to understand why.

The mods are absent, the sub-forums for beginners are a waste of time, they can't read anyways.

Oh well, it was good till it lasted.

[roseway]

I suppose you're welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. As far as I'm concerned, the forum is a much better place to be than it was a few months ago - much less aggressive, more tolerant of people's limitations. Newbies are guided and not bullied. A much better place.

[nadir]

[the forum is...] more tolerant of people's limitations.

That is correct.

[RitaSkeeter]

Yup, back in the days of Lavene, hallowed be her name and memory, it was more like a big family; we had our squabbles and disagreements from time to time, but the regulars were known to and respected by each other. A new member that showed up and for whatever reason didn't exhibit due diligence was administered a dose of "tough love", usually by a grizzled old-timer. That person then had a choice....get with the program or stomp away; either choice was acceptable. With Lavene's cool and steady hand on the tiller, we the members enjoyed a high degree of freedom, while at the same time having a rich trove of accumulated knowledge and experience at our finger-tips. Lavene guided our "family" through the inevitable tea-cup tempests, ego-exercises and occasional drive-by troll attacks and kept the place running clean and true. This board enjoyed a very clean signal-to-noise ratio.

Fast forward a few years and everything has changed. Jeroen and Lavene have moved on, for whatever reasons, and been replaced by a new crew. This needn't have been a bad thing...all things change and evolve over time, after all; but the downfall here started when some folks decided that they would make the forum over into a nicer, more politically correct and "newb-friendly©" place. It started innocently enough, with a dedicated Beginner's section, where new rules were in effect....terse links to wikis and such were discouraged, Read the Fine Manual replies were strictly verboten...all replies had to be marathons of spoon-feeding, hand-holding and diaper changing, broken up into bite-sized copy and paste answers. The grizzled old-timers were repeatedly scolded and belittled when their tried-and-true methods offended the mewling hordes. So, said experienced and knowledgeable people either faded away or merely avoided the Gerber section. This may have stabilized things more-or-less, but suddenly, the new rules started being enforced all over the forum, and more experienced old-timers left. Then a troll showed up and went on a multi-account rampage with complete freedom and impunity; any member that tried to deal with the troll in any way was scolded, and when some members lost their tempers, they were banned, all the while the troll with his alt-accounts tra-la-laa-a-d and pranced around the forum until he tired of his sport and faded away. Now we have a board where trolls and lazy people are welcomed, drive-by moderation is dispensed with a manure spreader, posts are randomly edited and even deleted without reasons being given, in short, a fascist troll-heaven consisting of little except white noise and static, with the blind leading the lame with often incredibly bad advice and a resulting virtually absent signal lost amid a cacophony of noise. So very sad and so very completely unnecessary.

[BowCatShot]

Lavene? Good riddance.

[smallchange]

I suppose you're welcome to your opinion, but I don't share it. As far as I'm concerned, the forum is a much better place to be than it was a few months ago - much less aggressive, more tolerant of people's limitations. Newbies are guided and not bullied. A much better place.

Newbies are guided by the blind for pages and pages of ridiculous attempts to resolve an issue that is simple to a knowledgeable person. Serious questions are few and far between. Actual answers are almost non-existent.

[jheaton5]

Yup, back in the days of Lavene, hallowed be her name and memory, it was more like a big family; we had our squabbles and disagreements from time to time, but the regulars were known to and respected by each other. A new member that showed up and for whatever reason didn't exhibit due diligence was administered a dose of "tough love", usually by a grizzled old-timer. That person then had a choice....get with the program or stomp away; either choice was acceptable. With Lavene's cool and steady hand on the tiller, we the members enjoyed a high degree of freedom, while at the same time having a rich trove of accumulated knowledge and experience at our finger-tips. Lavene guided our "family" through the inevitable tea-cup tempests, ego-exercises and occasional drive-by troll attacks and kept the place running clean and true. This board enjoyed a very clean signal-to-noise ratio.

Fast forward a few years and everything has changed. Jeroen and Lavene have moved on, for whatever reasons, and been replaced by a new crew. This needn't have been a bad thing...all things change and evolve over time, after all; but the downfall here started when some folks decided that they would make the forum over into a nicer, more politically correct and "newb-friendly©" place. It started innocently enough, with a dedicated Beginner's section, where new rules were in effect....terse links to wikis and such were discouraged, Read the Fine Manual replies were strictly verboten...all replies had to be marathons of spoon-feeding, hand-holding and diaper changing, broken up into bite-sized copy and paste answers. The grizzled old-timers were repeatedly scolded and belittled when their tried-and-true methods offended the mewling hordes. So, said experienced and knowledgeable people either faded away or merely avoided the Gerber section. This may have stabilized things more-or-less, but suddenly, the new rules started being enforced all over the forum, and more experienced old-timers left. Then a troll showed up and went on a multi-account rampage with complete freedom and impunity; any member that tried to deal with the troll in any way was scolded, and when some members lost their tempers, they were banned, all the while the troll with his alt-accounts tra-la-laa-a-d and pranced around the forum until he tired of his sport and faded away. Now we have a board where trolls and lazy people are welcomed, drive-by moderation is dispensed with a manure spreader, posts are randomly edited and even deleted without reasons being given, in short, a fascist troll-heaven consisting of little except white noise and static, with the blind leading the lame with often incredibly bad advice and a resulting virtually absent signal lost amid a cacophony of noise. So very sad and so very completely unnecessary.

