First things first:
It would be nice if a moderator could check the IPs of the members in question, that should quickly prove or disprove the idea of a limited amount of trolls opening ever new accounts.

I think there are several factors at work:

• people really are paranoid and feel misunderstood and get extremely defensive when challenged about the subject of their fear, esp. when they lack the know-how
• these things tend to go to ever further extremes on the interwebz
• other people build on the fact that ultimately you can never know whether either the issue or the paranoia is real, and play a game of ...erm, there's an internet slang term for it, I don't remember right now...
• these games are then in turn taken for reality by yet again other people and voilá: escalation!

I believe that in large parts of the internet this sort of stuff is incredibly common (to the point that people would dismiss it as fake right away and might laugh at our naiveté for even considering it an honest request) and what we see here is just minor spill-over...
LQ is one of the more tranquil corners of the WWW!

I was just thinking about this and some of my comments made me feel bad but I tend to get frustrated at posts like the ones we discuss here. Sometimes I don't check myself when I say something. I am guilty of hiding behind the anonymity the board provides and sometimes losing my normal communication filter I would have in person.

If we encountered a person such as the posters' in question in real life, as in person, and they started talking about the things they experience, we would probably find a way to politely walk away. I would anyway. The Internet, in all its glory, allows anyone to express their views, no matter how insane, absurd, rational, etc. The biggest melting pot in the world. We are going to get posts like the ones in question so I guess the best thing to do is try to figure out whether there is some substance to it and if not, politely walk away...

Maybe I'm naive, but, unless such a post is trying to shill for something or point to some nefarious link, I'm inclined to put most of these posts down to simple ignorance. Also, given the size of the LQ community--ove half a million registered users as I type this--the percentage of such posts, in that context, is really quite small.

Many persons who use computers may understand the applications they use, but don't understand how computers themselves work (granted, this is a immensely smaller percentage of the Linux community than it is of those who use the dominant commercial operating systems). Add to that persons who have made little or no study of malware and the various ways in which it can manifest itself.

I find easy to imagine that a relatively inexperienced Linux user, groomed by years of warnings against viruses on other operating systems, could see some unexpected thing happen on the screen and leap to the conclusion that it must be ipso facto nefarious.

Ignorance is a powerful force.

Just a few thoughts.

People often have a fixed, preconcieved idea of what a problem is and want to see that affirmed in any advice offered. They will want 'solution' based on their flawed ideas and diagnosis. Any suggestions which don't fit are dismissed. " i know it's hackers i just need someone with the right skills to assist and provide solutions". Any suggestion that they are completely wrong to start with is dismissed. This is often simply human nature - they have their own mental picture of how something works and fits together and challenging that means challenging them and their understanding. They demand assistance on their own terms, within their own set parameters.

I have worked in tech support for 15 years and have found that confrontation doesn't resolve any of this. Instead you have to manipulate someone to see their own error for themselves - even then you will find many who will prefer to blame imaginary gremlins in the machine than their own lack of ability - even when presented with all the evidence. There is usually always a "back story" to these kind of queries, which they will definitely see as relevant but which anyone attempting to answer will find unhelpful and distracting. I like to refer to this as the "well it was working yesterday" factor.

The "hollywood hacker" and the "virus industry" with its bioligical aspect dont help matters. To average joe, a virus is a "disease" computers can catch (i have spoken to countless people who dont know the difference between a virus and a bug) and they certainly believe that themselves are definitely valid targets for "hackers", so how could you suggest otherwise?

^ well spoken, #18 and #19!
I too believe that there's a lot of psychology at work here, mingled with ignorance (and who could blame anyone for being ignorant about how any computer works), jumping to conclusions etc.

But I also believe there's a sort of "culture" on the WWW - and has been for some time - that makes people invent such stories, or copy-paste them from elsewhere, for effect, and I also think that a percentage of the posts/posters mentioned here belong to this category.

Again: if LQ and its software works anything like the forum I moderate, it should be easy for a moderator to to look at the IPs of the posters in question? Not asking to publicize those of course, but it would give some insight and lend either more or less weight to the theories postulated in post #1.

Many of those who help out here are skilled, reasonable and logical in their approach to any diagnostics - most people in general are not however.

