I've been using Linux for 6 or 7 years now, and, since I'm not a programmer, I fel that the need to give back to the community that has created some of the BEST software in the world.

To this end, I recently found LQ, and started browsing threads with 0 replies, to answer questions, and also learn ( I do some research on many of my replies, as well as answer from first hand experience).

I have found that on any given day there are 35452 threads with 0 (zero) replies, that amount to 1013 pages of un-answered questions, comments, etc...

My question is, is there any plan to address these, or have there been LOTS of people who asked a question, and have not gotten an answer?

Sincerely,

jacks4u

First: If you look at the posts count of a lot of the author's of those posts, you'll see they were a 1-hit & quit type post. The author didn't deem it neccessary to even bump the thread in case someone in a different time zone didn't see it.
Second: Clearly, we cannot answer all of these, even if we did know the answers. There are more pressing issues than a 2 year old unanswered question.
If someone were to revive the thread with the same question, sure, it might get answered this time around, because there are substantially more members now... but a lot of those threads are going to go unanswered.
As for the ones that have been posted in the past couple of days, if the answer is known, it will get posted. If not, then it won't until someone comes by that does know it.

There are just so many variables with that. It may have a duplicate and just never got closed, it may be so simple that no one answered it, the author felt no need to see it show up again and let it fall into obvlivion. It could be the question doesn't have an answer, or there are too few people who actually know the answer. There are always those who will take a few minutes to go through the "0 replies stack" to see if they can answer a few, but replying to, what'd you say, over 35 thousand posts, probably isn't going to happen over night

Feel free to take a chunk of em and give em whirl.

Cool

I'm sure i wouldn't make much of a dent in that count. Even if I could reply 24 hours a day, for the next 3 months...

The sheer volume of questions amazes me. And the number of questions that I've personally researched, to find my own answers also amazes me.

As so much of Linux has been developed over the internet, I've found many problems have answers that are available through searches (Google.com/linux ix my friend . Is it possible that many people have no Idea that there is so much information on the issues they raise questions about?

I've only posted a few replies, but I think in future replies, I'll also add information to help the poster learn how to learn, that is, list resources, links, etc... where a person might be able to learn more than just the reply to his/her question(s)

And, by the way, is there a resource page, where a person might get ideas for researching their own answers? This wouldn't reduce the questions to zero, but I think it's important to teach people how to learn. That is, what resources are available, and how they can use them to answer their most pressing questions


jacks4u

You're absolutely correct. The thing is, it's much easier to click "New Topic" and type your question than it is to research it.
Including tips on research would be a good thing to do - but if I may make a suggestion? Simply include it in your signature.
You might include some or all of these in your signature:
LQ Linux Wiki
LQ Search
Google, Linux style
Linux Hardware compatibility List (HCL)
LQ Tutorials
Linux Distro and Linux Book Reviews

All but one of these are LQ pages and are pulled from the very page I'm making this reply, a simple copy and paste of the URL's.
Tip: If you choose to include these, the links are already BB-code formatted. Just hit "Quote" and copy the above...

Also - for more, read signatures. Most of the guru-type people here include invaluable links in there signatures.
As for help on researching topics, I'd suggest a reading of How To Ask Questions The Smart Way by Eric Steven Raymond.

Hey, Thanks for the tips and links. Some verry good ideas there!

But that still won't make a dent in those 35K posts w/ 0 replies

jacks4u

No, no it won't. But it might make it take a little bit longer to reach 40k

Enjoy...

Justed wanted to add that hitting the "0 replies" link and answering what questions you can is a great way to help your fellow LQ members (and make LQ a better place in general). Of course we'll never get it to 0 (as MasterC pointed out many will be closed threads and many are also intro's, updates from me, etc.) but every bit helps. Thanks for calling attention to this jacks4u.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...n=norepliesall

--jeremy

Also, don't forget that you can get 0 reply threads for a specific forum also, if you want to try to focus on one topic. To do this, just go to the forum you'd like to see the 0 reply threads in and look right under the new thread button.

--jeremy