Well said, Rita.

[Troll]

lack of interest in learning Linux

This is probably due to the Linux fragmentation - Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuSe. Linux has lost its branding, and now developers are targeting their applications at distro's, rather Linux and its libraries.
Distro's also insist on modifying applications they ship - usually making them incompatible with the original. Open up your package manager and take a look at the versions of your software, I bet you 90% of them have been touched by your distributor.. Now go on Google and look at 5 different tutorials for Apache. You'll find a different way for each one, due to differences in distro version. This is what destroyed Linux's chance at being a popular operating system. Linux does not have uniform, unlike operating systems such as Windows, Mac, and FreeBSD.. and even that has fragmentation with its 3 variants.

"some of them have never been to debian.org"

Well, Debian is not Linux. Its an organization that have built and modified their own Linux system.

A quick glance of the questions gives you a good snapshot of the laziness.

Most people come from an operating system that make functions obvious. Unfortunately Linux developers assume the user knows everything, and does not make their application user-friendly, and Linux documentation is the worst in the industry in my opinion. This is why Linux never kicked on as a Desktop operating system. People don't want to have to consult documentation every time they want to do something, especially when documentation is 50 pages long.

If they don't have a display manager or 20 icons on the desktop they are at a loss.

GUI's were created for user convenience. What would you rather do? Type tar xvf archive.tar /home/user/Desktop/ or *click click click*?
I know what I'd rather do. I have better things to do with my time than sitting at a 1970's terminal interface.

I notice the absence of old regulars and am beginning to understand why.

This is the nature of life. People are always coming and going.

[renatov]

I don't post here very often, but I read this forum a lot and I agree with you about the forum declination. In my opinion, recently there has been a mass migration from ubuntu to Debian (after that crap ubuntu 11.04 was released) and now the forum is full of former ubuntu users that keep their same old lazy and annoying ubuntu habits when posting here. They use this forum as their first way to solve their problems, they don't use google or man pages at all and some times they don't even read what people are saying in their own topics! Of courser it does not apply to all former ubuntu users, but this description suits most of them.

If I'm correct, then it's up to you to don't let this forum declinate. If you, more active members, don't tolerate "ubuntu behavior" in this Debian forum, then these annoying, noisy and stupid ubuntu users shall go back to their holes, in ubuntu forums, where this kind of behavior is largely tolerated.

[Troll]

these annoying, noisy and stupid ubuntu users shall go back to their holes

Errr, I don't see how a distribution channel has anything to do with it. Where all running Linux.

[renatov]

these annoying, noisy and stupid ubuntu users shall go back to their holes

Errr, I don't see how a distribution channel has anything to do with it. Where all running Linux.

Have you ever ended in an ubuntu forum after a google search? If yes, you might understand what I'm saying. There are a lot of annoying noobs there doing a lot of annoying noob things and no one complains about that. It's just tolerated. And it's this "ubuntu behavior" that I'm saying that I have been seeing here lately after the mass migration I mentioned.

ps: of course it does not apply to all former ubuntu users, but it suits most of them, and it's contributing to this forum declination, IMHO.

[bmc5311]

these annoying, noisy and stupid ubuntu users shall go back to their holes

Errr, I don't see how a distribution channel has anything to do with it. Where all running Linux.

brand new handle just for this thread?
another example of how this place has gone downhill.

[Troll]

ps: of course it does not apply to all former ubuntu users, but it suits most of them, and it's contributing to this forum declination, IMHO.

This forum is declining because Debian is declining.
Debian 6 is suppose to be an operating system? Man, theres like nothing in it! Go into System > Administration and theres like 1 thing there! Then try and install something off a CD and default system settings won't allow you. So much for freedom. Theres not even a GUI network-manager. I can do more in Debian 5 than I can in Debian 6.
Who can be bothered sitting at a terminal interface digging away at config files every time they want to do something, seriously.. its 2011.

brand new handle just for this thread? another example of how this place has gone downhill.

Stop sulking because you can't handle my valid point.

[bmc5311]

brand new handle just for this thread? another example of how this place has gone downhill.

Stop sulking because you can't handle my valid point.

i'm not sulking, your point isn't valid, and why are you hiding behind a brand spanking new handle?
you want to use ubuntu, great, then post on the ubuntu forums.
have general questions about linux, great there are dozens of forums for that.
this is supposed to be a d e b i a n forum.

[Troll]

i'm not sulking, your point isn't valid, and why are you hiding behind a brand spanking new handle?

I donno what your talking about bro?!

this is supposed to be a d e b i a n forum.

Yeah, well if you haven't noticed, Debian is just a software distributor and not actually Debian made software. What it distributes is a Linux system. Ubuntu is a Linux system, just like Debian, therefore the two correlate.
The more you fragment Linux, the more it dies.