Newbie forum feedback

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20540

I perceive the Newbie forum as unhelpful. Most, if not all, of the questions would be better served in a more specific forum (i.e. networking questions in Networking & Security, etc.).

Reasons:

Many questions aren't Newbie type questions
Duplication of effort = inefficient. Essentially anything can be asked, so you can't look in one spot for related topics.
As a result, searching is hindered. For example, you are looking for a solution to a KDE problem, so you search Desktop Environments. Your search would skip over anything in the New
<add your reasons here>

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rac · Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2002 11:17 pm Post subject:

The only reason I can think of that the Newbie forum is useful is that it can serve as a guide to people posting answers that they should phrase their answers in terms that would be understood by people with little Unix experience.

Sometimes I try to do that, but if I must be honest, a lot of times I don't take the time.

I would support dissolving the Newbie forum and dispersing all the threads currently in there to other forums, like what happened to the GCC3 forum.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20540

squanto · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 1:48 am Post subject:

rac · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 1:54 am Post subject:

squanto · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 2:02 am Post subject:

rac · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 3:20 am Post subject:

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20540

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20540

Symptoms:
Here is a brief description of what happens when encountering this problem. There may or may not be more than one symptom for the same problem.

Other symptoms could be seperated in 'paragraph' form. Also included with the symptoms could be sample error messages:

squanto · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 4:27 am Post subject:

how bout doing the faq thing and then locking the Newbie forum so no new topics can be posted, only replies can be posted?
This way we don't get new questions, but people can reply.
I like the idea for the layout as well.

dreamer3 · Guru Joined: 24 Sep 2002 Posts: 553

Hmmm, looks like it's been a while and there's still a newbie forum. Did this idea die? Anyways, I like the format proposed... we could also check out Microsofts (sorry to say it) Knowledge base support format... as a recovering MS user I always found their knowledge base useful and timely in dealing with all the problems you encounter day to day running such a beast. ;-)

I would be interested actually in a knowledge base Gentoo project if anyone is interested... or do we feel the forum already is such a project, per se? I'm sure there is PHP code out there already for a start...

For things like "kdebase won't install after emerging xfree 4.2.1"... the thread is long and getting longer... the answer (as far as I can tell) "replace the xft.h file with the older one"... It would save time reading or even skimming the forums to find answers, but of course it would require maintenance of it's own.

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20540

dreamer3 · Guru Joined: 24 Sep 2002 Posts: 553

rac · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 7:11 am Post subject:

The recruiting thread for the documentation project is knowledge base: how-to documents via commandline?. kanuslupus somehow managed to get "p=13028" instead of "t=13028".
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For every higher wall, there is a taller ladder

dreamer3 · Guru Joined: 24 Sep 2002 Posts: 553

masseya · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 2:46 pm Post subject:

I have to agree with kanuslupus's reasons posted to start out this thread. There are two other reasons I would like to add.

If a n00b has a problem, there is no way for them to judge the complexity of the problem because they have no experience. However, a newbie forum implies that the questions will be somewhat easier to solve. This is misleading.
A good percentage of the honestly noobish questions involve installing Gentoo. This is in part because that's the first thing you have to do with Gentoo and because Gentoo isn't a click 'n' play installation. Thus, there's a lot of cross posting in Installing Gentoo.

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if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

klieber · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 2:58 pm Post subject:

Folks --

I'm personally a big proponent of the Newbie forum as I think it's a "safe haven" for those folks who are new to linux. The original idea behind the newbie forum was to offer a place where:

Newbies could ask newbie questions without getting flamed and
Folks who were otherwise upset with Newbie-type questions could stay out of and thus not be "bothered" by these types of questions.

While the forum may fall somewhat short of these stated goals, I'm not convinced that it's not a valuable tool.

That said, I have been wrong before and it's entirely possible I'm wrong here -- that's for our user community to decide.

At this point, we've only had a couple of users voice their opinions in this thread. Given that we have 8000 registered users, I'd like to get at least a few more opinions before pulling the plug on the newbie forum.

If you're lurking or otherwise run across this thread, please take a moment to post your feedback and opinions. (or at least vote in the poll) We really do read them and they really do influence our decision making process.

--kurt
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Larde · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 3:12 pm Post subject:

theclaus · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2002 Posts: 64 Location: Boise, ID

I find the newbie forum not useful. Most of the time I notice that it is things that people are not searching on. I say move them to the approiate forums and then do away with it. I also think that it is locking people into a place that they shouldn't be. I hate the term newbie because I don't want to feel like a newbie but rather someone that doesn't understand the new and exciting world of gentoo and/or linux. Just remember that there is no such thing as a stupid question but use search first and see what you find before asking the question. No need to make a seperate forum for newbies.

carambola5 · Apprentice Joined: 10 Jul 2002 Posts: 214

Here we go:

Allow the posts in the n00b forum to expire. I'm quite sure this is a built-in feature to phpBB. Now for the reasoning:

Take all of the topics covered in the Newbie forum and create a FAQ from them. If a newbie cannot find a related FAQ because either a) there is none associated with the topic or b) the newbie hasn't quite perfected the art of searching. Either way, the Newbie is confused and, hence, posts to the Newbie forum.

Here's what happens next: If the situation is that of "a," the moderators can make the thread sticky until a new solution is added to the FAQ. If the situation is that of "b," someone can quickly point to the related FAQ article and lock the thread. After a week or so, the thread will disappear.

splooge · l33t Joined: 30 Aug 2002 Posts: 636

Keep it.

I, for one, have asked questions that are totally newb in that forum, which I would have felt uncomfortable asking in a regular forum.

Secondly, I can see the newbie questions spilling over to other forums. I used to be a member of the gentoo-newbies list, but simply couldn't stand the moronic questions some people ask over and over, so I unsubscribed. If you take away the newbie forum, we will be forced (well..) to read newbie questions in the not-so-newbie forums. I guess I just like the fact that I can skip that entire forum altogether.

squanto · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 4:27 pm Post subject:

pilla · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 4:35 pm Post subject:

I think that this Newbies forum has a large amount of redundant posts that are covered elsewhere. But we have also the problem of new users that just don't know how to write down their problems. Maybe a bootcamp forum, just to help people developing the necessary skills to post "readable" messages (but I am not convinced).

ibrandt · n00b Joined: 13 Sep 2002 Posts: 24

Just to add my supporting comments: I'm for dissolving the Newbies forum, and moving the posts to their relevant forums.

I'm anti-many-forums in general. I just posted something in the Newbies forum, and then to the Portage forum, and now I'm thinking I need to take it to the developers mailing list. If you ask me there should be three main forums: news & announcements, users, and developers. The same forums should be read/write-able via web, email, and Usenet.

Aside from those the multi-lingual forums are nice, as are the Off the Wall and Gentoo Chat forums, the latter two of which divert not so important or irrelevant stuff from the main forums, while still providing a fun place to bolster the community.

Documentation, Tips & Tricks, and Duplicate Posts forums are also good, though I could see them being combined into a single Wiki like FAQ.

As it stands I feel the support options are too disparaged and complicated.

Regards,

Ian

SeaPig · n00b Joined: 18 Jun 2002 Posts: 70

Part of the problem is that here are two kinds on newbies there are the new-to-linux newbies and there are the new to gentoo newbies. I think a knowledge base would be helpful for every one, even the people that have been using gentoo for a while. I hate redundant posting, yet I have done it several times because the search on this form is not the best. The idea of an official knowledge base sounds good, and I think it should be looked into. As far as keeping the current newbie forum or not I am unsure. if people would actually search the knowledge base first there may not be that big of a need for it.