Having decided late in life to keep my pie hole shut when it comes to certain toxic posters and posts.

Mostly in general but I get it some times in technical also.

I could never understand having a link in signature pointing to opinions held by a responder in a technical answer. But then. I am not a insecure type of person.
Or have agendas I wish to take over the planet with.

I am not sure if this site can take credit for the recent uptake of discord on this forum. Because out side forces breed stress. Which breeds discord and attitudes onto a keyboard. The net is getting to be a rough place.

Plus, many many many more folks are deciding to try this thing called Gnu/Linux out to see what the fuss is all about. Like learning any new language. They are lost in the woods and understand nothing any body is shouting at them.

"Follow the yellow brick road"

Which I equate with a RTFM reply. Or,

"Such and such Linux is best and you should try/blow away your install/forgetaboutit and run it.

Which I equate with , I don't know the answer but I am a good cheer leader. Without the Poms Poms.

My answers for problems I do not have any idea how to answer but wish to help anyways is to supply search engine results to threads that are available with the same problem as the person here asking the question. Instead of saying "man <insert linux application name here>"

Because I was a clueless computer back in 2008.

Gruff responses is what keeps me from starting threads. I don't equate ignorance or being clueless with laziness. Living on the Mexican border has taught me this. So I point to certain search
techniques that hopefully help a clueless person learn how to find their own answer.

Rambling, muttering off .

My practical/pragmatic suggestions are put these in a sticky and title the thread "How to find your own answer when you have a Linux problem"

I know. Nobody reads stickies. But it will give the RTFM and the So and so Linux is best posters, something to link to and reply with some meat in it.

Link
Link1
link2
Type your question in front of the word site link3

That is my feedback. It is the best I can do today.

There was an unwritten, arbitrarily-applied rule that I've seen invoked against a couple of, uhm, problematic accounts:

Maybe bring that back and formalize it?

Hmm, I do occasionally write something like "Take a look at man so&so", perhaps I should just ignore the post(?), & carry on browsing through the New Posts, & just leave the forum.

See, stress. Nothing can be done about it. You know I did not even come close to suggesting that bro. Unless, you are just teasing me <hattip/grin?>.

Even though I am tall. Stuff still flies over my head.

I think we're referring to, say, replies that consist exclusively of a link to the Advanced BASH Scripting HOWTO, with no further explanation. Which is something that I've actually seen recently.

This is certainly something we're interested in hearing feedback on.

--jeremy

not so much language really

If someone is using google translate that is normally easy to spot when combined with the user name

it is more some not being able to even do any basic research first
( not just here but at university also , my nephew the new Assistant prof. also sees this in the classroom)

now some of this is just not knowing WHAT to ask
so new that the terms are not familiar and the " you mean i have to TYPE!!!! " sets in

but even my Mom the mostly computer illiterate can pose a good HELP !!! question

as to solving that ???
your guess is as good as mine


you can point a horse to water but MAKE him/her drink ???????

Oh, I see. You're saying that some of the discussions that are going on in General risk making people from many cultures and many continents feel unwelcome. I agree.

Yep! Just joking, my friend.

Sefyir in post #5 brings up an EXCELLENT point, and one that dovetails nicely with the other "we're-sick-of-homework-questions" type things that have come up in the past.
We've all seen/experienced this, and some posters get fairly nasty during this spiral. How about setting a number of times people say "look, we'd love to help, but you need to give us details before we can". Something like 3 or so...then anyone can report the thread for that rule violation, and have it closed, and a message PM'ed to the OP, saying "We will reopen this thread, but you need to answer the questions that were asked. Reply to this when you're ready", and move on. The folks trying to help wouldn't get frustrated with 20+ replies with answers like "I have Linux", or "why does it matter what kind of connection the printer makes? Just help me!"....

And post #10 is a great example of what needs to be 'detoxed'. Off-topic, and not helpful to the thread, and dragging in something not even RELATED to the discussion (the Athiest group). No one suggested banning the groups, or moderating their content. There are MANY posts that reply to posters with "I don't know, but good luck!", "You may want to change your user name", etc., which only remove threads from the zero-reply list for no reason, and makes it harder for the poster to get help. Like dugan said in post #17, there comes a point when someone needs to contribute...if 80-90% of someones posts are "Welcome!" messages or off-topic, then something needs to be said to such folks. This goes towards increasing signal-to-noise in the forums.

