Can we ban these questions?

[Bigun]

"What Linux should I Install?"

"What Linux would be best to learn on?"
"Which Linux us easiest to start with?"

etc.

 

Can we just pin a topic and merge any new threads to the sticky one?

[deleted_member_030719]

It shouldn't be banned, rather just be answered.

[Bigun]

Just now, Jed M said:

It shouldn't be banned, rather just be answered.

How many times?

[jeonjaeng]

2 minutes ago, Bigun said:

"What Linus would be best to learn on?"

Are you saying that Linus Tech is the easy!?

[deleted_member_030719]

Just now, Bigun said:

How many times?

I mean like just somewhere where people can be directed for an answer. 

[Bigun]

Just now, jeonjaeng said:

Are you saying that Linus Tech is the easy!?

Good catch!  Fixed.

[Bigun]

Just now, Jed M said:

I mean like just somewhere where people can be directed for an answer. 

Hence the suggestion for a sticky thread.  It's annoying to swim through these questions to find legitimate questions/conversations.

[minibois]

no, because everyone is different. we don't ban "can someone make me a PC parts list" threads, because everyone has his/her specific needs.

Feel free to make a "best Linux for all needs" and link to that when people ask the question (plus some more info on why you think that specific version is best for the needs)

[Bigun]

1 minute ago, Minibois said:

no, because everyone is different. we don't ban "can someone make me a PC parts list" threads, because everyone has his/her specific needs.

Feel free to make a "best Linux for all needs" and link to that when people ask the question (plus some more info on why you think that specific version is best for the needs)

Yes, a specific list of parts needs a specific answer.  This is the same... effing... question... over.... and over.... again.... and again....

If the majority of people here agree that it should be asked over and over again, then consider me a bitching minority here and ignore this thread.

[Monte_Carlo]

A sticky general Linux guide thread couldn't hurt.  It would be a good start at the very least.   I'm sure a single sticky could cover a majority of use case scenarios such as old laptops, newbie linux, and major distros and differences.  

[Oshino Shinobu]

I don't think you quite get the idea of a forum like this. It is designed to answer people's questions, regardless of how many times they are asked. If we took the same approach with all of the other frequently asked questions then there would be very little activity on the forums. 

 

People want answers specifically to them, then if they have additional questions, they can ask in their thread. There's been quite a lot of suggestions like yours, to basically move all similar questions to a single, dedicated thread, but they all full on the same issues: Things get lost and hard to manage. Most people reply to recent topics that appear on the side of the page, so questions in a dedicated thread are quite likely to just not get answered, completely defeating the point of the forum. 

 

If the repeat questions annoy you, just don't answer them, or create a comprehensive list of the best Linux distros for each use case and link that. You could put it in a sticky thread, but unfortunately a lot of people just don't read sticky threads. You just have to look at the amount of News and Build posts that don't follow the guidelines to see that. 

[minibois]

28 minutes ago, Bigun said:

Yes, a specific list of parts needs a specific answer.  This is the same... effing... question... over.... and over.... again.... and again....

If the majority of people here agree that it should be asked over and over again, then consider me a bitching minority here and ignore this thread.

It's the same question over and over, except with different people and very often different uses and requirements.

Forums like this one are meant to be for discussion and advice for (very) specific requirements and banning this sort of discussion would be not be great IMO. If they would ban those question threads and everybody with that question has to rely on one or a couple pinned threads to answer their questions, those pinned threads would need to have a lot of information on all different types of work. These threads also have to be maintained and updated all the time so all new developments in the field of Linux distros.

[steezemageeze]

I wrote a "Getting Started" guide a while ago to try to stop these kind of questions, but for that to happen it has to stay at the top of the subforum. Maybe if somebody helped me flesh it out a little bit more we could get a sticky for it?

