Hello,

I've noticed lately (or maybe it's just my wicked perception) that there are some persons around asking questions that are very specific to this distro, and that probably no one else can answer, but a Gentoo user.

Most of this posts end in the newbie subforum which means that they will be lost without response unless I or some other Gentoo user manages to fish them before they go away from the top of the list.

I can't measure the volume of the Gentoo related traffic and I don't know if it justifies a new subforum or not, I'll leave that to you. I just wanted to drop a note here calling your attention so you can consider the option to implement a new subforum for Gentoo specific stuff, just like there are forums for slackware, suse or ubuntu (even rock has one and its user base is ridiculous compared to Gentoo).

Some recent threads that are very specific to Gentoo:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=gentoo
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=gentoo
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=gentoo
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=gentoo

Some others where Gentoo has some relevance:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=gentoo
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ghlight=gentoo

I've seen many more over the last weeks, this was just from the first page of a quick search.

If this is implemented I would report every related post that I find so it's moved there. After a while users will start to use it hopefully.

Cheers.

The stickied thread at the top of the Distributions forum is as relevant now as it was when I wrote it in December 2006: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...distro-513876/

I think Gentoo didn't want to "officially" participate in the creation of a subforum/associate their name with LQ/some other reason. And like XavierP says, it's a requirement.

Very sorry for not having read that. I completely missed it because the number of distros is that big that the posts have been displaced to the bottom, and for some reason my brain didn't catch it.

I will read your post there and I will investigate a bit. I will speak to my partners at the Gentoo forums as well and see if any of them reminds anything about this.

Thanks a lot for your quick answer and for all the pointers.

Regards.

No worries. I doubt that the Gentoovians will recall, though (IIRC) the Gentoo forum started up pretty much at the same time as them turning down Jeremy's offer of a sub-forum. Some distros don't see a benefit to participating here as they prefer to centralise their users around their own sites - and that's cool. We're here if they want us.

I think that it's a good thing to have a proper forum, and the Gentoo one is amazing not only for it's amount of traffic, but also because it's a huge knowledge database, not only about Gentoo but also about Linux in general.

However, that the users come around here or into linuxforums.org is unavoidable, just because if you don't know a thing about linux the logical thing to search for is "linux forum". That's why having a section for a given distro is always a good thing, even if we already have our own forums.

That's besides the fact that LQ is a fantastic community with a great user base, which is yet another plus. I've already read the other post, and a couple of threads about Gentoo that it links to and now I have a clearer view about what the issue is.

So now I am going to do the other part of the job. I will discuss this with the rest of gentoo moderators on the private moderation forum and see if they still think that this wouldn't be a good thing. Sincerely, I can only see pros. The only argument against this that I can think of is someone arguing that segregation of the user base is a bad thing, which seems rather pointless to me taking into consideration that Gentoo has a huge user base and an overwhelming amount of traffic on their forums.

Most of the people seeking help about Gentoo specific stuff here or in linuxforums are probably newbies that already have an account here and haven't signed in forumg.gentoo.org because either they don't know it's there or just because of laziness. So I don't think that our own forum is going to suffer if LQ opens a Gentoo subforum. On the contrary, I think that it will be a good way to "capture" those users that are desperately in need of help, and that would just surrender if they can't get it. They will eventually start using the Gentoo forum in conjunction with the LQ one, which is a good thing for both.

I am simply a forum moderator at forums.gentoo.org so I have really no authority to speak in the name of the Gentoo project, I am going to start a thread on the moderation forum where moderators, administrators and developers can participate, and see what happens.

Cheers and thanks for all the useful info.

Cool. If the Gentoo forums do want a sub-forum here they will be welcomed, if not, we'll still provide Gentoo help as we've always done. I can understand why they would be against the idea - a forum tends to have it's own personality, hopefully LQ's will mesh with Gentoo's.

NeddySeagoon (administrator at forums.gentoo.org) and kalos (moderator) are willing to help me in a Gentoo subforum if it comes to be. I see that Neddy already signed here on LQ

So we got the human power to give some support for Gentoo users here. That's covered. I haven't received any comments against this initiative either, which is a good thing.

What else would we need to make this support "official"? The creator of the distro is gone from the project. Gentoo is governed by a council. Would it suffice if one of the members of the council contact you? As said, I am just a forum staffer with no authority to speak officially on behalf of the Gentoo project.

Your best bet at this point is to mail Jeremy. Let him know that you have backing and see what he thinks would be appropriate. And thanks for doing this - not many people put their money where their mouth is

Mmm, money? Maybe there's something I missed, in the post you linked above you state that:

I will contact Jeremy tomorrow anyway, it's too late around here. Thanks again for everything.

Cheers.

Ah, you know not the ways of UK slang and sayings "Putting your money where your mouth is" means to back up what you say with actions, which is exactly what you did.

I learn something new every day hehe, thank you

i92guboj, there is indeed no monetary component to any of the distro forums here at LQ. Please contact me offline for further details on getting a Gentoo forum setup. Thanks.

--jeremy

What ??? - an end to all those "why no gentoo forum" threads ...

I've always thought forums.gentoo was a better place for (semi-)technical queries - it's always been a very good resource. But I'm an irregular visitor there these days so might be off-base.
If folks are prepared to help set up here, good luck to all.

That's true, however, the key point here is not to move Gentoo stuff into LQ. The fact is that people already ask Gentoo questions here. And no one can control that. All I want is to put these threads into a single container, so anyone that's capable to help a bit with Gentoo specific stuff will have an easier time finding these questions to help with them.

Thank you