This forum is indeed one of the best computer related forums I have been to. Nothing I have seen can compare to it.
But, its not the forum thats great. Anyone can do and download Vbulliten, Yabb, or something similar and make an identical copy of this forums structure. No, the forum does not matter. Its the people that matter and make the forum what it is. Aside from all of the bad things that could come of this sob-story section, there could be one good part:
If the member has given up, and called it quits, it would make it a lot easier for anyone else who is bored enough to read, to figure out what may be the problem. And I don't mean to use this as a way to help the users, but mainly finding the users problem and letting others see what they may have done wrong.
The point of the success stories section is probably to show what people have done and used linux for, and how easy it was for them. If I wanted to setup a certain distro on a weird hardware configuration to edit video or play games, I bet that I could easily find a few threads by users who have done something very similar to what I want to do, and think to myself "wow, it looks easy, I guess I should try it then".
But we have no dedicated subsection to put all of the soapbox related stories or linux installation failures. Ive been here for two years, I'm sure most of the members here wouldn't cause any problems. Before we rush out and buy hardware, maybe it would be best to look and see if anyone has had problems with certain video tuner cards, sound cards, modems etc...
Linux is like Lego's. There are probably millions of different ways you can put it together, but sometimes the pieces wont fit right and end up causing a big headache.
Real life example:
I'm interested in cars, computers, and nothing else. When I not messing with linux or playing games in windows, I'm messing with cars. Its very helpful to have forums to review car performance parts and say "oh yeah it worked great, bolted right in no problem!". But that only covers part of it. Only having a success story section is like pulling the wool over someones eyes. Things, in reality, don't work 100% perfectly all the time.
Thats why I feel much better reading a site that allows negative and positive reviews, organized into two sections. I can read about some guy who said it wouldn't work because his aircontitioner was in the way, and had to drill a new bolt hole. I can read about some dummy who is angrily pounding away on the keyboard and ignore that post. I can also read about how something needed a shim or different sized bolt that was never included in the kit.
You can always choose to ignore the negative forum, or not. Depends on the people. But I really do think, with the right attitude, this type of subforum can be productive to helping people with linux.
Did that make any sense for anyone else? Sometimes I'm really bad at putting my thoughts into words
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