Best threads on every topic?
 

Just a mini-poll: what are the most common newbie questions and what are the threads with best answers? I think they should be remembered by members, so we can answer with link to best thread when we have no will to write better (which is hard).

My proposals:
how to change root password without knowing one:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=293477
rate: excellent, no point in writing better.

why configure fails with c compiler cannot create executables:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=416266
rate: best I've found, rather good.

I don't know if this is very usefull... Why does firefox have tabs and why does LQ have search?

I did the search. Neither of the threads was first in the search results. I spent ~10 minutes trying to find best threads on topic. And as I've seen in search about 'how to force newbies to search/read FAQ', pure 'try using search' reply is not encouraged here. And there are no ideas of technical measures to force newbies to search. So I think it would be convenient to have a link set for 'If you had searched, you would have found this' quick replies.

I rather like the idea. As a matter of fact, I have been thinking along those lines lately.

However, I don't know how this would differ from a "Wiki FAQ". Is there already one? Else one could be indeed written. Of course, we can't force members to read a FAQ, but those that answer would be free, and encouraged, to point to such a resource. To that end, the FAQ could be written as a special thread, each post in it having the question as a title, and the answer bellow; thus, we can point to a specific question/answer using the '#n' link appearing for each post.

Yves.

Information like this would indeed best be kept in the Wiki, so it could be maintained in a collaborative manner.

--jeremy

Sorry, you must have misunderstood raskin, I was not referring to you searching if this had been asked, I meant we ourselves can search for the best answer to our problem. But since Jeremy suggested to make this a wiki thing, I have absolutely no problems with it.

On many topics, a wiki page could be setup with a summary of information related to it along with links to relevant threads. That way, a user can go directly to the problem rather than reading a dozen threads where, in most cases, the OP never replied if it worked or not.

Well, looks like ideal world.. Where all newbies do search and read not the first five links. And also they check wiki. But wait, in ideal world in gcc+ubuntu thread "similar threads" should show anything but gcc-3.4.3 topic as first result. That's why I think that for popular topics we should do something to find best thread, not some..

About wiki - well, in ideal world.. We have already wonderful thread on changing root password. Checked the wiki. Relevant page is headed "Single-user mode" and gives way less valuable information. That shows that for some (psychological?) reasons wiki is filled less. Maybe button 'add this post to wiki ..' would help. What I think should be done for going one step towards ideal world is to let members help newbies with most relevant information while spending least efforts. For example, if I post I can post some logical part of solution and ask to post the results, hoping that afterwards either I will post more or someone will continue topic - I don't have to do a lot at once. In wiki I feel like leaving the article in such state is not good, but if I don't feel like writing whole at once - I don't start at all. So I have tens of threads where I helped to solve the problem and zero wiki articles. And I see a very good howto in forum, and just one sentence in wiki. My question is - how to deal with what we have, and my proposal is to find (at least) best threads on popular topics. If someone wants to create some wiki-howtos there will be an option of not starting from nothing, but from the best of achieved. By the way, if it were possible to copy markup and paste entire posts in wiki, it would be easier..

By the way, I found a good thread about reinstalling grub using chroot technology:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=462538