Maybe it's just me, but things seem to be deteriorating.

Maybe jeremy wants a social networking site rather than the technical resource it was when I first needed it.

I don't need "What are you doing now" drivel or mindless polls.
Might be time to move on.

I agree

If you look back through the LQ history, General has always been this way. It is designed for it. As with anything on the internet (or on TV, for that matter) if you don't think it is of interest to you, don't look at it. These things die off if you don't view or post to them.

Interesting take on things. It would be a pity but of course you're free to go. Please try to see things in perspective.

- Deterioration implies activity in /General is asymmetrical to that in the rest of LQ. Even without readily available metrics you can see that is not the case.

- The /General forum was established for those that can't stand the pressure of answering technical questions all the time. It was not created for members to post solely in, more like the equivalent of a water cooler. And I don't know any places where people appreciate it if one hangs around at the water cooler all day long without doing anything else. LQ is one single community but built by people from diverse cultures, interests, age groups and water intake requirements. It may take some members more time to get accustomed to teh intarwebs, fora in general and the LQ vibe in particular. We shouldn't hold it against them but help them see that drinking water all day is bad for ones health. In what way one is part of the water cooler crowd principally is the responsability of the member him or herself. He or she should respect Linuxquestions.org as first and foremost a technical knowledge base and forum and act accordingly. In some cases self moderation or community moderation may nudge a member into action. If the balance gets upset then finally moderators should discuss things with the member.

- Being annoyed or irritated by threads or posts is quite understandable and luckily the fix is easy enough: please ignore them.

1 members found this post helpful.

Agree with all. It is drivel to be ignored. If you look at the numbers, less than 6% of the viewers of the "What are you doing now" post actually considered it worth a response. Several were negative responses. Must be some kind of record.

Lou

LQ is what you make it.
TG

Mmmm.
LQ spy, blogs, ... maybe I'm too old for all the pandering to those whose concentration span is too short.
ISTR jeremy even admitting to having to chase these new users to make the site "pay".

I shall desist from posting for a few months and merely lurk - maybe I'll recant.

'bye.

Okay, I'll admit it. I probably post in General way more often than I should.

I suppose part of the reason for that is because, well, quite a few of the questions posted here are over my head. But that's subject to change. I do regularly check other sections, though, so don't get the idea that General is the only forum I post to...

I can start by unsubscribing myself from any and all threads in General, I suppose, and post there as little as possible.

I hope I haven't been contributing to lowering LQ's status as a good technical info resource...

If I have, I deeply apologize. I'll try to up my standards a bit more. Just don't be surprised if you see less of me around, though (not that many of you have probably seen me around much anyway).

Thanks for the background

Is there a case for having another General forum for non-Linux threads? The intro to General says "This Linux forum is for general Linux questions and discussion.
If it is Linux Related and doesn't seem to fit in any other forum then this is the place." (my boldening).

I don't have any issue with non-Linux threads -- they can be fun and can help build a sense of community -- but some Linux subjects don't fit in any of the other forums and do result in technical Linux discussions in the General forum (so it would make sense to have the Helped/Thanks buttons on them).

If I were to worry about something, it would not be the content of "General" (We have a few other colorful names for it also.) General serves a purpose: Comic relief, definitive solutions to a wide variety of social, political, and religious questions, and--on occassion--some serious help on that other OS.

My worry is the proliferation of new members who seem to be here only to take. These come in a variety of flavors: The homework trolls, the people that post one or two questions and then disappear, the people that post many questions but never respond to help, and more. These takers compete for resources (bandwidth, the time of the other members, etc.) and--in the limit--serve to discourage dedicated members from trying to help. At the same time, the site does need to keep an open and welcoming posture----so there is fine line between complete openness and maintaining some sort of quality control.

On balance--for me at least--LQ continues to be a valuable resource. I will confess that the increasing number of "takers" does put a damper on my ability to help people. Life goes on.......

2 members found this post helpful.

As stated above the General forum should be ignored by all those who seek strictly technical Linux advice. Every forum I've ever been to has such a subforum, it's usually called "The Lounge" or "General" or "Trashcan", etc. Any thread that is useless and mindless is thrown in there, so you should expect no less, and you should most certainly NOT judge the entire LQ forum based upon this subforum, which would be mad.

I would ask Jeremy to give you statistics as to whether the number of users or hits or trends, etc are going down, this may help answer your question. I don't think that LQ is going downhill, no way.

The only thing I do notice is that I tend to not be able to answer as many questions as I used to. Either I have changed or the questions have changed, or maybe the questions have been answered enough times that there is no need to answer them anymore. Maybe there aren't any more questions, because everything has been fixed. Usually questions were about workarounds to things that are broken, I know those, I know hacks to get around them, etc. But, once the issue is fixed, there is no longer any need for them. Most questions now seem to be distro-specific or highly technical or about a program that I never use, or just things like "Which distro is best for running skype", which I don't feel need an answer, because there is no answer, best answer is not to use skype.

Not quite right:
General, rather than Linux-General, is for non-technical stuff.

Personally I feel like LQ is going up hill. Although my account isn't that old, I've been reading LQ for many years, and I feel like a couple of the forums (Slackware and Security in particular) have really been growing and have a lot of good information.

There has been an increase of trolls as of recent, imo, but I still think when people put the time in to ask the question, they get great answers, and those answers can be referenced by others with the same question.

I'm a troll, but I only troll is General.

(My above post probably seemed more like a "confessions of a lone LQ member" type of post, rather than something useful. What follows is hopefully more relevant to the actual discussion.)

My personal opinion, even though I haven't been here for very long (just over a year now, I believe), is that General is indeed useful to LQ. After all, we're only human, and a little "mindless drivel" once in a while can actually be a good thing.

I figure as long as the situation doesn't turn into what unSpawn suggested (i.e. more threads/posts in Big General than anywhere else), then LQ isn't really going downhill IMO.