Linux Support Network...
 

I just setup a bbs network dedicated to linux support and I am looking for users to post into different conferences / areas to help populate the board. The board is not specific to one particular Linux Distribution, but several hundred! Many people will Thank You for the work you do. I am looking forward to all of you who use the board. Please, when posting please post in the correct distribution conference and / areas. If your topic is about Fedora / Hardware Please post to the Fedora (group) / Hardware (area)...That's how the board is setup.

<<Mod Edit: Removed advertising link>>

Thank you for supporting Linux, and my bbs.

-Brian

You should point your users to this website instead. This avoids duplication of effort.

Welcome to LQ!!

If you want to advertise here, please see the links at the bottom of the page.

thanks

As you are looking for members and not technical help I have moved this to General. Point to note, we have gained almost half a million members in 9 years. With the plethora of Linux help sites and IRC channels, what exactly will make your BBS stand out and have people come to it? Who's to say it won't enormously duplicate all the other ones on the net and just join the noise? - serious question, btw.

Don't want to flame or anything, but what makes you think you aren't already doing the same with this site? Um, I think every *Major Linux distribution* has it's own support forum, and for those who do, would probably appreciate it more to have additional help supporting their Linux Distribution. It helps bring more computer users into linux, especially using THEIR distribution).

Don' take it the wrong way, but linuxquestions.org is NOT the 'GOTO site' for linux support either (you may have more users here than I), but keep one thing in mind, just like myself, you started out too, and by no stretch of the imagination is this the 'GOTO' site for support.

Did you ever think, one day, all my information would be 'gone forever'? That may be just why I am a part of this, too. Don't think you will never 'lose' your site one day.

There's several hundred support sites for linux. Even people don't use it (linux) at all still support it in some way or another. So, with that said, did I answer your question to satisfactory?

Thanks for reading,
b

Wow, touchy. It's a stock question to anyone who is trying to reinvent the wheel. You are right, there are many many boards, mailing lists and whatnot out there. My question still stands: what are you doing that will distinguish you from the rest?

And we are a very GOTO site - usually top of Google for Linux questions and we are the biggest non-distro specific forum out there as well as predating a good number of sites (we are 9 years old after all).

I'm somehow reminded of an episode back in the 70's--I forget the exact context, but the event was a mass layoff by Boeing in Seattle. (At the time, there were billboards there with the admonition: "Would the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights.")

We hired a few of the displace engineers, but NONE of them survived. My take-away message: While there are periodic surpluses of Engineers, there is seldom a surplus of GOOD Engineers.

Lawyers, Linux Distros, Web sites-----same message.

Yes, there are lots of Linux help sites---most are useless. (But then a majority of ALL websites are useless--or nearly so.) When you start up a new (anything) you need to benchmark against the top 5%. Nobody cares how you compare to the bottom or the middle.

LQ titles and post count aside (I have nothing to gain by saying this---I speak only as a user), I came to LQ because of questions that noone else was able or willing to answer. Very often, when researching a problem, I do Google searches. It is quite rare to find a general-purpose site with information that does not already exist at LQ. I'm not planning on starting a site anytime soon (although I really should update the one I have.) but--if I were--I would probably make it fit some niche not already well-filled. I cannot imagine trying to compete with LQ.

c

No offence to this site, but I see that you 'hard coded' the logo's of the different distributions that all of your members are using...

Not a great idea, because if one wanted to, they could specifically target anyone of these user's for a bad virus. Why would someone on a debian distro, want to do something like that anyway? Pretty sad if you ask me. That's a pretty dumb idea, but then again, I'm only a 'linux noob'

AND QUITE IN-EXPERIENCED IF YOU ASK ME :( SAD

b

"Jester" would be a good name for a troll ... like "Big Hairy Thing That Hides Under Bridges and Jumps Out at Passing Wayfarers".

Mmm ... is that a tautology? Can you be wayfaring if you're not passing? A "stationery wayfarer" could be over-nighting in an Inn, 'spose. Mulled ale, a roaring log fire, a dirty night outside and travellers' tales inside. "That's a dirty dog to send a Knight out on"! I wanna go there!

Anyway competition is healthy, part of the great rambling anarchic Internet, keeps complacency at bay and keeps us on our metaphorical toes. I like systems with low barriers for entry.

Good luck to you, Brian :)

Calm down, dude. No one here is looking for a fight but you.

By the way, no, those logos are based on your user-agent string and are set on a per-post basis - switch to another distro or different OS, make a post, and you'll see it change. And revealing that you are using Mandriva hardly the opens you up the way revealing that you are using - say - Windows does. :P

OK, please folks, (all members) let's not spiral this rapidly downward any further/faster than it has already gotten.

'Can' the troll comments please.

Sasha

Good point. Brian, I'm not looking for a fight here, my questions are genuine. The reason I ask is that let's say you get a hard core of 100 people who join your site and cme to rely on it for answers and for a sense of community. You decide, hypothetically speaking, that you're after a 1000 members to make it worth your while and close things down as a waste of time. Your members are then left high and dry.

Speaking from experience, both on and off line, a number of new ventures start every day of the week. They often close because the expectation does not match the reality and this always gives someone a bad taste in their mouth, for want of a better word. As a community founder, you will have the responsibility for monitoring it every day and for fixing problems, even if the sun is shining or you have a date or whatever. Jeremy, our founder, can and is paged at any time day or night 365 days of the year. Is this something that you would want to yourself? Just like the guy who starts his own business and then can't take a vacation for 3 years because the business must come first, this is what you are setting yourself up for.

The best analogy to use is a distro. You may decide that you want to start one, but if it doesn't do something significantly different to the existing ones, no one is going to want to use it. As well, you then have to maintain, patch and update it frequently as new threats and exploits come out. Do you want to do that?

Finally, in reference to your comment about distro icons making us all vulnerable to exploits, for the purposes of this post I have made it look as though I am Gentoo so the Debian exploits can't get me. Does this make me safer?

Actually, it is.

I respect that message...Spoken like a true patriot. Reason this all came up was simply because of an ad that I posted that was rejected and imho, did not contain anything that would offend anyone here. I will take it as it currently stands. You can close this topic if you wish, and should..But I will leave that up to you guys. Take care.
EOE
-Brian

Nope, this is remaining open. I am sorry that you are not able to have a mature discussion about this, all of the questions posted are reasonable and are definitely something to think about if anyone is considering a new distro or forum/BBS/etc.