I think it would be beneficial to have a sticky of some sort, even if it isn't mine

[Bigun]

2 hours ago, steezemageeze said:

I wrote a "Getting Started" guide a while ago to try to stop these kind of questions, but for that to happen it has to stay at the top of the subforum. Maybe if somebody helped me flesh it out a little bit more we could get a sticky for it?

I think it would be beneficial to have a sticky of some sort, even if it isn't mine

I'd be happy to help.

[CRSaka..]

Just being blunt with my views. Sorry if anyone is offended.

5 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I don't think you quite get the idea of a forum like this.

Unfortunately, this is a forum that attempts to perform the role of an IRC channel rather than sticking to the traditional purpose of archiving answers to questions so people don't have to repeat their response(that's why "software/hardware forums" exist). Remember most people asking questions are curious and want to learn...spoon feeding answers does not help them in the long run. Critical thinking is a skill and we should attempt to encourage it. But I agree this forum is designed to be an "Open Forum", though I personally feel it would be of more benefit to the users if it were used as a tech tips forum.

3 hours ago, steezemageeze said:

I wrote a "Getting Started" guide a while ago to try to stop these kind of questions, but for that to happen it has to stay at the top of the subforum. Maybe if somebody helped me flesh it out a little bit more we could get a sticky for it?

I think it would be beneficial to have a sticky of some sort, even if it isn't mine

Somebody linked one of these in a thread a few weeks ago, though it was completely ignored. Might have been yours. It seemed to be a constructive discussion and much more informative than. "Go with Ubuntu" or "Try installing arch" and the much more irresponsible and potentially criminal advice of "install Kali" or "look into BlackArch". But it is useless when the people asking aren't willing to read about what they are attempting to do.

 

for the TLDRs out there.

1. These posts are rarely unique or previously unanswered.

2. Could lead to legal issues.

3. Specific problems should be addressed in the appropriate forums, IRCs, Mailing Lists, etc..

4. OP @Bigun ban is too much, but I can see a reason to auto lock and point to the sticky, unless overridden by moderator.

5. Bad web etiquette is contagious and spreading it to the youth/new community members will only lead all forums into a abysmal state of misinformation.

 

Suggested Solutions: It would be of benefit to the forum to implement a bot that auto locks and posts a pointer to the appropriate open stickied thread, this could of course be overridden by proper moderators who believe the question has some form of originality that could not be answered with a general explanation.

 

(not to mention (oh wait I'll mention it!) expand the forum policy to enforce at least the basics of generally accepted forum etiquette...you're teaching new members how not to seek advice on forums, and is f'ing with a lot of once great forums. It peeves a lot of us.)

 

adding a legal reason to implement it:

Implementing this would be the same as implementing a no hackintosh policy to protect the forum from legal issues. Look into "contributing to the delinquency of a minor". If one under 18 kid gets charged and has a decent lawyer, they'd go through the blame game to show that the kid is decent and undeserving of punishment. Might even push negligence on the moderators and forum owner that allowed the advice to occur. Just another aspect outside of the it's annoying to see 4+ "what's the best Linux distribution" posts on the front page of the LTT Linux forum.

 

Rarely are these questions unique or unanswered.

[Bigun]

1 hour ago, CRSaka.. said:

 

4. OP @Bigun ban is too much, but I can see a reason to auto lock and point to the sticky, unless overridden by moderator.

 

Kinda the action I was hinting to.  Yes, banning is too strong a word for what I meant.  

Also, I'd like to add the majority of the Linux community is very much a "RTFM" type of crowd.  Spoon feeding doesn't help either.

[Enderman]

The people that ask those kinds of questions are the same people who wont google it, and also will not read a pinned post.

So just make your own "guide to linux" post that you post the link to in a reply, or post the link to a similar question already answered.

[CRSaka..]