For example you often see someone with a particular problem, they leave out details they may find insignificant, but include how much they spent on the laptop, etc and that 3 of the 4 OS they installed worked - then despite advice, will reinstall and claim thst finally fixed it.

This is where the huge difference in perceptions comes in. For them, the first install went wrong (all of its own accord) and reinstalling was the right solution - as they will often subscribe readily to the idea that random thing can happen, where those attemlting to assist will not. For those trying to fix the problem - they may have known precisely what the problem was but simply couldn't progress it that far due to lack of will/ability from the OP.

Actually I consider that a very useful bit of information. It means that their machine definitely will run Linux.
Anyone who comes over from the Windows world will have been taught that the answer to all problems is to "just reinstall". It's not surprising that they adopt this as the solution to their current problem. And if that problem is indeed that they did something wrong during the installation, then there's an even chance that they'll get it right second time around.

Also not everyone wants to solve problems in the sense of finding out what causes them and fixing that. That you can do that in Linux is one of the things I love about it, but many more pragmatic people don't want to waste time on that; they just want a system that works. And if they are led instead to study the source of a problem, they may simply conclude that Linux is a geeks' system and too difficult for them.

As for random misbehaviour, that really does occur with hardware. I remember being told in my early days in computing, "If a problem is reproducible, it's software. If it isn't, it's hardware."

Well, I said "OS" rather than "Linux", but also due to the different kernel versions, used by different Linux distributions, that's not quite correct in that regard either - in that it may definitely run Linux, but may not run the Linux they want to run on it.

I came "from Windows" and i still have to run it and that's certainly not my philosophy at least. When it comes to "Joe Public", the solution for them is usually not to reinstall, but something like "buy a new laptop".

I personally haven't found "reinstall" to be a good solution for Windows since the bad old days of Windows 95/98/98SE/ME. So I do think a lot of the statements you see on sites like this about windows and Windows users are based either on myths or on anecdotes from people who haven't used Windows in twenty or so years.
That's precisely it, except they reinstall mostly due to being unfamiliar with the new OS. When I first started messing the Linux, probably around 18 years ago, I also reinstalled in the early days, not because I did that in Windows as a solution to a problem - but because I was neither skilled nor experienced in enough in the new OS to fix the problem any other way.

I think there are some great points here.

I feel that most people will try an install.

There are two tendencies I've seen, and also experienced myself. (1) tentativeness, due to non-familiarity, (2) confidence, due to past successes with non-familiar topics.

While people may be tentative, they're generally smart enough to search the topic and pick up enough for their own comfort. This gives them the confidence. Also if they've followed this practice in the past, they have a basis for that confidence. And this is regardless if the former experiences were computer related, versus following a cooking video, or car repair video. It's just how some people think.

Regarding the part of Hazel's quote which I've highlighted, and my edit, I agree that people do not want to wait and they want a working system. Style-wise I'm modifying that with my thought that they may not care or decide anything negative about Linux or the people who use it, but instead reach the opinion that they wish to use it, and studying it, in depth is not what they wish to do. Finally, if they were successful with their install, either try #1 or a retry, or a different distribution, they may conclude "problem solved", and then just move ahead and use it.

Same for maybe a lot of these threads. They call it hacked, it may be malware, it may be just another problem. Some users don't care, if they can get it to work, then they're done at that point.

"The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is."

Very true.

I vaguely remember a thread, here or perhaps elsewhere some years back, where the OP explained how a Linux system was put together, but only in terms of how they imagined it, with no basis in fact, even coming up with their own nomenclature for the imagined components. It seemed impossible to them that this interpretation, which they treated as good as fact, could be fundamentally wrong.

They refused to be corrected - as they seemed to assume that all other posters, were on the same level or lower and were also posting their own "hypotheses" on Linux system architecture. As I recall this particular poster was posting a "tell me how to fix my [self imposed] problem, according to my exacting requirements" type thread.

For some, I believe, there is a "black box" and some are comfortable with that and if others attempt to cross that line - at that point they shut down all attempts to delve deeper.

My account was hacked! Somebody else logged in and posted something in Spanish!

the right way is to contact moderators instead of spamming....

I assume you've changed your password since then?

These threads are all the result of the same thing. Ignorance and FUD. Plus the belief that they are always right, even if they have no clue about the subject. This will only increase with time.