I'll again bring up (since there are new moderators on board now), the first-five-post moderation for new users. Blatant homework questions, requests for "I need link to the linux", and "I need a script..email to me here..." wouldn't ever be seen. Responders wouldn't ever get frustrated, and the posters in question would HAVE TO interact with the moderators who could respond as friendly/gently as they saw fit, and guide these users to be better...making them happy with the results of their posts, since they'd actually get HELP.

That would improve the forum but it would put a heavy load on the moderators, who probably have enough on their plate already. I'm always suspicious of solutions that involve somebody else doing something. A possible wrinkle on this would be to appoint a couple of extra "newbie moderators" who would not have general authority but would instead have the specific task of moderating initial posts by newbies and helping them get bedded in. It wouldn't necessarily have to be five posts either. If the first post after the introductory one was written sensibly and intelligently, that poster's name could be put forward immediately for full inclusion.

I agree. I do not know if “suppleness” is the virtue that I want to dwell on, but anything which adds rigidity to the forum-organization or might even result in an agreed phraseology will weaken LQ. I will contradict myself, below *). Adding to the workload of a few moderators would be such an ill-advised measure.

Most “experienced” LQ regulars should be up to this task without having received special authority.
Not sure. Any first post is special and IMO should not have too much influence in the long term. Mark the fifth (or another) post and thus give everybody opportunity to give a thumbs up. Any moderator could, at the next occasion and even if the poster has published more content in the meantime, validate the community's verdict, based on her/his own trust and investigation. But these are technicalities.

As regards the “General” Forum, I consider it a nice-to-have lively place apart that has its charm but does not contribute to the overall value of LQ. If it is considered the principal source of trouble, a temporary closure is just one possible reaction. Chances are that the disagreement will then be directed against posters in the other forums, but there, conflicts are easier counteracted.

*) (here) There is a discussion site that I have frequented a lot in past years, where the “General” forum is divided up in many sub-forums. This helps to mark as off-topic a lot more discussions which then have to be moved to their own sub-division but conflicts are better avoided. Of course, “General” is then no longer an adequate name for the forum.

One thought about the cultural stuff, the many continents and different origins of the LQ readers.
There is only 1 thread in General that I keep following (or not); otherwise I fear and actively ignore this forum. Part of my uneasiness originates from my missing knowledge of the English language which may concern only nuances, singular words or just their rarest uses. But these, more frequently than you guess, lead to misunderstandings. For the same reason, and although I am easily challenged, I have to abstain from responding in those discussions. If you consider further dividing up the General forum, maybe discuss language/culture-specific sub-divisions. *EVERYBODY* and even the less intellectually challenged could learn something new from lurking and mingling casually ...

Ω. I should be outside, cutting down a tree or cleaning the hen house. Sorry, if this is all bull.

You are not really answering to the post that you quote from. The quoted line starts “Outside of that thread”, and this is the part which carries most of the meaning. We may discuss topics that are present but should not be, but certainly not all those that are currently absent on LQ. You could be more authentic complaining about the absence of religion in a technical forum. Why are you not eating more frogs, over there? I consider this a major flaw of your society, but have I ever complained?

I'm only talking about for registered new users, for posts outside of the "Introduction" forum, and only for the first five posts. Just popping the message open, and looking at it for "it's not spam/advertising, and not a request for a handout, so forward it goes". Would take a few seconds per post to determine such things. And having a canned response for those that don't move along would be trivial too.
Exactly, and I've suggested that in the past too (the newbie-moderator thing). And I'd have no problems moving someone along earlier...the five-post thing was a suggestion.

I'm not saying something rigid, but want to leave a LOT of leeway for the moderators to do as they want to. For example, if someone posts "I went to the Debian site and can't for the life of me, figure out how to get the latest ISO, or even which one I need for <xxx pc/cpu>..anyone have an idea?", would indicate they've TRIED, and are stuck/hesitant to do the wrong thing. That would be a valid question, in my opinion.

Versus something like "Where to be getting the linux? Give link soonest"......
The intro post, no...no bearing at all. The community-driven 'thumbs up/down' for a user/posts would be EXCELLENT.
Agreed, but I do think that "General" has a place.
There is a thread (somewhere, probably in General), where people can ask questions about English. Perhaps a separate forum where folks can be directed, where they can ask why saying xxxx was a bad idea, or "I'm trying to convey yyyy in my language/country, but don't know how...any ideas?" You're right about nuances in language and culture, but unless folks KNOW (and can ASK without getting roasted), it causes bad feeling all around.