8 minutes ago, Enderman said:

The people that ask those kinds of questions are the same people who wont google it, and also will not read a pinned post.

agreed. I with this question, but...yeah ended up satirically apologizing in the end.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

On 10/7/2016 at 1:38 PM, CRSaka.. said:

"Try installing arch" and the much more irresponsible and potentially criminal advice of "install Kali" or "look into BlackArch".

There is absolutely nothing criminal with installing Kali/BlackArch. We may as well ban all discussion about computers in general, as they can be used to facilitate potentially criminal activities.

 

I get why the hackintosh policy is there, because it's illegal. There is absolutely nothing illegal about these Linux Distros. Granted, they can potentially facilitate criminal activities, but then we may as well ban all discussion about computers in general, as they can be used to facilitate potentially criminal activities as well. 

 

As for your lawyer argument, (obligatory not a lawyer), as long as nobody suggests doing illegal activities it should be fine. This would be like how we're allowed to talk about piracy, but not actual links may be shared about it.

 

On 10/7/2016 at 1:38 PM, CRSaka.. said:

Just another aspect outside of the it's annoying to see 4+ "what's the best Linux distribution" posts on the front page of the LTT Linux forum.

The great part about Linux is that it can be modified and specialized for every purpose possible. It's kind of like building a PC, really. You have the kernel, then build on top of it with your favourite apps, UIs, and more. Or you could got with "OEM" distros (e.g. Ubuntu) and upgrade it with some of your own flair (e.g. Lubuntu).

Since people have different needs, why not cater to them like we do with parts lists?

 

On 10/7/2016 at 3:10 PM, Bigun said:

Also, I'd like to add the majority of the Linux community is very much a "RTFM" type of crowd.  Spoon feeding doesn't help either.

People need a place to start. You cant RTFM if you don't know which manual to read.

 

 

[Azgoth 2]

I used to try to be vigilant about answering "what Linux should I install" questions, but there are just so many that it gets tiring and I no longer bother.  That said, a lot of them do seem to take the same form.  It's usually someone saying "I'm coming from Windows, and I don't know anything about Linux, but I want to try it.  Can someone give me pointers/recommend a distro?"  Given how often that question, or some close variant of it, comes up, I've been wondering for a while if something like a "Linux Quickstart" sticky would be a good idea (something along the lines of @steezemageeze's topic, but maybe aimed at people with a lower level of Linux/computer knowledge, and more concise).  But, @Minibois makes a good point that this would require a lot of upkeep and revision to keep up with all of the development occuring around Linux distros.  Maybe it could be written in such a way that it's not about a comprehensive list of distros.

 

I agree that it's frustrating to see the same questions getting asked in the same way over and over again, where people don't provide a lot of info about their systems or their use cases in the initial post.  But, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that these people don't know enough about Linux to know what they need to include, and how that affects the outcome--if "Linux" is just one big, mostly homogenous OS family to you, you probably don't know that, say, Ubuntu and Mint are more resource-heavy to allow greater ease of use, while Arch is extremely minimalist/simple in its design but offloads the difficulty to the user, while Fedora aims for bleeding edge software and rapid development, while Lubuntu strives specifically to be very lightweight, etc etc.  It would certainly be nice to get people asking these questions with a little more information initially, even something as basic as "I plan to do video editing and light gaming on a recent-ish machine".  This might be the sort of thing a sticky could help with--some brief guidelines on what info you should try to provide if you're asking for a recommendation.  (Cf. the build forums--it's not kosher to just ask "what is a good build" without saying what your budget is, what you're going to use it for, etc).

 

16 hours ago, bob51zhang said:

People need a place to start. You cant RTFM if you don't know which manual to read.

This.  There is an unfortunate tendency among some parts of the Linux community (looking at you, (vocal minority of) Arch and Gentoo users) to insist that everyone just RTFM and do it themselves from the get-go.  In addition to your point here, a manual is useless if it's talking about bootloaders and desktop environments and no one has explained to you what those are.  If someone says they want to be a mathematician you don't just throw a differential geometry or complex analysis textbook at them and say "RTFM".

[CRSaka..]

17 hours ago, bob51zhang said:

1. There is absolutely nothing illegal about these Linux Distros. ... truncated by quoter ...

 

1.1. As for your lawyer argument, (obligatory not a lawyer), as long as nobody suggests doing illegal activities it should be fine.

 

2. The great part about Linux is that it can be modified and specialized for every purpose possible. It's kind of like building a PC, really. You have the kernel, then build on top of it with your favourite apps, UIs, and more. Or you could got with "OEM" distros (e.g. Ubuntu) and upgrade it with some of your own flair (e.g. Lubuntu).

Since people have different needs, why not cater to them like we do with parts lists?

 

3. People need a place to start. You cant RTFM if you don't know which manual to read.

 

 

1. That's because Kali is marketed as  a "penetration testing" distro. That means they are protected from the "willingly" aspect of such laws. However, LTT Forums doesn't explicitly declare educational use or explicitly by pass any illegal activity by a EULA for example. So not only is LTT unprotected from such claims the user who suggested it is also equally unprotected. (easily fixed by fixing the tos of the forum to be like most other forums) This is why TV shows have the disclaimer because they've been subjected to such lawsuits. These are all juvenile cases and sealed so I cannot source them.

 

1.1 unfortunately this particular law doesn't actually require you to tell a kid to bring a gun to school the fact that you gave him a gun is enough.

Proof: (Any lawyer worth the money will make such ridiculous jumps to protect a juvenile from felony charges. Blame Game defense is the most used defense for juvenile cases especially when the juvenile in question is obviously guilty of the crime. Seriously I've seen lawyers bring in report cards to undermine charges.)

Kali EULA - North Carolina Law and United States Law for cases involving the use of Kali Linux (if you're using it you've agreed to it)

So now the case is within the jurisdiction of the NC court system let's look at the law.

North Carolina General Statutes 14-316.1. Contributing to delinquency and neglect by parents and others

It's not nearly as much of a stretch as you're suggesting. Though extradition for a misdemeanor is not easy, unless your country has a similar law in which case the OIA will pursue you and failure to appear would just add to the charges. I've never seen you suggest Kali so I apologies for the use of "you" in this.

 

2. I agree. however, this is more about the generic "where do I get started with Linux". Not the I want to be able to watch Netflix, play Steam games, and run MS Office using the most optimized Linux install.

 

3. This is why we want a sticky.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

1 hour ago, CRSaka.. said:

-snip-

 

1 hour ago, Azgoth 2 said:

-snip-

OK then. So I guess we are in a general consensus to make a sticky similar to that of the New PC build?

 

EDIT: But also not banning users who ask the questions?

[CRSaka..]

33 minutes ago, bob51zhang said:

EDIT: But also not banning users who ask the questions?

Of course no banning of the users in fact the current forum policy prohibits any open conversation of such activity in threads. The OP's intention is not a ban of members who ask these questions rather the question itself should have some policy alterations to prevent duplicate threads. And in my view ensure "responsible suggestions".

[Azgoth 2]

31 minutes ago, bob51zhang said:

 

OK then. So I guess we are in a general consensus to make a sticky similar to that of the New PC build?

 

EDIT: But also not banning users who ask the questions?

That would be my thought on the matter--a sticky or something like it that suggests the type of information someone should give if they're looking for OS recommendations.  Something like the new builds forum sticky would be more or less what I'm imagining, and anyone who asks about distros without giving any real information should just be pointed at it.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

4 hours ago, Azgoth 2 said:

That would be my thought on the matter--a sticky or something like it that suggests the type of information someone should give if they're looking for OS recommendations.  Something like the new builds forum sticky would be more or less what I'm imagining, and anyone who asks about distros without giving any real information should just be pointed at it.

Do you know if we could do "This section is for educational purposes only" for that thread in particular so that we can suggest Kali/other unethical distros?